Astrapelago
A 6Gen heliosphere, Astrapelago consists of one star, Ereboz, orbited by one large gas giant and four minor planets. The first slipway was discovered from Juno in 725 and the last was the discovery of the Periphery heliosphere in 749. Primary industry consists of harvesting resources of the gas giant, Nyx, and its many moons, as well as a transit hub for migrational tradeships across the Pentahelios array and beyond.
Major Orbital Bodies
Ereboz
Type N (4) star rated 4.2 on the praxial luminosity scale.
Sisyphus
Solid-core minor planet. Several thousand hectares of solar collectors form the basis of its energy export systems. Sparsely inhabited, Sisyphus is believed to be a rendezvous point for the inter-sphere Tekiya smuggling cartel that has established itself across other parts of the Pentahelios array.
Ixios
Solid-core minor planet. Its core industry is orbital ship-building. Foundational base of the OSSU.
Arke
Liquid-core minor planet. Arke is a ‘trojan’ occupying the same orbital path as Nyx, at the forward Lagrange point. Having least benefit from ‘debris clearing’ by its gas giant companion, it is bombarded with meteors, their trails lighting the sky day and night. With human-viable atmospheric pressure and composition, conditions on Arke are not inhabitable in the long term but are far from lethal.
The high levels of extraplanetary elements from celestial collision makes Arke an ideal scavenging ground and mining site, though the relative frequency of dangerous meteor impacts prevents even sealed permanent settlements and brings a significant risk to any operations there. Even so, it is a site of frequent but brief skirmishes over particularly valuable impact lodes and subsurface deposits.
Nyx
Nyx is orbited by 100+ satellites, of which eleven are large enough to be considered dwarf planets and 50+ are large enough for permanent human facilities (although only a fraction are currently inhabited or charted). One of the most exploited features of the Nyxian atmosphere is the presence of tritium rivers. These are dredged by a number of competing concerns that service the burgeoning ship-building industry and migrant trader refuelling stations.
Prominent Nyx Satellites
Tantalus
Solid-core minor planet. Still undergoing long-term terraforming projects to increase its inhabitability, Tantalus is a barren, cold world with moderate mineral deposits. Its main population is a number of mining concerns managed by Ridgeway Mining. Tantalus is exceptional in that its orbit closely matches the locally perceived movement of the slip point to Periphery. A slipway observational post is located at Saber Ridge to exploit this unusual feature, as most slip point observatories are void-based and far more vulnerable.
Site of the Saber Ridge Incident.
Politics
As a relatively new discovery, Astrapelago is subject to great influence from its neighboring heliospheres and is still in the early stages of occupation and exploitation. Several hundred members of People's Galactic—prospector families, enclaves and consortiums—mine the moons and asteroids of Astrapelago as well as trawl-harvest in Nyx’s atmosphere. This population used to be far higher, with several million Expansionists, until the discovery of the heliosphere later named Periphery. The exodus that followed left the system ripe for occupation and exploitation by Hegemonic operatives and influence in the form of Interhelios.
No dominant philosophy.
Standard mix of social-capital balanced economic systems.
Majority religion is a number of Galaxia Sapiens denominations, but they do not benefit from any specific constitutional or political protections or have a standing political legislature.
Major political factions are:
See also
