New Horizon’s location was chosen because of Nova Obscura, a planet with enormous deposits of Veyrith and Caldryne beneath its glacial crust. These resources were critical for a station of New Horizon’s scale: Veyrith to fuel its primary reactors, and Caldryne to stabilise and regulate the power they produced. Building the station in orbit above Nova Obscura ensured these vital resources were close enough to make the project viable.

Ten DESR (Deep Extraction Survey Region) sites currently operate across Nova Obscura. DESR-9 is the primary extraction site, supported by DESR-3 and DESR-5 as the other major centres. Reinforced transit routes cut through the glacial plates, allowing crews and equipment to reach the mineral seams below. Most of New Horizon’s Veyrith and Caldryne passes through these three sites, alongside the raw materials needed for manufacturing, repairs, life support and general station operations.

More recently, deep-survey arrays at several DESR sites have registered brief disturbances beneath the ice. Most have been recorded as background interference caused by extraction machinery or geological movement. A small number, however, appear to repeat in patterns that crews have been unable to trace to any known equipment or natural process. The readings are intermittent and remain too faint to be formally classified as a signal.

Nareth is a temperate terrestrial world of mountain chains, river valleys, broad forests and immense tectonic rifts. It is the closest known world in the Novaryn Verge to Earth-like habitability, with abundant surface water, a native biosphere and an oxygen-bearing atmosphere that humans can breathe within limits.

Permanent settlement has since been established on Nareth, growing beyond the early survey shelters into a substantial human community. Although people can spend time outdoors without sealed environmental suits, Nareth is not a perfect Earth analogue. Long-term exposure to its atmosphere and native environment carries known limitations, and inhabited areas still rely on environmental monitoring and controlled interior systems. Native life is widespread, but no intelligent species has been confirmed.

Thalos is a dry terrestrial world shaped by iron-rich plateaus, fractured basins and escarpments rising several kilometres above the surrounding desert. Dust moves constantly through its thin, carbon-heavy atmosphere, gradually wearing away exposed rock and reshaping much of the surface.

Early robotic surveys detected veins of Vardecite within the planet’s deep granitic formations. The mineral maintains unusually stable conductivity under extreme heat and radiation, making it potentially valuable for sensor arrays, navigation systems and high-frequency communications equipment. Geological teams now make limited visits from New Horizon to assess the largest deposits, although their depth and overall extent remain uncertain. The same surveys have also suggested the presence of mineral-rich aquifers beneath the equatorial desert.

Elysor is a signal and observation station positioned in orbit above Auren-Lo, extending New Horizon’s reach into one of the Verge’s more difficult survey regions. Its long-range arrays, probe control systems and communications platforms support around 310 people, including researchers, engineers, flight crews, operational staff and a small civilian population.

The station coordinates Auren-Lo’s atmospheric probes and extends long-range coverage beyond Horizon Point’s routine survey network. Its outer arrays have also recorded activity that may correspond with the distant region in which the Tear is observed, although neither its position nor any direct connection has been confirmed.

Although many personnel still serve on rotation from New Horizon, others have remained for years. A small number of civilians and families now consider Elysor home, forming a close community around the station’s working sections. Elysor still depends on New Horizon for bulk provisions, medicine, replacement equipment and specialist components, but life there has grown beyond the station’s original operational purpose.

Eidra is a compact ocean world approximately the diameter of Mercury. Its remarkably clear waters reveal submerged ridges, mineral shelves and vast changes in depth far beneath the surface. From orbit, the planet appears calm and almost untouched, but its lower gravity allows storms to drive waves to extreme altitudes. Smaller islands can disappear beneath the water for days before emerging again.

Eidra has a naturally breathable nitrogen-and-oxygen atmosphere, making it one of the few known worlds beyond New Horizon where people could survive outside a sealed habitat. The air is warm, humid and heavy with salt, but presents no immediate danger under ordinary conditions. Landing remains difficult because of the shifting weather, powerful tides and scarcity of stable ground.

Ocean probes have recorded unexplained movement beneath the upper waters, leaving open the possibility that Eidra supports native marine life. There are also persistent accounts of a small outpost established on one of the planet’s more stable islands. No corresponding location appears in accessible Novaryn Academy star maps or New Horizon survey records. Beyond distant transmissions, scattered testimony and word of mouth, little is known about who built the outpost, or whether it is still inhabited.

Auren-Lo is a high-energy atmospheric world beneath the monitored orbit of Elysor Signal Station. Dense layers of electrically charged clouds, violent currents and near-continuous storm activity conceal the entire surface. Everything known about the planet comes from Elysor’s orbital instruments and incomplete probe telemetry.

No controlled descent through its atmosphere has ever been completed. Survey probes entering the lower cloud layers suffer navigation failure, electrical overload or complete communications loss. There is no surface infrastructure, and both the planet’s environment and the existence of native life remain unknown. No connection between its storms and the Tear has been confirmed.

Kresul is a tidally locked terrestrial planet with one hemisphere permanently facing its star. The sunward interior is dominated by scorched stone, copper-black dunes and temperatures beyond the limits of ordinary surface equipment. Beyond the twilight region, the land gradually gives way to a frozen nightward hemisphere where temperatures fall low enough to immobilise most machinery within minutes.

Between these extremes lies a broad belt of permanent dusk. Powerful winds carry sand, frost and suspended minerals across the thermal divide, carving the landscape into vast dune fields, weathered pillars and deep sheltered ravines. Unlike most worlds surveyed from New Horizon, Kresul supports confirmed native life. Dark, low-growing organisms have been found beneath shaded rock and along warmer subsurface channels, while larger forms have occasionally been detected moving beyond established survey routes.

New Horizon maintains weather towers, automated sensors and several reinforced survey shelters throughout the twilight belt. Recently, long-range arrays recorded an unidentified anomaly beneath one of the largest dune basins. The readings do not match known geological movement, weather activity or native biology, but repeated interference has prevented a reliable scan. Further information is restricted within the accessible survey record, with higher authorisation required to view the original sensor data.

Velis-9 is a small, airless moon approximately half the diameter of Earth’s Moon. It orbits an immense ringed planet whose reflected light is often brighter than the distant sun. Across the surface, silver-grey regolith, exposed ridges and ancient impact basins are broken by deposits of dark, glass-like rock.

Survey teams operate from prefabricated shelters near the largest crater fields. Several older impacts appear to have fused parts of the surface into unusually pure crystalline layers. Samples are being tested for use in optical sensors, data relays and other precision equipment, although the most promising formations lie beyond the established survey routes.

Velis-9 is also known for the violet veil that occasionally gathers inside its deeper basins. Trace gases escaping through surface fractures carry fine silicate and crystalline dust above the crater floor. Charged by the ringed planet’s magnetic field, the particles remain suspended for several hours and glow beneath its reflected light before dispersing back into space. Most appearances follow predictable magnetic cycles. A small number have not, and survey teams have yet to explain why the glow sometimes appears to move against the surrounding dust.

Nyris is a tidally stressed terrestrial planet studied as an extreme planetary-science target. Its fractured crust, extensive lava fields and continent-scale fault networks were first mapped remotely; later shielded robotic craft confirmed unstable black-rock shelves between the molten basins.

New Horizon maintains no staffed installation on the surface. Dense sulphur compounds and metallic vapour make the atmosphere opaque and corrosive, restricting access to short robotic missions and heavily shielded descent craft. No native life has been detected.