Palamok

"When you look upon the homeworld, you realise damn well how God has created all that strength and flight control into a nice, convenient package"

- Anonymous Agent

The Yanme'e homeworld has always been a mystery for the, with the complex language developed by the native Yanme'e only making it harder to fully describe and understand their homeworld. This only adds to the awe-inspiration given off by the planet when it was finally discovered. Only slightly less than twice the size of, Palamok has four moons that circle it day-in and day-out. Despite the gravitational pressures generated by these satellites, Palamok is incredibly stable, geographically-speaking, with very few volcanoes and earthquakes generated across its surface. Theorised to be the largest life-supporting planet in the entire, or at least in , there is nothing that won't shock any visitor who can settle down on its surface.

Formation
Palamok was theorised to have been created over 5.4 BYA (Billions of Years Ago), only very slightly younger than its host star, Napret. As normal for planetary formation, the early Palamok more resembled a free-floating asteroid than any spherical planet. Colliding with other asteroids in the system's Nebula, the asteroid rapidly grew in size, astronomical-speaking, and by 500 MYA (Millions of Years Ago) it already grew to the size of Earth. It was at this time its growth apparently stalled, and its crust began to harden. The surface of early Palamok could somewhat be compared to moon ; covered with craters and active volcanoes which spewed millions of tonnes of Nitrogen and other gases into the early atmosphere, with oceans of lava and, much later, water. To this extent, Palamok seemed destined to appear like Earth, or, or any number of 'normal' life-sustaining worlds.

Geographical evidence of Palamok suggest a very major change in rock layers about 750 MYA. Because the Yanme'e are ignorant of their planet's geographical history, nothing is confirmed by this happened. A popular theory beginning to take wind on both Sangheili and Human scientists is that Palamok was hit by two major objects in quick succession around this time, almost completely shattering the early planets altogether. Over time, the fragments combined together to give shape to Palamok, and at least two of its moons. Evidence which supports this is the Great By'ron'di Crater on the least hospital of Palamok's moons, Naxook. Shared rock layers, atmospheric mix and even the age of craters on a number of other planets such as Napret III all point to a common event, all those billions of years ago.

After this, Palamok continued to harden, and while it was still continuously struck my meteorites, none of these hit in the strength nor the frequency of its early history. It is unknown if Palamok acquired the lowered temperature and organic materials required for life to exist here, or if another event brought them to Palamok. Even the understanding of archaeology isn't enough to satisfy this question.

Early Biological History
"Now, I know what you're thinking - its just a giant planet, shouldn't it follow what so many other worlds did? What makes it so special? Well, it only had two major eras - the Age of Cells, and then the Age of Arachnids and Insects"

- Leading xeno-archaeologist George V. Falter, who attempts to explain why Palamok is different to so many other planets

While it is not known when, life did eventually flourish here. By the time of the first fossils recovered, Palamok had apparently had a largely-land surface and a few super-continents (listed as GC-01, GC-02, and GC-03 respective of believed size), with arguably one major ocean, and numerous smaller lakes. Very different to it today, igneous rocks indicate it had several huge volcanoes cross the surface, gradually spreading across the land as the planet began to tear them apart. At first, life struggled, as the huge gravity and low water-places made it hard for cells to survive, and the atmosphere had already developed its Ozone protection, reducing the number of mutations from Napret's ultraviolet radiation. The early cells we do know of were massive: the largest was easily 3cm long.

Around 1 BYA, after Palamok's moons and internal magma had torn GC-01 and GC-03 apart, and GC-02 was almost gone as well. At this time, the first evidence of predatory cells appeared; strangely, none of the 'prey' cells had chloroplasts, the organelle which powered photosynthesis in plants. Perhaps they were still feasting on cells which harvested Sulfur Dioxide from the volcanic vents. Whatever the case, life swarmed across the ocean, which had now tripled in size. Fortunately (at least for human geologists), life began following a linear path as Earth, and soon began taking in water instead of Sulfur dioxide - and led to the catastrophic 'rusting' of the oceans. Despite its massive amount of volcanoes, Palamok entered a planet-wide ice age - something which has puzzled many experts, who initially believed Palamok had more than enough volcanoes to maintain a viable surface temperature. Studies are still going into this to find out why it happened.

Over 3.5 BYA, Palamok's ice age finally ended, believed to have been caused by a massive global volcanic eruption from multiple super-volcanoes. Once the ice melted, the first multi-cellular organisms appeared. Only, it appears that the