December 5 2003 at 10:50 PM No score for this post
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Of the ancient race today called the Xunca, almost nothing
is known. Even the name is a transliteration of a myth of
a transliteration of a myth.
One of the only times that the Vorlon Council delegation
has given a straight answer to -anything- was when asked
about the Xunca - that answer is here reproduced in full.
"Of the, Xunca we, know no more, than you."
The Xunca are one of the great mysteries of the galaxy.
All that survives of them besides the occaisional legend
are a series of - presumably - technological artifacts.
An entire world, outright -constructed- for some unknown
purpose, and its entire solar system reshaped.
Featureless monoliths, of some matte black substance that
has not only defied, but laughed at every attempt to
determine its nature and composition. They are of varying
sizes, but always the same proportions - one by four by
nine.
A tremendous construct, believed to have once covered
anywhere between a half and two thirds of the Silesian
Sextant, woven out of the fabric of hyperspace itself.
And, it is whispered in rumor and legend and prophecy,
the Galactic Leyline, the proverbial hacker's backdoor
to root access to the fundamental structure of the
universe.
The Nexus resembles a web, strung of wormhole links
between the stars of the inner Silesian Sextant. It is
not, of course, anything of the sort. Not a wormhole,
anyway. The local spacer's ghost stories contain a
disturbing element of similarity when they describe a
brilliant silver-white ship of undetermined - and
perhaps undeterminable - size, racing through and
around the lines of the Nexus for reasons entirely
its own.
The tales also say that it is not alone, merely the
busiest, the most often seen of many. The tales say
that while the silver ship might simply ignore those
who's paths cross its, there are other lost ships
roaming the Nexus that are not so kind...
Well. Irregardless of that, the lines of the Nexus
are not wormhole lanes, and don't act like them. First
and foremost, transiting them takes a perceptible
amount of time (a few seconds, no more). Second, they
will pass anything that enters their mouths - no jump
point required. In fact, third, instead of being
exceptionally turbulent, hyperspace for several
lightweeks around each warp point is simply and flatly
inaccessible.
(this differs from hyperspace interdiction technology
in that interdictors make hyperspace too dangerous to
stay in - you can still -try- to get there, but
the jump point will probably destabalize and explode
in your face (since realspace is more stable than
hyper, jump points aimed there are less vulnerable)
Near a warp point, the jump point doesn't go *BANG*,
it goes *fizzle*)
Finally, rather than being mostly random like wormhole
termini, Nexus lines are of very specific lengths -
never less than five light years, never more than
thirty.
Naturally, the Nexus tends to be a little bit of a
seperate world from the rest of the Spiral. Nueva
Terra is significant w/respect to the Spiral as a
whole because it's one of maybe five or ten worlds
along the edge of the Nexus that -also- have their
own jumpgates, and hence get the vast majority of
the Nexus's outside trade funneled through them
(not that there's that -much-, proportionally,
but the Nexus is a -big- hunk of space).
Blessed be.
-n
(As a thought - when the Chaos Gods are tramping through that part of space, what say they tear and break the Nexus behind them?)
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It's an interesting idea but hyperspace around the Cluster would have to work normally or the Galactic Empire of Aho wouldn't function since they don't have any access to the Caprician junction (they hadn't visited any of the terminii and never did a proper survey of Caprice's solar system because there weren't any habitable worlds)
As the geography of the cluster works out, with the exception of Caprice, the NEC worlds and Nueva Tierra are located around the outskirts of the GEA with most of the NEC worlds in systems attainable sublight distances from wormhole terminii in deep space. Nueva Tierra, Caprice and Earth are exceptions as the junction and these two terminii are located within the star systems.
