Surface & Subterranean
A stylized layout, not a literal to-scale map — positions are approximate, built from what's been established in the Lore page. Grows as new locations get established. The Black Velvet Forest sits at the centre of the mapped territory, with Aura-Marina south-west of it and the Mountain Touge running the eastern edge; the Basalt Cliff-Tiers and the Crown Sanctuary hold the northern rim, the Ark-Genesis in orbit beside the Sanctuary. Below all of it, the Earth and Mars Sectors sit at opposite ends of the Subterranean Milky Way.
About This Map
Where it comes from
Updated for the close of Book One: twenty locations, including the Venus Sector, the Anchor, the Assembly Plaza, the Archive of the Open Accord and the Coastal Flats. Entries whose status changed in Chapters 84–110 — Aura-Marina, the Crown Sanctuary, the Ark-Genesis, the thermal-siphon shafts and the Rust-Canopy — now carry their end-of-book state. Every location here is pulled from established Lore — nothing on this map is invented separately from the world codex. Adding a new location to Lore means it belongs here too.
Why it's built this way
Every location is stored once, as a latitude and longitude, in a single list. The globe and the flat map both read from that same list, so the two views can never drift out of step — and adding a place is one entry, not a redraw. The terrain is drawn procedurally from a fixed seed, which means it looks the same every visit and can be swapped for a real heightmap later without touching any of the pins.
Where the Stories Happen
Every story on the shelf against the places on this map. Settings are taken from each story's own card — nothing here is new geography. A story with no mapped location is set on Earth, in the corridor, or somewhere this map deliberately does not place.
| Story | When and where | Mapped location |
|---|---|---|
| The Keel | Earth · Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia · the decades before departure | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| The Long Crossing | Aboard the Ark-Genesis · Earth to Aura-36 | The Ark-Genesis (The Ship) |
| The First Breath | Aura-36 · the founding decades | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| The Founder's Passing | Aura-36 · four generations after the founding | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| What Was Never Closed | Aura-36 · Years 0–4 after the Handoff | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| What Was Already Here | Aura-36 · Years +5 to +65 — spanning sixty years | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| What Kept Him | Aura-36 and Earth · after Year +65 | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| A Ship and All the Tools | Earth and the corridor | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| Their Own Sky | Outward | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| The Non-Essential Ledger | Outbound · ninety years, then a heading amended | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| What the Ravine Keeps | The Mega-Ravine and the Hold · one woman's working life | The Mega-Ravine & the Hold |
| Diminishing Returns | The Smoke Sector, beneath the Crown Sanctuary · an unknown duration | The Crown Sanctuary |
| The Star Drifter | Earth departure · the crossing · the founding decades · Book Three | The Ark-Genesis (The Ship) |
| The Forty | Aboard the Ark-Genesis · Years 0–2 after the Handoff | The Ark-Genesis (The Ship) |
| The Sworn | The deep-shaft network · four generations | The Thermal-Siphon Shafts |
| The Space Pirates | Earth · a hundred and forty years | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| The Bots That Stayed | Earth · the century after departure | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| The Sinks | The Venus Sector · four generations | The Venus Sector |
| Assumptions I Am Making | Aura-Marina · sixty years | Aura-Marina |
| Standing Tasks | One dwelling · Years 3–60 after the Handoff | off-map — Earth, the corridor, or unplaced |
| Banners And Wind | Ledger's End · nine years | Hub 4 & Ledger's End |
| Carried | The Touge Passes · forty Vigils | The Mountain Touge |
| Ghost-Built | The Long Five, aboard the Ark-Genesis · thirty-six years, plus a coda on the ground | The Ark-Genesis (The Ship) |