Orbital Object: Null

The primary defense system of Aleph, Null was originally created as a fortress - constucted atop the remains of a sheoul blast-deposit excavated from Thunderhead artificially pushed into Albion's resident orbit. It is a hybrid electromagnetic rail-cannon and space-compression mass-driver.

Envisioned originally as an interstellar assault fortress, Null - known colloquially as 'the shooter' by its residents is a transport system mass-driver, allowing extended throughout Aleph.

Null is a relic of the old war and served as the turning point in the war and a symbol of Aleph's independence - changing the name of the system from Aleph Beta to Aleph Null. It is sometimes described as “cyberpunk as fuck”.

To the eye, Null is a goldfish bowl like sphere containing layers of atmosphere and branching structures of habitat. Branching beyond this carefully managed atmosphere are four enormous towers either side dwarfing the spheres forming two masts in total with branching cooling panels and docking arrays. Wrapped around this large blocky structure is a ring of orbital defense satellites.

The surface of Null up close has moon like craters - with a heavy metallic exterior designed to endure strikes from large objects. Covering Null is a layer of thick regolith metallic dust which cements over its hull akin to concrete - formed from the waste products of its interior mining operations to further protect its major structures.

Null itself is a procedural object, meaning it is composed of micro and nanomachines (often many the size of insects) which serve to constantly change and grow the structures of Null not unlike cells which can be seen scurrying, moving or growing - most resembling metallic micillium, slime or tentacles - others scurrying postage stamps like geometric ants and beetles which skim over smooth surfaces like tiny rail carts along walls, ceilings and floors.

Null seems to have an awareness or a consciousness of sorts and provided it is not threatened, permits changes made to itself non-destructively, allowing for settlements to exist. Null does however, re-arrange these settlements periodically - moving entire city-block sized portions of its surface around often silently overnight with little to no vibration as to not wake the occupants (meaning on some level, Null has good manners at least). As such, mapping Null is close to impossible as it is always changing.

Null serves a dry-dock for Albion - birthing great vessels, stations and structures throughout the system. It is known particularly for its specialty orbit which captures the stream of raw sheoul ores excavated explosively from Thunderhead which fall into Albion's orbit - and was itself built around such a deposit. Null is unsafe for extended stay for many organic species due to the massive radiences it experiences and the unusual entropy around it which make Null one of the most potent areas for magic use in all of Aleph.

As such, Aleph features one of the greatest magic universities in all of Aleph, filled with scholars determined to understand the nature of magic and study its vast and misunderstood history - gathering some of the greatest minds in the system who put their health at risk in pursuit of their field.

Those who attune to the high entropy concentration and magic here often have their perception permanently changed in a nonrecoverable way, meaning the extended visitors of Null are often incredibly eccentric and unusual - particularly on null's capitol - None - which features the slogan “Keep None Weird”.

The capitol of weirdness, None is a series of orbital platforms resting upon the hardlight rayshield layering of Null as permanent layered waifer platforms constructed of condensed regolith concrete. “Keep None Weird” serves as the slogan of the city - intended to promote local businesses

Since then, it has evolved into an all-encompassing slogan which promotes individuality, expressionism, local art as well as atypical life-style choices and leisure activities. The slogan inspires articles and debate which desperately attempt to quantify at a precise level exactly just how weird and eccentric None actually is on a regular basis.

Locals are known as Noner's and outsiders or those not yet changed by the entropy variance tourists.

Exposed to space, Whisper is a series of external settlements built into the regolith - consisting primarily of salvage experts and scavengers. The unique gravitational footprint of Null means while 90% of the sheoul belt blown from Thunderhead passes through the primary reciever of Null in Albion's orbit, 10% lands over Null's surface impacting its regolith exterior – and a high amount strikes close to Whisper.

