[Empire Log: Missing orbits] [The Heritor system was missing several planets. All calculations indicated that several more celestial bodies should have existed, but no trace of them could be found in this system. The sensors had been recalibrated and the figures checked again, but reality contradicted the conclusion. We had marked the locations of the missing planets on our starmap. Perhaps scanning the system from closer range would yield more information.] [Fascinating.]
The anomaly was first discovered in the Heritor system, at the southernmost edge of the Empire, bordering the Starfish Republic. Several planets were missing from orbits that should have held them.
Only later did research reveal that those planets had been moved!
The anomalous hyperlanes detected in the Heritor system all connected to locations where scientists believed planets should have existed.
After studying these strange hyperlanes, we discovered that they all led to the same place.
It was a star system called Dacha, which we had thought inaccessible. But if we combined these narrow hyperlanes, we could send a science ship through.
Or we could take a more forceful approach and jump a Titan science ship straight there.
Fortunately, the Synaptic Lathe had already attempted to understand some of the principles behind hyperlanes. Through practical trials with science ships, it had found a hyperlane connecting the Heritor and Dacha Star System.
The Dacha event had officially triggered. In Xi Yan's memories of the past, Dacha was something beginners frequently asked about.
The science ship entered the Dacha Star System and began exploring.
There were three stars within Dacha's stellar gravitational field. Rather than orbiting one another as they did in a three-body system, they remained far apart at separate coordinates, without interfering with one another, as though three star systems had been stitched together.
Dacha's three