Askonia Star System
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Askonia is a predominantly Sindrian Diktat system with an Independent and pirate world.
The Askonia system is the Sindrian Diktat's only star system, and is heavily guarded by the faction's patrol fleets.
Askonia, Red Giant
| A low-to-medium mass star in a late phase of stellar evolution, a red giant has exhausted the supply of hydrogen in its core and switched to hydrogen fusion a shell around the now helium core instead. While the star itself is huge, the outer envelope has a lower temperature, giving the star its characteristic hue. | ||
–In-Game | ||
- Center of Askonia System
| A Domain-era technology, a nav buoy monitors the in-system hyperfield and is capable of transmitting its findings to friendly fleets in-system. The data readings are pristine and of great use in configuring drive fields. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
- Orbits Askonia
Sindria (Askonia I), Rocky Metallic World, Sindrian Diktat
| Capital of the Sindrian Diktat and home to millions of citizens living in underground hive-cities. Centuries of mining has wormed through the crust of Sindria while recent autarky programs have fostered a crude base of heavy industry. Vast energies captured by a series of solar arrays launched from subsurface mass drivers are used to power one of the Sector's few AM fuel production facilities where antimatter is created via hellish physics, then trapped in fullerene shells carefully mixed with heavy hydrogens and actinides into the relatively stable fuel pellets on which interstellar civilization relies. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
| This world's battered crust of cyclopean debris criss-crossed by kilometers-deep pits and chasms is bombarded with intense radiation on the day side, so habitats and industrial facilities must be built deep beneath the surface. The population of Sindria is concentrated in a handful of hive-cities where living conditions for most are poor and civil law harsh. A desperate underclass lives beneath those who are lucky enough to have found positions in the state bureaucracy and intelligence services. Infrastructure has never kept up with the population crisis of massive refugee immigration during the Askonia Crisis as resources have been concentrated on industry and military power. | ||
–Secondary Description | ||
- Planetary Conditions
- Population: Sindria is a world of tens of millions.
- Moderate Rare Ore Deposits: No bonuses or penalties to transplutonic ore production (Mining).
- Abundant Ore Deposits: +1 ore production (Mining).
- No Atmosphere: +50% hazard rating.
- Extreme Heat: +50% hazard rating.
- Hazard Rating: 200%
- Sindrian Diktat Market
- Population & Infrastructure
- Megaport
- Refining
- Orbital Works
- Corrupted Nanoforge: Increases ship production quality by 20%. Increases production by 1 unit.
- Fuel Production
- Synchrotron Core: Increases fuel production by 3 units.
- Battlestation - Low Tech
- Heavy Batteries
- High Command
- Lion's Guard HQ: Headquarters of the feared personal guard of Phillip "The Lion of Sindria" Andrada. Boasting superb training and access to the best equipment credits can buy, the fanatical loyalty of the Guard is maintained through a system of perks and incentives that both elevate and isolate the Guard from the Diktat's regular military.
- Orbits Askonia
Command & Control
- Orbits Sindria
- Extension of Sindria base
Sindria Jump Point
- Orbits Askonia as Sindria's L4 trojan
Sindria Relay
| A Domain-era technology used primarily on the frontier, this is a hyperwave communications array which transmits and receives data between star systems at faster-than-light speeds. The rapidly pulsing hyperwaves suitable for FTL data transmission have been shown to damage DNA so these relays are always stationed away from habitats. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
- Orbits Askonia as Sindria's L5 trojan
Stone River (Asteroid Belt I)
- Orbits Askonia just outside Sindria's orbit
Askonia Gate (Inactive Gate)
| A solid ring of adamantine material, derelict of a former age. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
- Orbits Askonia just inside Salus's orbit
Salus (Askonia II), Gas Giant
| A gas giant world of immense mass, the crushingly-deep atmosphere is coloured by abundant ammonia and sulphide compounds. Vast electrical storms can sometimes be seen on the night-side of this world. Salus is somewhat smaller and has relatively sedate radiation fields compared to those of Jupiter of Old Earth's system. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
- Planetary Conditions
- Note that as an uninhabited world, Salus will have a range of market conditions that changes between playthroughs.
- As a Gas Giant, it will always contains a randomly generated amount of volatiles.
- Extreme Weather: +25% hazard rating.
- Hot: +25% hazard rating.
- High Gravity: +50% hazard rating & -10% accessibility.
