Nordhausen is at best barely habitable, and anyone who goes there isn’t looking for an easy homestead. With a chlorine cycle in addition to the more common nitrogen and carbon cycles, it makes long term habitation and growth a challenging prospect. One of the reasons that Fenren go there even with the presence of an actively corrosive atmosphere is the fact that life has evolved there to make use of chlorine, much like other worlds make use of oxygen.
The plant tagged as “carbo coralis polymer” is one of the most common farmed plants. A low leafy shrubbery, it is evolutionary equivalent to something between a fern and a proper leafed plant. The economic value from this plant is that it makes use of medium length polymer chains for its primary structural members, and unlike other plants, the structure of this particular plant can be easily broken down and the polymers harvested. While chemically identical to industrial production, the comparatively lower cost of production (and the fact that harvesting schedules can be adjusted to meet demand) has made the industrial farming and harvesting of the C. .C. Polymer an economically viable industry.
Those who know me know that my art skills for living things are… questionable. This sketch was one of my earlier attempts to actually try to draw something simple like plants. Surprise, plants are hard. Still, for an early attempt it’s not as bad as it could have been. It’s also not really that creative in actual design, but when you’re looking at a low shrubbery designed to absorb maximum light, nature’s done a lot of the design work already.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 