#fichina

[eyecantread]

Played that there Star Fox demo on the Switch 2.

All of the lore they're adding is tickling the right parts of my hyper fixation prone brain. There's so much stuff for fanfic and speculation.

[out-of-this-dimension]

Spooky SF Headcanons

Happy Spoopy Day~  Hope everyone is well.  I thought I could celebrate on here with some spooky headcanons!

Venom

Venom is considered to be a haunted, cursed place. There are remnants of several civilizations scattered across the planet, the most prominent being the ancient Cornerus and the far more recent failed Cornerian Settlement Project.

Not much is known about the Cornerus or what happened to them but their ruins still haunt Venom’s eerie landscape. There are rumors of ghosts that dwell within, wailing in a state of perpetual limbo with eyes that can invoke madness.  Usually these ghosts do not stray far from the old Cornerus cities but occasionally there have been sightings in the jungles.  Most sightings are usually laughed off fearfully-- people don’t want to admit there might be a nugget of truth to any of these rumors but the amount of people who have seen something paranormal in the wilds is incredibly high.

The Cornerian Settlement Project happened quite some time before the Lylat Wars, before even the time of James McCloud, Peppy Hare, and General Pepper.  The project was a colonization effort to start a third planetary hub that would function as a center of trade with planets further from Corneria, such as Sauria and Cerinia.  Back then, Venom had a different name, tentatively called “Eden”, though that name was quickly nixed after the Settlement Project.  Although some experts had already scoped Venom out and had reported high levels of toxins in the air, most of those reports were dismissed by settlers.  The sight that followed the settlers arriving was allegedly one so traumatic that the survivors immediately ran back onto the ships in horror.  As soon as the first group arrived, over half their number dropped dead on boarding ramp, their lungs clotted with airborne poisons.  The survivors wished to leave but eventually did decide to settle the proposed colony area on Venom.  However, within two years, the colony was abandoned, even after measures were taken to try to purify the air.  It is said that not only did the air make it hard to populate the land but there was an unnatural force that pushed the Cornerians out-- a force no one could see but could feel.  A force that would dismantle bits of their infrastructure and haunt their government officials at night.  After the Project failed, the planet’s name was switched to Venom and it was used as a place for exile.

Of course, Venom has seen plenty of civilizations who survived the toxic atmosphere -- namely reptilians who have long made their home amid the jungles.  Though reptiles are not entirely uncommon in the Lylat System, the varieties seen on Venom were viewed with apprehension, no doubt stemming from the fact that the planet itself seemed cursed, so everything that lived there also carried that same stigma.  From these early discoveries of Venomian reptiles came legends of alien-like beasts that would thrive in the dark jungles, abducting Lylatians and feasting upon their flesh.

Fichina

Not many people would consider Fichina to be a terrifying planet-- after all, it’s home to sights such as the aurora borealis.  However its harsh climate has led to some terrifying discoveries over the years.

Fichina’s north and south pole clock the coldest temperatures in all of Lylat, however that has not stopped people from trying to live there, even those without any expertise in living in such harsh conditions.  Climate control centers dot the planet’s surface, trying to stabilize some of the weather in an attempt to play God.  However, there have been several cases of these climate control centers failing, resulting in lives being lost as entire cities are covered in blizzards.  Alternatively, heating systems connected to the climate control center have been known to occasionally fail, resulting in the worst case scenario imaginable-- entire cities frozen, its denizens inside, lifeless.

Yet despite the freezing temperatures, arctic animals often make their home on Fichina.  When Corneria arrived at first to establish peaceful negotiations with the Fichinans, they spread across the planet’s surface, even venturing out to reclusive villages up north.  One military officer reported back to Corneria with a chilling report that they had found several villages that had been infected by a sickness of some sort, turning most of their citizens (arctic wolves) into mindless creatures running berserk.  The Cornerians destroyed the village and all who were within to keep the sickness from spreading, later attributing it to something found in a local set of mines.  This report was eventually leaked to the public and twisted by media.  Over time, these barbaric, berserker wolves became something of a cryptic legend and there are claims some of them even still exist to this day.

Aquas

Though a planet that looks like a gleaming sapphire in the midst of space, Aquas is a planet drowning in a bloody history and filled with dark secrets.

It is believed that the monstrosity Bacoon destroyed the north and south poles of Aquas, flooding the continents with water.  This is a tale that has been believed by Cornerians for some time... but no one has really discovered how this was possible.  There has been some research done into this legend to ascertain the truth but no one knows for certain how the giant clam was able to do this.  There have been, however, strange shrines spotted on the ocean floor.  Shrines that bear an uncanny resemblance to shrines found on Venom and Sauria.  Did Bacoon... have help?  And if it did, what happened to that help?  

