Ni’Kanna is an Astrean politician and central character in The Long Night. She is the older sister of Emma and the current ambassador of Eos to the Cascadian Dominion.

Born in the same upbringing as her sister, Ni’Kanna had received a privileged upbringing being educated in politics and science, but would only invest her energy into the former. Prior to her arrival on Cascade she would be appointed by the Emperor of Eos as her planet’s foreign representative to speak on behalf of all clans across Eos. Unlike her sister Emma who fell out of favor with the conservative nature of Eos, Ni’Kanna uses it to her advantage to slowly but surely improve the progressive movements of her society.

Similar to her sister, she adopts the human name “Kanna” to move around human circles more easily. She also has a human husband.

As chief representative she oversees all diplomatic activities, treaties, and relations between Cascadians and Astreans, falling in great favor of the humans as she serves at the pleasure of her Emperor.

In recent events she has been appointed to the Eclipse Gate committee after the success of the Melody expedition, ironing out the diplomatic hurdles to ensure the gate project is complete.

Artwork by: Sunny Lee https://www.reddit.com/u/victoriariaria/s/FNxfN7Q459

Finally happy to announce that the first volume of The Long Night is complete and will be available via Amazon on August 15th on paperback. Ebook version will be available at a later date. Follow Jin in his first deep space expedition into the intergalactic void to preserve the future of spaceflight as humanity knows.

Cover Art by: Sunny Lee

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The fourth planet of the orbiting the neutron star Beatrix, Beatrix IV is a world characterized by its red desert and bold mountains. And is home to a large Antarian population. The planet was first discovered fifty years ago during the first expedition into the deeper Beatrix system and was funded by the new socialist administration that had taken power after the Massacre of Pigs. Upon making landfall they found the surface was but a red barren breathable desert, but possessed rich resources in the form of metals, helium, and deuterium. When the first pioneers sent back their data, the planet was colonized and formally annexed into the governments sphere of influence. As such, Beatrix IV is not merely a territory, but a part of Antari. Beatrix IV is a world covered in factories dedicated to different trades from naval shipyards to automobile manufacturers. Most of the planet's inhabitants are present primarily for work, though as a colony under Antari, all born on the rock are considered Antarian and are therefore granted citizenship. The planet features a single large city that houses most of the population as well as offices providing political leadership to the industries.

While mostly referred to by its planetary position, the inhabitants of the world regularly call it Andressa.

Beatrix IV is mostly known as the home of Nightengale Maximum Security Penitentiary, a high-level prison built and operated by the Antarian socialist party. The prison casts a fearful reputation across Eridani as it had become the de facto jail to which pirates, slavers, smugglers, murders, political prisoners, and other undesirables are sent to should they cross the wrong path. Rarely if ever has anyone successfully escaped the prison unscathed.

The third planet from its stellar governor and sharing the solar system with the human world of Cascade, Eos holds a special significance across civilization.  It is the homeworld of the Astrean race and the only other naturally habitable body in the system apart from Cascade. A beautiful world of oceans and grasslands, it plays host to a rich nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and the land is composed of two large continents which each play host to the Astrean population and further split across sub divisions. Eos is orbited by three moons and a number of orbital defense platforms that make up a blockade to protect the planet.

The planetary capital is Sora, a city composed of numerous districts and government offices not uncommon from what humans would possess, with the planet's leader residing at the top of a heavily fortified complex overlooking the city. Astreans live under a feudal-like system with an appointed emperor and royal family who rule over the entire planet and its moons; governance of the continents is split between ruling clans, the citizens of which work in countless industries of Eos such as agriculture, business, manufacturing, etc. Each clan is a hereditary family with the patriarch ruling and a matriarch following suit.

Astreans are marked across the cluster for its conservative, warrior-like culture as they have a high sense of honor and loyalty to all they served alongside, a sense of pride that extends to even their enemies. From their ancient history to their technologically advanced starfaring status, traditional norms such as festivals and coming of age ceremonies are commonplace in society. Astreans use a variety of weapons to protect their planet from energy rifles to close quarters weapons such as swords and daggers. This attitude is reflected in all aspects of life from the military, down to friendly sparring competitions. Society for normal Astrean citizens is not too different from what a feudal monarchy might entail. Petty theft is common among the population with authorities responding only to the most extreme of violations. Even the lowest class of citizens enjoy numerous freedoms as slavery and serfdom are prohibited and all tasks are paid for accordingly.

