Hearts

Hearts is a white dwarf star once numbering amongst the brightest in Aylathiya. Having long destroyed its only planets, Hearts now only has a thin ring of asteroids around it, once comets but now stripped of their ices. There would be little reason to visit this depleted star were it not for its antimatter deposits. Due to the unique conditions of its death, Hearts produces trace amounts of antimatter on its reactive surface, then launches it at great speed on its magnetic field. Were it not intercepted, it would fall back down, annihilating on Hearts' surface. Instead, the megastructure of Poratus exists to harvest this antimatter.

Historically, Hearts had been the sight of a handful of operations intent on gathering antimatter. Ever the expensive process, the synthesis of antimatter has determined the fate of nations both economically and militarily. With the first colonies going back to Sedrua, interest in antimatter production increased when the Payotari Quartet won the star after the Sedrua-Quartet War. They began construction on Poratus soon after, but kept it as a thin ring about the equator. As the star became increasingly valuable, numerous nations fought one another until the Xihe Pact was established in 9611, an international organization meant to enforce the rights to sections of Poratus.

Hearts distantly orbits a barycenter it shares with Angreifer.

Minor Worlds

Chang'e

Chang'e is the largest body left in the system at about 1.6 × 10¹⁸ kilograms. It has become something of a capital of the system. The Xihe Pact headquarters is on Chang'e as well as most of the population. Chang'e has several low-gravity spinning habitats embedded within, but most of the population lives in null gravity. While living in zero gravity is cheap in most of the universe, the high cost of importing food offsets any savings. Eating local leaves one with few options beyond algae, fungi, or other microbes. Many miners dock at Chang'e to resupply, creating quite the demand for volatiles like nitrogen and oxygen, although, to service miners of all species, Change's imports all manner of material. Chang'e imports nearly everything from Angreifer, giving the Angreifer system great leverage over Chang'e.

Changxi

Changxi, about half the mass of Chang'e, handles the refinement of antimatter. Whether from freelance miners, large companies who own swathes of Poratus, or magi producing antimatter the old-fashioned way, Changxi has the best infrastructure in Aylathiya for refining antimatter. The process is highly energy intensive, but Hearts is bright and energy is the one cheap thing to be found around it. Antimatter, usually stored in a magnetically-confined plasma, needs to be condensed for easy storage and transport, additionally it needs to be sorted by element.

Changxi spins quite rapidly, subjecting its workers to gravity over twice that of standard. This spin allows to separate elements by taking advantage of their different masses.

Changxi is quite heavily defended; the Xihe pact does not take its duties lightly. Facing pressure on all sides, the Pact has opted to augment their small force of guards with the best craft money can buy. Few other asteroids could be said to be so well-defended, but this leaves the rest of the system bereft of security. The Xihe Pact refuses to move craft from Changxi, even Chang'e has its own defense force.