Post by hairyheretic on Mar 20, 2004 16:00:01 GMT -5
The make up of the Vortex System is a single star with no planets. The star at its heart is small, faint and unsteady, frequently flaring off strange bursts of radiation.
Instead of planets there is a massive asteroid belt, with pieces ranging in size from dust to small moons. The belt stretches across the zone where life bearing planets would normally be found, and some distance beyond. Some Imperial scholars believe that the asteroids are the remnants of a number of planets, destroyed countless millenia ago.
With the unusual gravity spikes from the dying star, the asteroid orbits are pretty erratic, so no serious mining operation has ever been set up there. However, there are minerals worth getting, so small prospectors are always working the belt. Its from these that the rumours of the ghost ship (the Revenent) keep coming. It is spotted perhaps once every decade or so in this system, as opposed to perhaps once a century elsewhere.
Another unusual aspect of this system is that a crystaline mineral in the asteroids (Erresium) acts to reflect electromagnetic transmissions .. communications signals, in other words. You get fragments bouncing around the rocks for years .. decades ... centuries perhaps? No one is quite sure.
There are a number of outposts within the asteroid field. These tend to be hollowed out of the larger rocks, and act as refineries, trading posts and repair facilities for the miners that work the fields. They are often frequented by 'independent security forces', little more than pirate gangs, who offer the miners protection (normally from the other pirate gangs within the belt).
Rumours hold of semi-stable points within the asteroid field, points of highly focused gravometric stresses that act as spatial whirlpools, drawing in ships until they dissipate, leaving graveyards of ships waiting to be scavanged. No one has yet found any of these, so repuitable scholars believe this to be nothing more than spacers stories.
Instead of planets there is a massive asteroid belt, with pieces ranging in size from dust to small moons. The belt stretches across the zone where life bearing planets would normally be found, and some distance beyond. Some Imperial scholars believe that the asteroids are the remnants of a number of planets, destroyed countless millenia ago.
With the unusual gravity spikes from the dying star, the asteroid orbits are pretty erratic, so no serious mining operation has ever been set up there. However, there are minerals worth getting, so small prospectors are always working the belt. Its from these that the rumours of the ghost ship (the Revenent) keep coming. It is spotted perhaps once every decade or so in this system, as opposed to perhaps once a century elsewhere.
Another unusual aspect of this system is that a crystaline mineral in the asteroids (Erresium) acts to reflect electromagnetic transmissions .. communications signals, in other words. You get fragments bouncing around the rocks for years .. decades ... centuries perhaps? No one is quite sure.
There are a number of outposts within the asteroid field. These tend to be hollowed out of the larger rocks, and act as refineries, trading posts and repair facilities for the miners that work the fields. They are often frequented by 'independent security forces', little more than pirate gangs, who offer the miners protection (normally from the other pirate gangs within the belt).
Rumours hold of semi-stable points within the asteroid field, points of highly focused gravometric stresses that act as spatial whirlpools, drawing in ships until they dissipate, leaving graveyards of ships waiting to be scavanged. No one has yet found any of these, so repuitable scholars believe this to be nothing more than spacers stories.
Give desired sub-sector (as I guess "Cursed" one is the way to go) and properties of star (Dying most likely means M-V red star).
Die dulce fruere.