Hedron

Overview

Hedron is the in-use name for the enormous icosahedral spacecraft widely associated with the Cousins. Observers describe a regular habit of keeping a circular "pusher plate" centered on one triangular face oriented toward visiting vehicles.

Description and Use

• Global form: A twenty-faced, strut-and-panel icosahedron with a smooth circular feature centered in one face that functions as a pusher plate.
• Propulsion behavior: Crew commentary identifies the system as nuclear-pulse propulsion, with the pusher plate absorbing impulses from small nuclear charges; a shuttered port at the plate's center opens to expel objects.
• Interaction systems: During a close approach recorded on a leaked speely, the craft jammed voice/data channels and employed a skeletal robot probe to grapple the capsule and transfer a suited visitor.
• Sensors/illumination: Later, the capsule crew reported high-power microwave pulses "illuminating" them, described as a narrow-beam radar-like signal.
• Orbit and attitude: Current accounts place the craft in an equatorial-belt ground track; it routinely presents the pusher face toward nearby observers.

Attitude control and internal dynamics

• Reorientation without thrusters: During a monitored pass, the ship pivoted rapidly with no visible jets or pulse detonations. Modelers at the Convox infer internal momentum-wheel systems—counter-rotating pairs along each of three axes—capable of exchanging angular momentum with the hull to slew the vehicle.
• Spun vs. despun sections: Analyses presume a large spun, likely inhabited, interior coupled to the despun outer framework via bearings to manage gyroscopic forces.
• Fluid mass: The same maneuver exhibited small, decaying oscillations; the working model attributes these to sloshing in a substantial body of standing water within the spun section.
• External framework: A triangulated network of struts projects from the despun portion. Some participants report that a module previously attached to this framework is now absent; its function is unknown.

Composition and material analysis

• Laser wavelength anomaly: Participants at the Convox (worldwide mathic convocation) report that a red laser attributed to the visitors had a wavelength not matching any natural spectral lines; this was established from a carefully preserved exposure and subsequent analysis.
• Recovered matter: Laboratory work on fragments retrieved at Orithena—including a panel handle, bolts, shroud lines, parachute fabric, blood vials, and a deceased Geometer (off-world visitor)—indicates all sampled nuclei are engineered "newmatter" (nuclear-altered material).
• Inference to the whole: Speakers infer that the same is probably true of everything in the icosahedron (the Hedron), which would explain the non-natural laser color and suggests limited biochemical compatibility between their materials and ours. These results are presented as current findings and remain subject to further verification.
• Cosmi of origin: Spectroscopy-led teams within the Convox assign many exterior subassemblies to different cosmi. The oldest identified work is attributed to Pangee; only a few items are tied to Diasp; the majority to Antarct and Quator, with indications that the Quator fabrications are the most recent. These assignments are working interpretations.

Provenance/Ownership

• Operators: The ship is presumed to belong to the Cousins, a label avout use for the visitors. Some at the Convox have been calling the visitors "Geometers," though this naming is presented in dialogue and remains informal.
• Environment: Suit telemetry from the visitor ceased after jamming ended; onlookers including Sammann suggest this may indicate the suit was shut down, implying a breathable atmosphere inside. Others caution the visitor could have died before or during transfer; the text preserves that ambiguity.

Notable Mentions

• A crewed capsule's leaked speely records: (1) the Hedron maintaining its pusher plate toward the capsule, (2) a remote manipulator retrieving the visitor described as the Warden of Heaven, (3) prolonged jamming of capsule communications and data, (4) later high-power microwave illumination, and (5) the opening of a small central port on the base plate followed by ejection of the visitor back into space. The capsule recovered the body; subsequent details are reported second-hand in dialogue.
• In conversation, an observer notes that large plane-change maneuvers require many nuclear pulses and suggests the ship's supply of such "fuel" may be limited; this is offered as a speaker's inference, not an established fact.
• To test and possibly induce a change of attitude exposing the forward half to ground-based telescopes, a silent reconnaissance satellite in synchronous orbit was maneuvered onto an intercept course with the Hedron. Observers reported a brief flash at the expected moment; participants described it as the ship firing a directed-energy weapon—specifically an X-ray laser—at the approaching satellite. The maneuver was expected to make the Hedron rotate to bring its pusher plate between itself and the bogey; any attitude change would be assessed by the waiting telescopes.

