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Chapter Thirty-Three -- Into the Void
Habitats
Tebazeder society first began to contemplate large-scale habitation outside of the organic biospheres of planets in the early fourth century. Previous endeavors to “colonize space” had always consisted of small stations to monitor remote mining or conduct zero-g research; the largest of those had consisted of a few tens of thousands of individuals, on the big military shipyard at Con Viab or the massive trade station in the Lyctabon system bordering mith-fell territory. However, with the closing of the galactic frontier and the dearth of uncolonized astronomical bodies featuring livable biospheres within the borders of the Governance by the turn of the century, those with the dream to expand the empire of islands among the stars began to look to the void for fulfillment.
In the latter half of the third century, the amount of unclaimed territory in the galaxy was shrinking rapidly. Between its own scientists’ explorations and information-sharing agreements with friendly polities, Tebazed could access basic survey data for over 90% of known star systems. The Governance controlled a territory comprising nearly 150 systems itself; this volume, however, contained only the eight habitable planets that Tebazeders had settled by the year 270. [1] As clamor for new development and new colonies began to increase towards the end of the century, it became necessary to consider alternatives to planet-bound settlements.
Constructing a full-scale space habitat was a daunting undertaking. Its structure would need to be orders of magnitude more complex than the orbital stations that had first come online in the early third century. Those were modular, and replaceable; tolerance for fault was assumed, and rebuilding them with new technology once older designs became obsolete or too maintenance-intensive was relatively inexpensive. A habitat, on the other hand, needed to be built to last, with minimal tolerance for failures. Accidents on space colonies could result in the deaths of millions; such risks of catastrophe necessitated an extensive design and testing program. Moreover, the sheer scale of such a project created several constraints, including a location near a major trade route, and required a massive infusion of funds into a dedicated program that would last for at least a decade and could not be diverted to other needs — a potential problem given the number of unexpected wars the Governance had found itself during the Interstellar Age.
Nevertheless, the preliminary work on orbital habitats began in 302. Theoretical work occupied the Science Directorate’s design bureau for the next three years, as engineers and architects specializing in “voidbuilding” developed the concepts and design philosophies for a spaceborn structure that could house mass populations. The scale of the project led to new vocabulary – these were to be “megastructures” – and an entirely new branch of logistics to handle the vast resource requirements. After the design bureau finished its theoretical work, it handed over the plans to the Engineering Section for phase two of the megaproject. New construction materials were required, and associated construction techniques that were well-adapted to zero-g conditions. The Engineering Section leveraged the new relationship with the pithoks to import significant quantities of durasteel, an advanced alloy not yet deployed at scale in the Governance but which, according to the modeling done by the engineering working group, would be crucial in stabilizing the all-important welds and joints on the first-of-its-kind megastructure. [2]
The next step was to pick a site for the proposed megastructure. Numerous locations were considered in the vailon home system as well as several underexploited but resource-rich systems, but one stood out for its potential to be a nexus for trade. The sixth planet orbiting Tebza, a gas giant dubbed Arganira by vailon astronomers centuries in the past, had long been a way station for trade routes heading outbound from the system core; ships departing from Tebazed used the gravity well of the gas giant to slingshot to the far reaches of the star system. Over time, a network of small stations and depots had been constructed in its orbit, servicing the ships that passed nearby. Planners believed that the new megastructure would streamline this network and draw inbound trade as well, eventually becoming the major trading and logistics hub for the capital.
Construction finally began in 313. The project was overseen by the new Director of Labor, Wrbli, a mith-fell Tebazeder who had been promoted from his previous posting governing the Rim Sector the prior year. Streams of cargo ships, hulls filled with the massive volumes of alloys necessary for the project, visited the site continuously as the construction crew, 250,000-strong even with significant automation, worked around the clock. Initial projections expected construction to last for thirty to forty months, but the systems for logistical coordination quickly proved inadequate to the task. Traffic snarls engulfed the main shipping lane from Tebazed as well as the one leading to the hyperlane to the Varba system, with the cargoes of construction material intermixing with the normal trade to and from the capital. Construction itself paused frequently over the first six months of operation, for want of the alloys or equipment to build the next section of the structure.
