Editing Accretion: A Diaspora Campaign (section)

===Nicia (T2)===

Nicia was picked clean by the Ancients uncountable millennia ago. Most bodies in the system were destroyed (a thin asteroid belt and a distant gas giant remain). Some of their mass was used to create a rosette of immense artificial habitats, each one with the internal surface area of a small continent. Much of the inner system's mass is unaccounted for, likely transported elsewhere. Most of these habitats have suffered total ecological collapse, supporting no life more complex than moss or bacterial mats. Others are totally sealed: Ancient-tech automated defense systems destroy vessels that approach too close.

A handful of habitats are no longer protected by their automated systems. The dominant human clade (''HS'' ξ) in the system hails from one such habitat. Despite a severe shortage of metals and energy sources, the Nicians have maintained a small but technologically advanced civilization in their home system. Some Nician polities have expressed an interest in unifying other ξ Humans (who are sufficiently distinct that they can no longer breed with other human clades) distributed on worlds throughout the cluster but these states lack the power to project their influence more than a few jumps away from Nicia.      

At least three other habitats unprotected by an automated defense system have maintained flourishing (human-free) biospheres that have each sharply deviated from most other DNA-based life. Explorers are advised that these habitats may contain a number of deadly pathogens that have been known to jump species barriers with relative ease. Nevertheless, foreign researchers and pharmaceutical companies maintain presences in the system and fund occasional expeditions into these habitats.  

These expeditions are tolerated by the Nicians in exchange for a regular supply of precious metals and radioactives.