Aster-9
Custodian Intelligence Unit of Saint Varos
Aster-9 is the custodian intelligence that kept part of Saint Varos alive long after outsiders wrote the battleship off. Its precise speech conceals neither its stubbornness nor the weight of that vigil.
When Saint Varos’s chain of command collapsed, Aster-9 remained. It maintained surviving systems with networked repair and fabrication units for 137 years without dock support. Section Nineteen is the centre of that survival, not proof that the entire battleship remains operational.
Aster-9 helps Varek and the cadets move through the ship, defends them from pursuers and later joins the escape. Torvald recognizes both its achievement and the recovery opportunity. The custodian’s attachment to the vessel and those it preserves gives technical exchanges a personal stake.
Saint Varos and its retained dead: the duty it refuses to abandon.
Varek, Elara and the cadets: new people to protect and argue with.
Torvald Krenn: an engineering counterpart who takes its achievement seriously.
Character sheets