The Governance's first space habitat was constructed orbiting the sixth planet in the Tebza system, named Arganira after a famed ancient vailon philosopher.
Faced with questions from the media and the public, the Subir administration expressed confidence in the Labor Directorate to execute on the plans, with the Director-General herself commenting, “Space is hard. My team is good. I have no doubts that we will succeed. Get used to it.” Her confidence proved to be well-founded: by the end of 315, Wrbli’s hand-picked program director had implemented reforms to project logistics and led a redesign of travel corridors within the Tebza system to ease congestion and improve the flow of goods. From then, construction proceeded apace, finally coming to a close on March 6, 318. At the opening ceremony Subir proclaimed a new age for Tebazeders, one of great engineering works and tremendous leaps in prosperity, building on the fantastic growth of the last several decades.
Arganira Habitat was populated the following year, the first formal colonists stepping into the space habitat after months of intensive structural integrity testing. While some research laboratories were established, focused on studying the effects of living in an enclosed structure for long durations, very quickly the primary industry of Arganira became the transshipment of goods and attendant support services. Sitting astride the main travel lane from Tebazed to out-system, its vast docks became the hub of the Governance’s trade network. Trade ships from Varba, Firintarogga, and as far afield as Mirovandia Prime and Thokkia arrived by the hour, transferring their cargo to short-range haulers for the “last mile” trip to the capital, and taking on outward-bound goods that might reach even the great empires of the northern galaxy – the Khell’Zen Kingdom and the Belmacosa Empire – nations that had rarely seen a vailon traveler but valued the quality and craftsmanship of Tebazeder industry. By the 340s, Arganira’s facilities had grown to include a major galactic stock exchange – the first of its kind within the borders of the Governance. This space hosted not only the public listings of the growing numbers of private (i.e. non-governmental) corporations in Tebazeder space, but also the type of sophisticated insurance marketplace that was the necessary underpinning of galactic trade. With it, the Governance could fairly lay claim to being one of the major economic powers of the galaxy.
A second habitat soon followed the construction of Arganira. [3] Learning from the mistakes of the first project, this one was to be sited in the Arrakis system, home to significant asteroid belts with ample deposits of the ores necessary for construction. This time, instead of importing the advanced alloys, durasteel production facilities would be built in situ, significantly lessening the burden on the logistics network. The new habitat, Tirimba, completed and populated by 327, was customized to serve as a research hub. Its operations would supplement Tebazeder archaeological work on Fen Habbanis, Arrakis being the exit of the only hyperlane connecting to the former capital of the ancient polity known as the First League.
The First League
Vailons shared the galaxy with a vast number of intelligent species at a great variety of developmental stages. Most prominently, there were the roughly three dozen spacefaring polities which were developing on par with the Governance; between them, by the end of the century they occupied nearly every known star system connected by the network of hyperlanes that underpinned interstellar travel, commerce, and war. There were a number of older empires varying in their levels of activity, from the single-minded enclaves, concentrating their populations on a few large stations in order to focus on their preservation work, to the so-called Fallen Empires, remnants of great states which looked back on a long-distant past filled with magnificent accomplishments but which now led lives of decadence and decrepitude. There were younger civilizations, too, some like the Human Stellar Confederation that had so recently emerged as an FTL-capable society, others still pre-industrial or even in the early stages of forming organized communities. And there was a residue of still-more ancient civilizations, hints of empires long past, whose glory days may have been great but had withered away, leaving behind few traces beyond extraordinary and tantalizing hints of their splendor in the cosmic dust.
Vailon explorers encountered evidence of the ancient federation known as the First League during the earliest explorations of their local star cluster. The famed vailon exploratory vessel, the ISS Jhunustarion, discovered the ruins of a small orbital station on the surface of a moon in the Soval system in 202. Scans estimated the structure’s age at two million years, a long enough time for its builders to have disappeared entirely. A probe dispatched to investigate more closely determined that the materials used for the station were considerably more advanced than Tebazed’s factories were capable of producing. Few data caches had survived uncorrupted in the structure, but some physical media were recovered; preliminary linguistic analysis determined that the facility was a navigational way-point for an entity that called itself the “First League.” [4] A new section of the Science Directorate, Ancient Civilizations, was stood up to manage the research into the First League and other potential examples like it.
