Life on this world really should be impossible. The sun is so far away you can barely see it. It's so cold on the surface of this planet that my spacesuit needs a small furnace to keep me moving. And yet, here you are, alive, in spite of all the odds against you. -- A Potato
Rocky worlds, generally speaking, get life. There are outliers, of course. Rocky worlds that are too far from their sun. Ones that are too close. Ones that orbit gas giants and get extended time in their parental planet's shadow, though those can get life if the conditions are just right.
All that said, very little stops a tardigrade. Or bacteria. They're stubborn like that.
This world is what Earth could have been if it got stuck in the ice age. Almost. It is, as the Humans might like to say, an almost Earth. It's pretty frosty. Too far away from its sun, it should be a permanent frozen zone, and yet... life is there.
Tectonic and volcanic activity heat it from within. A thicker atmosphere keeps most of the temperature from escaping. It is a world of permafrost. Icebergs and glaciers are landmarks. The life that has come to evolve there skipped the lizards and went straight for an endothermic lifestyle.
Anything that doesn't have feathers has fur. The fish have antifreeze in their blood. Civilisation as they know it has erupted along the equator.
It spread out from there, but it began where things were warmest.
And it confuses the hell out of the visiting Humans.
"Dude," said Human Thu. He was bouncing in place. "And I thought we lived on a Deathworld. My heaters are going cray."
Coelodon Niamh boggled at their Human companion. "Didn't your species spend some formative centuries in an ice age?"
"Just one," allowed Thu. "I'm gonna need more power packs or more insulation. Life should not exist here, it's not fair."
"I have believed that your kind were cold-adapted. Forgive," Naimh lead Thu to a convenience shop for visiting cogniscents and allowed Thu to pick what he liked the most.
"That's the neanderthals and I got zero of their genes." Thu riffled through the racks for everything of the correct size. Thermal Skins, thermal socks. Thermal gloves. Even a thermal wimple. Thermal shirts and shorts to go over that, but under the livesuit. Extra add-ons for the livesuit to make breathing a happier experience even with filtered air. "I am going to be ingesting a LOT of hot food while I'm here. Remind me again why I'm here?"
"You are my friend and I wish you to meet the family. We own an excellent thermal vent and farmscape not far from here."
Human Thu then said the most Deathworlder thing he could say. "Oooh, volcano..."
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / berndjuergens]
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