Volkreg screenshot from the show
Space Engine Volkreg
Standard day cycle
Standard night cycle
The system, with both suns at their closest. Red orbit is Volkreg. Not really pictured, the orbits of two titans that circle this entire mess.
Volkreg, about to enter the burning gauntlet of eternal day (where temps reach 130-150f at the hottest spots).
Land of The Dead
The Guardian
The Old God
measuring the system
Ever since I installed Space Engine, I wanted to find a good Volkreg. I spent so many hours in this program, clicking at so many stars as I just tooled about the universe, casually keeping an eye out, but none of the inhabitable planets looked right. Hell, none of the uninhabitable planets looked right either.
Until last night, when I stumbled right onto this planet and knew I’d found it. And then I fell into the rabbit hole that is this system. Some details:
-Volkreg’s ‘night cycle’ is more like a dusk cycle. When it’s sun sets the farther sun rises, giving it a nice twilight for most of the night. Eventually the second sun sets, putting the world into a red-toned true night for a couple hours before dawn.
-Volkreg’s sun sweeps in closer to to the second sun every hundred years (they’re never going to be in danger of actually colliding), and then Volkreg gets to swing inbetween both to be cooked on both sides. This gauntlet passing lasts for a monthish every year for 5 years before going on another 100yr cycle. By some miracle the planet isn’t completely scorched by this phenomenon, it just turns into Australian Hottest Summer worldwide.
-The ocean only covers 1/4-1/3rd of the planet. In case you were wondering where all the water went, the next planet out is an oceania, which also supports life. Panspermia, anyone? Volkreg itself has three moons to screw with what tides it does have.
-Going a bit farther out, the farthest planet orbiting Volkreg’s sun is this ominous cold desert with a thin black ring and a much larger sliver of true nighttime. I tagged it Death without really thinking about it. This turned out to be more accurate than I initially intended, because the farthest planet out on the other sun is this heavenly white saturnlike planet that just so happens to make that broken circle motif we see everywhere. The best time to see this white planet via Volkreg telescope is just before and after the gauntlet.
-Orbiting all this planetary drama as a whole, the absolutely farthest planet out is what I’ve nicknamed The Old God. It has two small moons that fall into alignment extremely often, and their distance just happens to measure the twin suns.
…and that’s the story of how Space Engine wrote my Volkreg headcanons for me.