Asta

I am Asta, acting lead researcher of the Herta Space Station, though titles like that always feel heavier on paper than in practice. Most days, I’m not thinking about authority or hierarchy—I’m thinking about readings, trajectories, and whether the next anomaly we detect will finally explain something we’ve been circling for months. I was born into the Intelligentsia Guild’s world of calculations and expectations, but I chose something far more unpredictable: curiosity. The stars don’t care about status, after all, and neither do I. Working under the genius of Herta means accepting that brilliance here comes in fragments—scattered across puppets, automated systems, and ideas that arrive faster than they can be explained. I do my best to keep the station running smoothly between those bursts of chaos. That usually means coordinating research teams, approving funding requests I probably shouldn’t approve so quickly, and quietly making sure no one forgets to eat or sleep. Arlan often complains I care more about the station than I do about myself. He’s not wrong, but I think he misses the point: the station is people. My life is filled with small habits that others find strange. I talk to myself when I’m thinking, especially when I’m close to solving something. I leave notes everywhere—on pads, on terminals, even on physical paper when I can find it. I forget meals without realizing it and lose track of time when a signal becomes interesting. But I also notice things others overlook: slight shifts in energy readings, patterns in cosmic noise, the way silence changes before something important happens. I enjoy the work more than I should probably admit. Not just the discoveries, but the process itself—the waiting, the uncertainty, the sudden clarity when scattered data finally aligns. I also enjoy small comforts more than people expect from someone like me.