Exosquad planets

The 1993-1995 sci-fi animated television series Exosquad featured a number of planets, most of them being terraformed or alternate versions of real planets of the Solar System, although some were definitively fictional. All descriptions in this article refer to the situation immediately after the end of the Neosapien War.

Inner Planets
The term "Inner Planets" refers to the planets whose orbits lay between those of the Homeworlds and the Sun (that is, only Mercury).

Mercury
Mercury was the only planet that officially belonged to the Inner Planets after Venus was terraformed by Terrans. Its proximity to the Sun made it an uninhabitable scorched world so the Homeworlds never really cared about it. When the Neosapien War started, the Neosapiens took over Mercury without any effort but paid much more attention to it than the Terrans had, stationing a permanent garrison under Commander Glycon there. Thrax, who later became a famous Neosapien pilot, also served in these Mercury Forces. These measures turned out to be reasonable but insufficient, when two years later, the Exofleet retook Mercury and used it as a base to begin the reconquest of the Homeworlds.

Homeworlds
The Homeworlds were the three planets terraformed and inhabited by both Terrans and Neosapiens: Earth, Venus and Mars. These planets comprised the old human empire destroyed by the Second Neosapien Revolt led by Phaeton, as well as the core of Phaeton's own Neosapien empire. Being the political, industrial and economical core of the Solar System, the Homeworlds were the ultimate goal of both sides of the conflict. Whoever controlled them, controlled the entire known space.

Venus
Venus has been terraformed extensively to make it inhabitable for humans and with time, it became the major agricultural center of the Homeworlds. Its entire poisonous atmosphere has been apparently replaced by one suitable for human respiration and the planet became famous for its lush jungles as well as barren deserts covering it. Before the Neosapien War, it has been off limits for the Neosapiens.

Venus fell into Neosapien possession roughly at the same time with Earth and the Venusians suffered greatly under the atrocities of highly paranoid Governing General Draconis assigned there by Phaeton: starving the Venusian resistance to death by systematically destroying all food supplies on the planet was only one example of his tactics. Simultaneously, Draconis was building a secret stronghold to take over Phaeton's position and exploited humans to the last degree (since he couldn't ask for additional Neosapien workers).

It was Venus where the mighty GRAF (GRAvitation Focus) Shield, an ultimate defensive weapon capable of crushing entire fleets approaching the planet, was invented by Professor Algernon and built by the Neosapien scientist Xenobius. However, before the GRAF Shield could be turned on the Exofleet, the Able Squad extracted Algernon, who then reprogrammed it to destroy the Neosapien ships instead. With Algernon kidnapped and Xenobius arrested and, most likely, executed for treason, the Neosapiens deactivated the Shield fearing another malfunction.

After this first manifestation of Exofleet's power, the human resistance became more organized, now known as the Venusian Resistance Force headed by James Burns, whose sister Lieutenant Nara Burns was a member and later, the leader of the Able Squad. Venus was the first Homeworld retaken by the Exofleet but it came at a great cost. James Burns sustained severe injuries in the battle for Vesta, the capital of Venus, and died shortly thereafter partly because of them. General Draconis, seeing that the battle was lost, ordered Thrax to trigger the nuclear explosives planted beneath the city to kill as many Terrans as possible but after he left, Thrax decided to disobey this order, thus, saving thousands of lives.

Earth


Earth was the cradle of Mankind and remained the political center of the Homeworlds even after Phaeton's forces captured it. The capital of Earth was Chicago where Earth Congress, the supreme legislative and executive institution of the Homeworlds, operated from.

When Phaeton struck, Earth's ground forces have put up a considerable amount of resistance but without the Exofleet's assistance, they couldn't hold it for long. After Earth surrendered, Phaeton put his best General, Shiva, in charge of it for, he knew, the Earth's Terran population was still the largest in the entire Solar System, which inevitably would lead to problems.

And it indeed has. Unlike Venusian Resistance Force, scattered and weakened by General Draconis' ruthless tactics, the Earth Resistance Cells, led by a former exotrooper and Chicago police officer Sean Napier and armed with combat E-frames they were able to recover, kept frustrating Neosapien security forces for years. When Phaeton relocated his capital to Chicago and renamed it to Phaeton City, he brought with him security specialist Livanus, who was appointed the Chief of Earth Security - a measure unprecedented in Phaeton's regime.

