Rift Station: Open Worlds
Rift Station may be the largest man-made structure ever created, depending on whether you believe in the reports of Pyra-Prime or not. It's certainly the largest structure jointly made with another species. The Emittier and humanity have enjoyed reasonably friendly relations since first discovering one another, and the original plan for building this station was the driving force in cementing a proper alliance.
Two hundred thousand scientists, soldiers, and civilians call Rift Station home, and its immense size includes room for parks and garden, shopping centers, swimming pools and schools, in addition to the core facilities. Many would call it a triumph of technology and cooperation, but there are others who see it as a monument to hubris. Either way, the resources, time, and attention both of its founding species have lavished on it are warranted; for encased in the heart of the station lies the anomalous rift that holds the key to exploring the galaxy, the universe, and beyond.
Of course from this far out, it looks so tiny, suspended in the void. As your ship closes the distance, powered by impulse while the warp drive recharges, you reflect that it looks like a fragile Christmas ornament. You imagine yourself plucking it from the night and hanging it on some cosmic tree.
The core of the station was built, originally, to protect, contain, and study the rift. Forty years later, and still no one has any idea how it works. But when properly harnessed it will send a certain amount of matter on a one way trip through to someplace else, and for a short time allow a very limited stream of data to be transmitted back. From the initial experimentation with drones, it was determined that these places could be unbelievably far apart, in galaxies halfway across the universe or even outside of it on other planes.
Rift Station is in fact the only known way to send objects or lifeforms from this universe to a parallel one, something that was accepted as possible only in the theoretical sense in the decades before.
Orbiting it is a much smaller structure, known as the Thimble. All you can see of it right now is a thin silver lip and distant glow of white lights as it dips behind the larger station. This was the original Emittier built outpost for studying the anomaly, and now serves to house spacefarers with no authorization to enter the main station. The Thimble has comparatively Spartan accommodations: hotel equivalents, refueling stations, repair bays, and a few bars. Because for all the pains the architects went through to make the exterior layers of Rift Station resemble a city one might find on any civilized planet, they're still very strict about security, for obvious reasons. Under normal circumstances, only people there to study the rift or else protect or maintain the mega-station would be allowed to dock there, but in recent years they've been opening the rifts up to an increasing number of well-connected volunteers who can meet certain criteria.
Well, there's well connected volunteers, and then there's death row inmates, although nobody likes to talk much about the latter. There's still things being figured out about how to increase the safety of rift travelers, and the data they gather making much riskier jumps is vital.
So why are you here?
Two hundred thousand scientists, soldiers, and civilians call Rift Station home, and its immense size includes room for parks and garden, shopping centers, swimming pools and schools, in addition to the core facilities. Many would call it a triumph of technology and cooperation, but there are others who see it as a monument to hubris. Either way, the resources, time, and attention both of its founding species have lavished on it are warranted; for encased in the heart of the station lies the anomalous rift that holds the key to exploring the galaxy, the universe, and beyond.
Of course from this far out, it looks so tiny, suspended in the void. As your ship closes the distance, powered by impulse while the warp drive recharges, you reflect that it looks like a fragile Christmas ornament. You imagine yourself plucking it from the night and hanging it on some cosmic tree.
The core of the station was built, originally, to protect, contain, and study the rift. Forty years later, and still no one has any idea how it works. But when properly harnessed it will send a certain amount of matter on a one way trip through to someplace else, and for a short time allow a very limited stream of data to be transmitted back. From the initial experimentation with drones, it was determined that these places could be unbelievably far apart, in galaxies halfway across the universe or even outside of it on other planes.
Rift Station is in fact the only known way to send objects or lifeforms from this universe to a parallel one, something that was accepted as possible only in the theoretical sense in the decades before.
Orbiting it is a much smaller structure, known as the Thimble. All you can see of it right now is a thin silver lip and distant glow of white lights as it dips behind the larger station. This was the original Emittier built outpost for studying the anomaly, and now serves to house spacefarers with no authorization to enter the main station. The Thimble has comparatively Spartan accommodations: hotel equivalents, refueling stations, repair bays, and a few bars. Because for all the pains the architects went through to make the exterior layers of Rift Station resemble a city one might find on any civilized planet, they're still very strict about security, for obvious reasons. Under normal circumstances, only people there to study the rift or else protect or maintain the mega-station would be allowed to dock there, but in recent years they've been opening the rifts up to an increasing number of well-connected volunteers who can meet certain criteria.
Well, there's well connected volunteers, and then there's death row inmates, although nobody likes to talk much about the latter. There's still things being figured out about how to increase the safety of rift travelers, and the data they gather making much riskier jumps is vital.
So why are you here?