Stellography

Stellographic Statistics

The Terraform Reach is a rough spheroid 160 (in-out) by 140 (north-south) by 200 (east-west) light-years, nearly 20 million cubic light years in volume. It contains:

735 star systems
172 life-bearing planets
157 inhabited planets

The Empire is a roughly spherical volume, presently 130 ly in diameter, in the center of the Reach. It contains:

305 star systems
55 inhabited planets

Constellations

In starfaring parlance, a "constellation" is not a pattern of stars as it appears in the apparent celestial sphere, but a set of stars in some given volume of space, a geographic feature, usually marked out as the neighborhood of a prominent feature, or by natural boundaries of placement or kind. A star cluster is a handily obvious kind of constellation, just as an island is a handily obvious kind of territory. Typical constellations contain ten to thirty star systems.

Reach stellography recognizes 36 constellations. In alphabetical order, with their abbreviations, these are:

AE — Anelo's Embers
Be — Berissa
CC — Captain's Cluster
Ch — the Chaladoor
CS — Copper Sky
Cu — Copper Suns
CA — Coronis Amber
Cr — Coronis Argent
EA — Ee Awreska
EG — East Garnets
ES — Electrum Sky
GC — Gold Cup
Gl — Greenload Cluster
IL — Inner Lyos
Ly — Lyos
9* — Ninestar
Nr — Norama
NC — North Cluster
Qi — Qimasseking
RA — Reach Alpha
RC — Red Cluster
Ru — Ruby Sky
SS — Scarlet Suns
Ag — Silver Sky
ST — Silver Torch
SD — Siir Darya
Tm — Tamarasset
TN — Tark Nembi Cluster
Tx — Tchel Sky
TC — Topaz Crescent
TG — Triple Gold
T- — Triple Gold Minor
12 — Twelvestar
TR — Twins' Range
WG — West Garnets
Y* — Yellow Stars

Here is a rough map of the Reach, by constellation. The Empire holds systems in the constellations labeled in purple. The Aondoar Stellar Republic holds systems in constellations labeled in blue.

Empty Systems

Even with the artificially high density of inhabited systems in the Reach, only about 20% of them are inhabited. Most of the rest are of interest only to astronomers and planetologists. However, many barren systems – or individual planets or moons in these systems – are claimed by neighboring states and have military bases or posts for strategic reasons.