Galactic Phenomena
Description
Below are the Galactic Phenomena entries from the Galactic Guide. We are not 100% sure how these were unlocked in game, but it's believed these are special entries that could be found by pinging the map. There are several entries in the string table that are clearly placeholder but they will be listed below as well.
WENNA
Unclassified Black Hole
Wenna sits too close to the Tempest for clear readings on its mass or activity to be collected. When survey modules do manage to collect measurements, they overwhelmingly show Tempest energetic signatures.
B1E1T
//b1e1
TURA
Supermassive Black Hole
Tura appears to be unique among black holes in the Wilds in that it is both pulling in and pushing out energetic matter. At least that’s what current readings indicate – though the robotic data collection module sent to measure activity at Tura was pulled in before its full data set could be exported. It hasn’t found its way back out yet.
B2_E1T
//B2_E1
HAWSONS DREDGE
Resource Source
A working nebula, Hawsons Dredge is home to excavation robots that collect heavy metals, stable gases, and energetic compounds. Their harvest is shipped to production centers across the Wilds – like Roost where a large percent of the metal winds up in the hulls of the starships that crisscross the galaxy. Being so valuable, Dredge exports are closely monitored at the Guild Checkpoint on Route 1. Guards ensure that only designated hauler ships are flying off with resources, and that those same hauler ships aren’t absconding with anything more than what’s listed on their manifests.
N1E1T
//NeE1
THE RED WALL
Yes, RED
Yes, this nebula looks blue. No, it’s not misnamed. Take a look at your radar screen as you approach - see the big red wall? There ya go. It was named by the Reactors, the Freegunner crew who were the first to plunge in – and come out. Pursued by Guild patrols, they took a chance on what looked like an impenetrable wall on their radar screen. Turns out, it was more bog than wall. Thick, but passable. It’s the densest nebula in the galaxy, tightly packed with gas and dust. So tightly there’s no room for gravitational vortexes to spin up protostars. Result: there’s not a lot of stars coming out of this nebula. Which means all the raw materials stay packed in to this big blue (red) wall.
N2_E1T
//N2_E1
PILLAR OF DEDRA
Tall, Blue, and Beautiful
Its unique columnar shape and signature gaseous swirls once made this nebula a top tourist destination for wealthy Core World residents – before the Tempest. At that time, the Guild was hoping to encourage a portion of their commercial market to move out into the newly settled frontier and pump coin into the developing economy. They advertised the Wilds as a thrilling and beautiful place to live. The better sales pitch would have been generational survival. There’s a chance that the Core Worlds were consumed by the Tempest, but the Wilds are still chugging along. Those brave enough to risk a move were rewarded with continued existence – not too shabby.
N3E1T
//N3_E1
THE MISTS
Blast Radius
One of the Wilds' most stunning nebulas, this calls to mind a giant paint splatter in bright hues that enliven. Which is ironic as there was a lot of death and destruction when it entered the scene. But that was someone else’s fault. Impatient to build a spacelane to Gloom on the cheap, the Guild ignored a survey that turned up a massive star with a high core temp and utterly too many heavy metals – and it blew up in their faces. The supernova shockwave obliterated their new spacelane and every ship on it. They never rebuilt a route to Gloom.
N4E1T
//N4E1
CINDER NEST
Half Baked Stars
An eager nebula on production overdrive, Cinder Nest has been spinning up gravitational vortices like nobody’s business – problem is they’re loose and messy and the protostars that come out can’t keep it together. Not long after departing the Nest, the fledgling stars die off in mininova explosions, leaving behind a shadow of gas and dust that lingers at the edges of the nebula. It’s probable that Cinder Nest will continue chugging along at speed until it uses up its raw material and all that’s left is a hollow burn mark on the Wilds.
On a Dare
//Kids from Hox dare each other to take old ships that can't make superlight anymore, but have enough fuel to push out of atmosphere and fly into Cinder Nest. Skirt the edge, it's all turbulence. Get through the burnout edge and into the most beautiful thing ever seen. Teenagers go there to makeout. Impressive if you can take your date up to the nebula. More impressive if you can make it back without needing someone to come up and pick you up.
SMUDGE
A Galactic Smear
There is no poetic way to describe the smudge that sits near the center of the Wilds, suffice to say it’s a permanent stain on the Concord Galaxy. Component elements reacted in the extreme conditions of space – a near vacuum, turbulent radiation, you know, the dream. With a little help from high energy cosmic rays passing by, these particular elements came together to form a smear of moist dust, which is a phrase no one needs to hear, but that’s astrochemistry for you. And that’s the Smudge.
N6E1T
//N6E1
THE NOTHING
A Star Graveyard (Maybe)
This one’s a bit of a misnomer. It may look like nothing, but really there’s more matter here than anywhere else in the galaxy. However, that matter – mostly dust, gas, and powdered debris – is so dense that light can’t penetrate it. So it all winds up looking like a giant swath of dark, empty nothing. No one knows where all the matter came from. Best guess is a chain reaction of supernovae that killed thousands and thousands of stars hundreds of millions of years ago – a haunting, nightmare of a thought. And a horrible nightmare to navigate; no one has done that successfully.
