MAD-01-002 - The Cube

The Cube is a perfect 100km x 100km x 100km ancient stellar megastructure orbiting the star Polly-332. The Cube is made of an unknown metamaterial which has resisted all attempts to damage it. The cube is symmetrical down to the atomic level. Extensive seismic and sensor readings suggest that the outer hull may only be 10 meters thick, however the interior is much larger than expected. A 1km by 1km square entrance opens up at a specific point every 450 days and closes after 33 minutes, which is the only way in or out of The Cube.

The Cube generates 0.8g of artificial gravity pointing downwards relative to whichever face an object is closest to. This gravity is constant and extends out to 100km before suddenly terminating. The Cube does not generate any detectable gravity outside of 100km.

The interior is much larger than 100x100km and could possibly even be infinite. The interior structure has a 1x1km open area directly below the entry point but otherwise is completely enclosed in winding tunnels and rooms. Expeditions have reached a maximum depth of 250km and a maximum horizontal distance of 1,650km.

Navigation within The Cube is complicated by the fact that the tunnels and rooms seem to have non-euclidean properties. Doors and passageways that should lead to the same room often times do not. Navigation is thus stored as a list of left, right, straight, up, and down orders as opposed to a traditional map. The interior occasionally shifts, rendering pre-explored instructions obsolete. To combat this, an array of self correcting of beacons have been deployed throughout most of the safe zone.

qyoob

New Tranquility is the initial landing point for the first M.A.D. expedition and has since expanded into a fully fledged self sustainable city in and on The Cube. The top half of the city is built around the entrance on the surface of The Cube and is both the headquarters for M.A.D. and the staging area for expeditions. The bottom half acts as a containment zone for artifacts found within The Cube as well as a base camp for expedition teams. The day to day operations of the city is managed by O3 intellect Rodney.

The top half of the city includes several high speed transit rails which extend when the opening appears and retract before it closes. These high speed rails are essential for delivering and extracting people and materials to and from the interior of The Cube. Thousands of support structures, offices, living areas, and defensive structures dot the surface of The Cube, along with the massive M.A.D. Complex, a super-structure which contains most of the command staff, illustrious scientists, and the main computer cluster.

The half of the city inside The Cube acts as a high security laboratory. Volatile, unpredictable, and hostile anomalies are contained in a sprawling complex. The laboratory itself has been annihilated, vaporized, unmade from reality, or null-collapsed over 12 times. Due to the perceived indestructibility of The Cube's walls, the lab is the perfect testing ground for high risk technologies.

The Safe Zone extends from the surface down to approximately 7km. This area is marked by passive entities, breathable atmosphere, and little to no shifting of the internal structure. Much of the internal space of the safe zone has been repurposed into laboratories, armories, and support structures for M.A.D.

The Green Zone is typically defined as the area between 7-89km. The zone contains uncountable numbers of distinct lifeforms living and competing with each other for resources. These lifeforms vary greatly and contain carbon based, digital, energy based, and even extradimensional beings. They can also range from O1 to O3 in terms of intelligence, although most of them are hostile and see others as resources to be exploited.

The various biospheres are connected by corridors similar in design to the ones from the Safe Zone but are often overgrown with vegetation. The biospheres themselves are literal colossal spheres containing an engineered and climate controlled environment. Many biospheres contain toxic atmospheres, no atmosphere, or hazardous microbes, so exploration is carried out with utmost caution.

Forward Operating Base Yggdrasil exists as the main hub for M.A.D. operations at 50km deep and in the middle of a verdant forest in Sphere 5-A-101. The base is fully self sufficient and contains both heavy military equipment and well equipped biology laboratories. The perimeter is protected by automatic turrets, nanite swarm dispensers, EADs, and null anchors making it the most secure point in the Green Zone.

Ranger stations can be found throughout the Green Zone as rest stops and resupply points for particularly interesting biospheres. M.A.D. Rangers study and document useful lifeforms within their sphere as well as mitigation methods for particularly dangerous ones.

The Null Zone starts at 110km and is characterized by unpredictable and dangerous nullcollapses. Travel through this area requires null anchors to stabilize the local area. The zone is plagued with spatial anomalies, extradimensional entities, and unpredictable physics. Mapping the zone is nearly impossible. The zone is characterized by huge, seemingly bottomless pits, winding corridors, and megastructure scale machinery.

Sitting at 100km is Forward Operating Base Nullfront. It is a large, spatially anchored base which acts as the entry point into the Null Zone. The base is suspended above empty space and can only be reached through the main highway or by air transport. The null anchors used to protect the base also seem to provide an anti-gravity effect, allowing the base to remain in place without any supports.

Expeditions into the Null Zone are typically only attempted by the insane or incredibly well equipped. The majority of the Nullfront staff are Lunarians with access to highly experimental technologies and a near limitless supply of antimatter and monopolium to use them.

The Event Horizon sits at 250km and marks the furthest depth the Order can explore. The zone contains a single supermassive black hole which seems to act as both a mass storage and energy source for the entire Cube. Objects are protected from time dilation and gravitational effects until 5m from the event horizon. It is theorized that the technology used to contain this black hole stops at that threshold in order to harvest energy from it.

M.A.D. researchers believe there may be a way to continue past the Event Horizon, but the Order as a whole lacks both the technology and the energy density to do it.