CENTRUM Centrum Is the birthplace of human life in
Tantalus and the capital world of the Centrum Assembly.
Over the centuries, the cities of Centrum have merged into a single metropolis, but
the world still maintains large areas of water and greenery.
In its prime the planet-spanning city was filled with beautiful architecture, with fusion,
wind and solar power plants producing energy.
In its current state, the world lies in disrepair, the people are starving and non-essential
structures exist in partial states of deconstruction as they are salvaged by the assembly for desperately
needed materials.
Food riots are common, and a state of destitution has descended upon most of the residential
areas.
Even the towering arcologies of the Centrum Parliament district have lost much of their
past splendour.
Centrum is the only naturally habitable planet orbiting the blue sun Centrum Solaris.
The planet has two small, rocky moons named Lysane and Lysara, each of which carries numerous
dome cities in similar condition to Centrum City itself.
The Centrum system also houses a number of planetside cities on bodies like Destrum and
Carida, as well as numerous public space stations such as the now-decommissioned Hadimus Gateforge,
the first Drift Gate production centre ever constructed.
PIONEER The small planet of Storm in the system ‘Pioneer’
was the first colony settled by humanity after expanding beyond the Centrum System.
The planet is only barely habitable, with settlements built into rocky mountain ranges
and battered by powerful storms.
Pioneer’s population was fairly low for a long time, but the mass-overpopulation crisis
currently gripping Tantalus has forced many to take the unpleasant environment of Pioneer
as their home.
Pioneer orbits a dim, yellow star, and is the only object of any real interest in its
system.
RIALTIS Rialtis was the second solar system outside
of Centrum to be settled by humans, with Rialtis IV representing the first naturally habitable
planet ever reached by colonists.
Rialtis IV rotates on a small axial tilt, resulting in year-long seasons that maintain
a warm climate, beautiful landscapes and pleasant weather, which led the world to become a popular
holiday destination in the times before the great famine.
The primary export of the Rialtis system is Rialtan Stonewine, with the planet’s conditions
proving extremely favourable for vineyards.
Rialtis is also renowned across the cluster for professional spacecraft racing, annually
playing host to the Rialtan Solar Circuit and contributing many of the most famous and
successful racing teams to the sport.
AXIUS Axius is the second most populous world in
Tantalus after Centrum.
The planet is covered in large cities, separated by alpine mountain ranges.
Axius is famous for its courthouses and universities, generally being considered the centre of academia
in Tantalus.
Axian cities are dotted with extravagant monuments and statues.
Axius is one of few naturally habitable planets in the Tantalus Cluster and is by far the
most prosperous of the early colony worlds.
During the Frontier War, the Axius system was heavily fortified to prevent the Union
from spreading deeper into the Centrum Assembly, this resulted in more battles being fought
over Axius than in any other location throughout the war.
In 0299 PCU the Frontier Union constructed their first and only Dreadnought, the Arashi-Sakara,
for the express purpose of breaking the Axius Blockade.
The resulting ‘Fourth Battle of Axius’ proved to be the bloodiest engagement of the
war, ending with the destruction of the Sakara and a costly victory for the Assembly.
VALERIA SIBUS Orbiting a colossal Blue Gas Giant called
Valeria, Valeria Sibus is a tiny moon covered entirely in cityscapes and industrial facilities.
Unlike Centrum there is no greenery or bodies of water, as the moon was originally a barren
and rocky wasteland.
Valeria Sibus is famed for its night life, shipping businesses and gambling scene, and
is generally seen as one of the less respectable Tantalus worlds.
The moon has a high crime rate, and plays host to numerous Smugglers, Pirates and Gangsters.
The very low humidity of the tiny moon makes static electric shocks and nosebleeds very
common among visitors, these sudden nosebleeds can be a lethal choking danger if suffered
while asleep, especially when an individual’s reactions are dulled by alcohol or drugs,
fatalities caused this way are known by locals as “Going Red” and the effects are often
simulated by local gangsters to disguise the bodies of murder victims.
FIREWATCH Due to the intense heat of Firewatch’s red
hypergiant sun, the first exploratory force dispatched to the system could not be sent
via Drift Gate, as the innate inaccuracy of single-gate travel and the size of the star
would make it almost impossible to target the area of safe space without overshooting
and being disintegrated by the star.
Instead a huge Exploratory Platform called the ‘Wanderer’ was built, and sent on
an almost six-year voyage to the Firewatch system using only Drift Drives (The longest
single journey undertaken by humans).
