Aegis VII

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Aegis VII during the events of Dead Space

Aegis VII was a remote planet of key importance in the Dead Space series, housing a man made Red Marker as well as a huge Necromorph called the Hive Mind.

Location

The seventh planet of the Cygnus system and like-named cluster, Aegis VII is located an unknown distance from Earth; although it has been described to be "several million light years from home" by a surveyor. Aegis VII has an unusually large quantity of precious metals residing under its planetary crust. It was also the resting place of the Red Marker.

Description

Aegis VII appeared to be a rocky planet, similar to Earth, with a molten core. The planet had an orange-tinted sky with an atmosphere that didn't appear to be too thick. Stars and the sparse ring of rocks which surrounded the planet were visible even during the day. The terrain was mountainous and barren. Ravines and caves were common across the surface as well as smooth barren plains requiring a crawler or a shuttle to be traversed quickly.

Because the planet's atmosphere was so thin, wearing an engineer RIG was advised whilst exposed to the surface conditions. Surface weather consisted of high winds and dust storms, making prolonged periods of outside work inadvisable without sufficient protection. However the atmosphere did contain significant levels of oxygen for a human to breathe.

After Isaac Clarke returned Marker 3A to it's pedestal on the planet's surface it activated an EMP strike. This disabled the USG Ishimura's gravity tethers which had been suspending a gigantic chunk of rock and earth excavated from the planet. This then fell from low-orbit which caused a massive planetary collision and left the planet seismically unstable. The molten core of the planet rose up to the surface which created large lakes and rivers of magma covering the surface. With the gravity field of the planet weakened due to this massive collision, it exploded into millions of chunks of debris and asteroids due to a total collapse of the planet's structure.

History

First Aegis VII Incident

After the Black Marker was successfully reverse-engineered by the Sovereign Colonies, one copy Marker 3A, was relocated to Aegis VII; where the research team continued to attempt to decipher the symbols on its surface.

A number of experiments based on the finally deciphered symbols resulted in the synthesis of an alien microbial life-form composed of recombinant DNA. Which lead to subsequent horrific events caused by its release into the wild. The system was erased, abandoned, and the Aegis Cluster marked off limits to all space traffic as a prohibited zone, By General of the Army Ambrose Caiden of the Sovereign Colonies Council.

These events also happened at the installations on both Aspera and Kreemar.

Second Aegis VII Incidient

Concept art of the pedestial where the Marker 3A was located.

The planet eventually became home to an illegal mining facility set up by the Concordance Extraction Corporation. Before the discovery of the Red Marker, the colonists had been experiencing insomnia and uneasiness. At the time of the Ishimura’s arrival before the commencement of the planet-cracking, the Red Marker had been found. Many Unitologists believed this to be the Marker from their spiritual texts and desired it be moved to the colony. After its removal, many colonists began experiencing hallucinations, dementia, heightened aggression, and other psychological disturbances. Both the suicide and murder rates on the colony skyrocketed in the days following the Marker's unearthing.

Upon hearing of this "Marker", Captain Benjamin Matthius ordered it taken aboard the Ishimura, apparently following orders from the Church of Unitology. Some strange organic matter was discovered growing in the colony soon after the Marker's discovery. A week later after the planet crack, the colony experienced a blackout and all radio contact was cut off. Soon after the colonists began going insane, causing panic, murder, suicide, mutilation, and finally a Necromorph outbreak. This prompted the surviving colonists to flee Aegis VII via shuttles from the shuttle bay to the safety of the Ishimura. An overloaded passenger shuttle crashed into the bay, destroying all the remaining shuttles with it. The survivors were stranded on the planet and more desperate to push upward for the Ishimura.

Aegis VII as seen in Downfall.

Later Isaac Clarke went down to Aegis VII to return the Red Marker, believing that it would stop the Necromorph threat from spreading further. Isaac successfully returned the Red Marker to the pedestal, pacifying the Hive Mind but disrupting the gravity tethers holding a large portion of Aegis VII several miles above the surface, threatening to destroy the planet's colony. Kendra Daniels stole the Marker in order to return it to the Earth Defense Force, but the Hive Mind crushed her before she could get it back to her ship. Isaac defeated the Hive Mind and left the planet on his ship just before the portion of the planet fell on the surface.

Final destruction

Aegis VII was severely devastated from the impact—in which Clarke was publicly recognized for being responsible for the planet's state—with the entire planet becoming unstable, much of its surface flowing with magma, and falling apart. The USG O'Bannon visited the planet to investigate and recover remnants of the Marker 3A. Gravity field generators were deployed onto Aegis VII from the O'Bannon to stabilize the planet. Circumstances after recovering a fragment of the Red Marker caused O'Bannon crew member Nikolas Kuttner to destroy one of the generators, subsequently causing Aegis VII to explode.

The following explosion heavily damaged the O'Bannon, killing several members of its crew. Because of the recovered Marker shard, it launched yet another Necromorph outbreak similar to the one on the Ishimura, but it came to an end as the shard was thrown into the ship's reactor core, ending the nightmare for good.

Spoilers end here.

Trivia

• Strangely enough, the air on Aegis VII is breathable in Dead Space, as demonstrated by Kendra Daniels not wearing a RIG while on the planet (however, this is debatable, as it has shown that she wears a RIG under her clothes which can be noticed). This runs contrary to both Downfall and Extraction. This may be because they are in a work zone where they most likely demand that all safety equipment be worn, in case of breathing in bits of poisonous rock, for example. Another reason could be that the colonists terraformed the atmosphere to save using oxygen supplies to breathe.
• If the statement "several million light years" is taken literally, it is almost certain that the Aegis system is located in either the Andromeda Galaxy or the Triangulum Galaxy, although it is most likely that the statement is a mere hyperbole that exaggerates Aegis VII's distance from Earth and implying great distance. The statement also possibly includes the illegal mining colony more or less staying undetected until the Ishimura arrives.
• Also, in Dead Space 3, there is a text log that states S.C.A.F. discovered Tau Volantis "on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy" and also "It is the farthest man has ever gone from Earth". Considering that they also discovered Aegis VII sometime before the first outbreak on Tau Volantis that destroyed S.C.A.F., can only mean that Aegis VII is somewhere in our galaxy closer to Earth than the icy "back water planet" Tau Volantis.
• The early look of the planet was greatly different from the final production. The terrain looked much less symmetrical with huge canyons riddled across the planet. The hole where the colony was located looked more like a volcano. The planet also appeared more white-ish, as in the final production the ground glows almost in red colors.
• Coincidentally, after the planet-crack, the planet resembles the first Death Star from the Star Wars series.
• After the events of Dead Space, EarthGov has put a military blockade around Cygnus System and quarantined the remains of the planet, as seen in Dead Space: Salvage.

Gallery

Early look of the planet

Early look of Aegis VII as seen in the "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" E3 trailer

Notes

In the Dead Space universe, the location of Aegis VII can be found within the Cygnus System, possibly hinting that the Cygnus System is located in or around the Cygnus Constellation.

Aegis VII is shown to have a ring of asteroids around it, although logs describe this as a side effect of the planet cracking process.