The Pressure Descent / Deep Core Bastion
Haldreth
You can't land on a gas giant. Unless someone built a floor.
Haldreth is a huge gas giant with no ordinary surface. The crew dives through cloud, then compressed fluid layers, toward the Core Bastion: a gigantic artificial city held up by pressure fields deep inside.
Getting there needs pressure-null envelopes, gravity normalisers, inertial anchors and thermal shields — the full core-diver rig. If the Bastion's stabiliser fails, everything inside is in very deep trouble.
No one knows who built the Core Bastion, or how long ago. It sits deep inside the planet like a seed inside a fruit, a vast city of domes, arches and engines held steady by pressure fields that never stop working.
Today it is home to a sturdy, secretive people who rarely visit the surface, because there is no surface to visit. Getting in requires an invitation, a good reason and very good equipment.
Atmosphere
Dark, crushing, swirling with gold-lit fields.
Local quirk
Bastion residents measure distance in 'atmospheres'.
Regions · proposed names, not locked canon
Pressure Descent
The long dive through the layers.
Core Bastion
The artificial, pressure-supported city.
The Cloudline
The top layer: endless golden clouds and lightning. Pretty from a distance. Loud up close.
The Stabiliser Ring
The giant machine that keeps the Bastion from being crushed. Its hum can be felt in your teeth.
Hazards
- ▲Crushing pressureEvery layer down is heavier than the last.
- ▲Stabiliser failureIf the ring stops, the Bastion has minutes.
Visitor tips
- ✦Bring the full core-diver rig.
- ✦Bring seeds.
- ✦Don't touch the old door.
Local life
- ●Bastion engineers
- ●Field-surfing drifters
A day on Haldreth
Inside the Bastion, light comes from huge amber lamps that dim and brighten in a slow cycle. Streets are narrow, warm and smell of oil and spice.
Every evening the whole city goes quiet to listen to the stabiliser hum. If it changes pitch, everyone notices.
Locals & customs
Warden Dahl Kesserin
Keeper of the Stabiliser Ring. Gruff, suspicious and secretly delighted to have visitors.
The Divers' Guild
Pilots who bring supplies down from orbit. They are the toughest people in the system, and they bake excellent biscuits.
- ◆Visitors must bring a gift from the outside, something that couldn't be made down here. Seeds are the favourite.
- ◆No loud noises near the Stabiliser Ring. Ever.
Legends & history
The Builders Below
The Bastion's people say their ancestors didn't build it. They found it, already working, already waiting.
Deep in the oldest vault, there's a door no one has opened. On it is carved a single symbol that also appears on Baskaroon's monoliths.
Crew log
“We dove into a gas giant. On purpose. I'd like that written down.”
“Full rig. Every device. Good test.”
Story seed · in development
Core Problem
Someone has stolen the Bastion's compression controller. Zamfyr volunteers to dive. Onobo builds the rig. Zamfyr sits on the power cable.
The stabiliser isn't failing on its own. Someone swapped one of its parts for a fake, and the real part is being sold in an Earth market.
Earthward stakes
Stolen compression tech near Earth's orbital stations would be catastrophic.
Onobo packs
Science inspiration
Real giant planets like Jupiter have no ordinary solid surface, and their cores appear fuzzy and diluted. The Bastion is explicit science fantasy.
NASA: Jupiter facts