Yellowstone

Yellowstone was a terrestrial planet in the Epsilon Eridani system. Parts of it were habitable thanks to gases leaking from a deep chasm on the planet, leading to the construction of large domed cities. These became the primary settlements of the planet, and major hubs of economic, cultural and technological exchange.

History of settlement

Originally settled by Americans via Von Neumann machines housing fertilized human eggs. The colony failed in what appeared to be a similarly murderous manner as another failed American colony: Diadem.

Re-settled by Demarchists a century later, Yellowstone was the pinnacle of human civilisation from approximately 2350 to 2510. By the time of Tanner Mirabel's arrival -- seven years after the Melding Plague -- the planet was unrecognizable, rife with poverty and conflict. The remnants of the Glitter Band were by then referred to as the Rust Belt.

Human civilisation on and around Yellowstone was destroyed by the Inhibitors in 2698.

Cities and settlements

• Planetary surface
  • Chasm City (capital and principle settlement)
  • Ferrisville (named after Marco Ferris)
  • Loreanville (named after Lorean Sylveste)
  • New Europa

• Glitter Band / Rust Belt orbital habitats
  • Carousel New Brazilia
  • Carousel New Copenhagen
  • Carousel New Seattle-Tacoma
  • Carousel New Vancouver
  • Carousel New Venice
  • The Chevelure-Sambuke Hourglass
  • Szlumper Oneill
  • House Aubusson
  • House Perigal
  • Ruskin-Sartorious Bubble (fifth-magnitude shell habitat, high outer orbits)
  • Panoply headquarters habitat

Moon

Yellowstone's moon was named Marco's Eye, after early colonist/pioneer Marco Ferris.

Appearances

• A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency series - main setting
  • Aurora Rising (a.k.a. The Prefect, 2007) - novel
  • Open and Shut (2018) - short story
  • Elysium Fire (2018) - novel
• Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days anthology (2003)
  • Diamond Dogs (novella) - major appearances
• Chasm City standalone novel (2001) - main setting
• Inhibitor trilogy novel series
  • Revelation Space (2000) - minor appearances
  • Redemption Ark (2002) - major appearances
  • Absolution Gap (2003) - minor appearances
• Galactic North short story anthology (2006)
  • Galactic North (short story) - brief appearance
  • Dilation Sleep (short story) - only mentioned
  • Grafenwalder's Bestiary (short story) - main setting

RS Glossary entry

Yellowstone: The major settled world in the Epsilon Eridani system.
- description from the official RS glossary

Notes

• The method used by the Americans to settle the planet in the 22nd century is potentially identical to the method they used on Diadem.
• The A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency series of spinoff novels are set in the 25th century, during Yellowstone's Belle Epoque era, some eighty years before the planet and its vicinity was ravaged by the Melding Plague. The 2007 novel The Prefect, its 2018 short story sequel Open and Shut and the 2018 novel sequel Elysium Fire are all set around Yellowstone and the Glitter Band during their prime, about 100 years before the events of Chasm City. Alastair Reynolds has mentioned he has plans to give the series a gradually developing story arc, consisting in total of five novels, each with its own story, but building upon each other.
• Along with parts set on Sky's Edge, Yellowstone is one of the two main planetary settings for the 2001 standalone novel Chasm City.
• Yellowstone also plays a part in the Inhibitor trilogy of novels set in the post-Plague, from the 26th century and beyond. Though the planet and Epsilon Eridani system appears in all three novels of the trilogy, the planet plays the greatest role in Redemption Ark.
• Alastair Reynolds has mentioned in his Afterword to the Galactic North short stories anthology that Yellowstone and Chasm City are very old concepts in his career as a science fiction writer. They date well before not only the first written and published Revelation Space series short story, but to his time writing his first two, never published novels. In the Revelation Space series, Yellowstone is already mentioned in Dilation Sleep, the aforementioned first published story of the later expanded setting.