defy the tyrannous stars
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To flesh out the Mechanicum's corporate headquarters and add a unique point of interest to CIS space.
- Image Credit: Nexus Reveal by Ben Lo
- Canon: /
- Links: /
- Space Station Name: The Void Forge
- Station Model: Maker-class Orbital Forge
- Classification: Shipyards/Commercial
- Location: Zhar
- Affiliation: The Mechanicum | Metal Lords | Confederacy of Independent Systems
- Population: Heavily Populated
- Demographics:
70% Droid - 22% Cyborg
- 5% Human
- 3% Other
[*]Accessibility: Orbiting the eponymous gas giant of the Zhar system, the Void Forge serves as a commercial nerve center with convenient access to the densely populated moon of Gall. A gateway to the southwest of Confederate space, Zhar is not far from Geonosis. Landing rights are extended to all those who observe both system law and station regulations, but the atmosphere naturally favors droidkind to an extent that most organics find oppressive and even occasionally off putting.
[*]Description: A supermassive forty kilometer long orbital shipyard, the Void Forge consists of two thick rectangular slabs of quadanium plating in parallel, with a central docking ring that consists of a separate commercial station all its own. Docking arms are dispersed throughout the superstructure in order to accommodate many large capital ships at one time. The vast majority of the station's internal space is dedicated to the Mechanicum shipyards and repair facilities, but given its vast proportions what little space is left over for habitation and commerce is quite spacious by typical standards. The Void Forge's inner workings can be disorienting to navigate for organic minds, its layout is organized according to arcane mathematical theorems logical only to a droid, and its designers were not always compelled to build with things like gravity or life support or even continuous orientation in mind.
SECURITY
As a civilian station, the Void Forge is not rated for offensive armament. Apart from its heavy molecular shielding, reinforced hull plating, and sensors capable of detecting most forms of stealth technology, the shipyards are completely reliant on Zhar's local defense force or the Confederate Navy to fend off any serious aggressors. That said, given the system's population and the strategic value of the shipyards, moored star destroyers or other allied military vessels are not an uncommon sight.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Divine Forgeworks
The bulk of the station is comprised of the Divine Forgeworks, a massive shipyard overseen by Mechanicum enginseers and hierarchitects. Starships and other vehicles are crafted here at all hours, both proprietary designs and contracts according to the specifications of any who do business in Confederate space.
Tireless servitors and labor drones roam the labyrinthine yards performing those tasks which cannot be automated, retiring only rarely for maintenance or brief bouts of prayer and recreation. While most of the Forgeworks is reserved for Mechanicum construction, some space is leased out to other companies and a portion serves as dry dock for particularly severe repair operations.
Infinity Docks
Most of the Void Forge's commercial traffic flows through its central ring, the outermost rim of which is known as Infinity Docks. While technically a misnomer, the station's service capacity is staggering. Capable of sheltering dozens of star destroyers within its molecular shields at one time, the Docks are also where a great deal of starship repair and salvage occurs. It is not uncommon to see tender droids crawling across or hovering over the hulls of moored vessels.
Infinity's central ring is enough for most vessels, but for truly large capitals such as star destroyers and battlecruisers additional docking arms are located across the outer hull of the Forgeworks.
Maker's Foundry
A not insignificant portion of the Divine Forgeworks dedicated to the production of droids. Like all Mechanicum droid foundries, the process of production is treated as a most sacred ritual. While not quite a form of procreation, those who work in the Foundry are seen by others as shapers of the next generation.
Not all droids here are constructed specifically to replenish the machine cult's ranks. Many are built to serve out long term leases outside the Mechanicum, exchanging time spent as a piece of property for the opportunity to travel and experience the wider galaxy.
Iron Bazaar
Much of the Void Forge's central ring is what is known as the Iron Bazaar, a freeport market specializing in robotics and cybernetic technology with minimal regulation and oversight. Featuring many exotic wares from holy Mechanus and the Void Kingdoms of the Metal Lords, there are also many merchants who keep a plentiful stock of more conventional items.
Most businesses in the Bazaar are run by either droids or cyborgs, and while they are usually not prejudiced against doing business with organics, the establishments are used to commerce between majority droid populations and enterprises. Some are beginning to cater to a more bio-friendly atmosphere, but navigating the markets can range from daunting to visually off putting for those of the flesh.
Halls of Refurbishment
A sector of the station's central ring within the Iron Bazaar, the Halls of Refurbishment are not one specific location, but a whole network of droid repair workshops operated by some of the most qualified mechanics not only in the Mechanicum, but all of Wild Space. It is particularly known not simply for its quality of work, but the care with which that work is handled.
To organic tourists, the Halls are a highly reputable commodities market, but to droidkind these workshops together make up one of the most well regarded synthetic hospitals in the known galaxy.
Ascension Labs
Mostly concentrated not far from the Halls of Refurbishment, Ascension Lab is a local piece of terminology used to refer to those commercial facilities dedicated to droid modifications and upgrades. Like the rest of the Bazaar, inventory in the Labs is always in flux, but between all the Labs on the station there is a good chance of locating some obscure or otherwise difficult to obtain mods.
These Ascension Labs are one of the focal points of droid culture in the Zhar system, particularly noteworthy for the high rate of droids purchasing entirely cosmetic modifications with no utilitarian value. Most Labs also trade in cybernetic augmentation. In this respect, the Labs somewhat resemble tattoo and piercing parlors of a biologic society.
