Jorus Q. Merrill
I'm a Vima-da-Boda, honey
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: A submission for the Wondrous Ruins of the Past contest, category three: "A colossal habitation complex, once teeming with life, is now left empty."
- Image Credit: Jeff Bartzis
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Rakata
- Astronomical Location Name: Transcendent Atrial
- Classification: Megastructure
- Location: The Unknown Regions, near Rakata Prime
- Rotational Period: N/A
- Orbital Period: N/A (deep space)
- Size: Massive
- Affiliation: No one
- Population: Sparse
- Demographics: 100% Flesh Raiders
- Accessibility: Transcendent Atrial drifts in interstellar space in the Unknown Regions. If you have the coordinates or a means of finding such a place, it's moderately difficult to reach given the Unknown Regions' hyperspace turbulence.
- Description: Transcendent Atrial is a Rakata megastructure that was a central hub for their relocation and exploitation of enslaved species. It measures over 400 kilometers on its long axis, dwarfing the vast majority of space structures ever built. It is a place of ancient grief.
- Command Habitat — At the top of the structure is the massive Command Habitat, a dome more than 200 kilometers across comprising thousands of spacious hab layers. This area was Rakata-only, though elite Rakata sometimes brought individual enslaved people (e.g. Force Hounds) into this area. At its peak, the Command Habitat had a population equivalent to a planet. In the millennia since the fall of the Rakata Empire, the survivors' descendants became Flesh Raiders and eradicated all other species in the megastructure. Though the Flesh Raiders make limited or inconsistent use of the Command Habitat's amenities, many of those amenities could be repaired by the right hands and expertise. In all cases, years of damage and power failure apply.
- Secure teleporter hubs and turbolifts for transportation within the Command Habitat.
- Colossal luxury residences.
- Private dark side training facilities for Force Hounds or for their Rakata masters, likely with Forcesabers or components.
- Mind prisons containing defeated rivals too valuable or tenacious to destroy — or canny Rakata or Force Hounds who used mind prisons to survive the station's fall.
- A world's worth of minor examples of Infinite Empire technology, either functional or non. Note that, while Battle Wands are common, the Flesh Raiders depleted their power sources millennia ago and then used them as melee implements or tools.
- A Rakatan central power core, still sluggishly operational but incapable of powering, say, the megastructure's weapons. A series of battles incident to the fall of the Infinite Empire, followed by millennia of debris impacts, wrecked most of those weapons anyway. With careful research and good knowledge of Rakata technology, someone could probably fire up a single anti-capital Aurora Cannon at a time, comparable to a heavy long-range turbolaser.
- Central Spine — This structure, over 250 kilometers long, juts down from the Command Habitat. Flesh Raiders have a sporadic presence throughout the Central Spine, as do their primary enemies: Rakatan Guardian slave-overseer droids who do not recognize the Flesh Raiders as Rakata. Along with central operational functions and utilities, the Central Spine contains the following points of note. In all cases, years of damage and power failure apply.
- Secure teleporter hubs and turbolifts for transportation within the Central Spine, or between the Central Spine and the Species-Specific Habitats, or between the Central Spine and the heavily fortified entrances to the Command Habitat.
- Biological research facilities, often inhumane, with xenoforming (species transformation) functionality on a grand scale. These facilities, if reactivated and repaired, are capable of transforming a large number of people from a given species into a new subspecies, rebuilding and reworking bodies en masse. They are comparable to the device found on Denab. However, unlike the related (and possibly derivative) Mother Machine, these facilities could not instill common Force-sensitivity in a species.
- Mindspear-based mass interrogation facilities capable of accumulating and compiling full cultural and technological databases for newly-contacted species who the Rakata might wish to enslave.
- The Transcendent Atrial megastructure's primary docking facilities.
- High-security checkpoints (particularly at the entrances to the Command Habitat and Species-Specific Habitats) that still bristle with automated firepower.
- Species-Specific Habitats — These lenticular structures (typically 50–100 km across) radiate out from the Central Spine. Each was tailored to contain one of the species that the Rakata enslaved. The Flesh Raiders have a minimal presence in some of these; more often, Guardian slave-overseer droids (in various degrees of functionality) dominate these habitats. The Species-Specific Habitats contain the following points of note. In all cases, years of damage and power failure apply.
- High-security checkpoints that still bristle with automated firepower.
- Bulk teleporter hubs and turbolifts for sending groups securely to and from the Central Spine's docking, interrogation, and xenoforming facilities.
- Dense slave quarters capable of holding millions of individuals or small groups in isolation, under absolute control. There are no survivors or descendants.
- Descendants of former Infinite Empire subject species (e.g. Wookiees, Noghri, Selkath, etc.) would find the mummified, untouched remains of their ancestors still sealed in isolation cells. The dead might be wearing traditional clothes and carrying traditional objects. Force-sensitive visitors might easily encounter visions of the dead and the station's ancient tragedies. Some visitors have tried to lay the dead to rest in one way or another, but are often overwhelmed by the enormity of the task and the aggression of the surviving overseer droids. And some have speculated that the Force itself refuses to let this tragedy be eased or erased. Though one could say the dark side is as strong here as it is in the training facilities of the Command Habitat, this is not a place that darksiders can draw on to exploit. The grief is numbing and pervasive. Will to power has no traction here.
Circa 32000 BBY, the Rakata Infinite Empire built Transcendent Atrial over the course of two hundred years as a central hub for processing and optimizing its exploitation of enslaved species. It is believed that Transcendent Atrial's xenoforming systems were foundational to the later development of the Mother Machine. At one time the megastructure was capable of interstellar travel to freshly-conquered worlds; that time is long past.
When the Infinite Empire began to collapse, factions waged war over control of Transcendent Atrial, scouring most of the megastructure's external defenses away. Thousands of Rakata abandoned the megastructure; millions more were trapped there for lack of suitable transportation. Over the ensuing millennia, the remaining Rakata became cannibalistic Flesh Raiders as a matter of survival, much like the Flesh Raiders on Tython. Millions of enslaved people, locked in their high-security isolation/processing cells, died much more quickly.
Transcendent Atrial has been lost for tens of thousands of years. Every once in a while, someone stumbles across it and tries to scavenge this massive graveyard. Sparse but enthusiastic populations of Flesh Raiders and overseer droids typically make short work of them. Folktales call Transcendent Atrial a place to avoid at all costs.
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