Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Maxient (section)

==Nearby Space==
As the Port sits at the literal edge of human-traversible space, it is tasked with the defense of the Emperor’s realm from the alien menaces of the Oldlight Exo-zone and Cloudburst Circuit.  Among the nearby star systems are ones that lie well within easy telescopic observation range, but are challenging to reach thanks to Astronomican obstruction.  The Imperial Navy has had frequent problems with corralling pirates that dwell in these worlds.

Along the outer edges of the sensor range of the Port itself, which are substantial thanks to its endless upgrades, hang fifteen smaller stations.  Docking with Port Maxient is an ordeal for ships above a certain beam, even with the Mechanicus’s continual attempts to make itself a more desirable trading partner for passing ships, looking to sell treasures of the Exo-zone.  For small shipping concerns that can’t afford Maxient’s pricy long-term berths, the best option is one of the outer platforms.

These platforms, classified as Deep Void Cargo Rigs in the nomenclature of the Administratum, consist of a few docking umbilicals with electric train tracks inside of them, connected to massive gravity-controlled cranes.  These cranes offload cargo from docked ships, load them onto the trains, and send them off to a central storage hub.  The hub is the largest part of the Rig, and consists of a pressure-sealed storage block, where hundreds of thousands of kilograms of cargo containers can be slotted neatly into cubes of steel and plastic.  There, the cargo can sit for as long as the deliverer pays for it to sit, for pickup from other ships.  Given how well-defended Port Maxient is, these Rigs are the preferred place for long-term storage of non-perishable goods on the frontier.  Captains can rent a slot in the Rigs for their goods for a reasonable price, or to simply be magnetized to the outer hull of the Rig for far less, at the risk of radiation exposure.

The first ten of the Deep Voids are these Cargo Rigs, but the other five are not.  Four of the five remainder are purely defensive platforms.  These are shaped like the spokes on a wheel, and stretch over two kilometers from end to end.  Each has a single large macro-cannon at the top and bottom of each spoke, with a single Lance turret on the top and bottom of the hub.  These stations serve as deterrent from pirates looking to rob the Rigs.

The last is a docking ring, larger than all ten Rigs combined, and acts as a secondary command post for local military forces.  The ring has variable gravity control for acclimating passengers aboard to the station’s default.  The ring has spurs that allow all five Defense Monitors and all six Basilikon Astra vessels to dock with it, and with three leftover spurs, there is room for growth in local ship construction.  The ring, named Security Berth One, is a place of exile.  This is where those Naval and Mechanicus personnel who have no time nor patience for the political games of Port Maxient find themselves dumped.  Most make the best of it.  This is the one place in Port Maxient where some cooperation between Mechanicus and Naval personnel is common outside of emergency maintenance.  Unbeknownst to both Admiral Caravel and Magos Alexia, the leaders of the military and Techpriesthood exiled here are preparing an extensive briefing to be delivered to the Senatorum Imperialis Terra on the friction on the main port.  They are merely waiting for the next Blackship to dock at Maxient to ask its Captain to carry their message in secret.

Each of the fifteen platforms has sensoria of their own, and route their telemetry to the main Port.  In times of invasion, all but Security Berth One are stripped of non-essential personnel and partially evacuated.  Defense of the region is coordinated from Command Post Maxient, while coordination and repair of the defense ships falls to Security Berth One.  All five of the invasions by aliens since Port Maxient came online resulted in the loss of all Defense Monitors while the Basilikon Astra contingent retreated or was overwhelmed, further inflaming tensions between the Navy and Mechanicus.  This is part of the reason that both the Adeptus Mechanicus and Navy seek to add another station to the ring around Maxient, one capable of building ships.


While the star system in which Port Maxient was built, GHE848, contains no planets, that is not the case for the surrounding systems.  The station was built where it was to aid in the telescopic observations of the Oldlight Exo-zone, and thus, it was ideal for there to be no astronomic bodies to obstruct the telescopes and cameras.  For military purposes, this is less helpful, although it does mean that the station has unobstructed fields of fire towards all possible approach vectors.

The nearby systems are not entirely abandoned.  The Navy has learned of several small void constructs built by Imperial hands in them.  These are generally built by Rogue Traders to serve as private caches of goods and equipment outside the squabbling Port.  Beyond them, in the Oldlight Exo-zone proper, the Navy knows of at least twelve systems where human and alien pirates lurk within eleven light-years of the border of the Astronomican-detectable regions of space.  While non-Navigated Warcraft are able to travel a distance defined only by their ship’s supply of consumables, the pace is slow enough that evading them is easy.  Thus, while the Navy does go flatten these pirate bases from time to time, they know full well that there is no real way to secure them for good.