White-gold G1V dwarf · centre of the system
Aurin, the star
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Aurin is the star of the system where the settlers live: a yellow-white dwarf, mature and stable. The fleet that brought them chose it precisely for being predictable, though its flares, bursts of light and radiation, sometimes blind the sensors of the nearby planets. It gives its name to the whole system.
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The only sky in the system that does not look designed by an engineer.
What kind of star is it?
Aurin is a G1V dwarf. That is its spectral class: yellow-white and a little hotter than an ordinary solar-type star. The basics:
- Radius: 130,000 km. It is a compact dwarf.
- Surface temperature: around 5,900 K (kelvin).
- Light: a warm white with a golden cast. Never reddish, never bluish.
- Age: mature and stable.
The Flota Aura, the fleet that brought the settlers, chose it for its predictability. It had just fled a stellar collapse, that of Solmera, its home galaxy. The system was named in honour of the fleet. In the Registro Aura, the system’s first catalogue, the star’s name carries -in, the suffix for primary objects.
What are its flares?
They are bursts of light and radiation. Aurin’s spots and flares are moderate. But the peaks knock out telemetry near Ormek, the closest planet, and near the Colector Solar Prima, Ormek’s great solar collector.
The light from each flare takes about twenty seconds to cross the six million kilometres between the star and Ormek. It takes about fifty to reach the orbit of Ithera, the temperate planet.
At El Tizón, the Nadir listening post on the moon Cinera, flares are logged by hand. The dossier on the moons explains the method:
“At El Tizón they work in the dark and keep count of Aurin’s flares on a chalkboard that no one has digitised, because a chalkboard cannot be intercepted.”
Dossier on the moons of Aurin
What does it look like from each planet?
The closer a planet is, the bigger Aurin looks in its sky and the more light it gets. The size is measured in degrees of sky.
| From | Size of the disc | Light, compared with Ithera | What the sky is like |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ormek | 2.482°, two and a half times its size from Ithera | Six and a quarter times | Light filtered through a high veil of white cloud: bright days with soft shadows. |
| Kharsis | 1.419° | Twice as much | White and almost blinding, with hard shadows across the canyons. MMU equipment, built to the shared technical standard, carries filter visors for midday. |
| Ithera | 0.993° | The same: it is the yardstick | A golden disc. The spores in the air turn its noons emerald. |
| Kaldrek | 0.523° | Just over a quarter | Pale and low over the horizon, under an amber sky. At night, the light comes from the ring. |
There is one odd case. On Pyra, Ormek’s tidally locked moon, Aurin also spans 2.482°. That is more than Cinera seen from Ormek itself. The Cátedra, the high command of the Zenith, struggles to explain this. The world the Zenith claimed to give light to the whole system is the only one that never knows a full shadow.
How is the system laid out?
Two units help you read the table:
- Gm (gigametre): a million kilometres. The semi-major axis is each body’s average distance from Aurin.
- AU of the lore: 15 Gm, that is, 15 million km. It is the distance from Aurin to Ithera.
| Position | Body | Semi-major axis | Lore AU | Year (standard days) | Satellites |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Ormek | 6 Gm | ≈ 0.4 AU | 50.6 | Pyra, Cinera |
| II | Kharsis | 10.5 Gm | ≈ 0.7 AU | 117 | Kravane, Kharun, Erran and the asteroid Ashkar |
| — | Cementerio de Aura | 12.75 Gm | ≈ 0.85 AU | 157 | Belt of war debris, in an irregular and inclined orbit |
| III | Ithera | 15 Gm | 1.0 AU | 200 | Melvara, Tirane, Selvane |
| — | Delvar and Trasvar | 15 Gm | 1.0 AU | 200 | Trojans of Ithera at L4 and L5: anchors of El Pináculo and El Fondeadero |
| IV | Kaldrek | 28.5 Gm | ≈ 1.9 AU | 524 | Renvar, Ordrek and the Anillos de Kaldrek |
| — | Outer ice belt | 45 Gm | ≈ 3 AU | 1,039 | Unnamed belt; anchor of the Baliza Confín |
Delvar and Trasvar are two rocks, Ithera’s trojans: they share its orbit, sixty degrees ahead of and behind the planet. The two faction stations are anchored on them, and neither is ever eclipsed.
Years are counted in standard days of twenty-four hours. Each world’s own day, set by its spin, appears in its entry.
Why does the star matter?
Because it is a resource. The Colector Solar Prima, on the surface of Ormek, captures energy for half the system. It only works this close to Aurin. It is one of the eight strategic points, the sites the two sides fight over.
Whoever controls it earns an energy bonus for their whole faction. In return, they carry the risk of the flares. The Zenith went down to Ormek for it. The Nadir watch it from Cinera, with a permanent line of sight and a chalkboard.
