The Wormhole Nexus
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The Wormhole Nexus |
The vastest system ever built by Terragens, the wormhole nexus is a modular and ever expanding network of artificial wormholes, which already spans much of explored space. More than six millennia old, it is still growing at an accelerating pace that shows no signs of abating. While there are several smaller nexi still unconnected to the main network, when one speaks of the Nexus there is no doubt what is being referred to.
The Nexus is more than just a multi-millennial ongoing project, and more than all the billions of physical and exotic matter structures and the quadrillions more support structures, superstructures and maintenance and service ai. It is the symbol of Civilization itself, trumpeted at isolates and xenos and even at other ordinary Terragens, to prove that Sephirotic civilization is the largest, mightiest, greatest empire ever! It allows even the most humble baseline to cross from one end of the known galaxy to the other in only five or six standard months of shipboard transit interspersed with instantaneous wormhole 'jumps'. It is the circulatory system of the entire Terragen bubble, conveying goods, services, data streams, and sentients of all kinds to where they are needed, or where they wish to go.
And yet, for all of its size, cost, and miraculous technology, the Nexus is something that most beings in the galaxy hardly give a second thought to. It is there, always functioning smoothly, allowing the wonderful Terragen civilization to exist and flourish. It works quietly, in the background, like the Known Net. All sophonts are assured that if they want to go somewhere, and provided they have the monetary credit to pay the very reasonable tolls (in those polities that use them) then they can do so without fear to life or limb. While tolls vary from non-existent to exorbitant, depending on the local polity, it is a fact that travel through the Nexus is often easier than travel from one end of a planet or megahabitat to another!
The topology of the Nexus is tree-like, extending outwards from the Inner Sphere and the imperial capitals. The oldest wormholes connect the inner sphere worlds. From the "bridge" worlds, worlds with many stargates (mainly imperial capitals and special systems) wormholes extend to major provincial capitals. These link to their provinces and more remote regions, where the network becomes more random. Out here there are very few connections between branches, while they are more common the closer you go to the Inner Sphere.
The number of wormholes one needs to traverse varies according to the trip taken. In case of travel from Sol to Kepleria, the Lonely Galaxy Guidebook gives the following advice:
From Sol take the venerable Einstein Bridge to Tau Ceti, the Akiyoshidai to Djed, and then the Kepler Arc to Kepleria. Just three jumps. The trip would mostly involve resting in light stasis in a shuttle connecting to grapeships moving through the wormholes - it is only a few weeks stopover in each system at most.
In the case of a longer journey from Vast Endeavour to the Chronos Cluster, things are more complex. Again citing the Lonely Galaxy travelbook:
At Vast Endeavour you first take the wormhole to Alauda, a minor NoCoZo world (a wormhole link directly to Merrion is intended to arrive shortly in the Bazaar project, which will render the Alauda link obsolete). Alauda connects to Frei (very central), which connects to Merrion. Merrion has a direct link to Pardes, where you can go to Nova Schiaparelli (capital of the West Cygnus Region), Sy (intermediary system in the outer Veil region) and finally to Orwell in the Chronos cluster. Seven jumps; generally this should be fairly quick although there are administrative troubles at Sy.
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