Codex:
The Shift:
On the 13th of April 2009 coinciding with the release of the Sburb Beta the Sol system was enveloped in a burst of electromagnetic energy focused in the 510-540nm and 10-7-10-6m ranges, bright green and high energy gamma light, now colloquially known as Green energy and matched to the energy the Skaian Guardians utilize when necessary. On that day the entirety of the human race dreamed of Armageddon.
Anecdotal and personal records of the day reveal that humanities collective hallucination, Shared by person to person across the world is remarkably consistent, this and the physical changes to the Sol System and surrounds have driven much theological and scientific debate into the nature of The Shift.
The day was considered normal until the first copies of the Sburb beta were installed in a wave across the planet. With the installations asteroids were detected in high orbit and around the earths gravity well throughout the day. Much of the historical record after the first meteor strikes is focused upon personal accounts of survival and eventual death but notable discrepancies from known phenomena are the functional effect Sburb had on the homes of its players and the link between the timer on the 'Cruxtruder' created via the game and the eventual asteroid impact at that site.
During the apparent destruction of Earth each person reports in the final moments before awakening that they had died in the dream. Over the course of the day people awoke from the nightmare consuming what is now known as Old Earth primarily reporting their demise from impact derived phenomena. At precisely 10AM GMT those remaining sleepers who would wake, did, reporting a wave of green energy engulfing the planet. Of the some 12million people who did not wake from the slumber (now dubbed the Dreamers) it has been confirmed that approximately 70% were players of the Sburb beta while the remainder where close friends or family members.
Upon awakening the human race found itself on their planet in a reshaped system The Shift, as it quickly become known, had moved the Sol system to a new location.
After The Shift all recordings, components and information pertaining to the creation of Sburb were gone, the ancient temples were removed, unsold discs disappeared, notes erased and memories wiped further implicating its involvement in The Shift.
The greatest change internal to the Sol system after the shift was the existence of both a second planet (dubbed Newternia by its inhabitants) and a planetary cluster of approximately earth mass (The Skaian Cluster) in an equilateral orbit with earth around Sol. These planets provided humanity first contact.
FTL studies by council species reveal that before the shift the sol system for all intents an purposes did not exist. Despite being close to the estimated location of a mass relay, radiation spectra from Sol had neither been detected nor did it match any galactic or extragalactic star cataloged. After The Shift the system was simply there. This burst of Green Energy and subsequent appearance of the Sol system was subsequently detected by a Salarian scout fleet some 90LY away , directly resulted in humanity's second contact.
Newternia
Newternia, the Earth mass planet introduced to the Sol during the shift and home to the Troll race. Claimed by its inhabitants to be a recreation of the original home of their species Beforeus created by the 'Pantheon of 36' to act as a new home to the Troll race. Newternia is a grey world with a single pink moon similar to Luna.
The planet is lightly inhabited and covered in a variety of near sapient fauna which act symboioticly with the troll race. The biology of the planet is highly unusual showing evidence of being tampered with extensively. The oldest of the Trolls, Emperor Peixes, claims that the Pantheon simply duplicated the ecosystems of Beforus and that any tampering was from before their time.
The geology of the planet is stable and geological evidence suggests that the planet has existed for some 6 billion years, the technological development of Troll society relative to their population at the time of first contact, some 1.5 million, suggests massive depopulation at some point in time. Newternian industry is dominated by advanced robotics, biotechnology and cybernetics used largely to settle more of their world enhance the survival rate of their minimal population. Newternian longevity gene therapy developed in response to the discrepency, in lifespan between Troll castes, has been modified for use in both Humans and Salarians. The Taurian Hierarchy is devoting substantial resources to a dextro-compatible variant.
Trolls:
the Trolls, the natives of Newternia, are the most bizarre sapient species in council space. The average mature troll is a grey skinned humanoid of similar build and height of a human in the same point of their lifecycle, each troll bears a pair of unique red/orange horns on their head and eyes the color of their blood. Trolls, unlike other sapient species are biologically caste based, their place in the cast hierarchy dependent on their blood color. Troll blood color ranges from a dark rust red through orange, yellow, green, blue, violet to tyrian purple. As a trolls blood color warms their lifespan extends and their physical strength and durability increases as does their resistance to psionics with the reigning Emperor Pixes with tyrian blood being virtually immortal. Trolls of cooler color blood however have increased incidence of potent psionic and telekinetic abilities, at the cost of lifespan. Before Longevity Gene therapy a Rust or orange blooded troll could expect to die of old age by 45, since the introduction of the therapy their aging has slowed to be approximately par with an unaltered Jade blooded troll (250yrs).
