Map of Xatoran

Xatoran is a frontier Federation colony world. A dull little world, it was colonized by an eager, young, member species of the Federation. Originally a shallow panthalassic world -- devastated within the last 103 million years by a solar storm which destroyed most multicellular organisms larger than one kilogram -- with the assistance of a terraforming charter company -- Fasolino Worldbuilders -- and a biophysiological engineering charter company -- the Orion Life Insitute -- four continental masses were constructed across the surface by adding mass to the planet's surface over the course of seventy years while simultaneously siphoning off the planet's oceans and filtering the water to be used in other worldbuilding efforts. All this was done with supervision by Federation officials to ensure the integrity of the planet's native but recovering biosphere.

With the global average sea-level dropped, the following decades as the Orion Life Insitute genetically engineered surface-dwelling organisms saw an explosion in the planet's biomass and diversity. Life on the planet's new land masses was relatively rudimentary; nothing that complex was requested. The resultant biosphere -- engineered from the most advanced marine organisms of Xatoran -- was classified as Carboniferous in complexity. Roughly 276,000 species of terrestrial eukaryotes were engineered; largest animals of them were around four to five hundred kilograms.

Currently, there are settlements on the planet with a population in excess of one million and 68 minor settlements with populations in excess of one hundred thousand. There is also one space elevator that was constructed during the early days of the world-building process. In the several centuries since a terrestrial ecosystem was introduced to Xatoran, researchers monitoring evolutionary development have noted a healthy background extinction rate and even the emergence of many new traits in insect-analogues and other fast-reproducing organisms.