Space Gate

Colony, dry-dock, manufacturing and marketing exchange, a space-gate is a large person-infrastructure system similar to a city which is attached to a notable transportation infrastructure. They often bridge long-travel systems like subspace-nodes and wormholes to warp-rail and mass-driver infrastructure, allowing vessels which disembark to continue their travel on public systems to their destinations.

From the old-war tongue meaning “unmovable”, Acala is an early space-gate appended to one of the first wormholes. It is the last of its original infrastructure in operation and is characterised by a long sword-like body with two prongs - through which traffic moves down the middle, docking along the edges. It is comprised of a split O'Neill cylinder - a rotating structure 32 kilometers long, 8 kilometers across which uses centrifugal force to create a form of artificial gravity - the sky from which is “more ground” with either side, space shining into the colony.

Constructed atop the remains of a sheoul blast-deposit excavated from Thunderhead, the orbital object ‘Null’ is a hybrid electromagnetic railgun/space compression mass-driver. Colloquially known as ‘The Shooter’ by residents, its purpose is to provide extended travel throughout Aleph.

To the eye, null appears to resemble a black ball of sharp iron filing structures branching from its differing elements, as a result of its molecularly procedural surface which is similar to that of a living cell. Glittering over its surface is a polygonal sphere of outlines - the rayshield used to protect null from the harsh radiation belts around Albion, channelling them into usable electricity.

Null serves as a space-gate: a colony, dry-dock, manufacturing and exchange location though the nature of its high sheoul deposits make it unsafe for extended stay, meaning the majority of Null is automated and those who stay usually either only do so briefly or become attuned to living there under the neurally disruptive conditions. As such those who live there are often eccentric.

For political reasons, the orbital object Null is also classified as a defense 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 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.

Null is paired with Acala as the primary means of transportation through Aleph.