After the defeat of Bacoon, Corneria opted to help the planet recover from all of the pollution Andross had dumped into its waters.  When they did, they also decided to explore the planet, scoping it out as a possible location for a colony.  The planet was perfectly fine, they believed, just covered in water-- nothing that they could not possibly work around.  However, as they searched the planet, they chose to dive into its depths.  Not only were they met with abyssal, dark waters but their scanners indicated an assortment of gargantuan things that lurked far, far below the water’s surface-- things that perhaps had not even seen the light in hundreds of years.  Although the colony project was given the greenlight, there were many scientists unsure if it should have been approved of at all.  Many beg the question if Bacoon was ever really alone down there.

Exploration into Aquas’s ruins have uncovered what may have been religious worship of Bacoon.  Worship that eventually was abandoned, resulting in the beast growing enraged.  Some of these depictions of worship include bloody sacrifices to the clam.

Eladard

Eladard’s surface is a nightmarish tangle of factories and cities, the planet’s environment completely disregarded. Eladard has become something of a junk planet, filled with graveyard-like dump sites.

Eladard’s capital city saw its fair share of strife after the planet was abandoned by wealthy Cornerians looking to profit off the planet.  The worst of its strife stemmed from its self-proclaimed mayor, who ruled the city with an iron fist and his own personal army of mobsters.  After he was dethroned and killed by mercenaries, his manor’s grounds were investigated.  Countless bodies were found on the site, some even taxidermied and kept in a trophy room.  The entire manor was burned to the ground and his body was allegedly burned with it.  The grounds now stand empty, just outside of town, charred.  Some folks have since tried to revitalize the area... but for some strange reason, nothing ever seems to grow there.  Not even grass.

Eladard’s clusters of factories have seen their fair share of work accidents.  From these accidents, occasionally there have been deaths.  And from these deaths have occasionally been ghost sightings-- usually late at night, from the graveyard shift.  Sometimes when the workers are packing up, they will swear they see their late coworkers, occasionally looking as though they are clocking in.  Other times, they can be seen across Eladard’s nightmarish landscapes, wandering about the factories aimlessly, as if they are unable to rest.

Space

Space... the final frontier some say.  But despite being beautiful, it is a silent, haunting place.

Tales of the unknown are common among pilots, particularly space-faring ones.  But one of the most haunting sights is near Sector Omega, where one of the final fights happened in the Lylat Wars.  It is said that there is a spaceship graveyard still out there, debris floating in limbo for all eternity.  It consists of both Cornerian and Venomian ships, abandoned by their respective sides and left to drift forever. 

Every so often within the asteroid belt of Meteo, pilots have reported a strange portal.  Of course not many dare approach it out of fear... but a few brave souls have, plunging into the unknown fearlessly.  They disappear within and usually are found days later, sometimes on the other side of the Lylat System, babbling about strange lights and even stranger noises.  Each of them has described a world where reality is distorted and the laws of physics don’t seem to make sense.  All of their descriptions are similar with a few tweaks here and there-- moons with sneering faces, comets made of rainbows, strange random objects floating about, and strange, terrifying creatures lurking within.  Each and every account ends with the pilot being led to safety by something they can only describe as “the Whale”.  It should be noted that all of the pilots have experienced some sort of psychosis from prolonged exposure to this strange dimension and have all been needed to be hospitalized.  Cornerian officials from the CDF have looked into the matter but the findings have not been made public.

[scamperspics-blog]

Both Wolf and Andrew are cold climate animals. As such, they don’t need to dress in snow clothes for ground missions in arctic conditions. Their normal attire is usually enough for them.

Pigma and Leon, not so much. Pigma lacks fur, but he’s still warm blooded. Normal arctic clothing is enough. It’s Leon who is the real problem. As a cold blooded lizard, normal warm clothing is pointless. It’s like wrapping a potato in foil and expecting it to bake in a fridge. He requires heated clothing in order to just survive on cold planets. It’s pretty much a life support system for him at that point and his life expectancy on cold planets is tied to the batteries he keeps in that backpack. He’s one malfunction away from death at all times.

Wolf, of course, is paranoid about that. He usually avoids bringing Leon entirely if he can help it. Even Pigma has him worried. Wolf is no stranger to the arctic. He’s run across frozen bodies in the snow, even witnessed some succumb to hypothermia and he’s seen quite a few people lose fingers and limbs to frostbite, too. He makes sure to stop periodically to check Leon and Pigma for any signs of hypothermia or frostbite, even when it slows the mission down. Much to everyone’s annoyance.

Andrew is mostly oblivious to all this. It’s his natural habitat and he sees the beauty in it more than the danger it poses to some of his teammates. He has yet to see the things Wolf has witnessed, though.