- Hazard Rating: 150%+
- Orbits Askonia
Cruor (Askonia II-A), Rocky Unstable World, Sindrian Diktat
| Cruor will always be a backwater due to its protean surface, broken and re-broken by the tidal forces of Salus. Under Diktat rule, Cruor is a world of temporary mining and prison operations. The free population is made of contractors and technicians from Volturn seeking their fortune off-world. Desperately bored workers burn their wages by partaking of the myriad vices provided by a lively black market quietly tolerated by the Diktat governor. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
| The world's crust is squeezed and cracked by the powerful tidal forces of Salus, causing regular quakes and eruptions. Abundant geysers of volatile gases maintain a thin, toxic atmosphere and combine with iron compounds to give Cruor its sanguine colouration. Tracked rigs roam the more stable surface provinces, ripping out rare or merely convenient ores for export while corroding ruins of machines can occasionally be seen amidst the scars of strip-mining. Dark rumours circulate about the conditions of mobile labour camps operated by Diktat Intelligence. | ||
–Secondary Description | ||
| You land on a free pad in the port segment of the giant tracked city-train that worms forever over the broken plains of Cruor. Upon disembarkation, the scarred decking shifts and rolls almost imperceptibly. A grim-faced Diktat officer flanked by guards takes your credentials and interrogates you about each of the standard information fields as if you were guilty of something, perhaps everything.
Diktat banners jostle limply over the port concourse as other captains endure similar treatment. You wonder idly at the dirty, open-top cages installed at each receiving-bay. |
||
–Market Description with Transponder On | ||
| Your shuttle lands on a maintenance pad in a utility segment of one of the tracked city-trains that forever crawls over the broken plains of Cruor. The scarred deck shifts and rolls for a tense few minutes, then a locked hatch unbolts to allow your entry. Whatever ruse, favor, or deception you called upon to gain entry has worked.
You and your entourage make your way through a maze of access conduits to emerge into a public corridor. You're greeted by peeling Sindrian Diktat propaganda decals and strange looks from a few subdued off-shift workers. |
||
–Market Description with Transponder Off | ||
- Planetary Conditions
- Population: Cruor is home to hundreds of thousands of people.
- Ultrarich Rare Ore Deposits: +3 transplutonic ore production (Mining).
- Ultrarich Ore Deposits: +3 ore production (Mining).
- Thin Atmosphere: +25% hazard rating.
- Extreme Tectonic Activity: +50% hazard rating.
- Hazard Rating: 175%
- Sindrian Diktat Market
- Orbits Salus
Opis Ring (Planetary Ring)
- The remains of the Askonian capital Opis, which was destroyed in the Askonia Crisis
- Orbits Salus between Cruor and Volturn
Opis Debris Field
- Asteroid field
- Presumably Opis' original position
- Shares its orbit with the Opis Ring
Volturn (Askonia II-B), Water World, Sindrian Diktat
| Volturn possesses a thick atmosphere over a world-sea which has been seeded with re-engineered Terra-type life forms that have largely displaced the relatively primitive native organisms which once formed vast drifting colonial mats. Beneath the hundreds of kilometers of ocean a core of water-ice over a rocky-metallic core is formed by the immense pressure. Volturn's population lives in a diverse range of floating habitats and subsists largely on farming and processing complex organic compounds. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
| Volturn was envisioned as a planet of agriculture and leisure to service the now annihilated capital city-moon, Opis. Refugees from the Askonia Crisis have swelled the population of Volturn many-fold, surpassing even the numbers of Sindria and filling the floating arcologies, resort-cruisers, and terraforming barges with makeshift housing. An economy of light industry and aquaculture prevail with many products derived from the processing of sea-life genetically modified to flourish in the Volturnian world-ocean. A Diktat garrison maintains uneasy rule over this world of stinking algae farms and sprawling, floating slums that are a hotbed of resistance movements, esoteric cults, and criminal syndicates. | ||
–Secondary Description | ||
| The main port of Volturn is built on a flotilla of huge burned-looking barges wallowing in oily water. The smell of ozone and salt assaults you as you disembark. Offloading ship captains are processed by a dour Diktat logistics officer before being allowed to proceed to the public concourse. Traders in dull suits, Diktat pins dutifully displayed on the collar, pass around a datapad loaded with cargo manifests.
A flickering holoprojector displays a larger-than-life image of Admiral Andrada, the Lion of Sindria, flanked by Sindrian Diktat banners that could be waving in the sea wind. His commanding gaze is cast toward the gull-analogs circling above. |
||
–Market Description with Transponder On | ||
| Your shuttle lands on an unsteady barge in the dirty backwater of one of the floating slums surrounding a half-submerged processing plant. The smell of ozone, salt, and human waste assaults you as soon as you disembark. The crumbling deck-tiles below you shift and roll off-phase with nearby structures, their vents and masts all askew. This effect, combined with the stench, is singularly nauseating. You hope that whatever ruse, favor, or deception you called upon to make this landing will prove worthwhile. | ||
–Market Description with Transponder Off | ||
- Planetary Conditions
- Population: Volturn is a world of tens of millions.
- Volturnian Lobster Pens: A mix of several Old Earth species and a little imagination produced this creature which grows wild in the crushing depths of Volturn's sea floor. The flavor is said to be exceptional.
+1 Volturnian Lobster production (Farming). - Abundant Organics: +1 organics production (Mining).
- Water-covered Surface: +25% hazard rating.
No bonuses or penalties to food production (Farming). - Habitable: -25% hazard rating.
