Inner Solar System
> Mercury actively eaten. Venus preserved by inertia. Earth preserved by consensus. Mars altered.
Status summary
| Body | Status | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Active teardown (∝15% removed) | Primary feedstock |
| Venus | Preserved by inertia | Slime industry host; terraforming debated |
| Earth | Preserved by explicit consensus | Symbolic, unprofitable, maintained |
| Mars | Altered (terraformed 27th–28th c.) | Agriculture + modest industry |
Mercury
Why first. Closest planetary body to swarm construction zone. Anomalously metal-rich (effectively exposed planetary core). No atmosphere. Escape velocity 4.25 kms vs. Venus 10.36. No equivalent option existed in 2,900 CE.
Now.
| Mass remaining | ∝85% |
| Surface under active extraction | ∝22% |
| Surface processed and dormant | ∝38% |
| Core exposure zones | 2 partial |
| Active shafts | ∝14,000 |
| Mass-drivers | ∝430 |
| Output rate | ∝10¹⁵ kgyr |
Geology managed as terrain, not abated. Decompression produces continent-scale fracture systems, metallic outgassing, crystallization plumes, magnetic field fluctuations. Infrastructure adapts to a continuously changing substrate.
Exposed core regions = hot industrial objects. Passive cooling would take ∝10⁵ years. Heat is harvested as process energy; radiator swarms manage excess; insulation preserves molten zones.
→ mercury-extraction-pathway.md
Venus — preserved by default
By the time Venus would have entered the strip calculus, Mercury was absorbing demand and corridors made extrasolar feedstock available. The argument was never made.
| Constraint | Mercury | Venus |
|---|---|---|
| Escape v | 4.25 kms | 10.36 kms |
| Atmosphere | None | 92 bar CO₂ + acid |
| Extrasolar alt at decision time | Not available | Available |
| Existing population | 0 | Hundreds of thousands |
→ venus-overview.md, terraforming-debate.md
Earth — preserved by consensus
Formal preservation since Bootstrap era. Symbolic, load-bearing for civilizational identity. SMA absorbs the unprofitable maintenance as a structural obligation. Earth's preservation establishes the precedent on which Venus de-facto preservation rests. Stripping Venus would be the first reversal.
Mars — altered without strip
Terraformed 27th–28th centuries CE. ∝40% surface modified. Hosts agriculture and modest industry. Demonstrates that preserved and stripped are not the only options — a planet can be modified without destruction. Reference point for terraforming-Venus advocates.
→ dyson-swarm.md, mercury-extraction-pathway.md, terraforming-debate.md, timeline-and-eras.md