Vignette: Altair Station
Altair Station
Altair Station is a massive, multi-tiered orbital space station serving as the primary transit, trade, and logistics hub of the Altair system. Known for its layered ring architecture and constant docking traffic, the station is a cultural and economic crossroads where Alliance command personnel, merchant crews, salvagers, and long-haul pilots converge.
Altair Station is also a major reference point for Phase-era travel metrics, including the canonical Z-scale used throughout the SS Scavenger Universe.
Overview
Altair Station is rarely quiet. Its rotational rings support multiple docking levels, industrial bays, transit corridors, and observation galleries. From a distance it appears serene—an orderly stack of arcs and hull plating—yet inside it functions like a living organism: cargo trams, coolant lines, patrol routes, and maintenance schedules cycling without pause.
The station’s reputation is built on three things:
- Traffic — continuous arrivals, refuel-and-cooldown windows, and convoy staging
- Commerce — cargo exchange, repairs, provisioning, and black-market “gray lanes”
- Information — rumor, news, and “grapevine canon” spreading faster than ships
The Z-Scale
In the SS Scavenger Universe, interstellar travel velocity does not use the term “warp factor.” Instead, velocity is expressed on the Z-scale, named after the Prosian explorer Clen Zarkine, who standardized practical transit measurement based on the historic Prose–Altair run.
The Z-scale is defined as follows:
- Z1 — Prose → Altair in 60 days
- Each increase in Z halves travel time:
- Z2 — 30 days
- Z3 — 15 days
- Z4 — 7.5 days
- Z5 — 3.75 days
Most Scavenger-class Phase drives operate with a practical maximum near Z5, treating higher sustained output as unsafe or coil-destructive except in emergencies or controlled test conditions.
“Talk of the Rings”
Because Altair Station concentrates crews from many worlds, major technological developments become “station-wide news” almost immediately. Certain events—new ship programs, weapons test chatter, political shifts—spread from dockhands to pilots to vendors to officers in a single shift.
The station is famous for being the place where people learn what the galaxy is building next.
The AS Alliance Rumor
A major topic of current station gossip is the Alliance’s development of a new carrier-class ship, provisionally known as the AS Alliance. According to grapevine reports circulating through Altair Station, the vessel is designed to reach a maximum speed of Z8, far beyond typical Scavenger-class Phase-drive limits.
The same rumors claim the carrier will be brought to Altair Station as part of a high-profile demonstration visit.
Reported capabilities (unconfirmed in-station chatter):
- 14 Phase Shuttles (carrier-borne)
- 75 non-Phase fighters
- Fighters equipped with Mark III Regenerative Plasma Weapons — compact craft described by pilots as “flying guns with just enough room for a person.”
If true, the AS Alliance would represent a significant shift in Alliance projection power and Phase-era doctrine.
Vignette: Z-Scale
Altair Station never slept.
Its rings turned slowly under Altair’s light, scattering gold and blue over hull plating worn smooth by decades of docking burns and micrometeor scars. From a distance it looked calm. Up close, it hummed like a living thing.
Inside, it was louder.
Cargo trams rattled along mag-rails. Dock crews shouted over engine cooldowns. Vendors sold spiced Laroko tea, Terran synth-coffee, and whatever protein slab was cheapest that cycle. Pilots argued. Engineers compared notes. Everyone waited for something.
And everyone was talking about Z.
“You hear it’s Z-eight?” someone whispered near the transit lifts.
“No ship runs Z-eight,” another replied. “Z-five cooks half the coils on a Scavenger drive.”
“That’s the point,” came a third voice. “Alliance carrier. Purpose-built. Not salvage.”
That shut a few people up.
Z-one: sixty days. Z-two: thirty. Z-three: fifteen. Z-four: seven and a half. Z-five: three point seven five days.
Fast enough to feel the Flow tug at your bones.
But now?
“They say the AS Alliance is rated for Z-eight,” a dockworker murmured. “Less than half a day from Prose.”
Someone laughed nervously. “That’s not travel. That’s teleporting with paperwork.”
Schedules tightened. Security doubled. Old captains checked berth assignments they hadn’t cared about in years.
Because when a ship like that arrived, it didn’t just dock.
It changed the balance.