Icosahedral framework and vertex complexes

• Exterior surface: Triangular facets of rubble—described as nickel and iron—are bound into a mesh forming the 20 faces of the icosahedron. Approaching suits used magnetic boot-soles to walk the facets while tethered together.
• Edges and shocks: Along each edge runs a massive "shock piston" with fin-like trusses; five enlarged knuckles meet at every vertex. The rubble planes stop short of the shock structures and are laced to them by zigzagging cables over pulleys so the system can flex.
• Vertices: The twelve vertices mount cobbled-together complexes of domes, cylinders, gridwork, antennae, and bouquets of parabolic horns. At least one serves as an optical observatory, and another functions as a military command post.
• Day–night boundary: As the Daban Urnud revolves about Arbre, the terminator sweeps quickly over any given facet; sunrise or sunset there can be explosively sudden, so movement is timed to darkness when evading notice.

Interior access and environment (observed)

• Interior volume: Through gaps between rubble and shocks, observers looked "down" into a softly lit interior volume on the order of a few dozen cubic miles, with light slitting in and scattering from inner walls and from rotating orbs of the Orbstack.
• Labeling and assignment: The orbs carry large numerals; notes from the approach identify Orb 5 as reserved for high-ranking Troäns, with other four-orb stacks allotted to Urnudans, Laterrans, and Fthosians, the lowest-number orb in each stack used by leadership.
• Tendons and valves: Large shaft-like "Tendons" link vertex nodes to the Core. Ponderous spherical ball valves open or seal connections between major compartments; smaller one-person airlocks stud the rims for traffic when main valves are closed.
• Observatory dome as airlock: An open observatory dome halves can be closed and the space pressurized; after this, suited visitors opened an interior hatch and confirmed a breathable atmosphere. First exposure produced acute physiological stress (racing pulse, labored breathing), but respiration was possible without suits.
• Post-doffing physiological effects: Visitors report a short-lived, shock-like syndrome—confusion, weakness, or brief loss of consciousness—immediately after removing suits and breathing the local air; it passed within minutes for healthy individuals.
• Transit within the Core: The Core wall rotates slowly and carries an elastic rung conveyor for rapid movement. Four Nexi along its length connect to stacks of orbs. Around this region, a ring of offices and corridors referred to as a Command torus shows signs of partitions and access control tied to political divisions.

Activity at a vertex-mounted device (current observations)

• World Burner complex: On a facet directly across from an approach, a hydrogen device nicknamed the World Burner was seen mounted to a vertex, brightly lit, with on the order of a hundred suited workers active on its structure.
• Incident and response: A subsequent flare of light and a silent shock through the icosahedral frame were perceived; contemporaneous remarks suggested propellant tanks near the device might have been blown. Traffic surged along the associated Tendon, with armed personnel heading inward and some injured workers exiting.

Security incident at Orb One (observed)

• Entry route: After entering via an observatory dome and moving along a Tendon to the forward bearing chamber, two infiltrators passed through a large ball valve into the Core and proceeded to the shaft serving Orb One at the head of the Urnudan stack.
• Confrontation: On the oculus catwalk of Orb One, armed personnel confronted the infiltrators.
• Consequence: Immediately thereafter, an action described in dialogue as "Everything Killers" was triggered, and the infiltrators’ account likened the resulting effect to becoming a radiative "dark sun" with severe impact on the Urnudan environment below. The text presents these effects as directly observed sensations during the incident.

Relationship to named ship

Within visitor parlance, the craft is called the Daban Urnud. The colloquial Arbran label "Hedron" and the descriptive "the icosahedron" refer to the same object. For broader background on the Orbstack and shipboard society, see Daban Urnud.