Solar System · the sun-side frontier
Mercury
Too close to the Sun. Exactly close enough for power.
Mercury is the smallest planet and the closest to the Sun. Its days scorch and its nights freeze, so in 3455 its towns live on the move, rolling slowly along the line between day and night.
Huge solar fields here soak up more sunlight than anywhere else in the Solar System and beam the power home. A big share of Earth's clean energy starts on Mercury.
The rolling towns move at walking pace, about the speed of the sunrise. Stop for too long and the day catches up with you.
Atmosphere
Black sky, a giant blazing Sun, glittering solar fields to the horizon.
Local quirk
Being late here isn't rude. It's fatal, so everyone is early.
Regions · proposed names, not locked canon
Terminator Towns
Domed towns on rails that roll along the day-night line to stay at a comfortable temperature.
Sunfields
Endless mirror farms collecting sunlight and beaming it to Earth.
Caloris Basin
A crater so huge that ancient impacts wrinkled the far side of the planet.
Hazards
- ▲Lethal daytime heatHot enough to melt lead.
- ▲Freezing nightsCold enough to freeze air.
- ▲Solar flaresFlares that fry unshielded electronics.
Visitor tips
- ✦Stay on the rails.
- ✦Keep your shade-suit charged.
- ✦Never race the sunrise.
Local life
- ●Power crews
- ●Rolling-town families
A day on Mercury
Breakfast is eaten facing the dawn glow on the horizon, which never quite arrives.
Crews go out to clean solar mirrors in heavy shade-suits, and are always back before the light.
Locals & customs
Rail Marshal Ines Dorr
Keeps the towns rolling on schedule. Has never been late in her life.
Sunny
A maintenance robot who keeps wandering toward the daylight. Nobody knows why.
- ◆Every town rings a bell at the exact moment it crosses midnight.
- ◆You always give way to the town behind you.
Legends & history
The Town That Stopped
Old crews tell of a rolling town that stopped for a party and was never seen again.
Its rails still run into the daylight side, glowing in the heat.
Crew log
“I'd like to see the Sun overtake us. I would simply walk faster.”
“Please don't.”
Story seed · in development
Rush Hour at Dawn
The rails under a rolling town jam, and sunrise is coming. Zamfyr's plan is to push. Onobo's plan is better.
The jam isn't an accident. Someone wants the solar fields offline for one hour, and that hour lines up with a shipment leaving Earth.
Earthward stakes
Mercury's beamed power keeps Earth's cities lit and its protected forests free of power plants.
Science inspiration
Mercury is real: tiny, airless, and swinging between extreme heat and cold. Its rolling towns and solar fields are fiction.
NASA: Mercury