Main Topic: Star Home

Star Home, A Xanadu Transport


The Star Home is a unique transport vessel reserved for the exclusive use of the Hapan Queen Mother. transport vessel reserved for the exclusive use of the Hapan Queen Mother. The ornate vehicle is over four millennia old and was designed to replicate the Queen Mother's ruling castle on Hapes. The ship is essentially a giant castle on a huge chunk of black basalt, and despite appearances, the Star Home is quite spaceworthy.

The castle contains the Queen Mother's quarters and hearing room as well as dining halls, meeting rooms, and quarters for all Queen Mother Ta'a Chume's guests and confidants. Every interior corridor and room is coverd in dark stone to perpetuate the illusion of the occupant's being in a ancient Hapan castle instead of aboard a starship. The castle features a number of towers, each capped with a crystal dome that allows an unobstructed view of space, with stunning spires and lush gardens dot the upper's "courtyard" levels. A private hanger bay is maintained at the lowest level of the castle and is reserved for the use by Queen Mother Ta'a Chume's personal guests.

To the matriarchal Hapan people, the Star Home represents wealth, power, and the supreme authority of the Queen Mother. The wind-sculpted basalt was carved from the surface of Hapes itself, while the stone for the castle was quarried from the moons orbiting Hapes. The crystal for the domes comes from Selab, while each of the other 61 inhabited worlds of the Hapes Cluster contributed stone, woodwork gems, or other ornamentation for the interior. Each year the govenor of each world presents the most treasured artifact from his or her planet to be stored forever in the galleries and vaults of the Star Home. Honored visitors can view treasures of the Hapan people dating back over 4 millennia, including the first great epic poems of the Hapan privateers, the incrediable sonic crystal sculputres of Gallinore, the latest works of the great Duinuogwuin scientist Mont'Kar'oh from the technology world of Charubah.


The ship's systems are housed in the basalt base, which has been hollowed out and reinforced by a unique molecular shielding system. The castle and basalt alone are weak, so the shielding system provides the Star Home's only protection.


Nearly a third of the base's interior is taken up by the six massive power generators needed to power the drives and keep the shield generators going. 24 sublight engines drive the vessel through realspace, while 4 hyperdrive engines are slaved to a single motivator to propel the bizarre craft into hyperspace. The Star Home's wepons include 20 turbolasers, 20 laser cannons, and 6 tractor-beam projectors. Interior hanger bays house 5 squadrons of fighters, for a total of 60 fighters, as well as numerous transports and shuttles.