Athena - The Heart of New Athens
The core of the system is it’s star, Athena. It’s a larger and hotter than average Main Sequence Star - the same type as lies at the heart of the sol system. The size and heat has had a major, detrimental effect on the nearest planet, Hades, while creating a distant and wide habitable zone.
Research Efforts
Section titled “Research Efforts”During the initial wave of exploring to chart and document the system, Athena was studied quickly. There are full charts of its solar weather and patterns. The magnetosphere is well documented and understood. Some anomalies do remain unexplained.
- How has Hades survived so close, so long?
- Why is it larger and hotter?
- How is Atlas still intact at such a close distance?
The oddest questions aren’t about the star itself, but the system doesn’t fit humanity’s model for how a star system should be built or even exist. These questions invariably have something to do with Athena itself, but no answers have come forward.
In the years since, stellar weather monitoring stations have been deployed, charting and predicting solar flares and other activity, but nothing else has been done by any major efforts.
Conspiracy Theories
Section titled “Conspiracy Theories”The oddities of the New Athens system have led to numerous controversial ideas spreading on the net. Outside the New Athens system, there are those who think the entire system is fake. The data is fake, the planets are fake, it’s all a cover up of something else. Others believe even wilder ideas.
A Man-Made Star System
Section titled “A Man-Made Star System”Paranoid upper echelons of various corporations whisper that New Athens is in fact, the first man-made, custom star system. This is in part their way of coping with the on-going experiment in New Athens’ governance. The system is more productive than other systems. It’s easiest for some wealthy and less scientifically executives to believe that the New Athens system just has a leg-up on other systems. They justify ignoring progress by explaining it irrationally - and no one dares question it.
An Alien-Made Star System
Section titled “An Alien-Made Star System”There is no evidence of alien life in any explored or known star system. Humanity has spread to over 2,000 systems and never encountered intelligent alien life. There are plenty of worlds with plants and even some simpler life forms, but few worlds even reach the level of primates. The notion of their being any other intelligent life is unsupported.
In New Athens’ case, an alien civilization would explain the strange star Athena, the odd planet orbits, and the odd nature of Hades. Of course, any scientific analysis would conclude these worlds are naturally occuring. It’s just a conspiracy.