Lethíäza Trade Spine

The Spice Way

Posted by

13

In the year 8054, a forward-thinking Initiative of Ring Dynamics, ICC, evaluating the expansion program for the stargate plexus based on the recent advent of the frameslip drive, a free-flight capable FTL technology which would allow the positioning of stargates with speeds and at distances previously unattainable, made a proposal to the Directorate named after the historic trade route.

That proposal was for a new backbone for the stargate plexus which would cover the entire galaxy, if thinly – rather than expanding by constellations, using the new frameslip drive to build braided “thread” routes out along each galactic arm, connected by initially single – but ultimately multiple – crossing spines. In this way, distant civilizations would be placed a position in which contact could be made relatively simply – each could join the transportation and communications network simply by reaching the local “thread”, and become part of the larger galactic community. New local networks of constellations and cross-links would spin out from such contacts, which would serve as seed crystals for further development.

This was that proposal:

[a map of the routes involved in the Spice Way Program]

Notes:

  1. The Imperial Way and Lethíäza Trade Spine are, of course, expansions of the existing named routes you will see on previous maps of the Worlds.
  2. The “stations” to be seen on this map, with the notable exception of “Imperial Center”, marking the current center of the Worlds, were to be large regional hub space stations on a similar pattern to the Conclave Drift – providing seeds for local development, and somewhere for the network to broadcast its existence to anyone who happened to be in the vicinity.
  3. All those station names starting with “Cal”? Well, apart from that particle (meaning, approximately, “center”), they’re all named after large, bright stars in that region of space – those being obvious local landmarks around which to place your localized nexus.
  4. As may have been mentioned before, the Greater and Lesser Ancíël Whirls are the Magellanic Clouds (to which the Elsewhere Society has long since dispatched stargates). The Metan Ring is the Andromeda Galaxy, in our Earthling parlance, and the Milky Pool, of course, is Triangulum.

Trope-a-Day: Merchant City

Posted by

1

Merchant City: Mer Covales, the capital of Seranth (which is not, however, the throneworld), itself located at the junction of the Lethíäza Trade Spine and the Mercantile Corridor, the two biggest and oldest trade routes in the Associated Worlds.

Imagine, if you will, New York City, Hong Kong, and Singapore glommed together into one giant mass of wealth and commerce. Then scale up what you’re imagining until the buildings look like Coruscant’s giant arcology-towers, remake it out of the costliest materials you can imagine, divide it into three concentric layers stacked one above the other, make the whole thing fly, and dangle it off the end of an orbital elevator.

That’s Mer Covales, a giant, hovering testament to wonders, riches, mystery, risk, vice, luxury, splendor, and the ability of wealth to be as potent a force in reshaping the universe as any of the other four, if not more so. If you can’t buy it there, not only does it not exist, but there’s literally no-one you can pay to make it exist.