Chronicons

"Tal As. [The] libraries. Springs of knowledge, [vast] beyond reason, suffocating. Ruins of glory."

- Unidentified excerpt from Rhígisa

Chronicons are ancient ring-shaped megastructures left behind by the Firstborn. Their true purpose is unknown, but it is suspected that they primarily served as databases and deep space havens. Most of these structures fell to ruin shortly after the Firstborn went extinct, and some of them are known to have been visited by The Hidden.

Chronicons are most often found stranded in the interstellar space, orbiting the Galaxy's Core along with neighbouring stars. These structures are only found in Maerlandayr Galaxy.

Structure and Function
Chronicons are universally circular structures. Their shape is strongly related to one of their functions - many of these objects have served as deep space gateways and massive communication and transport relays. Miniature black holes found in their centre are reminiscent of what once could have been a fully operational, artificial wormhole. Nearly all gateway-specific subsystems identified within these structures are completely dormant, though some traces of nominal activity have been reported.

Most of the internal space of Chronicons is occupied by inaccessible, massive databases, possibly capable of storing yobibytes of data. The storage space is very densely packed and generally inaccessible for most life forms. It is suspected that databases alone required up to hundreds of AI units to maintain in their prime. Unfortunately, the vast majority of knowledge Chronicons used to hold is now inaccessible due to excessive data corruption and lack of maintenance. Current understanding of the Firstborn culture and history is based on extensive information reconstruction efforts.

The Chronicons were also major transit hubs of the Firstborn empire, as evidenced by massive docks found in some sections of these structures. Original Firstborn vessels were found in many of them, however none were functional and far too detoriated to be scavenged for ancient technology. Nowadays docks of many Chronicons are void of any remainders of Firstborn activity, having been plundered by visiting fleets, temporary residents and extremist excursions.