Template:Star ClusterThe Nalachi Cluster is a major cluster above the galactic disk of the Flower Galaxy. It is controlled almost entirely by the Pecay-Po Federation of Nalachi, which also controls the sparsely populated galactic halo surrounding it.
Nalachi is an unusually large globular cluster, at 250 light-years in diameter. It is relatively densely packed, making it the largest and brightest globular cluster in the Flower Galaxy's neighborhood. Nalachi's center is occupied by a large black hole unimaginatively known as the Heart of Darkness. The Nalachi Cluster, other than this, contains many ancient artifacts from the ancient Pecay-Po Federation of Nalachi, which is a lot older than it looks.
History
The Nalachi Cluster formed alongside its parent galaxy roughly 13 billion years ago, and originally contained many OB stars and wolf-rayets. Before long, these died off, leaving behind a mess of lower mass stars. Over the intervening years, gravity slowly compressed the cluster of stars to be extremely dense, the core eventually reaching densities of one star per 64 cubic AU. This made stellar collisions relatively common, and led to the creation of the Heart of Darkness.
In the outer reaches of the cluster, where it was more habitable, the planet Nalachi spun around its star for billions of years, forming multicellular life roughly 1.5 billion years ago, and only advancing to intelligence 200,000 years ago. However, the inhabitants of this planet would prove to be extremely powerful, and create a nation which heavily influences the politics of the Flower Galaxy, the famous Pecay-Po Federation of Nalachi.
This nation could have ruled the galaxy and even conquered the rest of the Telusian Cluster if it felt like it, but it chose to focus on internal development and fill every star system with a vast megastructure, leading the Nalachi Cluster to become one of the most important areas for scientific study.
Uses
TBA
Megastructures
The Nalachi Cluster is home to many megastructures, ranging in size from habitation rings a few hundred kilometers across to massive Birch Planets a few hundred Astronomical Units across. Notable megastructures include:
Ta'Koro, a massive, ancient, habitable sphere surrounding the central black hole of the cluster, with a massive amount of infrastructure inside and outside. Many of the core stars were forcibly moved out of the way or even destroyed to make way for its construction.- Poralor's Ring, a huge ringworld surrounding the planetless white dwarf Poralor, with a large population.
Notable Planets
The Nalachi Cluster, being the home of an old civilization, is filled to bursting with many interesting planets. These include, but are not limited to:
- Nalachi - The homeworld of the Pecay-Po Federation of Nalachi, and the namesake of the whole cluster.
Tarin - A notable planet orbiting a binary of a neutron star and a white dwarf, with many heavy metals to be mined.- Devoro - A habitable world close to Nalachi, with another major species of the Federation of Nalachi.
- Pyrris - A scorching world, site of the Battle of Pyrris, a notable battle in the War of Saiheran Succession.