AnCiv continued to discover evidence of First League activity in the quadrant over the ensuing decades. In 206, the Jhunistarion encountered another ruined station, this one orbiting a moon of Ushminaria VIII; an expedition to the station in 213 determined the wreckage to be the remains of an important naval base, home to the 28th Outer Rim Patrol Fleet, among others, and in command of anti-piracy missions along the entire rimward arm of the galaxy. The next year turned up a research facility in the Turim system, destroyed in a titanic explosion; the presence of the nearby phased planet gave some hint as to the original purpose of the complex. [5] A penal colony was discovered in the Covall system in 218, on the extraordinarily hostile first planet orbiting the star. The scraps of documentary evidence that had survived the ages suggested a legal system that prioritized, and harshly punished, crimes that were considered to warrant universal jurisdiction – piracy, terrorism, and other acts “abhorrent to the souls of individuals,” according to one text. The fragmentary information that vailon researchers were putting together painted an outline of a polity that had spanned the southeast quadrant, comprising multiple individual states and numerous species in a supranational organization, but the major archaeological site that would unlock more substantial knowledge of the First League remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Then the trail ran cold. Wars with the varelvivi, as well as exploration efforts in other regions of the galaxy, meant that vailon researchers turned their attention away from the ancient history of their local star cluster. Contact with the many other active polities in the galaxy further diverted scientific resources away from archaeological research. Though small working groups in AnCiv continued to translate the languages of the First League and conduct surveys of potential ruins of First League outposts, they were unable to make any significant advancements in the Governance’s understanding of the ancient precursor state. A discovery in 269 of the remains of a derelict cruiser on a planetoid in the Ushminaria system temporarily renewed hope for a breakthrough, and with it came a surge in funding; however, the warship was too far decayed to reveal anything notable about its past, and the AnCiv program once again dropped down the priority list. For the next three decades, the section withered, a nearly forgotten department that shed staff every year.
The next clue would come not from focused research efforts, but instead from an accidental discovery on an outlying colony of the Governance. In 301, a mining operation on Nagrama stumbled upon a complex of underground tunnels long predating Tebazeder colonization. The mining outfit, not entirely trusting the stability of the structure, cordoned off the space and reported it to the metropole. It took months for the leaders of the Science Directorate to send a specialist from AnCiv to the site, who, to everyone’s astonishment, ascertained that the tunnels could be dated all the way back to the First League period. Though little documentary evidence could be found, much of interest was gleaned from the construction methods – evincing techniques clearly derived from several different cultures – and the fact that the tunnels had survived millions of years. The recent treaty of cooperation with the pithoks, resembling as it did the ancient federation of the First League species, lent renewed interest in the field, and led to a new boom in funding for the section.
The major breakthrough came in 314. A joint intelligence operation with the pithoks led to the round-up of a significant smuggling ring, set up on an obscure moon in the Veyer system. The raid on the headquarters uncovered a major cache of First League artifacts; among other things, the smugglers had obtained several ancient star charts, with uncharted byways between star systems, from the First League navigation station the smuggling base had been constructed over. Though the star charts were only partial maps of the region, recent developments in quantum computing and hyperspace theory allowed for the extrapolation of the entire network of hyperlanes known at the time of the First League. Many of the unknown hyperlanes could not be located, whether because of hyperspace decay or lost markers, but of the few that could still be traversed, the most important by far led directly to the capital of the First League, Fen Habbanis.
The First League capital world was long abandoned, a decrepit monument to a dead civilization.
The Fen Habbanis system, it turned out, was located down a previously unknown spur of the hyperlane network in the cluster of stars between the vailon home sector and the remnants of the varelvivi empire. It was a stroke of luck that the entirety of this contested space had been won by Tebazed in the decisive Third Varelviv War, leaving Tebazeder scientists with unfettered access to the pristine site. Leading the first mission to the system was Ludremex, a young Zaydran scientist who had risen to prominence on the back of her insightful research into the applications of artificial intelligence, going so far as to build her own custom AI assistant that could provide autonomous support in the lab and in the field. The First League capital world, the third planet orbiting the G-type star, was long-abandoned, now only encased in the ruins of the dead civilization. As an archaeological site, it was extraordinary; initial scans by Ludremex’s team suggested that the ruins had been undisturbed for at least tens of thousands of years, if not since the collapse of the First League itself some two million years prior. Though in an extremely advanced state of decay, that so much of the infrastructure remained was a testament to the engineering achievement of these precursors.
