World VORTEK. (Amended)

[Nyx]

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VORTEK started life as an off-planet , base of operations for the mining company VORTEK, just one of many scattered throughout the dwarf galaxies.

Originally just an outpost for the mining company workers , their support staff, engineers and technicians, over the decades it took on a life of its own. Spidering out from the center like a three dimensional web, it was built of supply barges and Arcs that having completed their journey, docked and never left. Quickly stripped down and repurposed into whatever Vortek required.

Then the trade flotillas arrived, and they too saw the potential. The Captains struck deals that provided them a burgeoning ever expanding market place. It also gave them a permanent base from which they could provide a more sustainable trade route and access to other markets, goods and providers further into deep space.

Layer upon layer Vortek was built , huge construction vessels, barges and civilian transport Arcs would dock and never leave. Smaller independent flotillas from surrounding planets bid for space at the ever expanding free market. The growth was rapid and entirely unplanned , people made space were they could, and although a chaotic maze of imperfection, it thrived.



Then the tech corporations came with limitless funds. Looking for a place where they wouldn’t be burdened by such petty things as morality, and so Vortek’s expansion exploded. They forced order out of chaos, divided the city into sectors, each one responsible for the residents within its boundaries.


Now, nearly 100 years on, this Mega city had slowed its evolution. It sat in the orbit of b713, a planet so unimportant it didn’t even have a name.

Vortek blinks like a gaudy bauble against the endless pitch black of space. Its infinite maze of street levels meant you could enter on the ground floor on one side of a building only to be on the 76th floor on the other. The deeper in you went the more unsettling the city felt. Plenty of stories were told about the depths of Vortek, from it being where the corps did their dirtiest dealings. To the existence of something that even the most hardened of security forces or aggressive of crime syndicates didn’t want to deal with, no matter how much ground it meant relinquishing.


Whatever the truth, noone was willing to venture deep into the long forgotten sectors. Plenty were the stories of Scav teams that explored into the seemingly endless tracks, paths and walkways only to get turned around and end up back where they started. Recon contractors sent to map routes in towards the core, who's reports became increasingly unsettling until eventually they just stopped and were never heard from again. Rumours from those who made it out were, that no route stayed the same, that something down there amongst the carcass of the original city, where the dead ships lay , wanted to keep its secrets.



This is a sc Fi Cyberpunk world, the main race here are modified humans, however aliens or artificial lifeforms are welcome. Unaltered humans are practically collectors items here, if you are 100% organic, natural unaltered human , you will be owned by some collector, in fact you were most likely sold to them before you were even born.

Outside of that this world functions much like any other. The city of Vortek boasts a population of over 90 million. It is divided into the following sectors largely the distribution is like the slices of a pie, but in some places overlap is necessary;



I : Elites, Corporation Owners, Executives

II : Corporations, Research centres, Finance,

III: Entertainment, Media, Hospitality

IV: Services, Healthcare, Education, Utilities; Welfare; Prisons ; Security

V: Retail, Mass Production - Bespoke Construction - Cyberware, Wetware, Hardware,

VII: Residential, Transport, AI Maintenance.

VIII: Blackmarket, Illegal gambling,

Drugs

Cyberware , Hardware and Wetware.

Manufacturing

Forgery and Counterfeit goods



IX; Slums.



X : The largely forgotten original hub of Vortek. This is not an area known by many. And there are maybe a handful alive today who remember its existence or how to access it, or the slumbering AI who brought this place into existence.



The majority race living on Vortek are Refits , another name for a modified humans. There are a handful of companies and corporations who through decades market manoeuvring and manipulation have posited themselves as the power and governance of Vortek. AETHELGARD NEXUS came out the victors of this boardroom war. All this despite the company from which the city derives it's name still being very much present and active. This causes a certain amount of posturing and conflict city wide and has resulted in increased security and more heavily fortified borders between sectors.



Second most numerable race are the Tathrakka, a self perpetuating living machines, they combine flesh and blood and organs, bound to metal frames, each one in the image of it's creators eye.