Recreation Centers
Like the Ascension Labs, the station's Recreation Centers are another particular oddity of note. Dispersed throughout the station, these centers are something akin to droid cantinas. Each center has a bevy of charging ports and assortments of lubricants for sale to pass the time with. Public oil baths are a common site, as well as more synthetic themed entertainment. Droid music is a relatively recent phenomenon, as challenging as it may be to listen to.
There are a handful of more traditional cantinas on the Void Forge that cater specifically towards the station's small organic minority as well as those with only minor cybernetic augmentations.
Pyramidion
At the sunward end of the central ring is pyramid shaped palatial crystalline structure. Lacking any true orientation in space, the Pyramidion nevertheless appears upside down from the Infinity Docks far below. On its own separate artificial gravity feed, from the inside it is the shipyards and gas giant below that appears as a sky of sorts above.
The Pyramidion is the administrative hub for all of the Mechanicum. A direct line between all loyalist Forges still currently in operation, it is where the most intellectually elevated droid brains together with their Chief Hierarchitect guide the machine cult on a day to day basis. Not technically the true seat of government for the Zhar system, this facility nevertheless wields great political influence, and it is known that the Viceroy often simply casts his consciousness to his governor's mansion on Gall from his personal chambers at the Pyramidion's zenith.
Great Machine Temple
Almost directly below the Pyramidion is one of the station's only entirely non commercial structures, a public temple reserved for universal worship. Despite this open policy towards all faiths and creeds, there can be no doubt that this shrine was built by the local droid population for the purpose of Maker worship. Regular services are carried out by Metal Lord clergy droids who also tend to the grounds day and night with little pause save for critical maintenance.
More than simply a spiritual altar, this Great Machine Temple is also home to perhaps the largest concentration of technomancers outside of the Mechanus system. A militant spiritual arm of the Mechanicum, these tech priests seek to simulate the effects of Force affinity and manipulation through the use of technology.
Featuring heavily into the machine cult's founding philosophy, they are descendants of a sect operating on Mechanus that first taught the Chief Hierarchitect the history of their Machine God and the way of what they call the Motive Force. Acolytes, tech knights, and magos all train together as kind of meditative exercise.
Shadow Yard
When they left Free Worlds Coalition space, the Mechanicum did so as refugees not only fleeing Sith raiding parties but also a brutal civil war between the Void Kingdoms of the Metal Lords. During this schism, a branch of heretikal machine cultists broke off in secret to form their own Dark Mechanicum. Led by a rogue technomancer magos known as Null, these corrupted ones infiltrated practically every loyalist facility save for the Forge on Mechanus.
Having uncovered this betrayal just barely in time to avoid complete obliteration, the Chief Hierarchitect was forced to cede Forge Denon to these hereteks, but managed to successfully purify the Void Forge and a convoy of other orbital structures that were hyperspace capable before they reached the safe haven promised to them by the Confederacy. Or so they believe.
Rumors yet persist of a Shadow Yard, a whole sector of the Divine Forgeworks deleted from both the station's schematics and the loyalists' collective memory banks. Those who happen upon this knowledge by accident quickly disappear, so the story goes. Like the hereteks, it is a subject of conversation that is officially forbidden by the Pyramidion, but lately there have been reports of excess power draws that would seem to suggest some energy from the station's reactor is being siphoned off elsewhere.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
"Toll the Great Bell Once!
Pull the Lever forward to engage the
Piston and Pump...
Toll the Great Bell Twice!
With push of Button fire the Engine
And spark Turbine into life...
Toll the Great Bell Thrice!
Sing Praise to the
God of All Machines"
- excerpt from the Catechism of the Autoculus
When Archim Calixis returned from his pilgrimage to Mechanus to form his machine cult, he traveled alongside the Council of Sparklords and their Iron Protector, [member="HK-36"]. Settling in the Core as nomadic wardens of organic space, Archim became Lord of one of the first Void Kingdoms. Naming his domain the Mechanicum in honor of the homeworld of the droids that had helped him to quantify his faith, he built the first Forge on Denon, an industrial commune that practiced mass production as a form of Maker worship.Soon with enough followers they expanded into orbit, and the Chief Hierarchitect oversaw construction of the Void Forge. Not nearly as massive as it is today, back in the beginning it was simply a modest orbital shipyard which produced little more than drone starfighters and other handy forms of technology. Over time, and despite the ultimate downfall of the Metal Lords, the station began to grow to match the Mechanicum's expanding industrial requirements.
Fashioned with hyperdrive engines in preparation for a planned evacuation to safe harbor within Free Worlds Coalition space, the station's overseers would never get the chance. Ultimately fleeing first a civil war between the Void Kingdoms and then Sith retribution upon their allies in the fallen Coalition, Lord Calixis filled the shipyards and several other Mechanicum stations with as many loyalist droids and cyborgs as he could find. As refugees they sought sanctuary far to the south on Geonosis along with several other droid kingdoms.
Ultimately Archim negotiated his current posting as Viceroy of a Metal Lord and Free Worlds sanctuary in the Zhar Territory with the Confederate Vicelord in exchange for leveraging the Mechanicum's industrial efforts in the name of the Confederacy. Now in orbit over the gas giant Zhar, the Mechanicum has wasted little time in putting their allies abundant resources to use to dramatically expand the scope of their shipyards.
Stretching forty kilometers in length, the Void Forge is one of the largest industrial facilities in all of Confederate space outside of Geonosis. Capable of servicing dozens of star destroyers at a time, it is even massive enough to easily host the Fortressa if ever required.
