# 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 km/s 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 kg/yr |

**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 km/s | 10.36 km/s |
| Atmosphere | None | 92 bar CO₂ + acid |
| Extrasolar alt at decision time | Not available | Available |
| Existing population | 0 | Hundreds of thousands |

**Venus is preserved as operating infrastructure**, not wilderness. Stripping it means destroying the slime industry and forfeiting the most accessible carbon reservoir in the inner system. Both costs grow with each decade.

→ `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`