Most are created with purpose in mind, a preset blueprint from their creator , it is possible for the Tethrakka to be created with a solely aesthetic purpose in mind, though rare. Whilst they can never be mistaken for a bio lifeform they can experience all those things a biological being can. Though they find it incredibly rare to find the deeper more emotional experiences, love affection, hate and envy are possible its far more complex. Most likely because , in their creation there are aspects , genetics and mechanics from so many different species.

They content themselves with obtaining knowledge from other lifeforms, ever striving onwards , in return providing expert mining and exploration of hostile planets where the bio-races are incapable of making profitable endeavours. For a price of course.

In return they get to interact with many knowledgeable races , expanding on their advancement options and in turn increasing their survivability.

 

[Nyx]

The Most powerful human run monopoly on Vortek is a corporate run research center called Aethelgard Nexus.

. Architectural Integration:
The research center, named The Aethelgard Nexus, is not a single building; it's become parasitic organism that began it's existence with the arrival of the first corporation's and has continued to spread into the newest most technologically advanced areas of Vortek.

Location: The Nexus started life as one of the first corporate built structures, since then it has been expanded upon reinforcing it both structurally and technologically.. These structures run from the surface to deep within the city-planet, making them structurally sound, hard to access, and eternally separate from the living metal surface. Noone knows how large the facility truly is or the extent of it's reach throughout the sectors.

The Wall of Ships: The exterior of the Nexus is reinforced by the fused hulls of the largest and last of corporate freighters. It is impregnable and appears from the outside as a blank, unyielding section of the city.

Logistics: The Nexus uses the original, now repurposed, magnetic cargo rail system for transport. This allows them to move "materials" (subjects), equipment, and personnel across vast distances and between repurposed ships without ever exposing them to the street-level populace.

2. Operational Philosophy: Adaptation and Control
The genisis of Vortek was that of a multi-species hub that grew out of necessity—The Aethelgard Nexus's mission must be one of enforced stability and directed evolution.

The Problem: An ecosystem of 90 million people, constantly shifting and growing, is inherently chaotic and inefficient.

The Nexus's Solution: Hyper-Specialization. The elite running the Nexus believe they are creating the only stable future by engineering perfectly adapted workers and administrators for the three critical sectors of Vortek.


The Unified Genome Initiative:
The ultimate goal of the Nexus is to establish a Unified Genome—a blueprint that allows any subject (human or alien) to be 'optimized' using standardized protocols, simplifying their horrific work.
Alien Subject Pool (The Xeno-Materials):
The Nexus is obsessed with isolating beneficial alien traits for human integration. They may capture members of a species known for its resilience or healing factors.
The most advanced modifications involve taking a useful organ or biological system from an alien (e.g., a multi-chambered heart or a photosynthetic organ) and attempting to graft it whole onto a human subject, resulting in highly unstable, monstrous prototypes.

Racial Bias in Targeting:
Even in a massive, mixed-species society, the selection process for the Nexus is likely to be systematically biased.
If the founders were predominantly one human race or species, the current ruling class may systematically target minority human races or recently arrived alien species that lack legal protection, using them as the primary 'Active Samples' for the riskiest, most unstable experiments. This adds a powerful layer of systemic cruelty to the dystopia.

The head of Aethelgard Nexus:
Dr. Elara Vess: Chief Architect of Optimization. She doesn't see pain; she sees inefficiency. Her office is minimalist and impersonal. There is a vast, illuminated schematic of the entire 90-million-person city that dominated the centre of the room. She is optimizing the city-planet as if it were a massive, living machine.
Her mantra: "We are improving on evolution"

 

[Nyx]

Tethrakka Society on Vortek.