[out-of-this-dimension]

Headcanon Fichina has more diverse landscapes and fauna than what we've seen in the games.

I absolutely agree with this!  I like to think closer to the equator, there’s less of the frigid arctic wasteland that we see in the games.  I imagine there’s quite a bit of taigas and then, even more south, coniferous forests that stretch nearly as far as the eye can see and maybe even some cold grasslands.  Kinda of like... Skyrim, honestly (I’m a huge TES stan asjdf;alksdf).  Definitely a planet that sees snow often but with more diversity than just frosty tundra!  

I also hc that there’s quite a number of cities that learned how to adapt to Fichina’s wild weather prior to the Cornerians arriving.  The denizens are mostly arctic foxes, arctic wolves, polar bears, penguins, seals, and walruses.  I also... really like the idea of an orca kingdom in an arctic-like ocean setting.  I might play with that as a headcanon...

[out-of-this-dimension]

Fichina’s versus music from Assault vibes so hard and I love it.

[out-of-this-dimension]

Planet Biome and Environment Headcanons - Part III

Papetoon is known for its savannas and sparse forests.  Canyons have been carved through its mountainous regions for millennia by the tedious albeit steady work of freshwater rivers.  Rectangular plateaus are a common sight in the wildlands. In the areas near its equator, the grasslands evolve into dry, rocky semiarid deserts that stretch for hopeless miles and are said to house bandits and other ruffians looking to escape the law. Contrary to desert planets like Titania, Papetoon does have a few oceans.  The land steadily gets less arid the closer one gets to the oceanfronts.  It is not uncommon to see wetlands the further from the equator one gets.  There are even some instances of salt marshes in various locations. Rivers often split into estuaries at their end, creating forked, watery pathways.  

Fichina was once a land of tundras and alpine forests, but climate change due to natural phenomena (or so the Cornerian government states) caused its weather to go unpredictably out of control.  Despite efforts to colonize the frigid world, Corneria has had little success with making it a booming land of trade.  Climate control has somewhat stabilized the weather, allowing a few colonies to set up shop in scattered troves across the frozen planet’s surface.  Expeditions into the wilds have revealed an abundance of mountain ranges with breath-taking beauty, despite their current status as being mostly buried in heaps of white snow.  The aurora is a common sight, lighting up the night sky in a colorful spectacle. There are no known settlers on the planet except for the Cornerians, leaving it virtually untouched (most likely due to its inhospitable weather).  Cave systems lined in ice and hidden amid glaciers have recently become the target for exploration.  There are many eager souls wanting to see what may lie beneath the ice...

Solar is a planet dubbed absolutely inhospitable by the Cornerians, thus is largely overlooked despite its lethal, fascinating surface.  Oceans of violently crimson lava soak the planet, making its natural temperate way too hot for the average Lylatian to withstand without heavy equipment.  While most of the planet is lava, there are notable islands of charred black stone.  They are desolate. The only lifeforms that have been observed are the Gores-- leftover bioweapons created by the mad Dr. Andross in an attempt to make creatures able to withstand the high amounts of heat radiating from the planet.  They roam in lonely flocks, their numbers dwindling as time passes on.  Soon, like everything else that goes to the fiery world, they will die away and be reduced to ash.  

Kew is a small forested planet beyond the known Lylat System, beginning a section of space known as the Outreach Ring-- a collective of worlds rich in magic and virtually untamed.  Being situated somewhat near Venom, it quickly became home to fleeing refugees from the Lylat Wars, who shaped the planet with ramshackle cities who are often locked in violent territory disputes.  In stark contrast to its hastily-built cities are its dangerous wildlands, which are filled to the brim with everything that wants to kill you.  Bio-illumination nixes the need for a torch to wander the strange and feral lands between cities, but make no mistake; despite its beautiful scenery, the wilds claim countless lives every day. Lakes strewn amid the forests have taken up an ethereal, brilliant blue glow at night.  Old, scattered and abandoned cities made of stone lay tucked away in hollows and clearings-- their sides painted in glowing blue paints.  One cannot help but wonder what sort of people used to dwell here. 

[scamperspics-blog]

Lucy Hare is a university professor who teaches astrophysics on Fichina. She’s friendly and outgoing and likes to make friends with other teachers, no matter the grade they teach. Sometimes she likes to ask her dad to come speak at some of their classrooms with her. It’s hard for Peppy to find the time, but he absolutely enjoys it when he can. He loves kids, and he gets to spend some time with his daughter, too.

[yasuouehara]

The route I consider canon in Star Fox 64:

Corneria > Meteo > Fichina > Sector X >MacBeth > Area 6 > Venom