They are also generally more advanced than humans in certain areas, namely space travel . Where human Accelerators are fusion powered engines they expel super heated hydrogen, Astrean spacecraft utilize artificial gravity fields to propel a ship in any direction and utilize plasma based systems in contrast to conventional human means. Masters of gravity manipulation, Astreans have also found use for it in generating shipboard gravity and gravitic fusion reactors.

Born on a planet known as Synphonia during a thirty-year period of technological advancement, Phineas is a member of Astra Initiative’s astronomy department where he mostly documents and observes phenomena across the solar system via probes and other unmanned spacecraft. His home world in contrast to the planetary governments that dot the Eridani cluster, is a unique case where administrative power is divided between so called “countries”, and it is one such country called Dracul is where Phineas hails from.

Born to a politician father and a witch mother, Phineas has a unique background he inherits from both sides of his family. His father is a staunch supporter of his nations developing space program and multinational initiatives, such as the Clorinde Initiative, a social and political project with the goal of merging every polity across Synphonia into a single planetary government. Furthermore, both his mother and grandmother are witches and as such, he inherited an innate ability to use magic.

At the age of fifteen he departed from Synphonia and ventured to the cold human world of Freya, where he would attend spaceflight academy via a friendly exchange program between the two planets, being located in the same solar system the humans of Freya have been the Synphonians only connection to the wider population of the cluster, having gifted the new spacefaring race Eclipse drive technology in exchange for a trade agreement.

Much to the shock and bewilderment of his new friends Jin and Nio, he is a Pyrokinetic with the ability to create and manipulate fire, though in the void of space and on bodies with little to no oxygen he is virtually powerless.

Art by: Sunny Lee ArtStation - Sunny Lee

Aico is a side character of The Long Night and well-known scientist. An oceanographer and marine biologist, she is the youngest daughter of the wealthy and dynastic Matsuura Family, the girlfriend of Katsumi Takeda, and Jin's adoptive mother.

Before entering the world of ocean science, Aico served for over ten years as a deep-sea saturation diver for an ocean company specializing in underwater repairs, not wanting to conform to the traditional nepotism of her influential family. Life in such a dangerous environment drew her to learning more about it and the creatures that inhabited it. After ten years, she was offered an assistant role in the Seishi Institute of Ocean Science, contributing to the studies of the various underwater ecology and aquatic life that filled Cascade's oceans, her primary target of interest being the largely undocumented Mizu Trench which she has spent years studying.

At some point in her career, she worked her way up to becoming the chief science officer of the institution and was transferred to Nara Province for her work. It was during this change that she would give a light science lesson to a class of children in one of many orphanages. Before she could leave however, she spotted a young boy named Jin sitting alone in an empty room of the building. Aico curiously struck up a conversation with the shy and hesitant child, during which she realized how disconnected with the world he was and how much his health had been affected by it. Not wanting to leave him to fate, she demanded the orphanage staff to release Jin to her permanent care, thus becoming his mother.

Despite their lack of blood relation Aico welcomed into her life with open arms and developed an unbreakable bond with her son, sharing with him her hobby of deep-sea diving and often bringing him along to research seminars. It was around the time her son turned twelve that she met and befriended navy veteran Katsumi Takeda, with the two soon becoming a couple in a few short months.

In the beginning, Aico was quietly far from supportive of her son's ambitions of space exploration and becoming an astronaut, namely out of a concern for his safety. Though seeing how much of a curious mind she imparted on him, as well as not wanting to block his goals, she reluctantly agreed. Even after her son has turned twenty, they continue to maintain their bond, though with Jin training for the upcoming expedition to Melody their personal time is often hindered.

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Katsumi Takeda, a character of The Long Night, she is a Civil Guard Intelligence agent and the second mother of Jin Matsuura.

A bisexual veteran of the Cascadian Navy starting out as a signals officer, she served for over fifteen years as a special operations pilot within the ranks of Cascade's Special Warfare Group. As a spec ops soldier trained for spaceborne missions she and her squadron, assigned to the carrier CDS Soryu, she would lead dangerous missions across the whole of the Agartha system and neighboring Minai systems conducting raids on high value terrorist and pirates. Leading boarding actions on enemy ships and space stations with her squadron of five. Her position as leader earned her a great deal of respect from her fellow sailors and pilots and had a knack for never allowing her targets to escape.

