Mallice: the Wormhole Nexus
Within the center of a pocket dimension outside the known universe lies a planet wracked by distortions in the laws of physics. Planet Mallice sits at the heart of this interdimensional junction, its sky illuminated by the light of millions of wormholes flickering open and closed.
This pocket is finite in volume. Mallice sits at the center surrounded by a dense halo of wormholes. Mere millions of kilometers beyond the halo lies a churning, impenetrable wall of folded spacetime.
Although much of Mallice is cursed by violently changing anomalies, millions of small islands of stability exist with a unique combination of physical laws. Several of these locations support known or theorized life-forms, making habitation a possibility. The majority, however, are stable but so inhospitable to life that normal matter might rend itself out of existence instantly if brought into the region.
Standing in one of the habitable islands disorients all but the most disciplined spacers. Gravity generally pulls downward, only to be reversed by static sites of antigravity. The strength of gravity is mostly stable at an easy 80% of Mecatol standard, but this varies considerably at boundaries of these stable areas. Hand-sized pockets of extreme gravity float around the edges, warping the light cast by millions of wormholes into truly dazzling displays.
Finding Mallice without a guide means exploring the dangerous rapids of uncharted wormholes. Not all wormholes are bidirectional, and some passages are too small for all but the tiniest vessels, meaning intrepid explorers risk being trapped far from home or crushed by the narrowing bulk of spacetime.
The Exterrix
Mallice hosts the headquarters of the mysterious Exterrix organization. This secretive collective of smugglers operates throughout the galaxy and boasts it can move “anything to anywhere”—for the right price. The Exterrix deal only in the most high-value items and provide no-questions- asked service. Their extensive knowledge of the wormhole nexus and where its wormholes lead allows them to seemingly disappear and reappear anywhere in the galaxy.
The smugglers’ headquarters is built into the remains of a massive starship that crash-landed outside an island of stability. Exterrix agents use the starship’s exotic dimensional stabilizer technology to protect the ship and to extend a safe corridor for approaching vessels. While the ship vaguely resembles Creuss designs, temporal analysis indicates it crashed thousands of years before the Ghosts’ contact with the galaxy.
Contacting the Exterrix is an easy matter for those already in the wormhole nexus. Anyone sophisticated or powerful enough to safely reach Mallice warrants at least a conversation by comlink. It’s rumored that both the Mentak Coalition and the Nomad maintain close ties with the Exterrix, but the former denies such allegations, and the latter is generally unreachable.
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