KENT

The second planet around Alpha Centauri A is called Kent by its inhabitants, and when humans first made contact with the Kentyans, they adopted the name "Kent." The name actually came from a Kentyan language and roughly translates as "sacred ground." Kent is a class-M planet sharing many features with Earth, such as the composition of the atmosphere (although the carbon dioxide component is less) and with roughly the same ratio of land to water area. The planet has four primary continents, located approximately in each of the four quadrants of the world (as portrayed on the map). These continents are, from northwest and going clockwise, Anguu, Rezesblan, Uspats and Vutor. Because Kent is a billion years older than Earth, tectonic activity has slowed down considerably, with very few active volcanoes due to a shrinking and cooling core. The shrinking and cooling core has caused the crust to buckle in places, resulting in a land area that is very rugged, with extensive fold mountains, massive rift valleys and lots of islands surrounding the continents. Earthquakes are a problem in some regions of Kent, despite the fact that continental drift is only five percent of what has been observed on Earth. Because of long-term erosion, some regions of Kent are very flat, and feature poor drainage and poor agricultural prospects. Only about ten percent of the land area is considered prime agricultural land. Other regions have been uplifted into vast, flat highlands cut by some rather spectacular gorges and canyons. Terubang Canyon on Uspats is considered one of the most spectacular canyons in the Federation, as it is over five hundred kilometres long and at its deepest point, three point six kilometres below the overall upland level.

Physical Map of Kent
A generalized relief map of Kent, showing the principal places, nationstates and physical features that are mentioned in the article

