Strok

Strok (Wmm'oenhmm) is a Class B Storm Planet and home to the Smem Race. To date the planet has become a port of mineral exportation as well as the home port for a number of Smem-controlled mining companies that spread across the galaxy. The surface is rock, chiseled into different shapes by the strength of the wind. This has resulted in labyrinths of deep trenches, that smaller Strok life-forms live within.

Ecosystem
Strok consists of two major regions.

Northern Hemisphere
The home port of the Smem, a large intelligent species who have evolved to withstand the unrelenting wind and sparse environment. All life on Strok is contained within this upper portion of the planet. While initially assumed a lifeless world, the upper portion of the planet recieves enough solar energy to support photosynthesis.

Moss grows on the edges of most rocks on strok, at the point closest to the moisture within the trenches and the light that the system's star supplies. The moss also benefits from the microscopic life that lives and dies in the forests of moss. Most life-forms feed off the moss, having developed some way to scrape moss off rocky surfaces. Animals like these travel the trenches to protect themselves from the winds of the surface, venturing out only to claim mossy sustenance. It is theorised that the Smem's ability to cope with the winds on the surface is what lead them to dominate the ecosystem, and eventually gain intelligence. Rather than specialising themselves to the luxurious (in comparison) trenches, the Smem evolved the capacity to adapt quickly to an ever changing environment, meaning they could get to moss faster and eventually adapt to consuming other animals.

Southern Hemisphere
Strok's barren, rocky surface and volatile wind conditions are attributed to a recent meteor strike which left the southern hemisphere in total darkness for over 10 million years. Only with the occasional thinning of the storm has the northern hemisphere slowly been explored, mapped and studied. Attempts to populate and develop in this region have come to a standstill, as light rarely makes it's way through the thick debris and dust choked sky above. The dangers of the storm are so extensive that mining expeditions into the southern hemisphere are carried out on a subterranean level.