Star Systems and Generation
The universe is derived: a star from an address, the zones from luminosity, what a body holds from what a body is. A star's class is visible from far away, which is what makes it a bet.
The universe follows from an address
Every system is computed from its address: the same address always gives the same star. Until somebody looks at it, a system is a pure function; the moment somebody does, it is written down and lives its own life from then on — worked-out sites stay worked out, surveyed ground stays surveyed, what was built stands.
The map is cut into districts 25 light years across, one player to a district, some forty stars in each. The density is the Sun’s own neighbourhood — roughly one star per four hundred cubic light years — so the distances are honest: your nearest neighbour is usually three to six light years out.
A star’s class is a bet
The distribution matches the real sky, and that is the whole point: class carries across distance, so you can decide where to go before you send anybody.
| Class | Share | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| M — red dwarf | ~75% | narrow habitable zone close in, tidal locking, flares; and there are a great many of them |
| K — orange | ~12% | a wide, quiet habitable zone — the best candidate for a colony |
| G — yellow, like the Sun | ~8% | the classic “good” system, and a rare one |
| F — yellow-white | ~3% | habitable zone far out, more radiation |
| A, B, O — hot | <1% | a young system, plenty of light elements, nothing to live on. And the hot stars have tenants |
| White dwarfs, neutron stars | rare | next to no planets, but supernova leavings carry rare heavy elements |
That last line reads both ways: the same rarity that promises a young system warns you about the neighbour. Swarm nests sit at class A stars, and the Unknown live at A and B — see “Threats and Losses”.
Structure beats one good planet
Resources stay in their own system, so a system’s economy is its layout. Zone positions scale with the star’s luminosity: a red dwarf holds everything in tight, a bright star stretches it out, and a Kuiper belt can be a month’s travel away.
- rocky planets — metals; hot, and short on volatiles;
- the habitable zone — water and atmosphere, room for a colony with people in it;
- the snow line — water freezes past it;
- the asteroid belt — metals and rare elements with no gravity well to climb: the best mining there is;
- gas giants — gas, hydrogen, helium-3; their moons carry ice and metal;
- the Kuiper belt — water, ice, light elements; far out, and a colony rests on it.
A system with no Kuiper belt and no icy moons sits without volatiles. No giants means no cheap fuel. A young system means no isotopes, and so no large reactors. The interface shows the missing zones as plainly as the present ones: it is a forecast, and it is worth reading before you launch.
What you can see from home
Information arrives in layers, and the full picture waits on site.
| Looking with | What shows |
|---|---|
| The bare map | class, luminosity and rough age of any star in range |
| Nearest stars | the largest planets — gas giants |
| An orbital observatory | map radius grows with its level: 12.5 light years without one, 25 with it fully upgraded, which is the edge of your district |
| A replicant on site | the system’s architecture, its sites, its finds, its history |
Hence the tension that runs through Era I: an expedition leaves for days of real time knowing “orange star, one gas giant”, and learns the rest on arrival.
Every system has a history
Each system carries a chronology thousands of years long, assembled under two rules. The first is causality: depletion leads to revolt, revolt leads to evacuation, and the whole thing reads as a chain. The second is mechanical consequence: “abandoned mining colony” means there is genuinely something there to take over, and “all communication lost” means something is still lying about.
The first such history was written by hand. In the starting system, one short hop from where you wake, the dead Exodus hangs with four thousand capsules aboard. It sets the format as well: a ruin is a set of records that add up to a cause.
The name goes to whoever stays. A star is named by its owner — the one who put a station in it. Once, and for good.