Introduction

van Maanen's Star is an ancient body, aged to at least ten billion years old.  It was one of the first generation stars in the Galaxy, and at one time shone as warmly, if not a little more, than our own Sol.  It was a sun that was the source of life for billions of years before it finally reached advanced age, swelled up into a red giant, and then shrank into a dying white dwarf.  As far as white dwarfs go, the star is relatively cool, an even greater hint towards its advanced age.

The aging of the system wreaked great havoc on the original planetary system.  The gravitational effects of the red giant phase, as well as the stellar mass loss as that red giant shrank down into its present form, scattered the orbital elements of the planets.  Today only two worlds remain, aside from a host of asteroids and burnt out comets.  Amnon is a world once much like Sol's Jupiter, but age has quieted the planet down, and it is now much more like a cold Jovian than its original turbulent form.  Absalom, of course, was once Gaian in nature, but it is now a waterless, airless world in a highly eccentric orbit, its surface backed by the white dwarf's intense radiation, while at the same time the planet is frozen solid on the surface.  Indeed, though the surface of this star is intensely hot, the total output is too little to heat the distant planets in the system.  The star's heat comes from its incredible density, which is 20 tons to the cubic inch.