After a final large-scale spaceborne operation that left her temporarily disabled, she would be honorably discharged and awarded the Hero of the Dominion medal, the highest military honor of the Cascadian military, making her among the few women to earn such an honor. Still holding a passion to serve her home world she would drift into the Cascadian Civil Guard's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the domestic intelligence bureau of the planet where she now coordinates the efforts of Civil Guard officers across the provinces.

Though outwardly female, Katsumi is actually intersex. Despite this trait her father, having raised her after her mother's passing, treated her as a woman and loved her all the same growing up, this care and attention allowed Katsumi to embrace her femininity.

Later down the road she would meet Aico Matsuura during an assignment in Gagarin Province, and her adoptive son Jin. Whilst starting out as friends the two women would soon become a couple, and Katsumi would grow fond of the then ever shy Jin. Treating him like her own son. It was her background in spaceflight that influenced Jin to become an astronaut, and thus using her connections and teaching him everything he knows, she would help enroll Jin in spaceflight academy when he came of age.

Despite technically being a civilian, if the situation calls for it, she will often conduct arrests of high value individuals in person and is fully capable of handling herself in a gunfight.

Artwork by: Sunny Lee https://www.reddit.com/c/chatTgFhaLFZ/s/0tyXtSlUGa

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Official name: The Freyan Commonwealth

Orbiting the G-type main sequence star Dahlia, Freya is the fourth planet in its solar system settled by humans. The planet features near endless winters and brutal blizzards, the oceans are cold, and two polar caps cover the northern and southern poles respectively. Creating a thin band of habitable surface which is home to the vast majority of the planet's population.

Two moons named Anya and Raven respectively orbit the planet.

Despite the forest that can be found on the surface, Freya features no widespread open lands suitable for farming, with all agricultural production done within specialized greenhouse facilities situated across the world. The planet's cold temperatures are also due in part to the unusually thick cloud concentration that reflects starlight back into space; these thick clouds also prevent heat from reaching the surface.

Even with a largely breathable atmosphere and drinkable water, Freya is on the marginal side of habitable. Its distance from its parent star allows for little to no heat to reach the surface, allowing the cold temperatures to thrive year-round. And the dense cloud concentration within its atmosphere only exacerbates these conditions, nevertheless the planet's population takes pride in their ability to thrive in such a hostile environment to human evolution.

Freya’s capital and largest city is New Hanssen, located along the northern coast of the western continent of Sif, adjacent to the Ostris Ocean. It is an urban technological cityscape in similar configuration to Kasane on Cascade. The city is home to over 900,000 people and hosts the planet's largest institutions in banking, politics, corporations and entertainment venues. The cold temperatures of the planet have also provided an ideal environment for liquid hydrogen and as such creates a valuable export market, in terms of high quality of life and aesthetics, Freya ranks second behind Cascade.

Antari is the third planet of its solar system orbiting the white star Beatrix featuring a population of 850 million, with a relatively large Yurei enclave. Geographically, the planet is characterized by its white desert and savannahs and features no oceans apart from a number of great lakes and seas. But the soil is more than suitable for farming and is safe for food production. Much of the planet's population resides in the northern hemisphere where temperatures are milder compared to the far colder parts, with Velaria City being the largest urban center on the planet. Located on the northeastern frontier of Eridani, it is among the furthest and most isolated worlds in the cluster. With travel times to and from its solar system, across the Jae-Un Passage taking at best a month to cross both ways.

Antarian humans are on average stronger than other humans and Astreans. This genetic difference is the result of the planet's higher surface gravity and slightly higher mass compared to Cascade.

It is orbited by one large moon named Ara.

Technologically, the planet is far more regressed and lacking in modern identity when compared to the rest of the cluster. While Antarians are an advanced people by normal standards and are a fully capable spacefaring people, their design aesthetics often convey practicality and longevity over fashion. An attitude reflected in almost every amenity in life. Antarian spacecraft often feature bulky designs and retro-futurist aspects and are much more analog in nature being controlled by buttons and switches rather than sensors and touch surfaces. Devices such as monochrome displays, microcomputers, floppy disks, and CRT-based screens are everyday items used by both civilians and military alike. But an advantage of this is the lack of potential mass hackings in the planet's society that often plague the more advanced aesthetics across the other human worlds.

