Archenar

Archenar, also known as Arcaelion III, was an earth-like extrasolar world. It was the inhabited third planet of the Arcaelion System 800 light-years from the future site of the Sol system, and existed approximately five billion years before the birth of Christ. The planet was slightly smaller than Earth and was home to the Spherimal race. The planet's population prior to its destruction was estimated to be between 4 and 5 billion Spherimals. The planet had no moons, but its closest planetary companion, Kerithis, was close enough to appear in its skies in the way that Luna would in the skies of Earth five billion years later, although Kerithis was not close enough to Archenar to orbit the planet. Archenar suffered from overpopulation, as it was slightly smaller than Earth. The nearest star to Archenar apart from Arcaelion was Invidia, the primary of the Invidian System.

Archenar was destroyed some five billion years after its formation. By that time, the Spherimal race had developed faster-than-light technology, and now sought to colonize unoccupied habitable planets in an effort to control Archenar's overpopulation problem. However, Sovereign Braxil, the paranoid, self-obsessed fascist tyrant of the Invidian System, was alarmed by this development. Fearing that the Spherimals might attempt to settle in his system and encourage his people to overthrow him, the paranoid Braxil decided to exterminate the entire Spherimal race in order to safeguard his rule. While his advisors begged him not to do such a terrible thing, Braxil overruled them, and made a contract with the Black Moon Clan to exterminate all Spherimals in order to preserve his power. The Black Moon traveled to the Arcaelion system to carry out the dreadful deed.

The Spherimals managed to escape Archenar, aided and abetted by Michael Clearwater, and began fleeing the system as the Black Moon's experimental flagship, the Eraser, arrived in the system. Using the subatomic particles from the interstellar medium, the Eraser charged and fired a directed energy weapon into Archenar that completely destroyed the planet, while debris from the explosion destroyed several of the escaping transports and battered Kerithis to pieces. The surviving Spherimals escaped the system thanks to the temporary protection offered by the doomed Kerithis, but were then forced to become nomadic drifters for the next twenty years, moving from system to system in search of a new home. However, they only found either hostile, uninhabitable planets, or habitable ones whose residents turned them away for fear that the Spherimals would attract the Black Moon to their systems and destroy them as well.

Over twenty years later, Braxil's records department leaked footage of his deal with the BMC to destroy Archenar. Horrified and disgusted by his attempt to commit genocide to preserve his own power, Braxil's people became infuriated and turned against him. This resulted in the very thing Braxil had hoped to avoid: a systemwide revolution that ended with him being unseated and replaced. His successor, President Seelim, sent a video message to the Spherimals, who had settled on the sixth planet of the newly-created Geometrica System, which they named Spheron. Seelim explained that Braxil alone had ordered the destruction of Archenar and wanted to say that his people were innocent. He then offered to help reassemble Archenar from a debris field back into a planet in order to give the Spherimals back their home. The Spherimals, who had grown used to their new home, politely declined the offer, saying Seelim should instead work to undo the damage Braxil had done to his own people.

Archenar remained a debris field for the remainder of the Arcaelion System's existence, and was presumably reduced to atoms once its parent star had died.