AnCiv immediately set in motion plans to establish a permanent research facility on the surface. For several years, small teams spread out across the planet, surveying the ruins and evaluating potential sites for outposts, considering both the likelihood of significant discoveries as well as the suitability for habitation. In 320, the first true colonists landed near the massive ruins of a collapsed spire, thought to have once housed a major administrative center. Fen Hab, as the planet came to be known, quickly became a prestigious posting for up-and-coming scientists; the sheer density of ruins, ranging from administrative records in the remains of the Spire to a nearby industrial site that had housed significant production capacities for rare exotic gases and crystalline constructs, meant that many discoveries would be made over the ensuing decades. In time, Fen Hab itself became a major generalized research hub for the Governance, as researchers used the treasure trove of data and artifacts on the planet to recreate many First League achievements in the sciences, synthesizing them with modern Tebazeder developments to generate new and unforeseeable leaps in technology. [6]
With its massive warrens of hidden tunnels and structures among the ruins, Fen Hab also became the destination of choice for dissidents, smugglers, and any other groups who wished to avoid the keen eye of the central administration on Tebazed. The planet earned a reputation where one could make their own way, outside of the peculiar nature of the vailon society that permeated the rest of the Governance; it also became a destination for migrants who wished to keep to their own traditions. Zaydrans, mirovandians, avarrians, pelx, and sathori all developed their own communities on Fen Hab, forming the nucleus of a diverse and thriving economy by 340. It was often commented on by its inhabitants, scientists and non-scientists alike, how much contemporary life on the planet, with its many and varied species living in harmony, must have resembled life on the ancient capital millions of years prior.
The relic world Fen Habbanis became home both to major research installations and to a wide assortment of civilian communities that wished to avoid the eye of Tebazed.
Footnotes
Tebazeder society first began to contemplate large-scale habitation outside of the organic biospheres of planets in the early fourth century. Previous endeavors to “colonize space” had always consisted of small stations to monitor remote mining or conduct zero-g research; the largest of those had consisted of a few tens of thousands of individuals, on the big military shipyard at Con Viab or the massive trade station in the Lyctabon system bordering mith-fell territory. However, with the closing of the galactic frontier and the dearth of uncolonized astronomical bodies featuring livable biospheres within the borders of the Governance by the turn of the century, those with the dream to expand the empire of islands among the stars began to look to the void for fulfillment.
In the latter half of the third century, the amount of unclaimed territory in the galaxy was shrinking rapidly. Between its own scientists’ explorations and information-sharing agreements with friendly polities, Tebazed could access basic survey data for over 90% of known star systems. The Governance controlled a territory comprising nearly 150 systems itself; this volume, however, contained only the eight habitable planets that Tebazeders had settled by the year 270. [1] As clamor for new development and new colonies began to increase towards the end of the century, it became necessary to consider alternatives to planet-bound settlements.
Constructing a full-scale space habitat was a daunting undertaking. Its structure would need to be orders of magnitude more complex than the orbital stations that had first come online in the early third century. Those were modular, and replaceable; tolerance for fault was assumed, and rebuilding them with new technology once older designs became obsolete or too maintenance-intensive was relatively inexpensive. A habitat, on the other hand, needed to be built to last, with minimal tolerance for failures. Accidents on space colonies could result in the deaths of millions; such risks of catastrophe necessitated an extensive design and testing program. Moreover, the sheer scale of such a project created several constraints, including a location near a major trade route, and required a massive infusion of funds into a dedicated program that would last for at least a decade and could not be diverted to other needs — a potential problem given the number of unexpected wars the Governance had found itself during the Interstellar Age.
