Cliffworld:The Wall

View of the artifact from orbit.

	This part isn't finished yet.

The Wall is the main place where story of Cliffworld is taking place.

It is a cyclopean megastructure of the Ancients located inside a gas giant. The shape of the artifact resembles a spindle with a length of 120 thousand kilometers and a diameter of 4 thousand kilometers at the tips, penetrating the planet through the poles. The purpose of the artifact is unknown, but it gradually processes the planet's composition from hydrogen-methane into oxygen-water. One of the tips of the artifact is designed by the creators to be habitable, possessing a crust of silicate rocks at the sides, forming the surface of a huge cliff of planetary scale, and a network of exhaust holes, maintaining suitable for life concentrations of oxygen and humidity at altitudes where the atmospheric pressure of the planet is similar to 1 earth atmosphere. The estimated density of both the gas giant and the artifact is relatively low, as the gravity at the height of the habitable band is only 0.94 G. Interaction of the planet and artifact generates powerful electromagnetic perturbations that sometimes reach up to -1300nT.

humans and ktak are found among the species inhabiting the slopes of the habitable area, they're experiencing an industrial revolution.

CliffWorld is surrounded by a perpetual eye of the storm, a huge wall of clouds beyond which diffuse of air into the natural unbreathable atmosphere of the gas giant begins. Along with monstrously strong wind, it marks the place to be untraceable to airships.

Gas giant is orbiting around a bright star on a wide orbit, taking somewhere between one and two centuries to complete the rotation. It has a very small axial tilt, enough for the Cliff to have slow temperature cycle ranging from warm 25-30 Celsius summers to cold -5-10 Celsius winters, each lasting for abut 60-90 years. Plants (with the exception of the trees) and animals are adapting to the conditions as if they would be permanent and unchanging for each generation.

The sides of the pillar are called The Wall by its residents, and is rough and with many crevices and ledges of various size and length. Biggest can reach tens of kilometers in length and be kilometers wide, providing rare and precious places for contemporary agricultural efforts. Some even have small lakes on them.

The Wall bands

The Wall is broadly divided in three uneven zones, or bands:

Cold Heights

Area where atmospheric emitters stop appearing. It sits well above altitude at which the natural pressure of the gas giant’s atmosphere would be comfortable, so the pressure above that points drops off relatively rapidly to near vacuum conditions. Between that and the lower edge lays the frigid frozen zone, subject to harsh UV radiation from the sun and blisteringly cold temperatures.

The World

The world is where the majority of population exists. It is artificially extended by the atmosphere emitters, which are huge gaps in the Wall, from which the machinery of the Ancients spews heated up water and air. Places furtherest from any of the emitters have little less dense air pressure and overall temperature, areas directly around the emitters and below them are resembling tropical zones - high humidity, high temperature. Emitters never stop gushing water and air, so it is impossible to get inside the holes and reach the machinery this way, so for people they appear as natural formations. Emitters also placed on the surface irregularly, forming a “continents” of sorts - areas with higher and lower average humidity and temperature.

Hot Abyss

Area below the World, perpetually hidden from the sun by the cloud wall. Upper layer is turbulent, heated air from below rising to meet descending cold air from the upper altitudes. Beyond that a wide layer of stability exist, dark and getting progressively hotter and denser as you go deeper, until eventually either temperature or the pressure becomes too much to survive. A dangerous place with fierce competition for any shred of resources falling down from the upper layers.