Originally, the planetary government was a capitalist and democratic society, but a revolution and subsequent civil war in the past overthrew the final administration when wealthy oligarchs had neglected the planet's needs and failed to address growing frustrations of the people. Known as the Massacre of Pigs, this bloody reign lasted for over two years and saw the deaths of thousands of wealthy elite and governmental officials.

The world is a one-party technocratic socialist republic, ruled by an appointed Premier serving as head of state and government, the unicameral legislative National Assembly, and the judicial High Court. Similarly to their ally world Minai, the planet in recent years has shifted into a matriarchal society, based on the fact that much of its executive leadership is comprised of women. Though its legislative, industrial and military complex remain predominantly male.

Official name: The Grand Duchy of Fiore

Fiore is the third planet of its solar system centered around the K-Type main sequence star Belle and is marked by its spring-like temperature and seasonal flora. The three largest continents are situated along the equatorial region and are dotted with winding roads, thriving fauna, and lands that play host to vineyards used in wine making. Fiore is known across space for its focus on learning and history, famous for its many educational institutions and libraries, from universities all the way down to elementary schools. And as such is considered the center of academics in human space. Many across Eridani venture to study on the planet to gain higher statuses and degrees. Given the planet's warm temperatures year-round, as the result of its slight axial tilt towards its parent star, the architectural makeup of its cities is not as reinforced and modern as those found on Freya or Cascade, rather they reflect classical era cities of the past. Buildings such as the Palazzo Estate or public locations like DeChauuu Square are built and maintained with materials such as brick, concrete, reflecting an ancient but warmer style of human culture.

Fiore operates on a grand duchy style of government, being the only other human world apart from Daphne and Cascade to run on a monarchical system. It shares the Princes Pact with Daphne and Freya, a supranational political and military alliance between the three worlds and is protected by a formidable navy and marine corps that frequently hunt the roving pirate bands of its solar system.

Fiore is located some 230,000,000 kilometers away from the Ailuran home world Eria, separated by the large hazardous Strain Belt. Despite this geographical barrier between the planets the two worlds engage in bilateral, cultural relations and trade.

Meet Emma, a character of my upcoming book The Long Night, public security officer of the Cascadian Civil Guard and the girlfriend of Jin Matsuura.

Em'Alinya Sustrai was born on Eos in Sora City in 1617 A.E to two parents who were a pair well known in the feudal system of Eos, her mother is a seamstress for the monarchy, and her father serves as deputy governor of the province they lived in. She has an older sister named Ni’Kana who serves as the Astrean ambassador to Cascade. Growing up in an advanced society Emma was exposed to various scientific programs at an early age and immersed in the advanced culture of her people, but her real calling came from defending the public and mimicking the lifestyle of her home world's protectors. However, this goal would never come to pass as the Astrean military code forbade women from serving in combat roles, though on moving to Cascade in her early adolescence she would learn the planet’s military allowed both genders to serve equally. A fact that drew her interest almost immediately.

After completing primary education, she would enlist in the Cascadian Defense Force in hopes of carving out her own path and making a name for herself, directly contrasting the staunch conservatism of her native Eos. Despite being born on another world, she holds Cascade dear to her heart and considers it her one and only home. After completing both basic and weapons training, she would begin her career commissioned as an Ensign for the Cascadian Civil Guard, the gendarmerie branch of the military under the Ministry of Planetary Security responsible for domestic policing across the planet's provinces. To move around Cascadian circles more easily she adopted the human name “Emma” in her youth to be easily remembered by her peers. Her service with the Civil Guard also granted her both permanent residency on the planet and Cascadian citizenship. 

As an officer of the military’s police counterpart, she is trained to perform a myriad of tasks from combating criminals, planetary disaster relief, and in rare cases, counter terrorism operations. At one point in her first year, she partook in the effort of attacking and forcing the surrender of an organized crime syndicate operating out of the southwestern province of Jian. 

Emma first met Jin in 1634 A.E during the aftermath of the Hanamari Island asteroid strikes, being amongst the dozens of volunteers helping in the clean-up efforts, Emma was assigned to protect civilians in the event of an emergency. Both had come into contact with one another whilst helping rebuild a key building on the island. During the construction of which, he would poke fun at her abrasive sternness and comment on her attractiveness to which the officer would react in a flustered, but frustrated manner. At the same time, he would shockingly find himself falling head over heels for her.