Nevertheless, the preliminary work on orbital habitats began in 302. Theoretical work occupied the Science Directorate’s design bureau for the next three years, as engineers and architects specializing in “voidbuilding” developed the concepts and design philosophies for a spaceborn structure that could house mass populations. The scale of the project led to new vocabulary – these were to be “megastructures” – and an entirely new branch of logistics to handle the vast resource requirements. After the design bureau finished its theoretical work, it handed over the plans to the Engineering Section for phase two of the megaproject. New construction materials were required, and associated construction techniques that were well-adapted to zero-g conditions. The Engineering Section leveraged the new relationship with the pithoks to import significant quantities of durasteel, an advanced alloy not yet deployed at scale in the Governance but which, according to the modeling done by the engineering working group, would be crucial in stabilizing the all-important welds and joints on the first-of-its-kind megastructure. [2]
The next step was to pick a site for the proposed megastructure. Numerous locations were considered in the vailon home system as well as several underexploited but resource-rich systems, but one stood out for its potential to be a nexus for trade. The sixth planet orbiting Tebza, a gas giant dubbed Arganira by vailon astronomers centuries in the past, had long been a way station for trade routes heading outbound from the system core; ships departing from Tebazed used the gravity well of the gas giant to slingshot to the far reaches of the star system. Over time, a network of small stations and depots had been constructed in its orbit, servicing the ships that passed nearby. Planners believed that the new megastructure would streamline this network and draw inbound trade as well, eventually becoming the major trading and logistics hub for the capital.
Construction finally began in 313. The project was overseen by the new Director of Labor, Wrbli, a mith-fell Tebazeder who had been promoted from his previous posting governing the Rim Sector the prior year. Streams of cargo ships, hulls filled with the massive volumes of alloys necessary for the project, visited the site continuously as the construction crew, 250,000-strong even with significant automation, worked around the clock. Initial projections expected construction to last for thirty to forty months, but the systems for logistical coordination quickly proved inadequate to the task. Traffic snarls engulfed the main shipping lane from Tebazed as well as the one leading to the hyperlane to the Varba system, with the cargoes of construction material intermixing with the normal trade to and from the capital. Construction itself paused frequently over the first six months of operation, for want of the alloys or equipment to build the next section of the structure.
The Governance's first space habitat was constructed orbiting the sixth planet in the Tebza system, named Arganira after a famed ancient vailon philosopher.
Faced with questions from the media and the public, the Subir administration expressed confidence in the Labor Directorate to execute on the plans, with the Director-General herself commenting, “Space is hard. My team is good. I have no doubts that we will succeed. Get used to it.” Her confidence proved to be well-founded: by the end of 315, Wrbli’s hand-picked program director had implemented reforms to project logistics and led a redesign of travel corridors within the Tebza system to ease congestion and improve the flow of goods. From then, construction proceeded apace, finally coming to a close on March 6, 318. At the opening ceremony Subir proclaimed a new age for Tebazeders, one of great engineering works and tremendous leaps in prosperity, building on the fantastic growth of the last several decades.
Arganira Habitat was populated the following year, the first formal colonists stepping into the space habitat after months of intensive structural integrity testing. While some research laboratories were established, focused on studying the effects of living in an enclosed structure for long durations, very quickly the primary industry of Arganira became the transshipment of goods and attendant support services. Sitting astride the main travel lane from Tebazed to out-system, its vast docks became the hub of the Governance’s trade network. Trade ships from Varba, Firintarogga, and as far afield as Mirovandia Prime and Thokkia arrived by the hour, transferring their cargo to short-range haulers for the “last mile” trip to the capital, and taking on outward-bound goods that might reach even the great empires of the northern galaxy – the Khell’Zen Kingdom and the Belmacosa Empire – nations that had rarely seen a vailon traveler but valued the quality and craftsmanship of Tebazeder industry. By the 340s, Arganira’s facilities had grown to include a major galactic stock exchange – the first of its kind within the borders of the Governance. This space hosted not only the public listings of the growing numbers of private (i.e. non-governmental) corporations in Tebazeder space, but also the type of sophisticated insurance marketplace that was the necessary underpinning of galactic trade. With it, the Governance could fairly lay claim to being one of the major economic powers of the galaxy.
A second habitat soon followed the construction of Arganira. [3] Learning from the mistakes of the first project, this one was to be sited in the Arrakis system, home to significant asteroid belts with ample deposits of the ores necessary for construction. This time, instead of importing the advanced alloys, durasteel production facilities would be built in situ, significantly lessening the burden on the logistics network. The new habitat, Tirimba, completed and populated by 327, was customized to serve as a research hub. Its operations would supplement Tebazeder archaeological work on Fen Habbanis, Arrakis being the exit of the only hyperlane connecting to the former capital of the ancient polity known as the First League.
