Ki'Larthik, and one of it's moons, likely Yomm'a
Ki'Larthik is a frozen ice giant in the Ouranir Galaxy, orbiting a white dwarf. Its magnificent rings are probably a moon that broke up early in the planets history.
Study[]
The upper atmosphere of Ki'Larthik, just above the cloud tops.
Initial computer returns found the presence of life in this system, however what scientists aboard the ship were surprised about is how the life on Ki'Larthik was "organic" in nature, given the temperature of the planet. Follow up studies showed that this life is extremely small - organisms recovered were no more than 0.6 millimeters long, and carbon-based. This is in-line with current scientific knowledge; organic life cannot get too big on a cold world. Despite this, it was determined that they had a thriving civilization on the planet, estimated at a mid-Type-0 on the Kardachev scale. Once this was discovered, no further incursions were attempted.
A probe dropped into the atmosphere revealed this Ki'Larthikian city, shown as a pink wispy cloud. This city is over 0.5 kilometers in diameter.
Behind Ki'Larthik, looking at the white dwarf sun.
It appears that the star in this system, originally a large B-type star, died just a few billion years ago, and the thick atmosphere of the planet protected them from the radiation. Whatever organic ingredients were left was the catalyst for this new life to flourish, and it seems to have gotten a good start. Covert studies have concluded that these miniscule beings have the equivalent of "cities", with clouds of billions floating together in unison. Further studies were attempted, but were inconclusive since these beings were far too small to study in detail. It has been suggested that no matter how advanced these Ki'Larthikians get, they are far too small to have any sort of space program in the future.
Language of the Ki'Larthikians[]
Based on the few that were studied aboard the ship at first, they even seem to have their own language. Inaudible to humans, and some aliens aboard the Isvoy, sophisticated hardware was used to lower the pitch down to something humans could hear. Revealed were shrill squeaks and growls, in a pattern reminiscent of some sort of language. Translation matrixes were added to the hardware, and what was revealed was a jumbled mess of words. For example, one sentence was translated as "Fruit Road Bottom". Further studies will be needed to crack the code of the language they use. This study also gave scientists the name of the planet.
Culture of the Ki'Larthikians[]
"The One" as seen from moon I'gni.
Study of the language revealed some aspects of their culture as well. They seem to be extremely religious, and worship the "Sky Light", who they refer to as "The One". Obviously, no written account of their culture exists, so the Sky Light is determined to be their white dwarf star. They believe that the clouds that covers their world is the result of evil shrouding their world, and the "Sky Light" is the only thing that can penetrate the evil, bathing the world underneath in a blue glow. They believe sometime in the future this eternal battle will end, and the clouds will dissipate. Then they will gaze on "The One" with their own eyes, and transform into a connected spiritual species.
The ones who have managed to fly above the cloud layer and return are known as "Onetouched". It is believed that the Onetouched will never die, and it is believed only a few have ever successfully completed the journey. Onetouched are extremely important in their culture, and they are usually accorded some kind of honor.
Moons[]
Ki'Larthik, seen from a mountain range on Yomm'a
The 17 minor asteroids in orbit around the planet have not been discovered by the Ki'Larthikians, so it was determined these would be ignored. However, the three major moons, called "I'gni"(1.3), "Kar'thus"(1.2), and "Yomm'a"(1.1) deserved some exploration. the first two seemed to be tiny ice worlds. These seemed to be covered in thick sheets of water ice, and may have a liquid interior thanks to the influence of Ki'Larthik. No life has been detected on either moon.
Kar'thus and the white dwarf
The largest moon, "Yomm'a" is the innermost of the three, and is considerably larger. It is classified as a "Frozen Selena" and has an extremely thin atmosphere. It seems to be similar to Io before it was terraformed, as there are active volcanoes on the moon. As expected, the thin atmosphere consists of mostly sulfur and carbon, but there were traces of oxygen and helium as well. No life was detected on Yomm'a, however the atmosphere is barely sufficient enough for single-celled life.