drakensis
"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf
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> It's an interesting idea but hyperspace around the Cluster would have to work normally or the Galactic Empire of Aho wouldn't function since they don't have any access to the Caprician junction (they hadn't visited any of the terminii and never did a proper survey of Caprice's solar system because there weren't any habitable worlds) <
> As the geography of the cluster works out, with the exception of Caprice, the NEC worlds and Nueva Tierra are located around the outskirts of the GEA with most of the NEC worlds in systems attainable sublight distances from wormhole terminii in deep space. Nueva Tierra, Caprice and Earth are exceptions as the junction and these two terminii are located within the star systems. <
Hm. Try this - stop thinking about NT and the NEC in Heavy Gear terms (or even just in terms of our current bastardization thereof) for a moment, and take a look at them as a cul de sac in Starfire-style warp points. Nueva Tierra has two warp points - one leading to the NEC, and the other out into the Nexus at large. The NEC, when it desires to, can still trade by jumpship the way the rest of the galaxy does - or, if it gets desperate enough, start investing in jumpgates - but it can only access other points in the Nexus by going through Nueva Tierra or reaching them the hard way. The GEA probably occupies their own nearby chunk of the Nexus.
And in addition to explaining Caprice and bringing our version of the area actually back closer to canon, the Nexus, being a very large place, gives us a place to put all the other sci-fi that uses the wormhole version of space travel - Starfire and Miles Vorkosigan are the ones that leap to mind.
The final point is one of scale - the Caprician cluster and surrounding areas cover, what, a sector at most? The Nexus occupies everything from the Darkvoid to the Deep Core, with Caprice just a minor offshoot thereof.
Blessed be.
-n
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Also, while several light-weeks is a big chunk of space, most star systems are several light -months- across, and a warp point can occur anywhere in that volume. You can still use hyperspace inside the Nexus, it's just kind of... limited.
Blessed be.
-n
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My mistake. I was thinking of it as a vast area of no hyperspace travel - wormhole only. Since that's not the case, I retract my objection.
It might make sense to have some sort of requirement for using the warp-points though. Most of the examples I can find require activation in some way. It might be different from the use of hyperdrives to open wormholes but some sort of engine is usually required.
drakensis
"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf
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I tried mapping out a portion of the nexus, based upon the maps in HG and The Shiva Option.
The sort of feel I'm getting is that the minute anyone mapped Caprice's system for warp-points there would be a mad scramble to try to take the system... I've counted 13 warppoint equivalents. Strategically it makes the system almost priceless and incredibly difficult to defend.
Tierra Nueva OTOH has 4 warp-points, two of which deadend, and both the others lead back to Caprice (one of them via a couple of other systems (the only closed ring in the Caprician cluster). TN is therefore very closely tied to Caprice for contact via warp-point travel but very difficult to attack.
(The fact that the balance of power I'm working with has the ICF fielding thrice as many hulls as the TNUF but only slightly more tonnage makes this very interesting for both sides. Tierran Nueva's system defenses are -insanely- powerful (and are going to be ripped up by everyone and his dog before the planet's destruction in Act III).)
drakensis
"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf
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Um, I beg to differ on the relative size of solar systems. Pluto is 39 AU from the sun, which is only about five light-_hours_ distance. I'd be very frightened at any solar system stretching out over a distance of light-months.
Gomen...
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Putting the limit at around 2 light-hours radius would leave large areas of any star system relatively inaccessible (2 light hours is about 15 AU) with hyperdrive, but still make it possible to enter a system using it and then reach planets at sublight speed. That seems reasonable.
With a little workup I've designed the Caprician regions of the Nexus so I'll tidy that up a bit and post it for you guys to look over and see what you think.
drakensis
"I believe that forgiving the enemy is God's function. Ours is simply to arrange the meeting." - General H Norman Schwarzkopf
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I've drawn up a map for that tiny part of the Nexus near Caprice as well as several key worlds that are not connected to the Nexus but are in contact with worlds that are.
The grey areas are representations of larger polities - worlds within them are those with other connections deeper into those realms. Most of them should be recognisable to those who know Starfire, the Ryall are from the Antares books. The GEA has no warp-points, but is close to the NEC and Tierra Nueva in hyperspace terms, as are Mejele and Tarak.