The Skaian cluster:
Of the changes wrought by the shift the Skaian cluster is easily the strangest. A group of ten planetoids and two moons which combined have approximately earth mass. Each planet exists in defiance of the known physical laws of the universe and contains artifacts beyond comprehension. Collectively each of the outer worlds orbit a scant 200000km from the cluster center of mass while Prospit and Derse each orbit 100000km from the center of mass.
The Outer Planets
There are eight outer planets in the Skaian cluster each of which is inhabited by one of four species of near sapient reptile. The surface of each planet is distinct and bizzare seemingly contradicting the laws of physics but matching the name of the planets.
Each planet is ruled by a Denizen, a large seemingly supernatural, fully sapient creature of immense power who acts as both a guardian for the planet and its inhabitants. Access to each of the outer planets is restricted at the request of it's Denizen and enforced by the Skaian Guardians, each of the denizens has different entry conditions many of which are often bizarrely difficult to match. however they may, on occasion, invite selected individuals and groups for no apparent reason. At any given time there are between three and four research teams from prominent universities investigating sites of interest on each of the planets.
Of most significance to research is the specific mythology of each planet. Scattered across each of the worlds are temples and ruins referring to tasks and challenges of one of the Eight Gods, the human members of the Pantheon of 36.
The eight planets are, in clockwise order:
The Land of Wind and Shade, LOWAS, Typheus, The Heir of Breath
The Land of Crypts and Helium, LOCAH, Hemera, The Maid of Life
The Land of Light and Rain, LORAR, Cetus, The Seer of Light
The Land of T and K, LOTAK, Nix, The Rogue of Void
The Land of Heat and Clockwork, LOHAK, Hephaestus, The Knight of Time
The Land of P and N, LOPAN, Yaldabaoth, The Prince of Heart
The Land of Frost and Frogs, LOFAF, Echidna, The Witch of Life
The Land of M and X, LOMAX, Abraxas, The Page of Hope
Prospit and Derse:
Prospit and Derse are the twin planets of light and darkness, home to the Carapacian Race and the Skaian Guardians, the two most dangerous entities in known space.
Members of the systems alliance Prospit and Derse each resemble enormous renaissance cities floating in the depths of space each of the planets has a moon attached to the planet itself by a giant chain. Calculations put the strength of the chains at well over the maximum theoretical tensile strength for matter. The moons themselves resemble smaller copies of their respective planets save for the Towers of the Heroes, each immense tower containing a single room at the top, rumored to be the abode of the gods dreaming selves when they were mortal. Each of the moons have four towers each corresponding to one of the gods claimed by the inhabitants of the planets. Prospit claims The Heir, The Maid, The Witch and The Page while Derse claims The Seer, The Rogue, the Knight and The Prince.
The Carapacians, are completely sapient and quite intelligent humanoids with a tough armored exoskeleton of a material similar to carbon fiber in strength and flexibility. Whom like their planets are superficially opposite but virtually identical, the Prospitans have an ivory exoskeleton with black eyes while the Dersites a black exoskeleton with white eyes, the children of mixed marriages inherit their coloration from only a single parent. As with all native Skaian peoples the Carapacians do not age once they reach maturity. the primary farming industry of the planet is the growth of farmed fungi in the lower caverns of their completely urbanized planets under the energy of fusion reactors. Economically Prospit and Derse are nearly closed systems subsisting almost entirely on Skaiatech developments to provide for its people. A thriving export market of advanced skaiatech devices with basic mass effect functionality provides a high quality of living and revenue enough to supply extensive colonization efforts throughout alliance space. At the time of first contact Each planet had a population of over 3 Billion souls.
Both planets once had a thriving military and posses medium range personal and platform mounted directed energy weapons which have proven quite popular despite their inferior destructive power and shot velocity for their ability to completely bypass kinetic barriers. The large carapacian navies, mothballed since the end of the Skain War have since largely been sold to various legitimate parties or retrofitted with mass-effect technologies to form the bulk of the new alliance navy. During this process the Quarian Migrant Fleet acquired vast numbers of ships, trading the expertise of their engineers and their prodigious cargo and refining capacity to the alliance for skaiatech and the extra living space the mothballed warships represented.