The Ember Waste, as it is called by the Remnant, is an isolated region of the galaxy, filled with dead stars, spacial anomalies, ominous red mist, and strange space creatures.
Connected to Terminus, a single system in the northwest of human space, by an unstable wormhole which requires a Quantum Keystone to traverse, the Remnant escaped to the Waste to avoid the threat of the Alphas.
Overview[]
A dead wasteland.
The Ember Waste can be separated into four main sections. Each section is filled with dying red stars, along with a rough red background mist quite unlike the calm blue found elsewhere in the galaxy.
The Ember Waste has two system hazards. It has a constant increased heat as well as occasional storms which deal ion damage and also shield and hull damage.
Crossing the Ember Waste requires many consecutive jumps, even with the wormhole chains assisting. However, ramscoops are generally more efficient within the Waste, since the many old stars generate high amounts of solar wind.
Southwest[]
The southwest part of the Ember Waste consists of seven systems, one of them unlinked. Cardea, farthest to the west, contains the other endpoint of the Terminus wormhole, the Ember Threshold, and also contains another highly unusual anomaly, the Ember Wormhole.
The system called Nenia is a special system, and has its own section on this page.
Convector, in the center of the Southwest region, contains a wormhole called the Ember Reaches, connecting this section of the Waste to Coluber in the North of the Waste.
Ossipago, farthest to the east, contains a wormhole called the Ember Graveyard that connects to the Graveyard.
In addition, there is a single unlinked system slightly north, Aescolanus, that contains nothing but a wormhole.
Central[]
The centralmost part of the Ember Waste is not particularly interesting. It only contains four systems, with two wormholes, one of them linking to the Southwest and to the Southeast. However, it is close enough to the Northern sector to allow ships with jump drives to cross over. Namely, the Korath.
North[]
Like the central sector, the northern part of the Ember Waste bears no distinguishing features with only four systems, but it is particularly close to Korath space. A wormhole link exists between Coluber here and Convector in the Southwest. Another wormhole in Lucina connects the Ember Waste to Acheron, the home region of the Gegno.
Southeast[]
The southeast part of the Ember Waste is inhabited by a band of strange humans who call themselves the Remnant. They have three inhabited worlds here: Caelian, in Cinxia; Viminal, in Arculus; and Aventine, in Pantica. A single wormhole link exists between Edusa in this region and Peragenor in the Central sector, the Remnant Wormhole. These worlds are the only other sources of quantum keystones that can be used to access some of the wormholes.
Wormholes[]
Not your average wormhole.
The wormholes in this region of space are very special. The names given to them here were taken straight from the code.
Several of the wormholes require quantum keystones to pass through. If you do not have a keystone installed on your ship the wormholes are still displayed, but you are unable to interact with them. Additionally ships in your fleet also require keystones to allow them to pass through the wormhole.
The rest of the wormholes are actually one series of connected wormholes that operate in this fashion: by landing on wormhole A, you depart from wormhole B; by landing on B, you depart from C, and so on, until you make a full loop and depart from wormhole A. This order is determined by the order in which the systems appear in the map file.
The wormholes, their systems, and their natures are listed below:
- Ember Threshold: Terminus <-> Cardea. Requires keystone.
- Ember Wormhole: Cardea -> Insitor -> Segesta -> Aescolanus -> Cardea. Wormhole train. Requires keystone.
- Ember Reaches: Convector <-> Coluber. Requires keystone.
- Ember Gegno: Lucina <-> Rouseu. Requires keystone. Leads to Acheron.
- Remnant Wormhole: Peragenor <-> Edusa. Requires keystone.
- Ember Graveyard: Ossipago <-> Polerius. Requires keystone. Leads to The Graveyard.
Nenia[]
Further information: Void Sprites
The Nenia system is one of the strangest features of the Ember Waste as a whole. Within it reside strange space creatures called Void Sprites, which periodically depart from their gas giant homeworlds of Nasqueron and Slylandro. They are not normally hostile, but will attack in self-defense. In addition, an initially cloaked Archon, Sleeping Dragon, appears if the Sprites are harmed, and will retaliate against their attackers. Otherwise, the Sprites peacefully "mine" asteroids and return to their gas giant homeworlds.
Systems[]
Notes[]
- It is implied in the Remnant intro missions that the Archons are biologically related to, or at least unusually protective of, the Void Sprites, perhaps as some kind of galactic treasure.
- Slylandro is a reference to the Star Control 2 alien race of the same name. The Slylandro are special in the galaxy, being the only species (at least with current information) to evolve on and inhabit a gas giant.