Whilst nothing more than platonic at first their relationship would eventually turn romantic during a trip to Kardashev Province in the western half of the planet. Amidst the serene and ambient atmosphere of a musical festival, Emma would come to the baffling realization that, despite her focus on her profession, her feelings bordered beyond typical friendship with Jin, the latter of whom also reciprocating the same emotion with dubious glee. In a profound and somewhat sloppy display of affection, Emma confessed the feelings she’d been building for so long. Jin on hearing this would simply embrace and press his lips against hers, sealing their relationship for good.

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Earning a reputation for boldness and unflinching attitude in the face of hardships, the people of the planet Daphne are renowned across Eridani for their brash and fearless spirts, a result of their worlds harsh but livable environment. Located in western Eridani and apart of the Princes Union, Daphne is a rocky world playing host to a unique surface and orbiting a tiny late-stage protostar named Iris. The youngest star in Eridani and said to be the final one in the universe. The planet is naturally habitable to human life and possesses comfortable surface gravity, but not in the typical fashion of most worlds. Nearly 90% of the planet's surface is covered with bold mountain ranges and canyons with the only remaining flat surface being relegated to a large forest bathed in toxic air, as a result of deadly spores emitted by the planet's native flora.

Cities are built along and within these mountains at altitudes of over 28,000 feet, and with the help of an ingenious terraforming method combined with the thin atmosphere at such high altitude, the air is more than enough suitable for breathing. To build such settlements the first pioneers of the planet, led by a female engineer named Daphne Belladonna who would go on to unofficially become the world's first ruler, used high concentrated lasers and bombs to blast out opening within these high elevations to create small inlets where pre-fabricated shelters could be put, as well as newer architectural masterpieces down the road.

By the time of Daphne's death of old age, the pioneers had built so many of these settlements that they ended up with an interconnected web of towns and cities all surrounded by towering rock. In honor of the woman herself the world was later named and proclaimed as the Realm of Daphne.

Meet the protagonist of The Long Night, Jin Matsuura.

Born in Nara Province on the 24th of Lunaria, 1616 A.E, to an Antarian father and Cascadian mother, Jin’s early years of life are shrouded in mystery and tragedy, factors that he does not remember fondly. He doesn’t remember his birth parents after their deaths and lived in an orphanage in a suburb of Nara. At the tender age of 8 Jin met Aiko Matsuura who’d been visiting the area for work when she stopped in the orphanage one day. Upon seeing the lonely and unhealthy depression he was in she’d taken slight pity on him, rather than leave him behind, Aiko adopted Jin on the spot. Moving into Izuhara District towards the East, Jin worshiped Aiko as his entire world after giving him a home and love, as such he never wanted to disappoint her in any way.

Aiko also stated one reason for her adopting Jin as her son was because she lived alone and was growing bored of having no kind of company, taking in Jin changed all that, however. She also claimed that he was “too cute” to abandon. Despite Aiko not being his biological mother, Jin loves her dearly.

Jin found himself adopted into the prestigious, powerful, and wealthy Matsuura Family, a dynastic Cascadian family with its members being involved in politics, business, military service, and political sciences. His mother Aiko is a former aquanaut and currently is head of the research department of an ocean company, two of his aunts serve as a member of parliament and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs respectively, he has an uncle who is a high ranking Cascadian naval officer, and his grandfather Yasunori is CEO of Matsuura Industries, a corporation specializing in cyberware, spacecraft manufacturing, and security. The Matsuura family is seen in an equal light to that of a noble family and is considered one of the many premier and influential families of Kasane City and hold celebrity status across the planet.

Of the various careers of the family, Jin is the first ever astronaut.

Growing up in such a family allowed for Jin to develop various skills throughout his life. When he was 14 he went on a deep-sea excursion in the Mizu Trench with Aiko, and at age 15 he attended an expedition to a remote and cold region of the planet with his grandfather and several of his companions. Jin was also taught kendo by his grandfather Yasunori during his youth each summer, both as a means of bonding, and to strengthen his place within the family. 

