Hi(gh)!

I'm about to get a believable Earth-like planet together (thanks for 
your hint at subtracting the ridged_mf() function, BaldEagle!)... so 
I'll resume my "Whatmough" project from 2011, now on a global scale.

Whatmough is an almost Earth-sized (equatorial radius: 5,925 kms) 
fictitious moon of real extrasolar gas giant HD 28185 b, named in honor 
of John Whatmough (1973-2005), space artist and founder of the 
"Extrasolar Visions" website. The gas giant itself I named after US 
astronomer and author Carl Sagan.

In my sci-fi scenario, which is placed in the years around 2450, 
Whatmough has been colonized by humans since 2176. Being a very 
Earth-like world, most of its indigenous life-forms are biologically 
compatible to humans, so no terraforming was needed and only a few 
Terran species had to be introduced.

HD 28185 is a G5V star and about the same age as our Sun, therefore 
slightly cooler than our Sun (which is G2V); Sagan/HD 28185 b (and thus 
Whatmough) receives somewhat less radiation than Earth (but still 
considerably more than Mars). The comparatively high eccentricity of its 
orbit around HD 28185 (distance ranging between 0.959 and 1.102 AU) 
generates quite pronounced seasons (but, on Whatmough, mitigated by a 
2.5-bar oxygene-nitrogene atmosphere and huge oceans). The 
"continentality" of Whatmough's climate is also lessened by the very 
small axial tilt of the Sagan system (less than 0.5 degrees). A 
Whatmoughian year lasts 383 Earth days, a day on Whatmough 31 hours and 
17 minutes.

Land masses are mainly distributed in two large continents, both of 
which are dominated by long mountain ranges and overall rather spindly 
in shape, with long extensions, wide gulfs and narrow land bridges. To 
the south, several more remote archipelagos exist; while the South Pole 
lies in open water reached also by warm currents (which prevent the 
formation of ice even in winter), the North Pole is straddled by a small 
Arctic continent with some ice fields in higher mountain areas, but no 
massive ice shield as in Greenland, more like Baffin Island.

In 2450, Whatmough is a thriving human colony of 1.1 billion people 
forming a planet-wide federal republic. Official language is English, 
with exception of the State of Kartvelia, where Georgian dominates. The 
general socio-political climate is secular and liberal, religion does 
not play an important role, not even in somewhat old-fashioned (and 
culturally very aware!) Kartvelia with its Eastern Orthodox heritage... 
even in smaller Kartvelian cities like Arleteli (famous for domestic 
lynx breeding) or Vakhtangtsikhe CSDs pass unharmed.

Capital and largest city (4.5 million inhabitants) of Whatmough is Port 
Whatmough, located in the tropics of the western continent, site of a 
space elevator and the fabled Academy of Raytraced Art (remember?). 
Whatmoughian civilization is powered mostly by nuclear fusion; helium-3 
is mined from the airless inner moons of Sagan and even from the upper 
atmospheric layers of Sagan itself.

By 2450, manned interstellar travel is still in a rather primitive 
stage, but faster-than-light technologies are short before practical 
application at least for small robotic space probes. So there is not 
much interaction with other human extrasolar colonies, let alone alien 
intelligent races, which barely have been discovered at that time; human 
expansion during the last centuries has been a slow, steady crawl using 
fusion-powered "space arks" reaching speeds around 0.9 c.

But this world is about to change dramatically...

A first crude animation of Whatmough: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLHnzzlr5g

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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