Darwin IV

Darwin IV is a fictional planet which forms the focus for the Discovery Channel’s 2005 special Alien Planet.

Description
A world smaller than Earth, Darwin IV is named after noted evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. It is the fourth planet in its binary system, and possesses a lower gravity than that on our world. As a direct result of its twin suns, Darwin IV has lost much of its water to evaporation, and the little that still remains is held locked within the bodies of the creatures which form the Amoebic Sea, which occupies roughly five percent of the planet’s surface.

Superficially resembling Mars, Darwin IV is a dry, arid world, reddish in colour, and covered in rocky mesas and sandy deserts, but with the occasional forest scattered here and there, and the aforementioned Amoebic Sea.

Darwin IV plays host to many different forms of animal and plant life, at least one of which is sentient (although not technologically advanced), and most of its inhabitants have evolved ways to extract precious water from their environment; for example, predators drink the fluids from their prey, rather than eat the flesh.

History
After long-range observation determined Darwin IV to be capable of sustaining life, a multi-national effort on Earth launched the starship Von Braun on an exploratory mission to the planet. Unmanned, and travelling at twenty percent of the speed of light, the Von Braun took forty-two years to reach its destination.

Upon arrival, the Von Braun launched it’s three probes, Balboa, Isaac Newton (Ike) and Leonardo da Vinci (Leo) to map the planet, record their findings, and transmit them to the Von Braun, which would in turn relay the information back to Earth. Each of these probes was equipped with an artificial intelligence which granted them the processing abilities of a four-year-old child, but were programmed to act with differing degrees of caution. Although Balboa burned up on entry due to a technical malfunction, both Ike and Leo reached the planet’s surface and managed to conduct a detailed survey before their destruction at the hands of the indigenous Eosapiens, who mistook their deployment of camera disks for hostile intent.

Native Species

 * Arrowtongue
 * Bladderhorn
 * Eosapien
 * Gyrosprinter


 * Pronghead