Nexus: Heart of the Andromeda Initiative

The Nexus was the headquarters of the Andromeda Initiative, a vast space station built to anchor the colony arks, process resources, and support colonists in the Heleus Cluster before they set out for new worlds. Modeled on the far larger Citadel of the Milky Way, it housed the command echelons of the entire venture and required every new arrival to pass through quarantine. It endured catastrophe and internal revolt in its first years in Andromeda before slowly becoming the working heart of the colonization effort.

Purpose and design#

The Nexus was conceived as the hub of the Andromeda Initiative once the project reached its new galaxy, the place that would anchor the returning arks, process the resources the colonists needed, and shelter those colonists until they departed for habitable worlds. Every new arrival was required to pass through its quarantine. Taking inspiration from the much larger Citadel, the station reproduced features comparable in form and function to those of its Milky Way counterpart and housed the command echelons of the entire venture.

Completed, the station was to measure some 15.47 kilometers in length, with an anchorage wheel 5.3 kilometers across. At launch it resembled two of the Citadel's Wards joined together at the base, and once it reached Andromeda further construction was planned to give it a Presidium-like central torus and another ward-like superstructure. The arks were intended to dock with the station along its central support column, supplying it with additional power and storage.

Catastrophe and rebellion#

The Nexus was activated roughly a year before the ark Hyperion reached Andromeda. Soon after arrival the station was struck by the Scourge, a disaster that decimated its original leadership and left the survivors unable to make contact with any of the first wave of arks. Cut off and short of the resources and manpower the arks were meant to provide, the crew fell to quarreling, and the disputes eventually erupted into open rebellion against the station's new leaders.

When the uprising was put down, the crew members who had rebelled were banished from the Nexus and branded as Exiles, and there were further acts of sabotage and unrest from others who rejected the senior staff's plans for survival. The krogan who had been part of the Nexus team had been promised a greater say in the station's affairs if they helped end the rebellion, but when that promise went unhonored virtually all of them left to establish a colony of their own. The first two attempts to found outposts both ended in disaster, undone by attacks from the warlike kett, by the lack of expected support, and by food shortages, until the leadership was forced to halt all construction and stretch its dwindling stores through rationing.

Revival and the wider cluster#

About fourteen months after its arrival the people of the Nexus had begun to give up hope of ever finding the other arks, but everything changed when the Hyperion at last reached Andromeda and docked with the station. Despite the leadership's doubts in the success of the newly appointed Pathfinder, the station gradually set about reviving the Initiative, a turn that culminated in the successful settlement of Eos and in first contact with the angara. The angara had heard reports of the Nexus and its encounter with the Scourge beforehand, but their own disastrous first meeting with the kett left them unwilling to offer aid at once.

In time the Nexus came to function as a true colonial capital. Its Operations section oversaw security and management for the whole station and contained the offices of its leaders, while a sprawling common area served as docking point, immigration center, and social hub, housing temporary residential blocks, a cultural center that preserved the combined history of the Milky Way species, hydroponic gardens, research laboratories, and a bar. Survey and supply ships such as the Tempest put in at its docking bay to trade information, resources, and personnel as the cluster slowly opened to settlement.