Atlas Drake
the new colossus
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To submit a fun plot device that provides a new extragalactic horror element to the ORC.
- Image Credit: The Expanse
- Canon: /
- Links: Launch Gate
- Hyperlane Name: Vector Null
- Hexes Crossed: 1
- Start Coordinate: L-53
- End Coordinate: N/A
- Route Points:
Caliban System - Typhan Expanse
- Companion Esk
HYPERLANE CHARACTERISTICS
- Speed: Very Low
- Accessibility: Vector Null is accessible from our galaxy only by activating the Great Gate in the Caliban system, propelling starships forward through hyperspace with sufficient force to carry them to the Typhan Expanse. Another pair of gates exists on either end of the rogue star cluster, allowing expedition's to either return to Caliban or continue on to Companion Esk.
- Route Hazards:
Xenos Creatures: Unidentified species from Companion Esk have been classified as 'xenos' until they can properly be catalogued, and the Typhan Expanse is alive with them. Many of the deadliest creatures from the fringes of both galaxies reside on those few remaining habitable worlds interspersed throughout the cluster. - Gravitic Phenomena: Long term exposure to the void between galaxies has left the star cluster gravimetrically unstable, causing rolling waves of crushing force to radiate across the Expanse that can both damage systems and in its worst cases fatally compress organic life. There have also been rumors of temporal anomalies, but due to their inherent nature nothing has ever been confirmed.
- Vong Marauders: Long ago it seems the Yuuzhan Vong also tried to conquer Companion Esk, but the extragalactic invaders' speartip was quickly blunted by the satellite galaxy's uncommonly deadly evolutionary curve. Now the fragmented remains of these once proud tyrants roam both Esk and the Expanse as marauders, warring with both other species and each other much as they do here.
- Fuel Requirements: The distances covered from one end of Vector Null to the other are vast, and while much of the most strenuous travel is assisted by the Kathol launch gates, the distance between each end of the Expanse is not inconsiderable. There is no direct route from one side to another, rather a maze of circuitous jump points. And then there is the fuel consumption necessary to reach Caliban in the first place, weeks of travel from the nearest port of call.
[*]Rest Stops:
- The Typhan Expanse: The Typhan Expanse is a rogue star cluster roughly equidistant between the Outer Rim and Companion Esk's closest spiral arm. Knocked off course by some incomprehensibly vast stellar phenomenon, the Expanse has been sailing through void for aeons. Most of the cluster's stars are dying, all variously in the later stages of their lifespans.
LV.86 - LV.86 is a world with an inhospitable surface but a vibrant hollow earth. Subterranean ecologies thrive in volcanic trenches, and expedition teams have already catalogued a multitude of new flora with each successive visit. - LV.426 - 426 is a swamp planet that is either the indigenous or adopted homeworld of a particularly virulent species of xenos that latch onto their victims and inject their larvae for gestation.
- LV.1 - A barren wasteland which is barely habitable, almost nothing is noteworthy about LV.1 save for its close proximity to the black hole at the center of the Expanse. What few expeditions that have returned from LV.1 have reported severe space time disturbances.
DESCRIPTION
Vector Null was not simply charted but constructed untold millennia ago, either by the native Kathol species or others who came not long after. Most likely devised as some form of grand experiment, it is hypothesized that when the Kathol reached their target destination of Companion Esk they found it so hostile to peaceful contact that they deactivated the launch gates. Some have even speculated that the entire Kathol Rift was formed to ensure that the galaxy would remain safe from the denizens of Esk who had been made aware of their presence.
The hyperlane is only accessible from the Caliban system deep within the densest part of the Rift. Whatever technology the ancient Kathol employed to seal Caliban and by extension Vector Null off from the rest of known space is finally starting to break down, and recently Coalition expedition teams have successfully reactivated the Great Gate for the first time in recorded history. Still by and large ignorant to the horrific nature of what lies on the other side, explorers from across the galaxy see Vector Null as a wild new frontier.
