Terraforming

Terraforming is the process in which a planet is changed or "formed" to suit the needs of those terraforming the planet. It normally involves inserting plants and/or flora, introducing new minerals or substances, or other changes to fulfill the required goals for the planet in question. It can take up to several centuries to fully terraform an Earth-sized planet, or even slightly larger.

Terraforming Classes
Most planets selected for terraforming fall into four categories so that terraformers can prepare accordingly.

Habitable Planet (HP)
A world with an environment sufficiently similar to the Earth as to allow comfortable and free habitation. These planets only require minor tweeks to ensure full viability.

Easily Terraformable Planet (ETP)
A planet that can be rendered biocompatible, or possibly habitable, but also must be maintained so by modest planetary engineering techniques.

Biocompatible Planet (BP)
A planet possessing the necessary physical parameters for life to flourish on its surface. If initially lifeless, then such a world could host a biosphere of considerable complexity without the need for terraforming. These planets host no native biology of any kind and require it to be imported.

Bioform Planet (BFP)
Read More: Genetic Engineering

A planet that is habitate but requires genetic modifications to the arriving colonists to be comfortably livable. Popular among as less resource intensive to achieve. Modifications can include denser bone/muscle structures for heavy gravity, increased lung capacity for low-oxygen, brochial filters for otherwise breathable atmospheres with lethal compositions, temperature tolerance for cold or hot climates and even more extreme ones, such as aquatic-genetic modifications to allow a land-based species to live aquatically.

Terraforming Criteria
Terraforming can be performed on any body that meets the following criteria:
 * It has to be large enough for Hydrostatic Equilibrium to form it into a sphere. For a rocky body with a composition that would be useful to settlers, the minimum size is 970-km in diameter, or the size of the asteroid Ceres. Anything smaller would have an irregular shape that wouldn't hold an atmosphere all over.
 * Its diameter cannot be greater than 1.4 times Earth-standard due to limitations in terraforming technology.
 * The target must lie in a "Goldy Locks"-band around the star. The inner and outer boundaries for this band depend on the star's temperature. Terraforming technology is much better at warming cold places than cooling hot places.

Atmospheric Processing
Terraformers use devices known as "Atmospheric Processors" to change a planet's atmosphere towards sustainability, but terraforming technology has its limits. Completely uninhabitable planets cannot be rebuilt, such as those in hazardous regions, which often results in the terraformers seeking already habitable planets or those inside existing habitable zones but lacking a biosphere or sufficent atmosphere.

Understandably, these are extremely few and far between, which results in some colonies being extremely remote.

Atmosphere Processor
Atmosphere Processors are system created a localized environment in the lowest atmospheric strata by mining the surrounding air and delivering electrostatic charge to correct the chemical composition of the planetary atmosphere. The system does this by converting toxic compounds into a breathable air ratio of approximately 1:3.1 oxygen-to-nitrogen ratio, depending on a colony’s oxygen needs. Once stable equilibrium is achieved, the Atmosphere Processor continually monitors environmental gas compositions and corrects imbalances. By-products can often be isolated and condensed for use as fuel sources, industrial cleaning supplies or raw materials for manufacturing.

Atmospheric Pressurizer
Working in tandem with the Atmosphere Processors, the Atmospheric Pressurizer can create a locally adapted micro-pressurized environment to prevent injury, illness or discomfort on off-world colonies with either marginal or oppressive stratospheric hold. On most planets, a standard atmospheric pressure of approximately 1.0 atmosphere at sea level can be achieved, reducing the need for decompression treatments and additional medical personnel in the early stages of terraforming.

Geological Remodeling
Some worlds may lack natural magnetic fields to protect worlds against radiation or to weather solar winds without losing atmosphere. As such there are several methods to terraform these worlds, including a spallation-heavy process where another mantle is laid over the planet's natural one. This process is known to trap helium-3 into the second, artificial mantle.

Rock Processing

The Rock Processor is designed to improve the quality of life on off-world colonies with adverse indigenous terrain. Through high-powered mechanical disturbance and the introduction of proprietary enzymes, the Rock Precessor transforms inhospitable terra into fertile soil for use in agriculture and bio-replication.

Biological Introduction
Bio-Replicator Pod

This device has a database of millions seed varieties and plant DNAs. With simple research, a terraformer can avoid importing botanical samples that may not survive in the newly terraformed environment or could be hazardous pest to it. It can also be used to germinate entirely new plant species for a world, though these features are highly regulated to avoid abuse.

Axial Tilting
One of the biggest challenges faced by terraforming crews is the introduction of plant and animal life into a created environment on an alien world was how are plants and animals going to cope with seasons that will last for years? And how will colonists cope with calendars that are different for every world?

To solve this the terraforming crews adjust the rotation period of the planet for a 24-hour day. They'll adjust the axial tilt to 23.439 degrees. Then they'll add a second rotational axis at 0 degrees (perpendicular to the plane of the system) with a rotation period of 365.25 days. This second axis will cause the planet to cycle through one complete seasonal year in 365.25 days, regardless of where the planet is in its orbit around its sun. That will create a seasonal change that will mirror Earth. After that, it's a simple matter to ignore the planet's orbital revolution and go with the calendar.

Summers will last just long enough to ripen crops, and not so long as to bake them in the fields. Animals with millions of years of migrations wired into their brains will know when to migrate away, and when to come home. The colonists' calendars will be aligned to the seasonal year instead of the planet's orbital revolution.

Dangers
On some terraformed worlds, unexpected problems can arise.

Bowden's Malady
Among terraformed moon of a gas giant, the much more powerful magnetic field of the jovian world can cause bacteria and viruses to thrive. This can lead to a "bacterial rot", where the rampant bacteria actually consumes most of the organic matter seeded to it. When this affects the settled colonists, it becomes known as the Bowden's Malady, a degenerative disease which targets muscles and bones.

Blackrock
A planet where terraforming fails to "take" and reverts back to uninhabitable condition is called a blackrock. This can also apply to worlds that can maintain breathable atmospheres and biospheres but require machinery to do so since their processes would be outmatched by the planet's natural state. If the maintence systems fail, the world could quickly collapse.