BY LETTER
Update on the Verifex explosion
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The Verifex Nebula as seen from Adhara Treaty region | |
The 154 artificial Supernovae involved in the Verifex event in M50 in Monoceros (in 7981 AT) caused severe ecological damage on many worlds in a region one thousand light years across, mostly in the Orion Federation.
Wormhole loss and the loss of markets was the main cause of a serious recession in the Orion Federation, and to a lesser extent in the neighboring Sophic League and Metasoft Version Tree.
Most of the supernovae in this incident emitted strong, relatively narrow beams of radiation from their polar regions; around 300 such beams were emitted, and the systems that suffered the worst damage were struck by one or more of these beams. Many Hider, Near-baseline independent and feral colonies within 500 light years of the event were badly damaged, and some were entirely annihilated.
Some systems that were affected by these deadly beams had enough warning to acquire Emple-Dokcetic shielding, although the Dokcetics drove hard bargains. Other, more advanced Sephirotic colonies were capable of creating their own defences. Some relatively close systems, like Savannah, suffered few ill effects and rapidly repaired the damage, although communications were disrupted in this region.
The Crystal Star Domain 1700 ly from the epicentre of the explosions in the direction of the Galactic rim, suffered few ill effects. However many of the local nearbaseline cultures, with which the Domain had formed trading agreements, suffered some moderate to severe damage. At the edge of the 1500 ly radius sphere the effect of the gamma ray and neutrino blast was easily survivable, even for a relatively lowtech system. Only unprotected astonauts in space were likely to suffer significant radiation exposure at this distance; and most space-going clades at this time were able to repair any damage caused by exposure in all but the most extreme cases.
The Verifex disaster caused disturbance to natural and artificial ecological systems over a sphere five thousand light years in diameter. However towards the edge of this volume the damage was often no more serious than mild global warming.
Behind the gamma ray and neutrino blast follows a much slower expanding shell of gas and dust, which will slow down in several hundred thousand years and form an unusually large bubble. The brilliant light emitted will exert pressure against existing gas and molecular clouds and trigger several starbuilding events in the local area (particularly in the Rosette nebula).
After the initial wave of intense radiation passed, this spherical zone was gradually recolonised in what is known as the Hellfire Expansion.
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Development Notes
Text by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 15 January 2003.
Initially published on 15 January 2003.
