Askonia Star System

Askonia is a predominantly Sindrian Diktat system with an Independent and pirate world.

Askonia, Red Giant

Askonia

	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

Salus Navigation Buoy

Salus Nav Buoy

	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

Askonia I:Sindria

	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: Sindria contains modest transplutonic deposits that, with sustained industry and investment, could be profitably tapped.
No bonuses or penalties to ore production (Mining).

Abundant Ore Deposits: Abundant, widespread, and profitably extractable ore deposits can be found on Sindria.
+1 ore production (Mining).

No Atmosphere: No appreciable atmosphere exists on Sindria. Its surface is exposed to the hard weathering of space, a steady drizzle of radiation and micrometeorites.
+50% hazard rating.

Extreme Heat: Extreme heat necessitates specialized equipment and protocol to safely operate on Sindria, seriously complicating logistics, life support, and long-term stability of infrastructure.
+50% hazard rating.

• Hazard Rating: 200%

• Sindrian Diktat Market
  • Population & Infrastructure: The basic infrastructure required to support a given population, from rickety orbital hab-modules to megacities and everything between. Sindria is a world of tens of millions.
  • Megaport: A vast starport where the stars can touch the dirt. Regimented lander gantries and armoured fuel tanks are laced together by access-roads and short-haul cargo trams feeding a sprawl of warehouse districts and logistics terminals, all making the colony vastly more accessible.
  • Refining: Smelting plants here convert ores and transplutonic ores into metals and transplutonics, respectively. Teleoperated robotics are used to handle the most dangerous tasks, usually.
  • Orbital Works: Centralized manufacturing infrastructure for production of heavy industrial equipment, supplies, and weapons. Also capable of producing barely-spaceworthy starships; a nanoforge can be installed to improve production quality. Upgraded with an orbital component that further facilitates ship construction, resulting in fewer manufacturing defects.
    • Corrupted nanoforge. Increases ship and weapon production quality by 20%. Increases production by 1 unit.
  • Fuel Production: This facility produces starship fuel, the life-blood of interstellar civilization. Lacking Domain-tech components, fuel production is a laborious and slow process.
    • Synchrotron core. Increases fuel production by 3 units.
  • Battlestation - Low Tech: A space station, augmented with a heavy bastion and point-defense citadels. Must be reduced before invasions or bombardment can be attempted.
  • Heavy Batteries: Armoured subsurface batteries supplement a dispersed network of small, hidden weapon installations. Ground-based batteries are capable of truly awesome firepower, though it only manifests by making ground operations more difficult, as no starship captain would be foolish enough to get within their firing envelopes.
  • High Command: Transtellar empire is possible only through an exceptional corps of officers and bureaucrats given authority over the resources of entire star systems. An established high command allows military operations to be organized and executed across the Sector.
  • 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

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)

Askonia Gate

	A solid ring of adamantine material, derelict of a former age.
–In-Game Description

• Orbits Askonia just inside Salus' orbit

Salus (Askonia II), Gas Giant

Askonia II: Salus

	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

Diffuse Volatiles: Diffuse volatiles can be found here, and may be sufficient for industrial extraction.
No bonuses or penalties to volatiles production (Mining).

Extreme Weather: Violent storms bristling lightning rage across the skies of Salus. Though a sublime beauty from orbit, this produces harsh surface conditions making transportation and habitation highly inconvenient.
+25% hazard rating.

Hot: The high temperature conditions of Salus necessitates specialized equipment to perform normal operations, complicating life support and infrastructure.
+25% hazard rating.

High Gravity: The force of gravity on the surface of Salus is crushingly high. Humans require powered exoskeletons for regular movement and find even basic actions exhausting. Continual habitation is grueling at best. All operations take place with a heightened danger of falls and - if specialized engineering is not performed with adequate paranoia - structural collapse.
+50% hazard rating.
-10% accessibility.

• Hazard Rating: 200%

• Orbits Askonia

Cruor (Askonia II-A), Rocky Unstable World

Askonia II-A: Cruor

	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

• Planetary Conditions

Population: Cruor is home to hundreds of thousands of people.