Whisper is named as such due to its exposure to the vacuum and its lack of sound. Its inhabitants almost constantly wear some variant of space-suit and exposure to vacuum is extremely common even in sealed areas due to containment failures which are expected - caused by the impact of sheoul asteroids striking Null's surface - signalling money to be made.

Whisper particularly, is home to a number of sheoulsmiths who work here specifically as their recovery of the sheoul is untaxed and unregulated - allowing for some very exotic and potentially illegal research and investigation into the production of specialist weaponary, entropy systems and magical equipment. This equipment is all unregulated and is not necessarily reliable.

Life in Whisper is difficult, claustrophobic and dirty, with regolith finding its way into everything. Those who live here long enough experience their hair and skin leeched of its melanin due to regolith exposure and their eyes and veins a brilliant blue caused by regolith dyeing. Tooth pain and joint pain is also very common caused by regolith exposure and muscle wastage is common. Those growing up here are often very short or skinny and quite tall with unusual proportions caused by the gravitational tides of Null.

Many here grow plants inside plastic bags of atmosphere exposed to sunlight. Drug use is particularly common and almost everybody in Whisper plays an instrument of some sort. Whisper and None are close cousins and are very friendly with one another on the surface - though gang violence between the two perpectuated by Alpha and Gamma districts in the north and south blocks of Null discolor the otherwise serene cabin-feverish life.

Dominated by factories linked to the docks, Alpha's primary purpose is the production of components and sub-components for export which then go on to become specialty equipment. Alpha is an industrial area and contains very few tertiary services beyond fast food outlets and convenience markets as the population living and working here primarily depend on delivery systems.

Branching from Alpha, Downtown is a neighboring tower. It is a mecca for nerds and geeks who can get access to components very cheaply via wholesale and as such many engineering teams for larger corporations prototype specialty components here before then sending schematics on for reproduction elsewhere. It is affectionately known as “the port area” as the location shifted from its original purpose of agriculture (which as Downtown arose, replaced the military manufacturing area in southside as Riverside). Being incredibly well defended, Null's Downtown is an ideal place for secretive tech groups to research.

A bit rougher than highrise but equally high-tech, downtown is the recreational area of northside. Strictly driven by alcohol alone, Downtown has a harsh policy against substance abuse yet ironically is the best place to acquire rarer and more complex drugs. Particularly, Downtown has a big gambling culture - being schmaltzy, schitzy and incredibly happy whether you want to be or not. With its seedy underbelly, Downtown is a place of timeless excitement to explore and indulge with total freedom almost all desires imaginable and quite a few which are unimaginable with the densest sex-trade in known space – being one of the only places where wide-interspecies sex-trade (which is often dangerous by virtue of the differences in species alone) happens. Wonderful, over the top, larger than live, exuberant, and radiant, Downtown Null is a place of indescribable scale and scope: a mixture of inner-city, resort and amusement park with caricatures of many locations throughout known space.

Linking the outer-docking systems and resource systems via mag-lev train to the rail-cannon, port was originally a munitions loading and management facility. It has been expanded into a full blown port close to Downtown.

Port also serves as the only remaining military base in all of Null, featuring a battery of power-armor clad soldiers, frames and fighters as well as a number of patrol frigates which are permanently assigned to Null - all of which turn a blind eye if offered enough money.

A market extended from Port, Midway is the primary mass transit maglev station and resource storage area for Null. It stores containers in massive self-shuffling rails, stacking them in automated vast cabinets of sorts, docking them in large stacks which are electronically labelled and then recalled with robot arms automatically, loaded onto maglev trains and moved to other smaller depots and stations inside Null.

Midway particularly is known for its famous market and intense bidding on items from all over Aleph, including those which are less than legal - moved through via forged documentation and hacking of the Midway mass-storage depot itself. Midway is also known for its intense sex-trade - the most extreme in all of Aleph, trading in tastes both subtle and gross specifically for tastes which traditionally are not legal. It is handled through falsified bodies which are grown especially for adult minds to circumvent cognisance sex laws. Often, bodies are grown and surgically augmented for the minds of entirely different species, to ensure that while a partner is the desirable form, they maintain a relative understanding of what delights a customer - which many pay ridiculous sums for.

