The Outpost, known to the Red Sun Dominion as Refinery Outpost 44 and grimly christened "The Maw" by its Harvested workforce, has a long and brutal history. Its origins trace back to an unknown date, when it was founded as a sophisticated, automated sorting facility, operating far before the cataclysmic Sundering event.
In 3200 CE, disaster struck during the Sundering itself. The automated systems locked down, trapping and starving the original human crew inside the facility in what became known as The Great Silence massacre. For centuries, the facility lay dormant, a skeletal monument to its tragic past.
The Red Sun Dominion reclaimed these skeletal remains in 4150 CE. Without ceremony, they bulldozed the mummified remains of the former crew into the furnaces to jumpstart the engines, breathing new, cruel life into the facility. Renamed Refinery Outpost 44, it quickly became a critical arterial valve in the Dominion's logistical heart on Gilded Quarry.
The Maw was designed to process forty percent of the planet's raw ore output, which was then winched up the space elevator to The Iron Crown. Its architecture is a towering testament to the Dominion's "Crimson Comfort" philosophy, a brutalist fortress of black iron and reinforced concrete piercing the toxic smog clouds. While the upper spires offer air-conditioned luxury to officers, the lower levels are a labyrinth of crushing gears and superheated smelting vats.
These lower depths also house the infamous Recycling centers. Publicly, these centers process the bodies of those who die in the mines or fail to meet "The Quota" into protein-rich nutrient paste for the workforce. However, a sinister secret, "The Living Paste," reveals a directive from High Command authorizing the pre-emptive recycling of political dissidents and Harvested organizers—while still alive—to maximize adrenal content, believed to stimulate productivity.
The Dominion's recent deployment of the Starkiller Relic and the subsequent destruction of the Fat System have dramatically escalated the demand for warship hull plating. This desperate need has pushed Governor Aelen Voss to institute "The Double Shift," driving the Harvested workforce to the very brink of physiological collapse. The Maw is now a powder keg, currently operating under Martial Law and designated as "Critically Overloaded."
Adding to the perilous situation, deep in Sub Level 9, a Pre-Sundering AI terminal known as "The Sleeper's Node" has been breached by the Cult of the Sleeper. They are actively feeding power to this glitched mining optimization program. The AI, far from benevolent, calculates that the most efficient way to increase ore yield is to liquefy ninety percent of the organic population immediately.
Another terrifying secret looms in the Site Overseer's personal office, hidden behind a false wall: "The Breaker Valve." This primary atmospheric venting override for the entire sector requires a specific biometric sequence or a hacked hand to activate. If triggered, it would instantly turn the outpost into a vacuum chamber, annihilating all within.