Ultrarich Rare Ore Deposits: The transplutonic deposits glimmering with unbelievable density on the sensor-grid evoke portents of a power which could forge mighty war-fleets to burn worlds to ash -- or an eon of splendor and wealth for a polity of crystal towers as existed in the pre-collapse cycles of the Domain.
+3 transplutonic ore production (Mining).

Ultrarich Ore Deposits: Mineral wealth exists on Midas-touched Cruor beyond the wildest fantasies of the legendary mining megacorps of the Domain era.
+3 ore production (Mining).

Thin Atmosphere: A rarefied atmosphere clings determinedly to Cruor's surface.
+25% hazard rating.

Extreme Tectonic Activity: Cruor's crust roils chaotically with extreme quakes and cataclysmic volcanism events. Any operations will require exceptional care and use of many-times redundant warning systems so that the worst dangers can be avoided. Construction on this world can only ever be considered semi-permanent.
+50% hazard rating.

• Hazard Rating: 175%

• Sindrian Diktat Market
  • Population & Infrastructure: The basic infrastructure required to support a given population, from rickety orbital hab-modules to megacities and everything between. Cruor is home to hundreds of thousands of people.
  • Spaceport: Facilities for loading and unloading cargo and performing basic starship repairs. A colony without a spaceport is virtually inaccessible to interstellar trade.
  • Mining: Metal and metalloid ores, organics, and volatile compounds all require heavy equipment, special infrastructure, and a specialized workforce to extract. The harsh work attracts a certain type, and an administration that's not willing to look the other way now and again may find itself running short of willing personnel.
  • Ground Defenses: A dispersed, semi-autonomous network of small, hidden weapon installations which makes the prospect of a direct ground assault and even simple raids extremely costly to the attacker. Only overwhelming orbital bombardment or massively disproportionate active screening can suppress these defenses.
• 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

Askonia II-B: Volturn

	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

• 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: A river of wealth flows beneath the surface of Volturn - for those that would find and tap it.
+1 organics production (Mining).

Water-covered Surface: This is an ocean world with no substantial solid surface to land, walk, or build upon. Operations are complicated by the need for specialized training and equipment.
+25% hazard rating.
No bonuses or penalties to food production (Farming).

Habitable: Human beings can survive unprotected exposure to the surface conditions of Volturn.
-25% hazard rating.

• Hazard Rating: 100%

• Sindrian Diktat Market
  • Population & Infrastructure: The basic infrastructure required to support a given population, from rickety orbital hab-modules to megacities and everything between. Volturn is a world of tens of millions.
  • Spaceport: Facilities for loading and unloading cargo and performing basic starship repairs. A colony without a spaceport is virtually inaccessible to interstellar trade.
  • Aquaculture: Farming on a water world requires a significant initial investment in bioengineering suitable species, but once the process takes off, algae farms and fisheries can be operated by the population without requiring much in the way of specialized training or equipment.
  • Mining: Metal and metalloid ores, organics, and volatile compounds all require heavy equipment, special infrastructure, and a specialized workforce to extract. The harsh work attracts a certain type, and an administration that's not willing to look the other way now and again may find itself running short of willing personnel.
  • Light Industry: Produces domestic and luxury goods. One of the few industries relatively unaffected by the Collapse due to its low-tech nature.
  • Orbital Station - Midline: A midline space station, featuring heavy firepower on one side and rapid axial rotation. Must be reduced before invasions or bombardment can be attempted.
  • Ground Defenses: A dispersed, semi-autonomous network of small, hidden weapon installations which makes the prospect of a direct ground assault and even simple raids extremely costly to the attacker. Only overwhelming orbital bombardment or massively disproportionate active screening can suppress these defenses.
  • Patrol HQ: The requisite hangars, maintenance bays, command/control center, barracks, and logistics operations required to project force throughout a star system. Once established, militarized patrols will hunt pirates and protect friendly convoys.
• Orbits Salus

Nortia (Askonia II-L₄), Barren-Bombarded World

Askonia II-L₄: Nortia

	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: A few sparse transplutonic ore deposits exist here, but they are more of academic than industrial interest for their extraction is barely economical.
-1 transplutonic ore production (Mining).