The key difference is their lack of biological imperative (breeding) and their focus on knowledge and utility. They see Vortek not as much a home, but as a massive, ever-expanding laboratory and library.
1. Social Structure: The Meritocratic Function
Since they don't breed and each Tethrakka is custom-built, their social structure revolves entirely around their function, utility, and the accumulation of knowledge.
2. The Blueprint Archives (The Central Governance): This is less a ruling body and more a hyper-advanced, networked data center, likely housed in the oldest, most inaccessible core of one of the original mining ships. It contains the blueprints of every Tethrakka ever created and oversees the validation of new blueprints (new generations).

THe Knowledge Guilds. (The Functional Castes): Tethrakka organize into specialized guilds based on their function.

The Explorers (Hazardous Duty): Large, heavily armored Tethrakka designed for the radioactive Undercore. They collect geological data and map the ever-shifting foundation.
The Scribes (Librarians/Historians): Often small, highly dexterous units built for data retrieval and integration. They are the primary contact point for outsiders seeking information.
The Aesthetics (Hospitality/Culture): The visually stunning, socially adept Tethrakka. They run the most exclusive establishments, not for profit, but to observe, gather social data, and experience 'alien' emotions firsthand.

Succession and Respect: Respect is earned through utility and the quality of the successor they design. A Tethrakka that produces a highly complex, valuable new blueprint is highly esteemed, regardless of their own physical form or current role. There are sub castes within these groups that perform even more unique and specialised tasks.

Adaptation into Vortek's environment.

The Tethrakka see existence and survival on Vortek as a resource to be optimized, not chaos to be endured.
Environmental Dominance (The Undercore): The Tethrakka dominate in the deepest, most dangerous levels of Vortek (The Undercore and engine decks). Their radiation immunity and extreme physical adaptability mean they operate where no organic species, including the Nexus's Rad-Sinks, can survive for long. They effectively control the city-planet's infrastructure.


The Tethrakka Network: Due to their integrated nature, they treat the physical structure of Vortek as a vast, interconnected nervous system. They have invisible, proprietary data-conduits woven into the walls, floors, and electrical systems, allowing them to communicate and share data instantly across the city-planet. A Tethrakka in the Undercore can speak instantly to one on the Surface.

Housing/Territories: They do not build homes or gather possessions. They occupy Function Hubs—industrial facilities, medical bays, or ancient server farms—where they can perform their designated role and store data/equipment. Their "territory" is defined by functional necessity, not borders.

The Tethrakka and the Nexus:
The Nexus needs the Tethrakka to keep Vortek running (especially the essential Undercore infrastructure), but they cannot control them. The Tethrakka view the Nexus's "optimization" program as rudimentary, inefficient, and wasteful use of valuable organic material. They observe the Nexus's modifications and catalog the results not with moral outrage, but with clinical, detached disapproval of the poor methodology. The Nexus fears the Tethrakka because they possess an integrated, silent network and control the city's power grid, making them impossible to subdue

 

[Nyx]

The other significant races of Vortek.
These races exist in significantly smaller numbers than Refits ( modified humans) and Tethrakka. The transient nature of Vortek mean many more races and species pass through.


1. The Ferro-Spore (Fungal/Mycelial Intelligence)
Niche: Bioremediation and Recycling in the toxic gaps.
Description: A silicon-based, mycelial organism that forms vast, networked mats of fungal filaments beneath Vortek’s metallic plating and within discarded organic waste reservoirs. They are effectively the city's living, non-Tethrakka recycling and sanitation system. Their 'bodies' are semi-mobile clumps of dense, dark gray mycelium that sprout crystalline or metallic fruiting bodies for communication and spore release.

Specialty : Vortek is a giant dump. Its waste, heavy metals, and organic runoff are a perfect nutrient bath for the Ferro-Spore. They detoxify localized areas, creating small, non-toxic "garden" zones that other organics use, making them grudgingly tolerated by the ruling powers.

Interaction: They are largely passive and communicate through complex rhythmic bioluminescence and chemical pheromones. The Nexus views them as a useful, but uncontrollable, cleanup crew and occasionally tries to harvest their unique detoxifying enzymes. The Tethrakka treat them as a slow-moving, predictable geological process that is necessary for the long-term integrity of the city-planet.