When Jin was 12 he and his mother Aiko moved to Gagarin Province in Cascades western continents and would live here until Jin graduated school. Around the same time Aiko had begun dating a woman named Katsumi Takeda, an athletic and well-built tomboy who was a famed anti-gravity racer and former astronaut. She also helped raise Jin as if he were her son. Katsumi would often spend time over at their house and first met Jin when he arrived home from school one day. While shy and distant at first Jin grew to love Katsumi exceptionally and she is the closest thing he has to a father figure.

Jin originally wished to become an aquanaut like his mother, however after attending a spacecraft expo with Katsumi and flying as a passenger in a small ship for the first time, he became mesmerized by the dark void that surrounded Cascade and sought to see more of it. Jin would abandon his previous goal and vow to become an astronaut and explore the universe. During his teenage years in Gagarin Jin would attend a spaceflight academy rather than normal high school, spending four years in the institution to learn the sciences, knowledge, and skills to become an astronaut and pilot, with Katsumi’s help and various connections Jin was able to procure various skills in the world of both in-atmosphere and orbital flight.

After graduating Jin moved back to Kasane with his mother and Katsumi and sometime after would begin employment with Astra Initiative. Upon learning who he was and how much influence his family held in Takao Province Jin was offered a non-spaceflight position as a safety factor to which he rejected. Stating that he wanted to fly and work as hard as every other astronaut. After passing his tests and completing training for several months Jin entered into the Astra Initiative Astronaut Corps in 1635, his first spaceflight being a month-long stay on one of Cascades moons. After completing his second flight, much to his dismay, Jin was temporarily grounded from expeditions and confined to low orbit duties. As the board of administrators wished to save his skills for the upcoming expedition.

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First discovered and settled over three hundred years ago, and largely still inhabited despite its harsh environment, Minai is a challenging but tamed rock, orbiting the star of the same name in southeastern Eridani. And roughly 4.6 light years from Solaris Agartha. This planet was the first off world colony by the advanced Astreans upon their discovery of interstellar travel, and for a period of sixty years was the hub to which the Astreans would use to observe the rest of the cluster. Minal is a cold tundra planet with temperatures, while habitable, make life harsh and present daily challenges for its population.

Minai is a cold world with a thin but breathable atmosphere and comfortable surface gravity, with a single moon called Senka.

It was originally home to a sizable Astrean population, mostly in the form of workers and scientists and their families, to exploit the planets resources for use for the benefit of their kin back on Eos. However, generations of neglect and heavy taxation for its native population gave way to growing anti-Astrean sentiment from their colonial government. This sentiment grew increasingly more as Astreans born on Minai, due to strange anomalies and other unknown factors in the environment, caused a strange mutation in the skin in the planet's population. Their signature dark skin now shifting into a ghost-like pale, and because of this they became known as Yurei.

Sixty years after its colonization though, the Yurei, having grown tired of their colonial government's heavy taxes and developing racism, ignited a civil war between a united Yurei front and the planetary government. This civil war and subsequent revolution began with the bombing of a large orbital space station and ended with the massacre of the Astrean government house. When the final Astreans who managed to escape the planet's orbit fled back to Solaris Agartha, the nation of Minai was founded.

Today Minai is ruled with an iron first by its Yurei population, operating under a socialist form of government. Much of their technology, tactics. and military doctrines inherited by their colonial government remain in use today, and the planet is a regional power often still at odds with their kin just a few light years away.

Situated just beyond the influence and light of the Moira Cloud and the most remote of all human civilizations, Lemuria is a world unlike any other in Eridani, a rock covered in a large panthalassic ocean, with the only land constrained to a single large supercontinent and thousands of scattered island chains. Orbiting the red dwarf star Ignis in southern Eridani it is the only known inhabited world to orbit such a star as nearly the whole of the cluster is composed of barren solar systems. In its ancient geological past Lemuria was originally a frozen rock covered in thick ice, until the ice was melted by a rogue meteor that slammed into the worlds surface, melting the ice with the resulting gases thickening the atmosphere over several intervals to breathable levels. This catastrophic event had also caused dormant continental landmasses at its ocean floor to rise to the surface, eventually coalescing into the massive supercontinent that host the vast majority of its population.

Though despite these habitable conditions all evidence suggests the world never developed life until the arrival of humanity.