Moderate Ore Deposits: Nortia contains moderate ore deposits that, under the right economic conditions, could be profitably exploited.
No bonuses or penalties to ore production (Mining).

No Atmosphere: No appreciable atmosphere exists on Nortia. Its surface is exposed to the hard weathering of space, a steady drizzle of radiation and micrometeorites.
+50% hazard rating.

Cold: The low temperatures found on Nortia necessitates specialized equipment to perform normal operations, complicating life support and infrastructure.
+25% hazard rating.

Low Gravity: Gravity is exceptionally low, though significantly above zero-g, on the surface of Nortia. Workflow and operation of (relatively) heavy machinery is complicated by the non-standard procedures required to deal with altered conditions of friction, weight, and pressure dynamics.
+25% hazard rating.
+10% accessibility.

• Hazard Rating: 200%

• Independent Market
  • Population & Infrastructure: The basic infrastructure required to support a given population, from rickety orbital hab-modules to megacities and everything between. Tens of thousands of people live on Nortia.
  • Spaceport: Facilities for loading and unloading cargo and performing basic starship repairs. A colony without a spaceport is virtually inaccessible to interstellar trade.
  • Refining: Smelting plants here convert ores and transplutonic ores into metals and transplutonics, respectively. Teleoperated robotics are used to handle the most dangerous tasks, usually.
  • Heavy Batteries: Armoured subsurface batteries supplement a dispersed network of small, hidden weapon installations. Ground-based batteries are capable of truly awesome firepower, though it only manifests by making ground operations more difficult, as no starship captain would be foolish enough to get within their firing envelopes.
  • Military Base: These facilities enable force projection between star systems. Any such military undertaking is a massive logistical operation requiring coordination of dozens, perhaps hundreds of star ships and thousands of officers, crew, and soldiers.
• 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

Askonia III: Umbra

	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

• Planetary Conditions

Population: Umbra is home to hundreds of thousands of people.

Sparse Ore Deposits: A few sparse ore deposits exist here, but they are more of an academic than industrial interest for their extraction is barely economical.
-1 ore production (Mining).

Diffuse Volatiles: Diffuse volatiles can be found here, and may be sufficient for industrial extraction.
No bonuses or penalties to volatiles production (Mining).

Poor Light: The light of Umbra's primary only provides feeble illumination and energy to this world.
+25% hazard rating.

Thin Atmosphere: A rarefied atmosphere clings determinedly to Umbra's surface.
+25% hazard rating.

Cold: The low temperatures found on Umbra necessitates specialized equipment to perform normal operations, complicating life support and infrastructure.
+25% hazard rating.

• Hazard Rating: 175%

• Pirate Market
  • Population & Infrastructure: The basic infrastructure required to support a given population, from rickety orbital hab-modules to megacities and everything between. Umbra is home to hundreds of thousands of people.
  • Spaceport: Facilities for loading and unloading cargo and performing basic starship repairs. A colony without a spaceport is virtually inaccessible to interstellar trade.
  • Mining: Metal and metalloid ores, organics, and volatile compounds all require heavy equipment, special infrastructure, and a specialized workforce to extract. The harsh work attracts a certain type, and an administration that's not willing to look the other way now and again may find itself running short of willing personnel.
  • Heavy Batteries: Armoured subsurface batteries supplement a dispersed network of small, hidden weapon installations. Ground-based batteries are capable of truly awesome firepower, though it only manifests by making ground operations more difficult, as no starship captain would be foolish enough to get within their firing envelopes.
  • Military Base: These facilities enable force projection between star systems. Any such military undertaking is a massive logistical operation requiring coordination of dozens, perhaps hundreds of star ships and thousands of officers, crew, and soldiers.
• Orbits Askonia

Askonia Fringe Listening Station

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 lobster duty-free and below market price.

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.