The First League
Vailons shared the galaxy with a vast number of intelligent species at a great variety of developmental stages. Most prominently, there were the roughly three dozen spacefaring polities which were developing on par with the Governance; between them, by the end of the century they occupied nearly every known star system connected by the network of hyperlanes that underpinned interstellar travel, commerce, and war. There were a number of older empires varying in their levels of activity, from the single-minded enclaves, concentrating their populations on a few large stations in order to focus on their preservation work, to the so-called Fallen Empires, remnants of great states which looked back on a long-distant past filled with magnificent accomplishments but which now led lives of decadence and decrepitude. There were younger civilizations, too, some like the Human Stellar Confederation that had so recently emerged as an FTL-capable society, others still pre-industrial or even in the early stages of forming organized communities. And there was a residue of still-more ancient civilizations, hints of empires long past, whose glory days may have been great but had withered away, leaving behind few traces beyond extraordinary and tantalizing hints of their splendor in the cosmic dust.
Vailon explorers encountered evidence of the ancient federation known as the First League during the earliest explorations of their local star cluster. The famed vailon exploratory vessel, the ISS Jhunustarion, discovered the ruins of a small orbital station on the surface of a moon in the Soval system in 202. Scans estimated the structure’s age at two million years, a long enough time for its builders to have disappeared entirely. A probe dispatched to investigate more closely determined that the materials used for the station were considerably more advanced than Tebazed’s factories were capable of producing. Few data caches had survived uncorrupted in the structure, but some physical media were recovered; preliminary linguistic analysis determined that the facility was a navigational way-point for an entity that called itself the “First League.” [4] A new section of the Science Directorate, Ancient Civilizations, was stood up to manage the research into the First League and other potential examples like it.
AnCiv continued to discover evidence of First League activity in the quadrant over the ensuing decades. In 206, the Jhunistarion encountered another ruined station, this one orbiting a moon of Ushminaria VIII; an expedition to the station in 213 determined the wreckage to be the remains of an important naval base, home to the 28th Outer Rim Patrol Fleet, among others, and in command of anti-piracy missions along the entire rimward arm of the galaxy. The next year turned up a research facility in the Turim system, destroyed in a titanic explosion; the presence of the nearby phased planet gave some hint as to the original purpose of the complex. [5] A penal colony was discovered in the Covall system in 218, on the extraordinarily hostile first planet orbiting the star. The scraps of documentary evidence that had survived the ages suggested a legal system that prioritized, and harshly punished, crimes that were considered to warrant universal jurisdiction – piracy, terrorism, and other acts “abhorrent to the souls of individuals,” according to one text. The fragmentary information that vailon researchers were putting together painted an outline of a polity that had spanned the southeast quadrant, comprising multiple individual states and numerous species in a supranational organization, but the major archaeological site that would unlock more substantial knowledge of the First League remained tantalizingly out of reach.
Then the trail ran cold. Wars with the varelvivi, as well as exploration efforts in other regions of the galaxy, meant that vailon researchers turned their attention away from the ancient history of their local star cluster. Contact with the many other active polities in the galaxy further diverted scientific resources away from archaeological research. Though small working groups in AnCiv continued to translate the languages of the First League and conduct surveys of potential ruins of First League outposts, they were unable to make any significant advancements in the Governance’s understanding of the ancient precursor state. A discovery in 269 of the remains of a derelict cruiser on a planetoid in the Ushminaria system temporarily renewed hope for a breakthrough, and with it came a surge in funding; however, the warship was too far decayed to reveal anything notable about its past, and the AnCiv program once again dropped down the priority list. For the next three decades, the section withered, a nearly forgotten department that shed staff every year.
