Laikeer

Laikeer was a rain-drenched water planet in the Unknown Regions, home of the quasi-amphibious Laatls and a member world of the Golden Empire.

Geography
Over ninety percent of Laikeer's surface was water. The kilometers-deep oceans, which were usually at least four kilometer deep at their shallowest points past the thin continental shelves, were home to millions of species of fish, marine mammals, and invertebrates, as well as a few amphibious species. The deepest parts of the ocean, stretching ten kilometers or more down from the surface, were home to enormous predators and irregular creatures which rarely moved to shallower parts of the ocean.

The surface of Laikeer was regularly rain-washed, including its few islands. Most of these were craggy and rocky, with a few insentient animals and fungus growths, but a few of the largest landmasses had soil, able to support a wider array of plants and animals. The surface air was warm and, in the rare instances when it was not actively raining, oppressively humid.

Society and culture
The Lattls, the only sentient species on Laikeer, established their society in the shallower parts of Laikeer's oceans, constructing cities tethered to continental shelves or coral reefs. Their explorations took them both to the surface of the world and to the deeper oceans; their bodies and gill systems were adapted to handling a great variety of water pressure. Hydrofarms, growing massive amounts of edible kelp, seaweed, and fungi supported their diet of fish and other amphibians.

Laikeer remained a rarely visited world even after it joined the Golden Empire, as its perpetually rainy surface was unpleasant to most species and the native Laatls had little desire to colonize the surface. However, trade posts were constructed to facilitate the exportation of various medicinal fungi and fish, and some Zwushtu immigrated to Laikeer, establishing colonies deeper in the oceans than the Laatls usually preferred for themselves.

History
Geologists on Laikeer, both Laatls and later those assigned from the Golden Empire, theorized that Laikeer had once had much more prominent landmasses, totaling perhaps a third of the planet's surface. However, climatic changes caused both a melting of ice deposits on the surface and chaotic alterations to the water cycle, leading to the near-constant rainstorms on the surface. The changes were attributed to solar activity from the system's only star, also called Laikeer.

Theorists were less certain whether the Laatls had been evolving away from gills and toward lungs, and simply stopped when climate changes occurred, leading to their unusual lung/gill combination, or whether they had actually evolved to fully functioning lungs with vestigial gills, then evolved back to a water-dominant amphibious state. However, it was clear that the ancestors of the Laatls had been only three or four evolutionary stages back when the climate changes rocked their world.

Laatl cities developed under the waves, with only occasional parties sent to the world to collect surface species of plants and animals for food, which were correspondingly treated as delicacies. Warfare was rare, as the oceans were large and habitable depths plentiful, but conflict sometimes erupted over areas with the best fish migrations. In general, however, the ever-growing Laatl city-states existed in pleasant, independent coexistence.

Scouts from the Tetrarchy of Mezlagob discovered Laikeer, but took the lack of surface civilization to mean the world was uninhabited. In 106 ABY, however, representatives of the Golden Empire arrived and conducted a deep-water scan. Using low-level seismic charges to coax the Laatls to the surface, the Royal explorers set up a conference with leaders from all the city-states, who eventually agreed to ally Laikeer with the Empire.

Under Royal rule, Laikeer developed a booming trade exporting fish, edible fungi, and even water supplies. In return, the Laatls imported high technology that turned Laikeer's underwater cities from mostly organic structures to seamless mixes of coral and durasteel. The Laatls also built floating trade depots with landing platforms, in which they conducted negotiations with offworlders.