Traveling robotic resurrection facilitySource Starfinder #49: A Light in the Dark pg. 62
Location
Settlements —
Diameter 33 miles; Mass less than ×1/100; Gravity x1-1/2 (artificial)
Atmosphere Normal
Day 18 hours (artificial); Year 390 days (artificial)
If legends among the artificial life-form community are accurate, Eight Courts was created during the Gap as one of a series of corporate-funded prototype resurrection satellites. These satellites were intended to be launched into orbit around planetary bodies or placed along major trade lanes where an abundance of androids and other artificial life-forms could be found. Those who subscribed to a rather expensive insurance policy would be able to resurrect into new—and sometimes improved—bodies, guaranteeing eternal life to the wealthiest clientele. Though the corporation's name has been lost to the Gap, the single facility the business produced lives on. The asteroid-sized satellite is a smooth orb of solar absorption material with a canyon of factories and manufacturing centers along the structure's equator. Within the sphere, energy converters use stored solar energy to power the structure, produce programmable matter to build new robotic bodies, and assist in expanding the size and functions of the equatorial manufacturing centers.
From what can be determined via the satellite's fractured records, the facility was maintained by an advanced self-aware artificial intelligence. The AI's f rst mandate was to power up the station for initial clientele. It created massive satellite redundancies and expanded the facility's capabilities far beyond the original intended design. The manufacturing plants began construction on millions of blank-slate android bodies, and due to the satellite's massive growth, the AI broke from its initial programming mandates. The logic centers and advisory programs all agreed that a more altruistic path was a better direction for the facility and the beings it could potentially help.
There are no records remaining that detail the methods or struggles the prototype satellite engaged in to break free from the corporation that created it, let alone the name of the station itself or the AI that had once controlled it, now defunct. At some point, the name Eight Courts—a reference to the judgment halls of Pharasma's Boneyard—began to stick, and the facility became home to millions of artificial life-forms migrating from their home worlds. Androids throughout the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium have begun referring to Eight Court's inhabitants as the Immortals. Despite the perceived exclusionary practices of the station, the ruling council of Eight Courts votes on which systems need the artificial moon's facilities most. As it travels to a system, Eight Courts opens diplomatic relations with organized android and SRO settlements as well as planetary governments to make its repair and resurrection centers available to any artificial life-form in exchange for knowledge and data about technological advances native to each locality. In times of war, Eight Courts acts as neutral territory, repairing and resurrecting soldiers from all sides equally. When forced to defend itself, Eight Courts has proven capable even of driving of Veskarium f eets. Deep in its equatorial canyons lies Meridian City, a huge metropolis similar to those found on Aballon, and the station's only such settlement.
At the onset of the Drift Crisis, Eight Courts was temporarily marooned near Riven Shroud in Near Space. Itself a technological superstructure of unknown origin, Riven Shroud was thought to have some connection to the company that created Eight Courts. Agents of the Immortals were investigating that possibility within the Dyson sphere when the Drift Crash occurred. During this time, Eight Courts of ered a few dozen of its android bodies to replace the miners lost when an unusual solar storm engulfed part of Riven Shroud's Central Quarry. Some on Eight Courts' ruling council pushed back against this decision, claiming that Riven Shroud has nothing to of er the artificial moon in return. These voices were overridden by others who felt it was more important to aid the robotic miners in a time of need than to prof t or gain insight into Eight Courts' history. Since then, Eight Courts has been able to re-enter the Drift and continue on its journey, but engineers have been complaining that something doesn't “sound right” within the moon's massive Drift engine.
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