Shining Space station

The station "Shining" was built 50 years after the Alliance was founded as the central neutral territory of its members, capable of having an independent point of view and conducting an unbiased management of the Alliance.

Starting as a relatively small station with a population of one thousand individuals, the Shining has since grown significantly in size. The station increased its population to one hundred thousand in just 50 years, remaining for a long time the most lively space object in the Galaxy, constantly expanding its volume to meet the need for living space.

Today, the station is home to a population of 13 million inhabitants and is the most massive man-made object throughout the Alliance, with only some of the Ancients and azinarsi astroengineering construction sites surpassing the station in size.

By structure, the Shining station consists of several cylinders with a total dimensions of 2.5 km in diameter and 12 km in length. Gravity is provided by rotating the station around its axis, which results in various gravity forces at various distances from the station axis. The rotation provides 1.4g on the outer deck near the hull itself, and the station has several "counterweights" with compartments for creatures that prefer substantially higher gravity up to 5g. Approximately one third of the station’s volume is reserved for residential premises, the rest of the space are technical areas, where numerous mechanisms are located to ensure the station’s operability as well as most of the berthing docks grouped around the axis of rotation. From one end of the station into space stands the frame of solar panels and radiators, which gives the station an additional two kilometers in length.

The station may exist on self-maintenance for several years in a row, but it is not fully autonomous since it needs constant replenishment of raw materials, primarily a mixture of gases for breathing.

Despite the fact that the population of the station gives it the opportunity to be called a full-fledged colony, first and foremost Shining remains the administrative, political, and information center of the Alliance.

Standard Time

The station has its own time system, based on the period of rotation of the "Shine" around its axis, which is considered the main standard of time by which all the planets, stations and colonies of the Alliance are synchronized.

The station makes one revolution every 0.707 earth minutes.

Being rather a technical system of time reference (as well as due to the fact that there is no natural cycle of the day at the station), it does not divide the time into days, weeks, months and years, in its pure form being just a counter of the number of turns made. For a simpler understanding of the system, the number of revolutions is reduced by the fractal system in dozens - 12 turns (cycles) make one kilocycle, 12 kilocycles make one megacycle, 12 megacycles make one gigacycle - or a conditional "day", 12 "days" make up a "week", and so on. Despite the fact that the station was built only 50 years after the creation of the Alliance, the starting point of station rotation counting is the date of the alliance foundation, calculated on the basis of the created system. One Standard Year equals or 4.02 Earth years.