Adobe (DM+66 1281 II)

The view is literally dizzying; it is not the fact that people walk in the "ceiling" that is disturbing, but the fact that they do it just a few meters away. This is no human environment, despite the attempts to plant rose bushes and Arcadian willows by the cascades. Gravity that subtly shifts as you move, doorways too broad and low for human proportions, ramps instead of stairs, ridged holographic surfaces instead of windows. And the same feeling permeates the humans here: diplomats, traders, researchers, engineers have all been touched by the new perspectives, they are dizzy with possibilities, alienness and enthusiasm. Even the few Trahans seem to be affected. How the Mothers view us is another question.
- Jonathan Ellis-Khayama, Interstellar Diary

After the initial contact with the Mothers, formal relations began. The closest major colony was around DM+661281. Here a clan of Mothers, the Shiny Engineers Vector, were involved in a major terraforming project on a prebiotic world. Their project was to introduce various nanomachines, bacteria and algae to quickly set up the basics of an ecosystem enabling colonisation; to this end they were busy hauling comets and building orbital factories around the planet. The planet is changing almost visibly. On the surface enclosed settlements are spreading, often covering significant areas with biosphere cupolas. The name was given by amazed humans who noticed the common use of a clay-like material from the planet in orbit too.

The human outpost around Adobe is modest, an orbital habitat donated by the Shiny Engineers and inhabited by diplomats and traders from the different worlds. While originally occupied by mainly Arcadians and New Americans, but later Novas, Atlanteans, Penglaiese, Dionysians, Victorians and even some Trahans arrived. The conditions are somewhat cramped and not perfectly adapted to humans, but the unusual environment and cultural collisions have made Adobe a hotbed of diplomacy, radical visions and interspecies trade.

Adobe is shaped like a dodecahedral star, with a central core chamber and twelve "towers", each having its own constant outwards gravity field. The whole interior is built from the adobe, in columns, ridges, spiral ramps and complex draperies. Water flows from the core outwards, and various plants both human and alien climb the shafts. The "embassies" occupy eight towers and share the remaining four, while the core chamber is used as a kind of plaza.