The Aresian Cluster

[elemental_elf]

Thank you so much for all the great ideas!

I added a codename/stand-in-name for every system. I happened upon a list of the largest UK Metros and decided to use those as the fill-in names. In retrospect I probably should have given each star type a city name from a different country but c'est la vie. I've added a few black holes and super giant stars to spice things up a bit (will add more as I continue). I also added a galactic map to give the viewer/reader a point of reference as to where the cluster is. I added a vertical scale (though I may have to extend it a bit so "Barry" is included ).

I'm undecided about travel. On the one hand, Jumpgates/portals/Mass Relays/etc. are great and really easy to explain but they are becoming quite popular (I want to be different!). At the same time, just traveling through space with FTL is so cliche... Oh hum, what to do. I was thinking I might make Ares Prime the nexus point for all Jump Gates (i.e. every system has a gate but they all funnel back to Ares Prime but Ares Prime's gate(s) can be used to travel to any other system). That way FTL is still important, especially if you want to avoid the heart of the Aresian Federation but, its just slower/not-as-easy.

I tried making a few "FTL Trade Routes" on the map but it instantly becomes weird because I am representing a 3 dimensional area on a 2 dimensional plane (thus routs often crossed and made it appear as if one could "hop off one route and jump on the next." Any ideas/suggestions would be most helpful!