The next clue would come not from focused research efforts, but instead from an accidental discovery on an outlying colony of the Governance. In 301, a mining operation on Nagrama stumbled upon a complex of underground tunnels long predating Tebazeder colonization. The mining outfit, not entirely trusting the stability of the structure, cordoned off the space and reported it to the metropole. It took months for the leaders of the Science Directorate to send a specialist from AnCiv to the site, who, to everyone’s astonishment, ascertained that the tunnels could be dated all the way back to the First League period. Though little documentary evidence could be found, much of interest was gleaned from the construction methods – evincing techniques clearly derived from several different cultures – and the fact that the tunnels had survived millions of years. The recent treaty of cooperation with the pithoks, resembling as it did the ancient federation of the First League species, lent renewed interest in the field, and led to a new boom in funding for the section.
The major breakthrough came in 314. A joint intelligence operation with the pithoks led to the round-up of a significant smuggling ring, set up on an obscure moon in the Veyer system. The raid on the headquarters uncovered a major cache of First League artifacts; among other things, the smugglers had obtained several ancient star charts, with uncharted byways between star systems, from the First League navigation station the smuggling base had been constructed over. Though the star charts were only partial maps of the region, recent developments in quantum computing and hyperspace theory allowed for the extrapolation of the entire network of hyperlanes known at the time of the First League. Many of the unknown hyperlanes could not be located, whether because of hyperspace decay or lost markers, but of the few that could still be traversed, the most important by far led directly to the capital of the First League, Fen Habbanis.
The First League capital world was long abandoned, a decrepit monument to a dead civilization.
The Fen Habbanis system, it turned out, was located down a previously unknown spur of the hyperlane network in the cluster of stars between the vailon home sector and the remnants of the varelvivi empire. It was a stroke of luck that the entirety of this contested space had been won by Tebazed in the decisive Third Varelviv War, leaving Tebazeder scientists with unfettered access to the pristine site. Leading the first mission to the system was Ludremex, a young Zaydran scientist who had risen to prominence on the back of her insightful research into the applications of artificial intelligence, going so far as to build her own custom AI assistant that could provide autonomous support in the lab and in the field. The First League capital world, the third planet orbiting the G-type star, was long-abandoned, now only encased in the ruins of the dead civilization. As an archaeological site, it was extraordinary; initial scans by Ludremex’s team suggested that the ruins had been undisturbed for at least tens of thousands of years, if not since the collapse of the First League itself some two million years prior. Though in an extremely advanced state of decay, that so much of the infrastructure remained was a testament to the engineering achievement of these precursors.
AnCiv immediately set in motion plans to establish a permanent research facility on the surface. For several years, small teams spread out across the planet, surveying the ruins and evaluating potential sites for outposts, considering both the likelihood of significant discoveries as well as the suitability for habitation. In 320, the first true colonists landed near the massive ruins of a collapsed spire, thought to have once housed a major administrative center. Fen Hab, as the planet came to be known, quickly became a prestigious posting for up-and-coming scientists; the sheer density of ruins, ranging from administrative records in the remains of the Spire to a nearby industrial site that had housed significant production capacities for rare exotic gases and crystalline constructs, meant that many discoveries would be made over the ensuing decades. In time, Fen Hab itself became a major generalized research hub for the Governance, as researchers used the treasure trove of data and artifacts on the planet to recreate many First League achievements in the sciences, synthesizing them with modern Tebazeder developments to generate new and unforeseeable leaps in technology. [6]
With its massive warrens of hidden tunnels and structures among the ruins, Fen Hab also became the destination of choice for dissidents, smugglers, and any other groups who wished to avoid the keen eye of the central administration on Tebazed. The planet earned a reputation where one could make their own way, outside of the peculiar nature of the vailon society that permeated the rest of the Governance; it also became a destination for migrants who wished to keep to their own traditions. Zaydrans, mirovandians, avarrians, pelx, and sathori all developed their own communities on Fen Hab, forming the nucleus of a diverse and thriving economy by 340. It was often commented on by its inhabitants, scientists and non-scientists alike, how much contemporary life on the planet, with its many and varied species living in harmony, must have resembled life on the ancient capital millions of years prior.
The relic world Fen Habbanis became home both to major research installations and to a wide assortment of civilian communities that wished to avoid the eye of Tebazed.
