Qinshui

Qinshui (Mandarin for "sea of Qin") is the homeworld of the Qin species.

Geography
The qin have a great deal in common with humans, including similar home planets. Qinshui has gravity similar to Earth’s and is composed mostly of water, although Qinshui’s land masses are smaller, with no recognizable continents. The atmosphere is very thick, soupy and humid but Earthlike; vegetation, animal life and weather resemble those of Earth’s marshy regions. Qinshui has no moons, and therefore no tidal forces, resulting in relatively calm oceans.

On Qinshui, one need merely look up to know he is far from Earth. The world is located on the edge of the 47 Tucanae globular cluster. The sky is brilliant at night, with stars packed so closely together that the concept of constellations is alien to the qin. Our Milky Way is but a dim pool of stars in their northern hemisphere. The intense stellar concentration provides a radiance equal to that of a sunny Earth day, despite even extreme cloud cover. Nights are ethereal, the stars casting a gentle glow over the world. Qinshui’s seasons are similar to Earth’s, and are determined by the cluster core’s position in the sky during daylight hours throughout the year. Humans can venture elsewhere on Qinshui without needing environment suits, although it’s not unlike walking through a constant drizzle in the height of summer.

The domed human embassy to the qin is a biosphere located on one of the northern hemisphere’s large land masses, near the qin equivalent of Earth’s United Nations. Designed to be a little piece of Earth on Qinshui, the embassy is regulated to human comfort zones. As Earth’s first embassy to an alien race, it is populated by extraordinary individuals and support staff. It has all the comforts of home, with the qin always eager to provide anything lacking.

Architecture on Qinshui is almost entirely biotech, with buildings that resemble termite mounds covered in a glassy (or perhaps chitinous) substance.