Upon arrival, the ship spent a further year constructing a Drift gate to connect the system
to the rest of Tantalus.
Firewatch is brightly visible from anywhere in Tantalus, and features some of the most
lucrative Drift Mines and Industrial colonies in the cluster.
The system is famed for its metals, unconventional artwork, and potent ‘Firewatch Whisky’.
Following the colonisation of Firewatch, the system became something of a cultural project
within the Centrum Assembly, with the retired Wanderer being converted into an orbital museum,
the earliest colonists being celebrated as public figures and vast amounts of funding
being poured into the development of the Firewatch II Colony.
This led to significant unrest within the Frontier Union, who had long suffered due
to critically limited resources and living space on their worlds, only to see the new
Firewatch colony given such obvious favouritism.
This unrest eventually led to a bombing attack on the Wanderer museum, which destroyed the
facility and caused lethal debris strikes on the surface of Firewatch II, the first
in a number of crises that would eventually grow into the Frontier War.
KEEPER’S DANCE The third system reached by human colonists,
Keeper’s Dance features only a small number of Gas Giants and no potential colony sites,
but does offer a sizeable Ore Belt rich in useful shipbuilding materials.
It was for this reason that Santana Starworks, upon discovering the system, re-organized
themselves into Keeper’s Dance Fleet Yards and assembled a massive shipyard facility
in the system.
In the early years of KDFY, the organization continued to produce Drift Gates as they had
under their previous name, resulting in the colonisation of the Axius system.
Shortly afterwards however, the company was stripped of their right to construct Drift
Gates or carry out settlement efforts, following the apparent loss of a sizeable colony fleet
In what is now known as the start of the Great Merician Exile.
Though most Gate construction duties were then handed over to Grathan Gateworks, KDFY
remained the premiere shipbuilding service in the Tantalus Cluster, designing and producing
almost all warships used by the Centrum Assembly Defence Forces as well as the grand majority
of publicly sold models prior to the economic collapse of the Great Famine.
VIDARA Home to the heavily terraformed and resource-laden
Ice Planet of Vidara V, The Vidara system was settled primarily because of the massive
Drift Deposits present on the system’s worlds and within its asteroid belts.
Following the collapse of the KDFY Gatebuilding Division, most Drift Gate Construction was
handled by Grathan Gateworks.
Upon reaching Vidara and claiming it’s resource deposits, Grathan Gateworks established the
Vidara Gateforge, the largest and most advanced Gate-Building facility ever constructed, whose
assembly yards would later produce gates for every system in the Frontier Union and large
portions of the Centrum Assembly.
SERAVIS MAJOR Seravis Major is home to the greatest concentration
of natural lifeforms discovered by humans, the planet is covered in thick jungle and
utterly teeming with highly dangerous flora and fauna.
The atmosphere is highly toxic to humans, but many of the local life forms contain some
substances within their biology that can be refined to create valuable medicines.
Due to the importance of the medical research performed in this system and the danger of
its natural wildlife, Seravis Major is a restricted travel zone under Centrum Assembly law, with
only narrow and carefully policed flight paths between the systems gates being available
for public access.
As the Great Famine began to take hold across the system, extensive research was done into
the possibility of using Seravan life forms as a food source, but no amount of research
could overcome the levels of toxicity present in every plant and animal on the planet.
CARDEUS BRINK As the farthest system from the centre of
Tantalus, Cardeus Brink is largely untouched by the brightness of the Cluster, and itself
features only a dim Red Dwarf Star.
For this reason, the system was claimed as a construction site for massive Space Telescopes
and other observatory stations intended to examine stars beyond the Tantalus Cluster.
The system features only a few rocky dwarf planets but plays host to a number of stations,
most famous of which is the sophisticated Carina Observatory, housing the most powerful
telescope and scanning system ever constructed.
Close the system’s only gate, Cardeus Terminal was constructed as a large spaceborne settlement
and research facility for science teams working on the system’s bases.
In 0301 PCU, while working on Carina Observatory, renowned astrophysicist Dr Sadavar Edric was
the first to report the appearance of the mysterious Nebula known as CDC-41-Gamma.
In the time since, Cardeus Terminal has been placed under his direct control and renamed
‘Gatehouse Station’.
For the last four years, Gatehouse station has served as the construction site for the
massive ‘Edric’s Gate’ and the staging ground for the Exploratory fleet that will
set out to CDC-41-Gamma in search of new worlds
and resources.