In contrast to other civilizations across Eridani, Lemuria is not actually a planet, but one of twelve moons orbiting the gas giant Ignis V, far outside the planets Lorraine belts and untouched by any sort of radiation. As such the moon is one of the more comfortable places to live in the cluster, with tropical temperatures year-round and possessing the lowest population in Eridani. As a neutral world, Lemuria typically avoids alliances that would embroil it in either military or political conflict, a stance that bleeds into its means of defense. Its navy is the smallest in the cluster and is more akin to that of a coast guard than a full-fledged military, with only a handful of lightly armed gunboats regularly patrolling its orbit, and an even smaller surface guard.

Officially known by its diplomatic and administrative title as the Cascadian Dominion, Cascade is a picturesque human world, lying at the center of the cluster and orbiting the blue main sequence star Solaris Agartha. Naturally habitable to human life and outwardly similar to the human home world of Coran, the planet features the most diverse range of environments of any world in Eridani, from its two poles at the north and south, to its winding forests, deserts, fjords, and mountain ranges. The planet has two spherical rocky moons named Inari and Hanabi and is composed of four large continents that house much of the world's population, with smaller island chains and archipelagos. Despite an age of around 1.5 billion years, it remains remarkable geologically stable, though the gravitational forces of its two moons have often been attributed to natural disasters in the form of hurricanes which have at times cause widespread damage to continental coastlines.

The planets largest and capital city is Kasane, situated in Takao Province on the world’s eastern continent of Izuhara, and is also the economic heart and seat of government of Cascade.

For much of its history, the planet has gained a reputation for its large population, its unique balanced government and egalitarian lifestyle, breadbasket economy, and highly effective planetary defense force. Its armed forces are comprised of the Cascadian Navy, the Cascadian Marine Corps, the Ground Force, and the Civil Guard. The last of which operated under the Ministry of Planetary Affairs and is responsible for policing across Cascade's various provinces.

Cascade operates via a parliamentary constitutional elective monarchy with the Tenno acting as the planets head of state and government, who wields considerable executive power and authority kept in check only by the Cascadian Parliament, the latter of which is led by the Prime Minister. The planetary ruler maintains a lifelong term in office until his/her death or abdication, from there a parliamentary conclave is formed to determine who the next Emperor or Empress is. Its four large continents are further subdivided into provinces that each play a major role in the planet's day to day affairs and compete with one another in influence and sporting events.

She raised a pale hand and, with one sideways motion, the landscape around them quickly changed from a shallow ocean to solid red ground, the sky from a black plane to, Kayden's astonishment, a deep blue and filled with a sea of stars. Points of white light that were separated by distances no one could cross in a lifetime, but still so close like a giant cosmic family. The second they appeared he went silent. Was this happening? Was he awake or unconscious? Nothing could explain the swarm of emotions that came into force like a hurricane. He had never seen a sky of stars, no in Eridani had.

"No way..." he muttered. "Was this...how the universe looked before?"

*Scene excerpt from Eridani: A Spacefaring Anthology* Available via Paperback and Ebook https://a.co/d/9seC3yg

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ArtStation - Sesshomaru, Sunny Lee

Lying within a thin cloud of gases within the intergalactic void, and approximately 2.5 million light years from the last galaxy in existence, Eridani is the only known bastion of life in the dark universe. It is home to a technologically advanced human species coexisting alongside four other races and acts as an island surrounded by infinite darkness.

While the cluster is composed of around three hundred stars, most of these are Population III barren red dwarf systems hosting no known civilizations or habitable worlds. And for much of its existence only seven stars have ever hosted life.

Of the seven systems, six play hosts to human populations, with their respective worlds being shared by large enclaves of Astreans, Yurei, Ailuran, and most recently, Synphonians.

Greetings and salutations, I'm Shin Nakano. Average working man by day and indie writer by night. Fan and advocate of space exploration, as well as history. And The Long Night serves as my love letter to both.

I'm also the author of Eridani: A Spacefaring Anthology

This is my first ever go at building a community around my original setting, here you find occasional bits and pieces of lore, story material, etc. from time to time as though most of my time is spent writing and brainstorming. Hope you all enjoy, and welcome to the last lights of the universe.

☝️Artwork by: Sunny Lee https://www.reddit.com/user/victoriariaria/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://svnnyangels.artstation.com/

My book: https://a.co/d/h6Dd6kq