Lensman Series - Planets and Places

Planets and Places

The Lensman series takes place over a vast sweep of space and upon many different worlds. These include the following:

• Aldebaran I, occupied by the Wheelmen, who are never stated to be a native species. This is the scene of Kimball Kinnison's first major injury requiring hospitalization, which leads to his first meeting with Clarrissa MacDougall.
• Aldebaran II, one of the first human-settled planets, is the scene of several of Kimball Kinnison's adventures.
• Arisia, one of the most ancient worlds of our universe, originally Earth-like, is inhabited by the Arisian Elders.
• Chickladoria, planet with a native humanoid species possessing pink skin pigmentation and triangular eyes. Frequent references are made to the fact that they consider clothing optional. Chickladorians are described as "thinking on a wave" unused by most species in the galaxy, which means that hostile telepaths (such as the Overlords of Delgon, below) may completely overlook them.
• Delgon (Velantia II), located in the same system as Velantia, Delgon is home to the soul-devouring Overlords, bred by the Eddorian Gharlane to prey on the Velantians of Velantia III.
• Eddore, world inhabited by malevolent creatures from another space-time continuum. It is implied (though never stated) that the physical laws of the native plenum of Eddore were grossly different from those of the Lensmen's universe; that the atmosphere was composed of elements that were different from those of our universe (it was explained that by the time they migrated to our galaxy, they had become completely independent of their 'native' physical form). The Eddorians themselves were physically similar to various lower Earthly life-forms, reproducing by fission, but by a process more similar to budding than to cell division, except that each being's memories were preserved in toto. The Eddorians were highly competitive, extremely long-lived and almost impossible to kill by any mechanism known to their own science by the time they decided to unify and search for planets in other universes to subjugate.
• Jarnevon, world in Lundmark's Nebula, home of the Eich and their infamous "Council of Boskone," the first Eddorian puppet state to penetrate the First Galaxy. Destroyed at the end of Gray Lensman by being crushed between two "free" (inertialess) planets with opposite intrinsic velocities, inerted just prior to the points of impact.
• Kalonia, a Lundmark's Nebula planet with a humanoid native race marked by cut-steel-blue pigmentation. As hard as their pigmentation suggested, individually they were the most able executives under the sway of Eddore. The agents of Boskone in the First Galaxy, though reporting to Boskone, were typically from Kalonia despite its independent status as a center of Boskonian operations. Discovered by Kim and Christopher Kinnison during Children of the Lens, its conquest was alluded to but never chronicled.
• Klovia, a planet made into Civilization's first base in Lundmark's Nebula. The heavily fortified home of the Children of the Lens.
• Lundmark's Nebula, the "Second Galaxy," which collided with the "Milky Way" or "First Galaxy" two billion years ago, leading to the large populations of planets nurtured by Arisia and discovered by Eddore. Home of the Eddorians, the Ploorans and the major races of their empire, including the Eich, the Thralians, and the Kalonians. Historical Note: Knut Lundmark was an early 20th century Swedish astronomer. Although there are significant discrepancies in terms of both distance and structure, it has been suggested that Lundmark's Nebula is intended to refer to the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte Galaxy, and Lundmark made numerous other contributions to the study of other galaxies.
• Lyrane II, home of a matriarchal civilization. Its dominant beings are women (or highly humanoid females) who retain their nearly non-sentient males only for breeding purposes (similar, but inverse to Larry Niven's Kzinti). They refer to themselves with the neuter pronoun "it". Lyranian women possess powerful minds, capable of telepathy and of slaying by mental force, though they do perform the latter by what is described as a "crude, childish technique."
• Medon, originally located in Lundmark's Nebula, Medon was moved to the First Galaxy by its technologically-advanced natives with the assistance of the Galactic Patrol. Its people contributed extremely efficient electric insulators and conductors, which allowed them to be the first to apply inertialess drive to an entire planet.
• Nevia, the amphibious Nevians invented the first crude inertialess drives appearing in the series. They warred on the Triplanetary League, but eventually joined Civilization when they realized that humanity was as advanced as their own species.
• Nth Space, an alternate dimension, accessed by hyper-spatial tube, where all matter is tachyonic, moving swifter than light. Ploor and Ploor's sun were destroyed by planets transported from Nth Space.
• Onlo (Thrallis IX), see Thrale below.
• Palain VII, an extremely cold planet and home world of Second Stage Lensman Nadreck. Like all ultra-cold planets in Smith's cosmogony, the inhabitants require a metabolic extension "into the fourth dimension" in order to survive the liquid-helium temperatures of their planetary surface. Smith suggested, with little elaboration, a twelve-point scale used to describe intelligent (and possibly other) species. On this scale, humans were classified as "AAAAAAAAAAAA" and Palainians as "ZZZZZZZZZZZZ." It is stated that a Palainian colony had existed on Pluto for millennia before the events of First Lensman, suggesting that the Palainians may have had the first inertialess drive in the First Galaxy. Within the Second-Stage Lensmen, Nadreck's ultra-caution counterbalanced Kinnison's occasional near-recklessness and it is suggested that, were the Palainians less cautious, their species rather than humanity would have given birth to the Third-Stage Lensmen.
• Ploor, the first-tier planet of Eddorian puppets and the only one with direct knowledge of the Eddorians. The leaders of Jarnevon, Kalonia and Thrale were, unknown to the bulk of their populations or to most of Civilization, under the direct control of Ploor. Since Ploor was a planet of a highly variable sun, its inhabitants were evolved to morph their bodies on a precise annual cycle, though none of their manifestations were even remotely human (their winter form was ZZZZ+ or nearly Palainian). The planet and its sun were destroyed by planet-sized projectiles from the "Nth Space" dimension with intrinsic velocity greater than the speed of light.
• Posenia (or possibly just "Posen"?) No description of this planet occurs anywhere in the books and even its name is not explicitly stated. However, it is the homeworld of "the Posenian surgeon Phillips", whose research enabled the development of regeneration technology.
• Rigel IV, a hot, high-gravity world, Home of Second-Stage Lensman Tregonsee.
• Tellus, or Earth. Home to the humans including the Kinnison and Samms lines.
• Thrale (Thrallis II), the capital of the Boskonian Thrale-Onlonian Empire in Lundmark's Nebula. The inhabitants were "independently"-evolved humans like those of Klovia and many other worlds. They are ultimately traceable back to Arisian life-spores permeating space at the time of the Coalescence.
• Trenco, a planet where a major fraction of the atmosphere condenses each night and evaporates each day, giving rise to exceptionally violent weather. The planet's plant life yields the illicit psychotropic thionite.
• Valeria, a high-gravity planet where natural diamonds formed in great quantity, settled by Tellurian Dutchmen who developed immense strength in response to the natural stresses of their planet, making them ideal space marines.
• Velantia III, home of an intelligent, winged, reptilian species, of which Second-Stage Lensman Worsel is a member.