July/August 2024 Mapping Challenge: Nandalekon System

[Tiana]

Are the nebulas/stars in the background a bit too much?

No? They could be EVEN MORE! If they cause any problem it's with the visibility of the planet orbit paths. I'd probably make them brighter. It's a great space map.

[Greason Wolfe]

This is coming along nicely, and I agree with Tiana, the or ital path lines could be a little brighter, but the nebula/stars look great.

[Simkin]

Wow Turambar, that's really a great map. I think that the background is ok for now, if it will be a problem for the labels you could change a little.

[Turambar]

No? They could be EVEN MORE! If they cause any problem it's with the visibility of the planet orbit paths. I'd probably make them brighter. It's a great space map.

This is coming along nicely, and I agree with Tiana, the or ital path lines could be a little brighter, but the nebula/stars look great.

Thank you Tiana and Greason! I have gone ahead and made the orbit lines brighter. I think before I added everything else they looked too bright, so I dimmed them, but now it looks much better with brighter lines.

Wow Turambar, that's really a great map. I think that the background is ok for now, if it will be a problem for the labels you could change a little.

Thank you Simkin! I have added the labels now and I think the background works just fine.

[Turambar]

I have added the labels, and I think I can call this one complete (unless I notice anything else that I should improve or fix).

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Welcome to the Nandalekon System! A solar system steeped in ancient forgotten history and modern galactic business, orbiting a large O-type star (blue giant). While humans traverse many corners of this system - mining, syphoning from gas giants, and scrounging up ancient tech - there are fiver locations that are most pivotal to this systems life. These are highlighted in the insets on the right side of the frame and are the following:

Glegid: Beneath the icy shell of this frozen planet, remains forgotten place of refuge for this system's original intelligent lifeforms: Reishi. Eons have past since the Reishi ruled the system, and their levels of technology have devolved far when their ancestors traversed the galaxies. Yet they have maintained some semblance of civilization under the ice, unbeknownst to the human inhabitants of the Nandalekon System... for now.

Mendellion Gate: Such was the technology of the Reishi's ancestors, that 2.3 million years later, the pinnacle of their achievement remains, functional as ever: the Mendellion Gate. This megastructure maintains a stable wormhole to the Kerapas Galaxy even now, and serves as memorial to Reishi's success and the eventual cause of their destruction.

Hiraeth: A superearth, mutated beyond the means of any natural evolution, the planet Hiraeth is the remnant of the Reishi homeworld, corrupted by the awful - and forgotten - fate that seeped through the Mendellion Gate and destroyed their civilization over 2 million years ago. What life remains is tarnished, corrupt, and devoid of any semblance of nature. Travellers beware.

Leth Station: Leth Station is the prize possession of Tarius Holdings, the corporation that maintains the concession of the Nandalekon System from the United Federation of Earth. This orbital factory hovers close to the superjovian gas giant of Asterion, and secretly churns outs human clones in preparation for the Federation's next push for conquest across the Milky Way. Some who know of Leth Station's secret existence say it was the reason Tarius Holdings was granted the concession of the Nandalekon System to begin with.

Arquis: The initial draw of humans to the Nandalekon System, was the discovery of Arquis a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone, with similar makeup and atmosphere as earth. Initially a small human colony, over the past 70 years, Tarius Holdings has turned the planet into their corporate home, building megacities, industrial complexes, and mines across Arquis.

### Winner ###

[Adfor]

I don't know what the triangle portal thingy is, but I'm intrigued.

The shadows of the moons on the planets really does it for me on this one. Stellar!

IR

[Turambar]

I don't know what the triangle portal thingy is, but I'm intrigued.

The shadows of the moons on the planets really does it for me on this one. Stellar!

IR

Thank you so much Adfor! The portal is the alien megastructure from the prompt, and creates a stable wormhole to another galaxy.

[XCali]

I was just thinking. Shouldn't the moons' shadows be hard edge shadows rather than blurry. If I remember correctly, moons in real life throw hard shadows on their planets. (Unless it has a atmosphere, I think)

A small note. Great map so far!

[Turambar]

I believe that is correct, but on this map the four planets with moons casting shadows on this map have atmospheres (two gas giants, one terra, one ice planet - probably the thinnest atmosphere of the four)