Tuchanka (AEU)

Tuchanka is the irradiated, decimated, and miserable homeworld of the krogan. Long ago, before even the asari and salarians came upon the Citadel, the krogan had a flourishing civilization that was blossoming on the planet. Great works of krogan art, architecture, and culture were being made, while their technology pressed ahead. By 1800 BCE, however, the krogan had devolved into fighting between their various nation states, and shortly after, they initiated a nuclear war which led to Tuchanka becoming the wasteland that it is today.

Description
A planet scarred by bombardment craters, radioactive rubble, choking ash, salt flats, and alkaline seas, Tuchanka, the krogan homeworld, is barely capable of supporting life, and what life it does support is vicious and deadly. Thousands of years ago, life grew in great abundance on the planet. Analogues of trees grew in great jungles with their roots growing out of silty shallow seas. Life fed upon other life in an evolutionary crucible. One species, the krogan, managed to rise to prominence and become the most intelligent on the planet, before long forming their own civilizations. However, the krogan, inherently warlike, killed the planet in nuclear firestorms shortly after they split the atom. A nuclear winter killed off much of the remaining plant life. In recent centuries, most krogan, broken and shamed after the genophage, have returned to Tuchanka. The reduced albedo has resulted in temperatures rising. In an attempt to maintain livable temperatures, a vast shroud was erected at the L1 Lagrange point. The shroud is maintained by the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM), which is based on orbital battlestations.

Today, Tuchanka is a violent world, occupied by most of the remainaing krogan and other vicious predators, with even much of the remaining plant life being carnivorous. Clan warfare is common between the dozens of krogan clans, and the krogan population is slowly declining. Though occasionally visited by curious individuals and explorers from other species, Tuchanka is usually avoided at all costs. There are no real oceans left on Tuchanka, the seas having long since dried away, most of the jungles are dead, the forests have been felled, and rivers ran dry too. The fact that Tuchanka can still even support life is a wonder in and of itself.