Aleph Null System

Aleph Null is a nexus system - a solar system with a large number of jump-gates and mass-drivers for rapid exchange of interstellar transport and commerce. It can be thought of as a mixing-pot of sorts.

Its location was chosen due to the availability of red Sheoul due to its isomorphic magnetic decay, which attracts wormholes. Properly mined, refined and used in conjunction with magnetic monopoles, they serve as one of three primary materials to create jumpgates with.

Aleph Null is surrounded by Red Tide/Shift phenomena, which makes conventional and direct FTL navigation into the system extremely hazardous without special navigation information to make it through the labyrinth of clearspace unaffected by the redshift. Constantly changing, the shift serves to keep traders and commoners away from the major sources of trade, in addition to keeping marauders and bandits out of the system¹⁾.

This leads to Aleph acting as a 'gated community' for the exchange of goods and services, accessible via external space gates such as Acala, leading to Orbital Object Null. It can be thought of as a faster-than-light airport bus-station meets a mass-market, being made up by major marketplaces connected to large jump-gates orbiting around Object Null.

• To Acala System - 11.8 LY
• To Aleph Alpha System - 8.4 LY

The following planets, satellites, and other notable sectors of local space are present:

Considered to be north of the central territories, Albion is the central habitable world of Aleph Null. Its most noteworthy characteristic is Orbital Object 'Null' – a series of disassociated platforms with the single 'downward' gravity toward Albion, connected by long railgun transportation systems for rapid exchange of goods and services.

These multi-level platforms, at different orbital altitudes and positions cover the equator of the planet in high orbit and act as a major exchange system of Aleph. Null serves as an inter-dimensional nexus to common exterior systems for transportation, and serves as a mouth in and out of Aleph Null, bypassing the system's walls of maelstrom - acting as a defence wall, stronghold, and checkpoint.

The planet itself is made up of nine city-states across three continents, plus a Capital sector situated above Albion's largest ocean. Each sector is run by an individual governor, who is responsible for the sector's wellbeing with a team of public servants. The governors of Albion congregate at the Capital Sector once every three months to share their plans with each other, talk about trade, diplomacy, and the future. Albion's economy is highly reliant on trade from the surrounding Aleph Cluster and beyond, as its natural resources are on a razor's edge.

The continents and sectors are as follows:

• Capital Sector - 'Regum'
• Wace
  • Red Sector - 'Myrddin'
  • White Sector - 'Poyning'
  • Purple Sector - 'Vulgate'
• Nalbin
  • Grey Sector - 'York'
  • Gold Sector - 'Pendragon'
  • Orange Sector - 'Iwerddon'
• Appolyn
  • Green Sector - 'Caledonia'
  • Blue Sector - 'Insulae'
  • Black Sector - 'Longuyon'

More information on the Kingdom of Albion can be read here.

A large gas-giant, Donalbain's moons are mined and used as major population centres. The gas-giant is often mined for monopoles, but it is primarily a source of fissile material and helium 3 for deuterium-type fusion reactor systems.

A large moon, INDUSTRIAL ONE is a massive procedural assembly and recycling centre. It serves as a major source of thorium for LFTR reactors, amongst other ore materials for shipbuilding, construction, and engineering.

A semi-artificial moon, Banquo is a heavily built-upon moon colony, lacking terraforming, but sporting a robust series of lunar living modules. Here, most of the heavy machinery for processing ores is present, taking iron ore from Lennox and exporting steel for shipbuilding, for example.

A mineral rich world, Diocletian is the industrial key to Aleph Null. While a gas-giant, it contains a terrafirma at its core of captured asteroids and several large planetary masses caused by a teleportation accident. While the inhabitants died instantly, the worlds were compressed together and with a large quantity of gas, formed a new large solid at the core of Diocletian. While this surface can be theoretically be walked, it is beneath a crushing gas ocean making 200 gigapascals of pressure at the surface.

The notable moons of Diocletian include:

• Nicomedia
• Mediolanum
• Antioch
• Trier

Home of the Unity Protocol, this gas giant is host to a sizeable portion of the galaxy's population, and sports many earth-like moons. They have been terraformed and populated with the aid of the Protocol. This region of space is also host to the entropy bias phenomenon, where phenomena involving other dimensions is more likely to occur. Most of Traveller's moons are still an ongoing work of colonization, though at least half have at least a very basic level of terraforming.

Notable moons in Traveller's orbit include:

• Sargasso
• El Hermosa
• Shade
• Nonna
• Noir
• Bias
• Recreator
• Fade
• Knife
• Snowball

Electromagnetic systems tend to misbehave here, communications are unreliable, optics are also inaccurate due to diffusion and refraction. High amplitude electrical storms are commonplace. There are signs of a planet hiding somewhere within the maelstrom, but efforts to find and colonise the planet have all ended in failure.

Generally considered a 'badlands' part of Null. Lots of old and battered equipment can be found floating around, and it is a lucrative spot for scavengers, miners, and treasure hunters. Commonly considered Aleph Null's junkyard, and a hideaway for foolhardy pirates.

It is particularly known for its massive density of sheoul, an element critical in the manufacture of faster-than-light travel systems and a major source of income for Aleph. Mining from Thunderhead directly is often too dangerous and as such deposits of sheoul which have crashed into or been found on other worlds or moons are usually the primary source.

Periodically, Thunderhead is carpet bombed to break up its surface into orbit for mining purposes, giving rise to a high number of artificial satellites and moons.

The furthest outreaches of known territory of Aleph Null: A badlands of difficult territory to navigate located on the edges of the Red Space phenomena, far away from the jumpgates or the influence of the Kingdom of Albion. The Outer Ring is a rag tag motley of near-lawless worlds of vigilantes, with no overarching government or oversight, save for pirate warlords interested in their own lots alone.

Pirate fleets are known to set up shop in this lawless band of space. However, the whole Outer Ring lacks the capacity to turn inwards at the core worlds of Aleph Null, so pirates resort to interdiction hit-and-runs in trade routes.