Star Citizen: Loremaker's Guide to the Galaxy - Helios System

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:36

   Hello, I'm Sherry Hieber. Welcome to another edition of Lore Maker's Guide to the Galaxy. If you've never seen Lore Maker's Guide to the Galaxy, it is a show we do here at Star Citizen, where a member of the lore team, which is me including three other talented people who go over the lore and the science behind all the systems that we have created for you, the players. And this week we will be exploring the system Helios. So let's go to it. Zoom out. And then we're going to zoom back in and your whole screen is going to be filled with a giant star. That is on purpose. This type of star is

2. 00:01:24

   called a main sequence type B star. It's the second most massive main sequence star that we know of. It burns blue white or you know, neon blue in this instance with like crazy lines. And it is the star at the center of Helios. So this system here, it is four planets. The star at the center of the system is a little bit peculiar and it has the honor of being the only system to have been officially discovered by the Advocacy. However, it was technically discovered by a band of outlaws who call themselves, wait for it, the Daybreak Marauders. Wow, what a name. They discovered the jump point themselves and they kept it secret from discovery and they would use it as a way to escape from authorities after robbing

3. 00:02:12

   convoys in the Ellis system. So they would do is they would rob people in Ellis and then they would jump in the Taran into the Terran system and then from there they would disappear into the jump point that they had discovered into Helios and no one could track them, no one knew where they were because as far as anyone else knew, there was not a jump point to Helios as no one knew it existed yet. Now the Advocacy finally got involved in chasing down these bandits once they drove shipping company to bankruptcy called Euros Shipping Concern. And the names of the Advocacy agents who were tasked with it, they were called Avon Dorville and Gia Trask. They tracked the Marauders for months until they were able to finally follow them into Terran and then they were able to see them disappear into this jump point which they then got the credit for discovering

4. 00:03:01

   and the Marauders were rewarded with jail because they were thieves. That's some general background of the system right there, a little bit of history behind it. Now I want to get into the star. Like I said, it's a type B star, blue white, very massive. They're pretty rare stars, about 1 in 800 main sequence stars are type B. With that would translate to a percentage of like 0.125%. Let me double check that. Yeah, it's like 0. 125% which is, you know, incredibly rare. So this is this is one of the only type B's we have in the game. And this star is particularly special because it's a peculiar which means it has bands of uh like unusual elements in it. In this case it has bands of helium.

5. 00:03:51

   And because of this peculiarity it also has incredibly high solar winds which messes with ship sensors when you go into the system. This of course was one of the things that made it attractive to the Daybreak Marauders who and has made it attractive on a long term to the UEE military who have a base here. So let's let's zoom out very far away from the star and we'll have a look at the first planet. Helios 1. It's a little tiny planetary little terrestrial planet. I I guess it would I kind of compare it to Mercury. It's it's small. It doesn't have much going for it. It has a little bit of mineral deposits but other than that it's a little bit uninteresting because it's dangerous to do mining there. It's so close to the sun and so prevalent to the

6. 00:04:39

   like insane solar winds and all the radiation and whatever you would get from a star this this massive and powerful in the middle of the system that it's pretty dangerous to mine there. That said, it once came to fame because a scientific expedition crashed to the surface and the six surviving scientists had to be rescued in a very short period of time by the military garrison that's established in the system. So they were able to retrofit their ships and get to the planet in record time and this was all broadcast live on vids all over the UEE so it enjoyed its like 15 seconds of fame and after that point they really didn't think too much of it anymore. But really the main attractive point in the system is going to be Helios 2,

7. 00:05:27

   Tangaroa. It's located right near the beginning of the green zone. It's got a little moon here. Hi little moon. We want to look more closely at the planet. Tangaroa is an ocean planet. It has very few land masses partially because the tectonic activity on the planet is so well, active that islands form and dissolve in very very short periods of time. This is partially caused because the planet is it's got low density and it's got a moon that orbits very closely and very densely and very quickly. So lots of tectonic activity, land masses that form and go away and a very very big and interesting ocean. Sorry, I'm like swerving around a little

