Poor Deucado - Bashed to bits

Much of the action in the universe surrounding Rome's Revolution and The Ark Lords takes place on the world called Deucado which orbits Tau Ceti. Tau Ceti is a G-class star (the same as the Sun) and only 11.9 light years away. So far, five potential exo-planets have been possibly detected as orbiting the star.

In my universe, I postulated Deucado as a small world, 90% of the mass of the Earth, second in orbit around the star. The third planet out, a gas giant called Grentadar, is about twice the size of Jupiter. One last fact is known, the Kuiper Belt surrounding Tau Ceti has been measured to be about 10 times the density of that surrounding the Sun.

The Kuiper Belt is filled with ice and asteroids and rocks just waiting to fall inward and eventually hit something. In my books, that something is usually Deucado. From high up, its surface is heavily pock-marked from all the meteors and asteroid hits. However, because it has a dense atmosphere and weather, the craters wear down much smoother than the Moon.

I speculated that the only reason life developed at all on Deucado is because Grentadar acted somewhat as a "shield" to snag many objects that would have otherwise rained down on Deucado.

At the heart of the next novel, entitled Rome's Evolution, you will find out there was a "quiet" period of several million years where Deucado avoided extinction class events. This was just long enough for a sentient, vertebrate species to arise. By the time Rei and Rome got there, there was no evidence that there was ever any such species. And so many oddly shaped caves, with roofs so smooth, they seemed almost artificial.

Coincidence? I think not!