Eos: Desert World of Radiation Storms

Eos was a resource-rich desert world in the Heleus Cluster, long marked as unsettleable because of the deadly, radiation-contaminated storms that scoured its surface. Catalogued as nonviable after repeated failed attempts to colonise it, the world nonetheless held significant mineral wealth and a strong signal echoing the strange devices found elsewhere in the cluster. It would in time become the proving ground for the Andromeda Initiative's survival in its new galaxy.

A world wracked by radiation#

Eos was a sprawling desert world whose significant resources were guarded by a hostile climate. Deadly storms charged with radiation swept across its surface, and after numerous attempts to settle it the planet was repeatedly catalogued as nonviable. The contamination was no natural feature alone but was tied to the planet's dormant Remnant vault, and the surface remained lethal outside specially shielded zones until that machinery could be reset. When the vault was at last reactivated the radiation began to diminish, though it lingered and cleared only with time. Across its eastern reaches the world was marked by striking terrain, from the four great rock columns of Four Giants to the sandy expanse of the Golden Wastes, while iron, vanadium, graphite, and aluminum could be drawn from its deposits.

Failed colonies and the founding of Prodromos#

The Nexus made two early attempts to plant a colony on Eos, both in its eastern region. The first, Site 1: Promise, failed for want of adequate preparation against the radiation storms and under attacks by the kett. The second, Site 2: Resilience, was massacred outright by the kett. Only on the third attempt, with the way prepared, did a settlement endure: the outpost of Prodromos, founded in the centrally located Fairwinds Basin, where the surrounding terrain offered some shelter from the storms. Its founding gave the Andromeda Initiative its first genuine foothold in the new galaxy, won from a world that had twice killed those who tried to tame it. Above the planet a Remnant Architect held to a standby orbit, tethered to Eos as it recovered from severe radiation exposure and monitored the atmosphere it had once helped to poison.