The Star Port Ruins

        Local space was of great interest to the Creators. They were of the belief that even though they might never reach the distant stars, they could still take advantage of neighboring planets and moons. Unfortunately, the Twilight War came shortly before they managed to establish any real colonies elsewhere. The star port launched mostly unmanned space vehicles, delivering machinery, supplies, and satellites into orbit, all by the designs of the City Mind. It was once a well-guarded military complex, for it was here that Nigh was constructed, some three thousand years ago. These days the security is rather lax - a scattering of high-speed U-frames who hunt down and kill anyone without a valid identification card. However, the area is very carefully monitored by the City Mind's orbital eyes, and any intruders will eventually be confronted.

        The star port itself is a series of huge launchpads and towering, twisted gantries. The bulk of the facility is underground, sealed by massive emergency doors. A pair of gutted, rusting moon shuttles wait silently, side by side, on one of the larger pads. The rockets are huge, three hundred feet tall, each with four booster pods, each containing hundreds of burned skeletons. These were the colony shuttles destined for Tropos, both now reduced to rusting hulks creaking in the hot desert winds. In the last days of the Twilight War, those few Creators left alive tried to launch the shuttles, filling them with heads of state, teachers, and young families, all in the hope that they might find a way to survive on Tropos and outlast the terrible nightmare that was devouring their world. In the final hours of their desperate preparation, a fire broke out on one of the launch gantries, quickly spreading to the fuel tanks and detonating everything on the launchpad, incinerating both the social elite, and the last hope the Creators had clung to. After the launch failure, the last remaining shreds of the once-great empire finally collapsed into madness and anarchy.

Nigh's Cradle

        Another major feature of the star port is Nigh's Cradle, the huge network of supply tracks, cranes, and scaffolds that were used to construct the terrible Machine. Most of the magnetic track is buried under the sand, and the vast majority of the huge cradle is canting at a dangerous angle, as if ready to collapse. There is a fenced-in yard here containing nearly a hundred dormant service Machines. This is where Nigh returns to be repaired or refueled, coming down among the gantries on pads of blue fire. The process rarely takes more than a few hours, though it has slowed in recent centuries as more and more of the service units break down. Nigh's engines are charged with a special fusion compound called Cobalt 5, a substance extracted from the mountains to the south, and refined in automated facilities within the underground complex. The City Mind keeps this particular operation in good working order, so as to maintain the effectiveness of its deadly war bird.

        The most significant, and dangerous, of Nigh's service units are the Assemblers. These clockwork titans carry out repairs to Nigh's frame, resembling enormous metallic stick-bugs wielding all manner of rusting tools. They move at a slow, shuddering pace, great clouds of rust puffing from their many joints, but they will aggressively attack anything that approaches the dormant war bird during its refuelling period. Assemblers makes use of their many tools to dispatch potential threats, including drills, welding beams, bolt guns, hydraulic clamps, and so on. They never venture beyond the cradle itself, and fold neatly into wide, numbered bays when not actively servicing the war bird.

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