Ironically, the diplomats of many nations are expected to come to Midway to take advantage of the same surgical services - altering their bodies to appear more humanoid – or humans modifying theirs to appear more alien in what are often very painful and dangerous procedures – all in the name of resolving differences between nations.

Gamma District primarily deals in the management of raw resources and is full of refineries. The air quality of Gamma District is noticably poor and those who live here are recommended to wear atmospheric equipment when outside of the internal domes within the tower. Gamma is notable for its intense food culture and music culture. Life in Gamma is almost as hard as it is in Whisper.

featuring an external collection bay which retrieves incoming sheoul with great precision, the Mines tower features advanced material processing systems and is able from the sheoul and other incoming asteroids and rocks, produce a wide variety of other materials. This renders Null utterly self-sufficient for resources - often using carefully calculated nuclear detonations to throw material at it, without affecting Albion below.

The primary water holding and distributing area, Resevoir is also responsible for the creation of atmosphere within Null. It uses advanced chemical processes and mining techniques as well as hydrogen collection and oxygen recovery from ores to produce breathable air. It is essentially a large ocean with a simulated sky, complete with surface biome. It has a simple ecosystem which is not 100% controlled.

A layer above resevoir in the same tower is riverside – a suspended glassy platform and layer of platforms suspending a massive hydrophonics operation which scales miles upwards like some immense labyrinth. Riverside provides all the food needed for Null, including spawning and growth farms for specialty meats which are grown as meat without the animal. Riverside also contains food processing systems and vast manufacturing equipment to 3D print specific foods from factorial ingredients. The sale of actual ingredients to residents of Null is very rare as most are exported. The exception to this is sale to residents of Gamma - almost as an apology for their appalling living conditions - who of everyone on Null, eat the best food. As such, southside residents tend to be taller than their northside counterparts.

Similar to Riverside, Haven is a layer above Riverside which is secretively guarded. It is used for the growth of mind altering substances and features a dense pleasure-seeking culture. It is also linked to the surface city of Whisper and contains one of the most well hidden and advanced entropy study communities in all of known space. Its structures are seemingly spires of glass in a sky of cyan and cerise, blended in madenning dreamy aesthetic amongst clouds of water-vapor which fill the city with the floor sea-level being toe-high water, giving the impression everybody present is walking on water and that everything beneath water-level is soaked (giving Haven vast waterways).

Haven is accessible not to the rich specifically but those who can prove their worth. It is indulgant and quite incredibly deadly - with many having lost themselves to Haven's delights - becoming part of the gears that drive Haven – a computer composed of recovered bio-material, even including human brains. This computer, named “Frank” is incredibly sarcastic and is thought to be one of the eight computers driving Null's systems – and the only one advanced enough to have a name and a voice.

Observable as eight massive pylons attached to the primary towers subjected to space, the wet-docks individually feature equipment to produce up to eight frigate class vessels at once or larger vessels if specially reconfigured on commission.

Visible as the prongs within the hardlight rayshield atmosphere bubbles, drydocks are specialty docking systems for smaller vessels (up to 24 per pylon). These vessels exist within an atmosphere and it is very common for their crews to walk over the exterior as the vessel produces its own gravity-well - becoming its own “down” which will not allow crew to “fall off” the ship. The atmosphere and sunlight is often a nice change for crews who will specifically seek Null as the location of their repairs and upgrades especially for this reason.

A specialty designer genetic plastic surgeon located in Midway, Sonikkque One specialise in growing entirely new bodies based on designer genetic profiles and skeletal replacements - changing all about the body with the exception of the brain. They are particularly famous for producing famous adult actors and many very famous frame-racing teams and bounty hunters.