8. 00:06:15

   bit. Here, also let me move my hair here. Most of the population is contained in the ice caps. That's where the permanent settle settlements are because you know, it's ice. It's not going to really go anywhere as long as they don't overly destroy the environment. The oxygen nitrogen atmosphere is maintained by the healthy population of plankton all over the planet. There are a few settlements that are mainly consisting of like engineers and scientists who do work with the military outpost in the system which we'll get to in a minute. It is kind of like a trend among the rich population in the UEE to build elaborate homes on the quickly dissolving islands and you know, like oh look at me, I'm so rich I can afford to build this amazing home that I know is going to be destroyed but that doesn't

9. 00:07:02

   matter. Haha. Who understands them? I don't. The other settlements on the on the on the The other settlements on Tangaroa are going to be some under like not underground but underwater ones. Like there's some permanent underwater settlements but again, most of the settlements on the planet are on the poles. And it's also oh I forgot to mention this. Tangaroa is also a major tourist attraction because the tectonic activity and the moon all come together not only to create volcanoes and earthquakes but incredible waves that can be up to 1,000 feet. Sub surfers go there to try out their craft. It's not recommended that you actually surf the waves on a real surfboard

10. 00:07:49

    without, you know, protection but some people do it anyway because we're people and that's what we do. So let's zoom out again here and go on to Let's see. Oh actually I almost forgot this. I don't want to forget Hephaestus Station which is located all the way over here. Hello. It's a little military outpost. It's the main security checkpoint for the system. They work closely with the base on Helios 4 and if you're a merchant, if you want to sell luxury goods, this is a good place to stop because the people who are stationed here are always hungry for something different. They get most of their supplies from the surface of Tangaroa which is fine but I mean who doesn't want some good terra beef now

11. 00:08:37

    and then, right? All right, so let's smooth over here. Let's see if we can find it. Oh there we go. There's Helios 3. Lovely. Now Helios 3 is a gas giant. It is in fact one of the most massive gas giants that has been discovered so far in the known galaxy. It is about three times as big as Jupiter radius wise. Let me just double check something here. Yes, it is a very friendly location if you want to harvest hydrogen. There's a It doesn't have a particularly interesting atmosphere. It's very solidly colored. I mean if you like stripes, you're not going to like Helios 3 but if you like solid calming colors, Helios 3 is the place

12. 00:09:26

    for the Anyway. Now that we've gotten now that we've gotten that bad joke out of my system because the planet is so massive, because it's on the outer edge of size of gas giants discovered, it does attract a lot of scientific interest. And so you'll have little scientific expeditions coming to Helios 3 to study it and figure out how it got so big, why it formed in the first place, history, all that. All right, I think I remember seeing Helios 4 over here. Yeah, here Here we go. Now, Helios 4 is an ice planet. Kind of like Pluto, except that it's actually a planet. Uh it's mostly rock and ice. It hasn't been terraformed because that would be

13. 00:10:15

    more or less impossible, but it does have a lot of settlements on the surface in the form of environmentally controlled domes that were put there by the UEE. So, it's it's a military base planet, more or less. Um the reason that this was done is because of the solar winds in the system. A lot of ship sensors are scrambled, so it's a really good place to do like any any kind of activity that you don't necessarily want to be widely broadcast. So, you know, in the military's eyes, this is a pretty good place to be. Now, that said, it is considered a dumping ground for people who make trouble. It's kind of like it's where you go if the end of your career is here. They don't really know They don't really know what to do with you, but they definitely want you out not causing trouble for anybody. Which doesn't really make too much sense

14. 00:11:04

    considering why these bases were formed in the first place. So, publicly, as I said, dumping ground. Public opinion, however, seems to think it's a place for any number of things, like a secret black ops base, or a place for a biological warfare experimentation, or a place for like covert espionage activities. The list goes on. But only the UEE truly knows. All right. That's it for Helios. I think it's a pretty interesting system, a peculiar system, if you will. Just like a star. Remember, if you go there to pay attention to your ship sensors because the solar winds can and will mess with them. And if you don't pay too close attention, you may be ambushed by perhaps a marauder.

15. 00:11:53

    All right. Thank you so much for your time. I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you next time. Thank you for watching. So, if you want to keep up with the latest and greatest in Star Citizen and Squadron 42's development, please follow us on our social media channels. See you soon.