Asterion Station is a ring of research and engineering segments built around the Rift rim at the Khepri Basin. It was assembled over twelve years, each segment funded by a different partner. It was the first shared facility of what would become the Continuity Directorate.
# Layout
- The rim lock: a sealing collar over the shaft mouth. Whoever controls it controls access to the Rift.
- The launch cradle: a guide-rail dock that lowers vehicles through the rim lock and recovers them. The C-9 launched from here.
- Relay Control: the hub of the buffered relay chain. Since the blackout it works only the upper relay.
- The observation ring: instruments, the station archive and the room where the Asterion Accord was signed.
- Shard laboratories: sealed labs for Rift Shard research.
- Stores: staging for supply drops to caches.
- Quarters and medical: on the outer ring, as far from the shaft as the ring allows.
# After the blackout
Since the blackout, Asterion transmits only in short bursts and runs on a skeleton crew. The rim lock is closed except for supply drops. The launch cradle is empty for the first time since 2214. A light is kept on in it, by tradition, for the vehicle still below. See Asterion Station crew.
Radio conversations with Asterion are mission context, not a live crew aboard the elevator. The player descends alone.
Related articles
ARCHIVE RECORDAsterion Station crewRelay operators, cradle engineers, observers and the overnight skeleton shift. The people who keep the rim running and the upper relay alive.
ARCHIVE RECORDThe Asterion Accord (2211)The treaty that built a station, closed a basin and created the Continuity Directorate to keep the Rift under control.
ARCHIVE RECORDKhepri BasinA dry, sealed basin of salt flats and abandoned company towns. The Rift lies beneath it, and nobody without a Directorate pass gets in.
ARCHIVE RECORDCommander Helene GrafRim commander of Asterion Station. She locked the rim, ordered the evacuation and issued the recall order Marek ignored.