Located in Haven, Shutdown is a specialty cognitive alteration lab. They specialise particularly in the removal of specific patterns of behavior from a person that are considered non-productive and self-destructive. They are particularly famous for being destroyers of procrastination in great creative minds. Specialised memory refinement which prevents the alteration of a memory on recall to ensure it is stored with perfect clarity within a person, selective memory access which ensures a painful or traumatic memory is accessible only when desired are also common requests – as is the particularly famous lucid daydream - a form of lucid dreaming which can be brought on by command in a waking state and modified using a computer program.

Ironically, shut-down do not specialise in implants whatsoever, with their procedures being almost exclusively non-invasive. Rather, their work is achieved by putting the brain in a “shut down” comatose state and then using electrical patterning and signal reprocessing to trick the brain into growing specialty circuitry with its neurons which act in a specific way – a sort of uploading of a software program through a hack of neurology. This “transplantation” of circuitry can then perform a useful act and be “software locked” to never be over-written unless specifically commanded to be deleted.

Shutdown were big members of the demoscene before Aleph's separation from the greater cluster - originally as a memory alteration team who would “repurpose” and “recondition” citizens. Their real passion however, had been tricking the brain into emulating rare computer architectures, to run programs inside a person's brain without the need for electronics or implants of any sort - even developing a simple contact organ which sat on the back of the neck which could send and receive electrical signals wirelessly over various frequencies and ranges with many advanced software levels of protection despite being 100% organic: the bio-neural modem.

The nuclear detonations created by Null trigger electromagnetic discharges. They are channelled towards Null which acts as an antennae and reciever circuit - resembling an aurora borialis halo wrapped about Null - visible from orbit at night as a glowing ring wrapped about a tall and very large star in the sky as the regolith surface reflects light similar to the moon.

This power source lasts 24 hours, striking Null in waves every 4 to 8 seconds in regular beats. Those with a radio in range (for example on the surface of Albion) can listen to the halo receiving the discharge which is described as sounding like whale song as a heartbeat.

An hour before and an hour after detonation, a warning is issued to passing vessels to stay out of the firing solution of the nuclear detonation and resulting EMP which can cripple travelling ships and even vaporise crew if caught in the blast.

Null's structure features a hardlight rayshield to protect its central structures from harsh radiation, channelling the radiation belts around Albion into usable electrisity. This essentially turns Albion's peculiar orbit into a high-powered dynamo, powering the awesome railgun at its heart.

Null features a wide variety of variable-yield high impact, neutron and blast-purpose nuclear weapons designed as part of its pusher-plate system to maneuver it in orbit via eight cannons and a hardlight rayshield receiver system - acting similar to the pistons of an engine to throw Null in or out of orbit with great acceleration. These warheads and delivery packages are constructed in automated factories and are now primarily used for high altitude nuclear explosion triggered electromagnetic discharges - using a nuclear detonation to trigger massive EMP.

Each satellite is loaded with a wirelessly powered 10 gigawatt laser system able to strike targets outside of Null or in a reduced power-mode to strike its own surface to prevent boarding. Null itself also contains a 30 gigawatt laser system, able to fire once every four seconds every four seconds for up to 6 concentrated hours before needing to cool for 24 hours.

For political reasons, the orbital object Null is also classified as a defence outpost for Aleph as a relic of the old war and the establishment of Albion — and so all of Aleph’s independence. Originally named the Orbital Fortress Null, it was able to accelerate a wide variety of payloads to enormous speed and precision, cross-calculating the gravitational patterning of the entire solar system itself with enormous precision — able to even strike objects in the upper atmospheres and surfaces of other worlds within a matter of hours or days, making extended ground occupation close to impossible while ensuring the payload is sufficiently decelerated to not cause massive collateral damage.

It is still capable of these functions though now is primarily used for civilian purposes and serves as a living icon of Albion's independence. The amount of red-tape needed to fire Null is almost as immense as its firepower for any purpose not civilian.