Aster Vale

Aster Vale preserves living systems rather than isolated specimens. Within its hollowed interior are complete forests, watersheds, grasslands, endangered species, and the seed and breeding stock needed to restore habitats damaged elsewhere in the system.

Its outer surface is airless and largely undeveloped. Inside, immense rotating chambers hold humid, breathable valleys beneath artificial daylight bands, with forests, lakes, and cliffs curving upward along the habitat walls. Pressure gates separate the major biomes, preventing fire, disease, or structural failure in one valley from spreading into the others.

Aster Vale is an Aurelian ecological reserve governed internally by the Interior Ecology Council. Aurel finances its structural maintenance, represents it in foreign courts, and controls the release of restoration stock beyond the habitat. Permanent residents hold Aurelian citizenship, though daily life within the reserve is governed by the Council’s conservation laws.

The reserve exists to return damaged environments to life. Its ecologists study not only how individual species survive, but how entire living systems recover when soil, water, climate, and animal populations are restored together. Every trial is documented, and its findings are made available to worlds undertaking approved restoration efforts. Living stock itself is guarded far more carefully.

All traffic enters through two axial ports, where vessels undergo structural inspection and strict biological quarantine. Once admitted, visitors and cargo move easily through the inhabited corridors connecting the interior valleys. Independent landing upon the exterior is forbidden, both to protect the habitat’s systems and to prevent unmonitored material from entering the reserve.