So far, I've been working at the composition, the background galaxy image, and the landmarks scattered across the map. But I'm sure you've all been wondering what all these places are...obviously I've been dribbling out that lore, and if you look back at my first sketch, you'll see names penciled in. I've been playing with some layers in the Photoshop file that I've kept hidden...until now. Now, this is a map!
I'm still thinking about how to do this well. I have a couple other ideas about how to do the political boundaries, and I'm not totally settled on the fonts. I also know I have work to do to make some of the labels more legible. I also have to make a few region-spanning labels for the Sector Republic (red), the Imperium of the Triumvirate (purple), and Amsiele (green). Any suggestions? Do the political color-shaded boundaries take away from the underlying art? What the heck do I do to make "The Traders' Rim" label (the one in blue to the upper left) legible?
----------------
Usually, only a few generations after they discover the principles of faster-than-light spatial trajection, the species of the galaxy stumbled upon one of the great Anchors left by the archaics. Trajection is a key technology for a galactic civilization, but is not without its vagaries. Using a trajector, a ship vanishes from normal space and reappears in a new location - but only after an elapsed interval of seventeen days, three hours, and fifty-one minutes; the same length of time for any distance trajection, and always imperceptible to the ship's passengers. Unlike spatial trajection - which has a range of tens to hundreds of lightyears, depending on the trajector's capability - the Anchors provide access to instantaneous transit across a great network of wormholes spanning the entire galaxy. The network goes by many names - Channels, Vessels, Passages - and it defines the politics of the galaxy. Only arterial wormhole channels are shown on this map; they are not always in a star system and their names, therefore, refer not only to nearby worlds but also to ancient relics or galactic landmarks. Each arterial Anchor has some number of capillary channels feeding into it, but the network is by no means dense. It may take years of trajecting for a ship to cross unconnected space. The Far Reaches are so named because of the limited access to that region, and the strange kingdom of Babylon cuts off almost all typical commerce with the Free Worlds. (The Dead Ones are so named because they live in a nearly unconnected region...as well as certain unsavory legends.) The empty spans between spiral arms remain persistently long distances to cross, and sustained wars between galactic nations remain infeasible (though this has not prevented the Imperium from fighting consistent skirmishes, and the all-out war between Amsiele and Shobah decimated the region now known as the Well of Ghosts).
Reply With Quote