defy the tyrannous stars
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a point of interest relevant to my character's personal backstory as well as a cool spaceport that can serve as a story center for anyone, and serves to bridge the gap between Galactic Alliance and Outer Rim Coalition flavored space.
- Image Credit: Hades' Star - Black Citadel by Gabriel Bjork Stiernstrom
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Space Station Name: Fort Dawn
- Station Model: Starfort-class Deep Spaceport
- Classification: Frontier Orbital Spaceport
- Location: Orbiting a gas giant with some potential for fuel harvesting in an otherwise unoccupied system galactic southwest of Elrood on the border of Galactic Alliance space and the Kathol region
- Affiliation: Galactic Alliance
- Population: Heavily Populated
- Demographics: Slight human majority, population typically reflective of species percentages throughout Alliance space, with an added mix of aliens native to the Kathol region.
- Accessibility: Located in a system overseeing a once uncharted hyperspace passage used by smugglers and pirates to skirt border patrols and sneak into GA territory, Fort Dawn is one course correction jump away from Alliance space and the Rimma Trade Route beyond. Once, when it was smaller, Fort Dawn was a closely guarded secret spread through word of mouth, a place of refuge and respite for those with a shred of honor left to them in such lawless space. Now that the Alliance has arrived in force and apparently to stay, the newly built out hulk of a station is now on everyone's map, for better or worse.
- Description: Once a 2000 meter relic from a bygone era, the Fort as it is sometimes called used to rely on secrecy and the firepower of those ships using it for refit. For a time, the Fort severely reduced its operations, and many in the area feared it would soon shutter completely, but then one day the Alliance Navy arrived in force, and to everyone's surprise tugships laid the bones of a massive prototype station around the foundation of the original Fort. Now Fort Dawn stands as perhaps one of the most impressive feats of design in the region.
With a 5000 meter diameter cylindrical main hub, several massive spires are attached to its belly and another, thinner spire plumes out above the main hub, containing mostly docking berths for subcapital vessels as well as housing systems and storage space in addition to defensive emplacements (giving the station a vertical length of 10000 meters). While the central hub is vast, the station's design takes advantage of the vertical space to build out structures above the hub itself, giving the Fort the appearance of containing a small, raised city overlooked by the station's top spire.
- Turbolaser Batteries
- Ion Cannon Batteries
- MC1006 Sturgeon-class Point Defense Batteries
- Proton Torpedo Launchers
- MC1013 Delphus.3 Standard Mon Calamari Shielding
- Escape Pods
- Long-range Communications Array
- Holonet Transceiver
- Standard Detention Cells
- Standard Life Support Systems
- Standard Navigational Systems
- Enhanced Sensor Array
- Standard Targeting Array
- Tractor Beams (x30)
- Inhouse Alliance Military Outpost
POINTS OF INTEREST
The Spire
Fort Dawn features several spires, but when used by starport residents the term usually only applies to one. The thinner, topmost spire of the station houses much of station administration, including Central Operations at the top. While the Fort holds an understandable association mainly with the Alliance Navy, many of those who work in the Spire are actually civilian personnel, employees of the federal government. As the system is otherwise uninhabited and the region unclaimed by any singular Alliance entity, those personnel above working class are mostly members of the diplomatic corps, including an enclave for the Jedi Service Corps, though in practice the MedCorps and ExplorCorps make the most use of the space. At the bottom of the Spire, where it connects to the Hub, lies Zulu Base, strategically positioned to render aid to both the administrative center above and the populace below in the event of an emergency.
New Dawn City
By no means large enough to be considered a true city by an planet's standards, Core World or otherwise, the skyscape appearance of New Dawn City from station approach is what earned its monikor among the residents. To those who occupy the Waistworks and Hub below, it holds a less official name, the High Heavens. Most of the space in New Dawn City is reserved to be leased to companies, from both within the Galactic Alliance and beyond, and contains a variety of business fronts, corporate sites, and the more premium lodging available on the station for those of status who for some otherworldly reason find themselves with interests in the area that require a personal visit. For all these reasons, New Dawn City is perhaps understandably looked down upon by the rest of the station, although its residents would have you believe it has more to do with envy than any difference in treatment or accommodation. Nonetheless, the "city" is quite conveniently located to both Central Operations and Zulu Base.
The Waistworks
Also known as the Wheel, as those who occupy it consider it to be the wheel the station runs on, the Waistworks contain the much of the day to day logistical operations of the spaceport itself. While Central Operations oversees the running of the entire station, those in the Waistworks are responsible for the berths running on time, both the larger capital berths on the outer edges of the Hub and the smaller subcapital berths in the Underworks below. Including space for additional storage and housing for much of the station's working population, some of the space split between the center of the Waistworks and the Hub is where some of the more critical station systems are located, including life support, power systems, and the main shield generators. While not technically inaccessible as the Waistworks connect the Hub to New Dawn City, much of the section is off limits to any but specific station personnel.
The Hub
The central habitation and service center for both station personnel and the crews of berthing ships, the Hub consists of the bulk of Fort Dawn spaceport. Convenient to all docking berths, the Hub contains some additional housing for station residents but mostly caters to the crews of those ships using the Fort as a waystation. From small businesses and dining to entertainment centers and long range communications stations. The Hub has practically everything a ragged crew needs to keep pushing on through the dark, or to limp the rest of the way back to the relative safety of patrolled Alliance space.