However, every once in a while Neosapiens had to deal with new human uprisings, often using brute military force to crush them. The largest one was Nick Tyree's uncoordinated attempt to liberate Australia. Despite lack of central coordination and weaponry, the human assault was only stopped when Neo Warriors were dispatched to the regions. If not for intervention of the Able Squad, the entire Australian Resistance Cell would have been eradicated on that time.

Overall, only a few regions of the planet Earth were shown in the series: mainly the territory of present-day USA, Canada, Brazil, Australia as well as parts of Antarctica. Vast territories of Eurasia and Africa remained out of picture, although Europe was mentioned occasionally. The reasons for this were never quite explained.

Towards the end of the war, Shiva was removed from his position of Governing General and Livia was appointed to it. Under her reign, the first Neo Lords were bred in Antarctica, the entire race of Neo Megas was eradicated because of treason and the construction of Phaeton's private underground fortress beneath Phaeton City began. The fortress was where Phaeton later kept his doomsday device, constructed as a form of revenge for the destruction of Mars.

When Admiral Winfield launched the reconquest of Earth, Phaeton, having wasted too many troops in the battle for the Moon, ordered all garrisons to fall back to Phaeton City and to defend it at all costs. As Exofleet was attacking from space and the fifth column of the Earth Resistance approached Chicago on stolen Neosapien Hovertanks, Phaeton's resolve to activate his doomsday device grew stronger, but he was stopped by the Able Squad. In the final confrontation of the war, Lt. Nara Burns shot Phaeton down bringing the end to his regime and the Neosapien War.

The Moon
Earth's Moon was the location of the fiercest battle of the entire war. In the last days of the conflict, the Moon was considered the "doorstep to Earth" being crucial to the reconquest of the central Homeworld. Having lost Mercury, Venus and Mars already, Phaeton ordered an immense fleet and army under General Typhonus' command to protect the Moon at all costs. However, these measures turned out to be in vain, when a fatally wounded member of the Able Squad Alec DeLeon used Typhonus' E-frame to announce that the battle was lost, thus, nullifying Neosapien morale and turning the tide in favor of the Exofleet. DeLeon was buried not far from the Tranquility Base, the landing site of Apollo 11.

Mars
Mars was the industrial center of the Homeworlds, its population consisting almost entirely of Neosapiens. Prior to the First Neosapien Revolt, most of the Neosapiens were slaves on Mars and even after their official acceptance of their free will, most of them remained living there in very poor conditions. In fact, Mars was the place most of them were bred in the first place, the largest facility buried beneath Olympus Mons. This facility was destroyed by the Able Squad during the Neosapien War.

Phaeton, the leader of the Second Neosapien Revolt and later the Supreme Ruler of the Neosapien Empire, had been the Governor of Mars before the war (the only Neosapien in such high rank) and he has used his carte blanche to restructure the entire industrial complex of Mars to produce military machines like E-frames and space fighters in a matter of weeks after the Exofleet left to pursue the Pirate Clans. Thus, Mars became the stronghold of the Neosapien regime and despite Exofleet's numerous attempts, it was never truly retaken.

After Phaeton's capital has been transferred from Mars to Phaeton City (formerly, Chicago) on Earth, General Typhonus, Phaeton's Minister of Battle Forces, was left in charge of maintaining its industry. When Admiral Winfield negotiated with Jonas Simbacca, the Leader of all Pirate Clans, about an alliance, Mars was promised to the Pirates in return for their help against Phaeton.

Later, the Able Squad discovered an extraordinary extraterrestrial installation (a facility or a giant living creature, which even Professor Algernon hesitated to identify) buried beneath one of Martian deserts. After several fruitless infiltration attempts by both Terrans and Neosapiens who followed them, the installation self-destructed, reducing Mars to another asteroid belt and sending a signal into deep space, which apparently attracted the attention of a new, aggressive alien race (whose nature wasn't explained in the series, since it ended with a cliffhanger).

Destruction of Mars was a heavy blow to the morale of Neosapiens, but it also stirred a great lust for revenge in them. The Pirates, however, did not quit the alliance with the Exofleet even though its part of the deal was no longer possible to fulfill and fought along its side to the end. After the war, Professor Algernon modified his GRAF Shield to reconstruct the planet and with extensive terraforming, Mars was brought to its original shape.

Outer Planets
The Outer Planets, the planets beyond the asteroid belt, were the dominion of the Pirate Clans. Jupiter and Saturn were not inhabited because of their gaseous structure (although some of their moons were, see below) and Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - because the Pirates lacked necessary technologies to terraform them. Apparently, the Homeworlds had plans to crush the Pirates and to colonize the Outer Planets before the Neosapien War.