- Hazard Rating: 100%
- Sindrian Diktat Market
- Notes
- A site of a Luddic shrine that's routinely visited by Luddics pilgrims as part of the The Pilgrim's Path.
- This is the only market where Volturnian Lobster can be found.
- Orbits Salus
Nortia (Askonia II-L4), Barren-Bombarded World, Independent
| A large but anonymous metallic/silicate planetoid caught in the L4 point of Salus, Nortia was once dedicated to seasonal robotic mining operations and substance abuse before it was inundated with refugees during the Askonia Crisis. It now forms the strongest independent base of Charterist rebels in the system. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
| Since the Crisis, Nortia's mining and refining centers have grown sprawling, tumorous rockfoam suburbs; here following mining tunnels beneath the surface, there bubbling up comm-arrays, solar collectors, and pressure domes. Civil governance is carried out in the form of an uneasy agreement between the underground Charterist resistance forces (organized in a dual military hierarchy/cell structure) backing an above-ground cartel of independent smugglers pretending to be a legitimate sub-planetary government. They even boast a Hegemony consulate. | ||
–Secondary Description | ||
- Planetary Conditions
- Population: Tens of thousands of people live on Nortia.
- Sparse Rare Ore Deposits: -1 transplutonic ore production (Mining).
- Moderate Ore Deposits: No bonuses or penalties to ore production (Mining).
- No Atmosphere: +50% hazard rating.
- Cold: +25% hazard rating.
- Low Gravity: +25% hazard rating & +10% accessibility.
- Hazard Rating: 200%
- Independent Market
- Orbits Askonia as Salus' L4 trojan
Salus L5 Jump Point
- Inhabits an asteroid field
- Orbits Askonia as Salus' L5 trojan
Umbra (Askonia III), Rocky Ice World, Pirates
| Seat of the Askonian Revolutionary Council, a local faction of Antis. Conditions are unforgiving as harsh emergency regulations have been decreed by the Council. Economic activity consists of mining volatiles and reprocessing tailings from the abandoned core-boring project. The ARC has also allowed what might be termed "pirates" to operate from Umbra, for independent traders have been scared away by the "emergency expropriations" imposed by the ARC. Small numbers of refugees came to Umbra, straining local infrastructure, to join the revolution or expecting to find their way elsewhere. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
| Far from Askonia's primary, Umbra is a frozen world of methane and ammonia where water-ice is like rock and may be found in mountainous outcroppings and boulders. A thin atmosphere of volatiles is formed on the starward side of the planet only to freeze again on the dark side. Most craters are filled in over time as this "snow" is deposited. There is some mining of heavier materials from the poor, rocky mantle buried many kilometers beneath the glacial crust. Habitats are burrowed deeply; life on Umbra is harsh and few would willingly choose to live here permanently. A trickle of idealistic out-of-system volunteers still brings much-needed supplies and hope. | ||
–Secondary Description | ||
| Pirate vessels dock alongside equally battered warships sprayed with the revolutionary slogans of the Antis. The offloading bays mix the metallic tang of vacuum with strained life support and unwashed humanity. Cargo is inspected - and occasionally expropriated - by Section-leaders flanked by guards eyeing down the offloading spacer crew. | ||
–Market Description | ||
- Planetary Conditions
- Population: Umbra is home to hundreds of thousands of people.
- Sparse Ore Deposits: -1 ore production (Mining).
- Diffuse Volatiles: No bonuses or penalties to volatiles production (Mining).
- Poor Light: +25% hazard rating.
- Thin Atmosphere: +25% hazard rating.
- Cold: +25% hazard rating.
- Hazard Rating: 175%
- Pirate Market
- Orbits Askonia
Askonia Fringe Listening Station
| Built using the best technology available in the Sector, a makeshift sensor array is nonetheless capable of passively monitoring the entire star system and has a transmitter capable of real-time, faster-than-light data transmission to friendly fleets within. The data is useful to supplement the regular sensor readings made by fleets. | ||
–In-Game Description | ||
- Orbits Askonia as Umbra's L4 trojan
Fringe Jump Point
- Orbits Askonia
Notes
- Umbra has near-constant deficits on supplies, fuel, and recreational drugs, and surpluses of crew, marines, and volatiles, making it a lucrative trade stop for those willing to brave the pirate patrols (especially since Sindria sells fuel relatively cheaply and often has deficits for volatiles).
- Sindrian Diktat controlled bars often have security officers willing to sell you confiscated Volturnian Lobsters duty-free and below market price.
Trivia
- Askonia comes from the old root “askon” meaning “ashes”.
- Sindria could be a reference to a fictional country in the Japanese media, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic. Alternatively Sindria could be based on the archaic spelling of “cinders” (see “sinter”) with the latin suffix “-ia”.
- Salus is the Roman goddess of safety & well-being.
- Nortia is Etruscan goddess of time, fate, destiny & chance.
- Umbra is the innermost & darkest portion of a shadow.
Version History
- Askonia is the second star system that was added in the game. Before it was added in update 0.6a, Corvus was the only system.
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