Ecco 1 (or Echo 1) was a habitable world in the Lyra Sector of the Perseus Quadrant. Ecco 1 was charted by the Pathfinder Ship Pegasus circa the Solar Year 7160. It was uninhabited at the time of re-discovery, but was later given as a home to a race of violent cyborgs created on the planet Aurora.
Geography and Climate[]
Ecco 1 is what is commonly referred to as a “crack world;” a planet that is mostly barren except for an area where the crust has collapsed and captured all the planet’s water within, creating a habitable zone.
From space, the planet appears as a bright orange sphere, covered primarily by barren flatlands and canyons, except for a large lake gashed into the crust of one hemisphere, thousands of kilometers long, stretching longitudinally almost from pole to pole and thousands of meters deep. Life exists around the margin of this lake; jungles of plantlife extending into adjacent valleys. The lake was created when the gravitational pull from the sun and the two gas giants in the system pulled the crust open.
Ecco 1’s crust is thick and seismically inactive.
Evidence of Civilization[]
The large lake in the crack of the planet’s crust was surrounded by thirteen cities. Each of the cities followed the form of tall metal structures a hundred stories tall that lined the shore. One of them was called Dawnstar. The entire population was wiped out during the Tarmigan attack and turned into salt statues.
History[]
Ecco 1 was established as a colony of the planet Aurora. It was set up to draw dissidents, malcontents, and other social misfits away from the mother-world to a new world they could call their own. 40,000 colonists were sent there in spaceships designed to become inhabitations when they landed.
In fact, the Aurorans set up Ecco 1 to be sacrificed in order to save their own planet from the Tarmigans. The Auroran Fleet was sent, along with the warships of two other worlds, to confront the Tarmigans at Chapultepec Starlock. When the battle was lost, the warships attempted to retreat to Aurora. Instead, they had been programmed to fly to Ecco 1, leading the Tarmigans there instead.