Into the Nothing
//Report from a ship trying to establish a fuel station in the nothing. If we can do that we can start to traverse it. The first ones in, feeling way through dark. Walking with arms extended trying not to bump into anything. How do you think the first people charted a route through the galaxy at all? Lots of people died doing it. People today too concerned with 'safety' - have to just go for it.
THE TEMPEST
A Galaxy-Sundering Storm
Eighty-two years ago, the Tempest erupted, tearing across the Concord Galaxy. It sundered worlds, devoured planetary systems, and subsumed a massive swath of space in its entirety – it exists now as a maw of ravenous energy crossing the whole of the spiral arm. The forces that act within it are unknowable, its composition is undefined. The only thing that can be said with any amount of certainty is that it is expanding. And as it does, it’s consuming everything in its path. The instinct may be to panic, but time spent in dread is wasted. The singular directive worth pursuing is to make the most of what’s left of the Wilds while it lasts.
After the Eruption
The Tempest erupted 82 years ago. The word eruption is a loose description of what happened, and used only because it comes the closest to describing the entirely unique unnatural event.
The Tempest is unlike any other galactic phenomena, it’s wholly its own. Both of the universe and somehow not. No one knows what it actually is, just that it is made of energies and forces that are undefinable and incomprehensible given the current understanding of physics. No one knows what caused it—though there are theories. It erupted in the midst of the Robot Wars just when the Guild was closing in on the Sparked Robots’ hidden refuge. And no one knows what it is going to do next, only that it is spreading and destroying everything in its path.
The Tempest is an existential threat that if left unchecked can, and most likely will, consume the entirety of the Wilds.
There are those who have tried to fly into or ‘through’ it—whatever through may mean—none have been successful. There are those who have tried to flee it, but where to go when it is consuming everything? And there are those who have come to worship it, perhaps with the secret hope that they can appease it or convince it to spare them. Or perhaps as a way to completely give themselves over to the power that is beyond comprehension and control.
People have called for it to be stopped. World governments and boards of directors have written strongly worded letters to Guild Central Command at the Spire on Crater City, demanding they take action. But there is nothing anyone can do. The Tempest is bent on altering the galaxy beyond recognition no matter what—or who—tries to stop it.
This infuriates the Guild’s leaders to no end. In their minds, this is their galaxy, and they should have control of everyone and everything. The blatant defiance exhibited by this raging entity is enough to unhinge some high-ranking Guild officials. Others seem to have chosen willful ignorance and have taken to pretending it is not a problem, speaking of it as a spectacular sight that should drive tourism, and touting the potential of harnessing its power. In the end, the responses of these minor sentient beings mean nothing to the Tempest. It will be what it is, and it will change the face of the galaxy as it sees fit.
BRAMBLE CLUSTER
A Loose-Knit Star Group
Star clusters in the Wilds are common enough, but the Bramble Cluster stands out as it’s the youngest – only a few million years old. Barely old enough to drive... a substantial galactic wind. So, it’s relatively safe to run a spacelane right up alongside it. At least for another million years or so. Being such a youngster means that Bramble’s gravitational forces haven’t fully developed. Things are still rattling around in there, and sometimes when stars rattle too close, one of them is ejected. These star evaporations are hard to predict, so starships flying on that relatively safe spacelane that runs right up alongside Bramble, shouldn’t linger for any longer than necessary.
SC1E1T
//SC1E1
COLLASATOR'S HEART
Galactic Timekeeping
Standard Guild Time [SGT] – y1037
This hyper-regular pulsar, named in reference to a Kallosian myth about the legendary God-Warrior of Time, became the timing standard for the Guild in the Wilds after the Tempest cut off access to the prior time standard, Pulsar X0.B in the Core Worlds. All Guild worlds in the Wilds now use these radio pulses to synchronize their timekeeping devices.
Galactic Timekeeping
Kallosian warriors carry their people's stories in their hearts. Heavily symbolic, their past traditions helped them rationalize their place in the galaxy and remain an integral part of how they interact with the realities of the present.
EXCERPT FROM TARGAN MOIRE'S \"MYTHS OF KALLOS\": In the time before time, there was stagnation. Seasons did not turn. The sun hung in the sky. No new warriors were born to seek the canopies of the blood trees.
One day, a hunt-leader of one of the clans climbed a great tree into the sky to search for the horizon and to see what the future held. Instead, she found the Great Collasator. It had locked its horns around all existence, holding the universe still.
The hunt-leader fought the Collasator for untold time. With the last of her strength, she ripped out the Collasator's still-beating heart from its shuddering body. The hunt-leader set the Collasator's heart in the sky. Its pulse was felt throughout the universe, the steady beat of endless life piercing the haze of stagnation.
The people awoke, they fought and died and were born, and the bloodtrees grew tall and proud.
The hunt-leader took the name Void Slayer and became the first of the great God-Warriors, the progenitors of the clans that still live on Kallos today.",