116. SPOTLIGHT ON: Fields Of Elkre

The largest and most popular park located within the walls of Korus, nominal capital city of the Ele Dominion. The park’s design reflects the synthesis of the first cultures to join the Ele Metanation, with plants native to El-Kera lining the southernmost border and subsequent northward rows, on a gradual incline, representing the ecologies of the Xyll, the Foros Cluster, the Tuyen and the Vildarne Exiles. Over centuries, new members of the Metanation have added samples of flora from their own worlds where possible, and consequently the Fields of Elkre have transformed into both a thriving botanical garden and an ever-strengthening symbol of trans-galactic unity.

To accommodate such an eclectic mix of specimens, the Fields must be carefully monitored by botanists and automated attendants, lest one species prove to be harmful to another or to the ecology of El-Kera at large. Following the propagation of nere trees across the planet’s surface, Ele scientists are particularly wary of potential invasive species. For this reason, each new plant is carefully monitored in a laboratory and engineered to eliminate undesired properties before it is introduced into the park itself.

The eponymous “Elkre” is known vaguely to citizens of Korus as a renowned hero of Ele history, but concrete details about this figure are surprisingly scarce among the city’s museums and libraries. Some accounts suggest that they were the first Ele to leave the orbit of El-Kera, others that they were the first to make contact with stellar neighbours the Xyll. More research needed.

SEE ALSO:

• "Elkre" [Personality]

• Vildarne Cataclysm [Event]

• Opalescent Ven-of-Tuyn [Organism]