Kent has a weaker magnetic field than Earth does, but it is adequate to protect the planet from solar and cosmic radiation. The planet has no natural satellite, and consequently no tides. Kent is tilted just under nineteen degrees, so the seasons are correspondingly less extreme than on Earth, and this is aided by the nearly circular orbit the planet has around Alpha Centauri A.
        In terms of environment, the atmospheric composition of Kent is similar to Earth, with nitrogen the primary component, while oxygen makes up twenty-three percent of the atmosphere and carbon dioxide less than three percent. Trace elements are similar to those on Earth, although krypton is more prominent and argon less prominent. Because Kent orbits its star more closely and the star is brighter, the climate is correspondingly warmer. The average temperature on Kent is 19º, four degrees warmer than on Earth. The planet has very little in the way of permanent ice caps. Because the south pole is over water, the ice that forms in the winter almost always melts completely in the summertime. The north pole is occupied by the isthmus that connects Anguu and Rezesblan, and most of the time, the ice melts in the summertime, although in sheltered locations, the ice can persist. Although the same air circulation patterns are similar to Earth's, leading to dry subduction zones at thirty degrees north and south latitude, the land masses at those latitudes is somewhat limited, the circulation patterns and the placement of mountain ranges does tend to bring moisture-bearing air masses to some typical desert latitudes. The majority of the population lives away from the polar regions and towards the equator, but population distribution by latitude is still more even on Kent than on Earth. The southern halves of Anguu and Rezesblan and the northern coasts of Uspats and Vutor are the more heavily populated sections of the planet. The town of Denedatsbe, population 12,000, promotes itself as "Kent's Pole Town," although its actual latitude is 88.2º. In the equatorial regions, where the land masses are mostly islands and narrow bands of land, the temperatures can routinely hit 45º. At Denedatsbe, the average summertime high temperature is 18.2º, and with constant daylight, mistsa grain can be harvested at the north pole. In the winter, under constant darkness, the average high temperature is somewhat less, -19.2º, but still moderated by favourable ocean currents. Nevertheless, the night of winter is very long at 88.2º north latitude. The inhabitants of Denedatsbe are very hardy indeed.
        The natural vegetation is what would be expected on a class-M world. The tropical regions, such as they are, have tropical rain forests on the windward side of the mountains and more savannah conditions on the leeward side. Temperate rain forests, producing some of the most lush environments on the planet, are found on the windward side of most continents at the higher latitudes. Inland are deciduous forests and prairie conditions, the latter extensively cultivated. The planet has only true tundra conditions at higher altitudes, while the polar region is actually coniferous forest. On Kent, the "coniferous" trees actually have tube-like leaves, but the trees shed most of them during the winter season, and they have adapted to the conditions of near total light for half a year followed by near total darkness. The inland regions of the continents can also suffer more extreme conditions, with very hot and humid summers, with extensive thunderstorms and powerful midlatitude cyclones, while the coastal regions are more moderate but still relatively wet. Kent has been viewed by many as a wetter, more humid planet than Earth, so the vegetation is varied and very lush. One thing that a visitor from Earth will not find on Kent are flowering plants. They never evolved on the planet. As a result, insects never evolved either. In fact, the planet has no arthropods of any kind.
        Unlike most other planets, invertebrates form an insignificant part of the animal world on Kent. Most of the invertebrates that are present are worms and similar creatures that live by borrowing into the ground or by swimming in the oceans. Life tended to evolve towards tubular forms, producing a variety of worms, but these never developed the exoskeleton that would have led to arthropods. Instead, they evolved more efficient swimming and burrowing techniques, and also increased in size. Some prehistoric ocean worms whose fossils have been found ranged up to twenty metres in length and had a maximum girth of sixty centimetres-and they vaguely looked like earthworms. Even now on Kent, swimming worms of two to four metres are still found, and still caught and eaten as a delicacy-a taste non-Kentyans really have never acquired. Land worms can also be quite large, upto a metre, with a powerful mouth that can chew through the ground.
        Evolution provided these worms with an internal skeleton of cartilage for support, and in time, a backbone evolved into them. In essence, the worms evolved into fishes, although Kentyan fishes differ from Earth fishes in that they have large mouths and the primary part of the gill structure is inside the mouth. By swallowing a quantity of water, a certain species of fish evolved the ability to move a short distance over land to move from one pool to another. These evolved into amphibians, although this was a brief period in Kentyan history. In modern times, there are no amphibians, just species of walking fish that spend most of their time in the water but can move onto land for short periods. Because of the harsh conditions, since Kent was warmer and drier in those periods, the amphibians rapidly evolved into more reptile-like creatures. In modern times, most Kentyan reptiles are similar to Earth's lizards or dinosaurs. The planet has nothing similar to snakes nor crocodiles or turtles. The reptiles are distinguished primarily by the way the legs are placed on the body, either sprawling in the lizard style or under the body in dinosaur style. Although the dinosaur-like reptiles are capable of being more efficient land animals than the lizard-like ones, the dinosaurs are in fact mostly aquatic creatures, with some of them evolving towards whale-like and seal-like creatures. The lizards are land animals, but none are very large. The largest modern reptile on land is the dinosaur-like miskops. It is the size of a large horse (all of the dinosaur-like reptiles are quadrupeds).
        The next stage in the evolution of animal life was the birds. These came from the dinosaur-type reptiles that evolved bipedal motion. In a similar fashion to Earth, the birds evolved from the dinosaurs by evolving a feather-like covering and then using those feathers to evolve flight. Kent has a wide variety of birds, at least eight times more extant bird species than on Earth, and they range in size from bumblebee-sized huptoso birds to the immensely huge trakda, which is as large as the largest pterosaurs to fly in the skies of Earth. Even larger land birds, which have lost their ability to fly, are present on the planet. The largest of these-and the dominant predator on Kent-is the skatlbrata, which is a three metre tall killing machine, capable of running on its two powerful legs at speeds upto 60 km/h. It can run down the larger reptiles and disembowel them with one swift kick of its foot and its the long, razor-sharp claws. The skatlbrata does not hesitate to hunt the Kentyans too. One of the first humans to die on Kent, shortly after first contact, was felled by a skatlbrata, as he was unaware of the danger of this bird (which definitely is not harmless-looking). Birds are distinguished by the fact that some have beaks and others have reptile-styled mouths with teeth, and they have a wide variety of diets and lifestyles. The larger birds give birth to living young, the smaller ones lay eggs.
        The reptiles and the birds ruled the open areas, but in the woodland areas, the evolution led to mammals. The mammals of Kent are primarily small creatures, and can be divided into two prominent classes, the primate class and the rodent class. The primates represent mammals that took to the trees and evolved features that allowed them to move through the trees, including opposable thumbs. The rodents were mammals that stayed primarily on the ground, or would borrow into the ground. Over time, the rodents proliferated and spread to all sections of Kent, and became quite diverse. Some even became large, with one species, the latsko, assuming roughly the size and body plan of a cougar. One species even became the "snake" of Kent, with an elongated body, a mix of scales and fur and a loss of limbs. The longest of these furry snakes is the shimatsi, which is about a metre and a half long and quite slender. Most of the snakes tend to live underground, expropriating tunnels and dens dug out by burrowing animals.
        The primates dominated the forests, and since the forests on Kent are extensive, with many large, tall trees (trees evolved height to more effectively disperse their seeds and to form larger targets to receive fertilization spores from other trees), led to a wide variety of primate species. The primates, as a result, developed a range of body sizes, ranging from the mouse-sized pustarats to the gorilla-sized hangdu. Naturally, over time, climate change changed forested areas to savannah, and during that change, the primates often had to move between grooves of trees. Those that could do this and avoid predators, those that could walk most efficiently on two legs, were favoured. The predecessor species to the Kentyans evolved on Uspats, with the earliest fossils found along the southern coast of the main body of the continent (and not the long peninsula that stretches towards the south pole). Primates on Kent were primarily leaf eaters, and added tubers and plant stems to their diet, although some became quite adapt hunters of birds. The line that led to the Kentyans were primarily tuber eaters, although they supplemented their diet by catching small animals and birds, fish and kaklewud, a parasitic vine that is found on most trees. In some areas, kaklewud has been cultivated as a crop, and is considered a delicacy by non-Kentyans. The plant sap after cooking and processing is a sauce used planetwide called kakle, and it is a staple of Kentyan cooking.

Introduction, Alpha Centauri System, Kent, Kentyans, Nation States and Political Organziation, History, Language, Time and Calendar, Life In A Double Star System, Culture.

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