Footnotes
[1] This figure excluded the future colony of Birga, in the Uiafladus system, not captured from the saathids by Tebazeder forces until 288. The Science Directorate had assessed a number of lifeless planetary bodies as terraformable into living biospheres, but the technological developments necessary to effectuate such a massive change to an entire planetary body lay decades in the future. Separately, a small number of inhabitable planets were thought to exist in an unclaimed star cluster near the Governance’s borders, but the only access points were blocked (one hyperlane by the enigmatic Ancient Caretakers, the other by the Qvefoz Marauders), leaving the cluster inaccessible for now.
[2] Within a decade, durasteel manufacturing would be commonplace on Varba; by the 320s, the material had become the standard armor plating on all warships in the Unified Navy, hardening hulls against the latest generation of penetrative munitions.
[3] Future habitats were planned for the T’Vilkait and Liram systems; after operations against the Q’vefoz in 338 made the nearby star cluster safe for colonization, work on these third and fourth void dwellings finally commenced.
[4] Later advances in xeno-linguistics revealed that this had been a misinterpretation on the part of the early researchers, still fumbling their way through novel alien languages, but the name stuck.
[5] Turim III, later known as The Veil on account of its original state, went on to become an important Tebazeder colony after it was stabilized in this dimension, second in population only to the valion homeworld by the end of the century. It remains unclear to AnCiv scientists whether the First League was unable to develop a technique for stabilizing the planet — or if they had been the cause of the planet’s destabilization in the first place.
[6] Perhaps the most notable technological development, or at least the most immediately impactful, was a profoundly new method of organizing information. Quantum filing arrays, utilizing the inherent uncertainty at the sub-atomic level to stack information at simultaneous and superimposed locations, revolutionized the many bureaucratic functions of the Directorate.
[2] Within a decade, durasteel manufacturing would be commonplace on Varba; by the 320s, the material had become the standard armor plating on all warships in the Unified Navy, hardening hulls against the latest generation of penetrative munitions.
[3] Future habitats were planned for the T’Vilkait and Liram systems; after operations against the Q’vefoz in 338 made the nearby star cluster safe for colonization, work on these third and fourth void dwellings finally commenced.
[4] Later advances in xeno-linguistics revealed that this had been a misinterpretation on the part of the early researchers, still fumbling their way through novel alien languages, but the name stuck.
[5] Turim III, later known as The Veil on account of its original state, went on to become an important Tebazeder colony after it was stabilized in this dimension, second in population only to the valion homeworld by the end of the century. It remains unclear to AnCiv scientists whether the First League was unable to develop a technique for stabilizing the planet — or if they had been the cause of the planet’s destabilization in the first place.
[6] Perhaps the most notable technological development, or at least the most immediately impactful, was a profoundly new method of organizing information. Quantum filing arrays, utilizing the inherent uncertainty at the sub-atomic level to stack information at simultaneous and superimposed locations, revolutionized the many bureaucratic functions of the Directorate.
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This was a bit of a longer one, a return to earlier times when the chapters would wind up overstuffed; perhaps I should have broken this one up into two. Nevertheless!
We got to see one way in which the new surpluses were put to use in this chapter; there's more to come on that front in upcoming chapters.
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Very interesting!
Is the technology for ring worlds up-and-coming, or is that too far in the future?
It's funny imagining smugglers, outcasts, and scientists all living together. How much of the cityscape on Fen Hab was reclaimed and how much was left untouched by these initial migrants?
Is the technology for ring worlds up-and-coming, or is that too far in the future?
It's funny imagining smugglers, outcasts, and scientists all living together. How much of the cityscape on Fen Hab was reclaimed and how much was left untouched by these initial migrants?
The data located in the First League HQ might be useful. A lot of it might be inaccurate, though - the galaxy has changed in the last few million years...
How directly does the TUG govern Fen Hab? The chapter made it sound like its control was... limited.
These space habitats should allow much more room for the species of the TUG to grow their populations...
How directly does the TUG govern Fen Hab? The chapter made it sound like its control was... limited.
These space habitats should allow much more room for the species of the TUG to grow their populations...
I would personally not be in a hurry to move to a habitat but hey, a lack of opportunities elsewhere can do wonders for motivation.
A full relic world is an exciting prospect, though hopefully not an omen of the fall of star civilizations
A full relic world is an exciting prospect, though hopefully not an omen of the fall of star civilizations