Terraforming E3a

Terraforming classification
[Wikipedia] "Beginning in 1985, Martyn J. Fogg began publishing several articles on terraforming. He also served as editor for a full issue on terraforming for the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society in 1992. In his book Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments (1995), Fogg proposed the following definitions for different aspects related to terraforming:[12] Fogg also devised definitions for candidate planets of varying degrees of human compatibility:[13]
 * Planetary engineering: the application of technology for the purpose of influencing the global properties of a planet.
 * Geoengineering: planetary engineering applied specifically to Earth. It includes only those macroengineering concepts that deal with the alteration of some global parameter, such as the greenhouse effect, atmospheric composition, insolation or impact flux.
 * Terraforming: a process of planetary engineering, specifically directed at enhancing the capacity of an extraterrestrial planetary environment to support life as we know it. The ultimate achievement in terraforming would be to create an open planetary ecosystem emulating all the functions of the biosphere of Earth, one that would be fully habitable for human beings.
 * Habitable Planet (HP): A world with an environment sufficiently similar to Earth as to allow comfortable and free human habitation.
 * Biocompatible Planet (BP): A planet possessing the necessary physical parameters for life to flourish on its surface. If initially lifeless, then such a world could host a biosphere of considerable complexity without the need for terraforming.
 * Easily Terraformable Planet (ETP): A planet that might be rendered biocompatible, or possibly habitable, and maintained so by modest planetary engineering techniques and with the limited resources of a starship or robot precursor mission."
 * [Made up for the book] Later, the concept of "Z-planets" was created for planets that would only be terraformed through incredibly arduous labour, time, and only to a marginal degree. These planets would regain some non-earth aspect that could not be changed, and would probably require the humans settling it to live in enclosed artificial spaces OR to artificially evolve to adapt to the planet's conditions. Emigration to a Z-planet is the last resort of the desperate, but it is the last option legally available once all the H, B and E planets have been allocated. Of course some would instead divert their course to attempt to highjack a planet that has already been located, but they do so at their own risks as the "rightful" settlers will be ready to destroy them as soon as they arrive.

Based on this classification, E3a would be in the ETP category, hence the E in its name. However, each cathegory is subdivided in sub-categories. In the case of ETPs:
 * "1" means that the tools to initiate the terraforming process can be assembled on earth and transported to the planet as is, to be put to work immediately and solve the remaining terraforming issue on it own.
 * "2" means that terraforming will be a long, arduous process that will require human brains to adapt to it and create on location the required machinery.
 * "3" means that, due to incomplete or contradicting data, the ETP appeared as terra formable but something is preventing a more thorough analysis, which means that the classification as ETP might prove moot and it might in fact be a Z-Planet.

E3a is the first such planet to have been classified and quickly ignored. Due to its early classification, when the standards and techniques were different, most would believe that its classification as an ETP was a mistake that would have been too complicated to repair, hence the palliative "level 3" being created.

More planets would later be added to this level 3, mostly for the same reason: They might actually be misdiagnosed Z-planets.