What is Gray Planet?

The Gray Planet represents the hopelessness of humanity’s future without colonizing Kern’s World. The planet is dark, devoid of all life except a fungus that consumes everything it touches. It is a chilling reminder of the failed projects that could have saved them if not for the Old Empire’s greed. The state of the Gray Planet also mirrors what the crew of the Gilgamesh ultimately attempt to do to the spiders. Destroy enough of them to overtake the planet themselves. If the spiders had not intervened, Kern’s World may have ended up just like the Gray Planet or Earth itself.