The Hollow Worlds
When Majora granted the secret of cryptonics to the early Empire, and described their manufacture, and Master-Scholar Corbinex first described the metal that would bear his name, the young Empire stirred. A Prospecting Empire, the bounty of those who would grasp what was to grasp. Outward snaked the Flourishing Road toward the Centaurus and the Austropophic Road toward the Perseus, carrying ever inward the spoils of many a star system. This was the time when the Empire of the Galactic Nucleus became great Mother Majora’s Empire of the Galactic Nucleus and the Spiral Arms. First, the Perseus was settled by prospector-traders, then the Centaurus, each forming trees along whose branches the Empire grew.
It was during the Prospecting Empire that Meng and his cousin Farheed, both of the Citizenry, came to possess the ability to observe the distant starscape’s makeup and composition. They produced the Holocryptonic View of the Mother’s Galaxy. And within it, they saw a treasure. A star system hung in the void, further outward than anyone had ventured, and in a direction perpendicular to both star roads. With Empire’s attention and venture capital, Meng and Farheed set off. A single cave blaster called Opportunity, crewed by no more than 210 prospectors, braved unexplored Paralaexon for over three Norfodl Etes before the Conducting Giant expelled them within their destined system. Quickly, it occurred to them that most of the 49 planets within it were composed entirely of precious minerals that carried Gallium, Silicon and the coveted Corbinite.
Over 60 Etes, Meng and Farheed carved and sold and carved and sold and later, they carved and manufactured, and built and milled and fused. Rich in material, the cousins were poor in creativity and thus, named the system by what it never ceased to produce: The Crystaleon. With wealth that rivaled Empire, soon Meng and Farheed saw themselves presented with the opportunity to become Empire themselves. Inseparable, the cousins formed a pact. It would be neither of them, but the firstborn among them both who would become the first Bannerlord of their House. Long since made into a museum, the cave blaster Opportunity’s Marth name, Opiioris, served as their inspiration when Meng named his firstborn son the first Lord Opiioris of House Opiioris, Duke of the Crystaleon.
Now, as this chronicle is authored, 23 of the Crystaleon’s planets, including Crystaleon Prime, have been largely hollowed out, freed from all of the precious metals within their crusts. The hollows have become vast cities and realms holding the majority of the Crystaleon’s population of ~ 3.3 trillion of Majora’s children.
The House Opiioris stopped counting their heirs after Opiioris CLIX. The abolition of ordinal numbers in Burgher names was one of the most recent trends the House Opiioris has set. It is estimated that the current Lord Opiioris, who carries upon his shoulders eight imperial patents, is the 197th of his name.