2. The K’tarr (Aural Merchants)
Niche: Information Brokerage and Social Engineering.

Description: Humanoid in shape but with highly modified auditory systems—large, asymmetrical structures reminiscent of bat ears that are able to rotate almost 180 degrees, they have a frill that skirts round from beneath the ears joining the neck ( that flattens out to help direct sound, a complex larynx capable of producing precise sonic frequencies. They are masters of sound, language, and the emotional resonance of communication. A living universal translator. They are always dressed in highly tailored, expensive fabrics that dampen ambient noise.

Specialty: In a noisy, chaotic city, the K’tarr can filter, isolate, and manipulate sound data better than any artificial sensor. They thrive on the flow of secrets, gossip, and trade negotiations. Their voices can shift tone and frequency to elicit specific emotional responses, making them peerless negotiators and formidable social manipulators.

Interaction: The K'tarr act as Vortek’s neutral intermediaries. They run high-end, exclusive information exchanges that even the Nexus and Tethrakka use when they don't want to expose their full data network. They are invaluable for translating nuances in negotiation between the hundreds of other races.


3. The Lithics (Geological Architects)
Niche: Structural Integrity and Defense.

Description: Slow-moving, heavy, asymmetrical creatures resembling walking agglomerations of rock and hardened metal slag. They evolved on high-gravity, tectonically active planets. They possess a natural ability to sense and manipulate geological stress fields and material density. Their 'skin' is a natural mix of stone and whatever metals they ingest.

Specialty: Vortek is constantly shifting, settling, and being internally stressed by its own growth. The Lithics are the only species that can predict, prevent, or cause structural collapse simply by touching the hull. They are highly sought after by engineering guilds to certify the stability of new construction zones.

Interaction: They are utterly independent and charge exorbitant rates for their services, demanding raw, high-grade mineral and metal inputs as payment. They live in the structurally sound areas of the Original Hub where they act as self-appointed protectors of the city's ancient integrity, seeing the new, reckless additions as structural cancer.


4. The Lumina (Energy Siphoners)
Niche: Power Grid Parasites and 'Black Market' Energy.

Description: Thin, whip-like bioluminescent organisms that are almost translucent. They are not physical bodies in the traditional sense, but complex nervous systems encased in a membrane, capable of generating and siphoning electrical energy. They move through cities ventilation and electrical conduits.

Specialty: Vortek is a city-planet of immense, unregulated power consumption. The Lumina live directly off the grid. They tap into power relays and engine exhausts, quietly siphoning off negligible amounts of energy to survive. This also gives them unparalleled access to data streams (which are carried on power lines).

Interaction: They are criminals and spies. They run the black market of discreet, untraceable power taps for smugglers, dissidents, and illegal operations. The Nexus hunts them ruthlessly because they are undetectable by normal heat or motion sensors, but the Tethrakka often ignore them, viewing them as a necessary, if trivial, circuitry flaw that helps maintain power equilibrium.



5. The VargGans (Symbiotic Hunters)
Niche: High-Risk/High-Reward Biological Retrieval.

Description: A race of two creatures that form one consciousness: a small, intelligent, winged insectoid (Varg) and a muscular, quadrupedal mammalian host (Gan). The Varg attaches to the Gan's spine, using its massive strength and sensory inputs as its body. The Gan receives enhanced cognition, healing, and control. Neither can survive long without the other.

Specialty: Their symbiotic efficiency makes them the ultimate hunters and trackers. They are used by wealthy individuals and corporations (not the Nexus) to retrieve stolen goods, missing personnel, or to clear out high-threat zones. Their dual nature allows the Varg to provide aerial recon while the Gan provides ground assault, making them incredibly adaptable.

Interaction: They are mercenary neutrals, deeply focused on profit and the reputation of their partnership. They pose a unique problem for the Nexus, as they are capable of tracking and recapturing Nexus escapees, but for a price. The Nexus sometimes hires them but distrusts them fiercely, as their unique symbiosis is an optimization method that falls outside the Nexus's human-centric research model