Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To expand upon NHU and start commemorating people who've played an important role in Ashin's life.
- Image Credit: "Modern Tower" by jfliesenborgs, found at http://jfliesenborghs.deviantart.com/art/Modern-tower-552436710
- Canon: N/A
- Links: None
SETTING INFORMATION
- Structure Name: The Garrett Granth III Institute for Astrophysics
- Classification: A classroom/lab/office building within a university
- Location: New Habat University, New Habat, Varunda IX
- Affiliation: New Habat University
- Accessibility: Easy to find and open to the public, though labs and offices are kept locked.
- Security: Apart from standard campus security forces, armed solely with nonlethal weapons (including paddle beamers), the university relies on the nearby First Order garrison and station in case of emergency. The Granth Institute also contains its own emergency shield generator.
- Description: The Granth Institute is a modern, high-capacity, multirole university building with two small outbuilding spires. It contains classrooms, labs, offices, various services, and a food court. It sits in the hills at the edge of NHU campus, just outside New Habat proper.
POINTS OF INTEREST
SHUTTLE TERMINAL: Several Samara-class Ithorian shuttles connect students, staff, and faculty to the rest of NHU's sprawling campus, as well as the city, the planet, and the sector. You might spot familiar faces among the drivers, as elsewhere on Varunda IX: Kol clones, used by the Lords of the Fringe as pilots, vehicle operators, and rear-echelon personnel. Visiting ships can land here if lightly armed.
STATUE: A somewhat idealized depiction of the rogue scientist Garrett Granth III, scourge of the Charon, dominates a comfortable sitting garden and study area. The statue is dull bronzium and carries a sonic servodriver.
REL CONNORY AMPHITHEATRE: The Connory Amphitheatre is a multipurpose, reconfigurable space used for concerts, conventions, and thousand-student lectures. Named for the noted inventor and onetime Senator of Eshan, the Connory Amphitheatre is state-of-the-art.
TURBOLIFT: A large, underground turbolift network connects the Granth Institute with the nearest other buildings on campus, reducing strain on the shuttle service.
SPIRES: The main building and its two outbuildings rise to needle spires which contain ever-shifting prototype instrumentation and long-range astrometric sensors.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Granth Institute was funded anonymously by Ashin Varanin (during her years as Ajira Cardei), who earmarked her donation for an advanced research facility. In keeping with NHU's focus on science, the Granth Institute is a bleeding-edge centre of physics research, especially so far as that region of the galaxy is concerned. In funding, citations, patents per year, spin-off corporations, endowed research chairs, and other key indicators, the Institute eventually matched any physics department in the galaxy. It's quite good at what it does.
After Varunda IX joined the First Order, NHU's relationship with government scientists and granting agencies expanded. The Granth Institute's physicists worked and consulted on sensitive projects, mainly in classified locations elsewhere. The last thing anyone would want would be a data security breach that jeopardized national security.
Scientists from the Granth Institute have become frequent passengers on the S.S. Shambhala and NHU's other research vessels.