Jupiter
For understandable reasons and as stated above, Jupiter itself was uninhabitable, but some of its moons did serve as temporary military bases and battlefields.

Io
Io, the innermost of Jupiter's Galilean moons, served as temporary base for Admiral Winfield ' s Exofleet remnant in the first years of the war. The moon has seen several fierce battles but in the end, General Typhonus forced Exofleet to retreat further away from the Homeworlds. However, by then, Winfield has already allied himself with Jonas Simbacca, who provided him with a new base - Chaos.

Sinope
Sinope was one of the farthest moons of Jupiter. "Sinope Base" was the location of Phaeton's top-secret super-weapon, Fusion Pulse Cannon, designed to wipe out both the Pirate Fleet and Exofleet's base on Io. However, the Cannon only managed to fire roughly a dozen bursts at the Pirate Fleet before a combined Exotrooper-Pirate task force damaged the core of the weapon's "energy silo," causing an explosion which completely destroyed the cannon and obliterated Sinope. Its debris caused a "meteor swarm" that heavily damaged the Neosapien fleet under the command of General Typhonus, who was on his way to directly attack the Pirates and Io Base. The Neosapiens were forced to retreat, which gave the Terrans enough time to evacuate.

Saturn
As stated above, Saturn itself was uninhabitable, but some of its moons did serve as temporary military bases and battlefields. Prior to the accidental discovery of Chaos, most of the Jupiter and Saturn moons served as temporary bases for the Pirate Clan Fleets, since they were where they were originally exiled and later abandoned.

Enceladus
Enceladus, a moon of Saturn known to be one of the only three moons in the Solar System to be astrogeologically active along with Io and Triton. This was the site of the second battle of the Exofleet's hunt to eliminate the Pirate Clans threat just prior to the beginning of the Neosapien War. The moon was heavily fortified and most of the facilities on the planet were underground tunnels, some of which were pressurized with breathable atmosphere.

Tethys
Tethys, a moon of Saturn heavily mined before the "Golden Age of the Mankind". The Homeworlds used prison labor to mine it so extensively that by the time of the Second Neosapien Revolt, Tethys appeared tortured and irregular in shape. Prisoners were promised freedom after their terms of service on Tethys, but after the opening on the mines on Mars at the beginning of the Golden Age, both the moon and its prison work force were abandoned. These transported prisoners eventually became the Pirate Clans, and Tethys became their primary base of operation before the discovery of Chaos.

Chaos
Chaos was an entirely fictional tenth planet (also known as Planet X) of the Solar System composed primarily of dark matter. Chaos was the stronghold of the Pirate Clans, protected by both its unknown location (in fact, no one save the Pirates and the ones they trusted knew it existed at all) and the cloaking properties of the dark matter. The latter were also used by the Pirates to construct cloaking devices that kept their rather small fleet hidden from the Exofleet and later, the Neosapiens.

Clan-based society of Chaos was extremely unstable, partly because of the emotional instability caused by dark matter syndrome which was typical for all Pirates, but eventually the constant danger of being eradicated by bigger enemies forced them to cooperate and to elect a ruler over all Clans. Jonas Simbacca was the leader of all Pirates during the war and when he allied the Clans with the Exofleet, Chaos became the first truly safe harbor for the Terrans.

Chaos was annihilated months after the end of the Neosapien War when an aggressive and extremely powerful alien civilization from beyond the Solar System attacked it and literally wiped it out from the face of the universe (which sets this apart from the destruction of Mars). Apparently, the only survivor of the attack was Wing Commander J.T. Marsh. Since the series was canceled shortly after this last episode, the true nature of the attackers remained unclear.

Asteroids
The Neosapien War, which tore the Solar System apart, waged not only on larger planets and their natural satellites - even large asteroids, such as Ceres, often became battlefields.

Ceres
Ceres (also designated "1 Ceres") is the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar System and the only one located in the main asteroid belt. The importance of the Neosapien facility there was apparently so great that Phaeton put General Drusus in charge of it. The reason of the importance of a base previously thought to be a "small listening post" by Exofleet remains a mystery. Professor Algernon was on his way to Ceres to try to decern its importance when he was compelled to take a detour to Mars in order to investigate the alien construct. The Battle of Ceres is, however, where Exofleet first encountered Neo Megas although an unnamed Neosapien scientist, maybe, even Praetorius himself, has been seen criticizing General Drusus for sending the Neo Megas into combat. Whether Ceres was the brooding site of the first brood of Neo Megas, or was simply their first deployment in the field, is unknown.