The Underworks
Just called the Gates by those who frequent the station, the Underworks are the three larger spires underneath the Hub that contain much of the subcapital sized docking berths as well as space for additional stations systems and storage. With turbolifts running all along the lengths of each spire, the Underworks are designed so that each berth is as accessible to the Hub as possible, though of course no system is perfect and so the berths closer to the center of the station remain slightly more desirable, thus resulting in a slight premium on docking fees. It is important to stress that, despite what any apocryphal accounts one may hear while visiting the station, there is no official evidence as of yet of violent crimes occurring near any of the lower berths of the Underworks.
Central Operations
There is nothing particularly central about Central Operations. Located at the top of the highest point of the station, in practice most just refer to it as Overwatch. Or, when they are feeling particularly spiteful both towards Central Operations and the Galactic Alliance as a whole, High Command. From here each aspect of the station is overseen and coordinated by a joint civilian and military leadership. Joint in theory, but in practice the civilian command holds much of the sway in most matters, a necessary concession for the placement of so large a structure in arguably contested space.
Zulu Base
Named as such because its one of the most remote military outposts in the Galactic Alliance Defense Force (and perhaps also because it is one of the least desirable postings), the Base itself consists of much of the lower levels of the Spire and extends down into the Waistworks all the way to the COC located in the center of the Hub. Despite the unique layout of the space provided, Zulu Base is like any other Alliance military outpost, although it deals with problems every day that would likely be considered completely outside the realm of normal for other bases. So far, law and protocol have dictated that the soldiers, pilots, and marines of Zulu Base not participate in station security, leading to a somewhat contentious relationship with the office responsible for that duty, known colloquially as Station Sheriffs.
Combat Operations Center
A little known facet to the average visitor to Fort Dawn, sealed off from the rest of the Hub but accessible by emergency turbolifts from both Central Operations at the top of the Spire and Docking Bay Zero directly below, is the auxiliary command and control center for use in the event that the station should come under attack. Eschewing the vulnerable vantage of a station limb for the most well protected, ion shielded point in the entire structure, much of the functionality of Central Operations can be transferred to the COC by order of the station's military or civilian commander or an order from Alliance High Command. Amongst station personnel, the COC is more commonly known as the Heart.
Docking Bay Zero
At the very base of Fort Dawn station is a specialized capital berth reserved for the Alliance Navy carrier attached to station keeping duty in the system. While the assignment on a rotating frequency will often send the carrier off on a limited patrol, it will almost never range too far to respond to the Fort in the event of an emergency except to check a distress signal, and then only to assess and render aid if possible, but never for very long. Due to the limitations of the station's design, Fort Dawn itself possesses no space for the housing of starfighters (aside from commercial docking berths). As such, a necessary component of the Fort's operation is its assigned carrier and fighter complement. As most carriers don't possess fore or aft docking bays, specialized docking tubes are designed to rapidly spring from the base of the station and pressurize quickly, allowing for a relatively speedy docking process should it be necessary to make port or get under way in a hurry.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
In the early days of Alliance expansion into the Elrood sector, the comparative lawlessness of the Kathol region beyond gave the southern border a reputation as somewhat wild space. With much of the GA's initial focus on waging their campaign against the One Sith in the Core, efforts were of course made to further secure the space around the capital region of Sullust, but the southern border remained a persistent problem. With such large swathes of territory to patrol, and the relative unreliability of starcharts the farther one moved from the Core, many criminal groups found back doors into Federation space, short but reliable corridors that allowed them to bypass the more well known but overseen routes and thus avoid border checkpoints.
Over the years, a local legend cropped up in the area of one particular route where pirates had, as the story goes, discovered a derelict station likely placed to take advantage of the resources within the gas giant it orbited and then abandoned and forgotten for some unknown reason. The pirates waylaid travelers all along the border until a privateer crew tracked them back to their hideout and dispersed them. Taking the station for their own and using it as a base of operations as well as a refit and refueling station and sharing its location with their friends and those they trusted, no one was ever really certain if Fort Dawn and the privateer crew ever really existed, until one day the Galactic Alliance came.
The Fort was still running, its coordinates shared among a dwindling but still honorable few, and those currently docked scattered quickly when the first Navy ships arrived. But to everyone's surprise, the ships broadcasted nonthreatening but "polite" requests to vacate the station temporarily. Begrudgingly, those still on board did so, and to all who were present's amazement, tugships jumped in not long behind, hauling behind them the massive sections of a new, state of the art prototype space station. To this day it remains a mystery exactly how the Alliance knew the Fort's coordinates, and what in the galaxy possessed the research and development department at SoroSuub Corporation to design such a staggeringly improved replacement structure, let alone build one and ship it there.
And yet there it was, after a few weeks of final construction, a mostly operational remote starbase designed to stand as a guardian of the southern border. Now on all the officlal starcharts, the spaceport does surprisingly decent business in docking fee collection and leasing for so remote a location, although its hard to imagine it ever recouping the cost that must have been sunk into it any time soon. There are no end of mysteries as to the arrival of the new Fort Dawn in the region, the least of which what the Galactic Alliance outpost is doing there and what their true interests in the local systems and the Kathol region beyond really are.
