The Four Kingdoms
Ves became fascinated by the internal situation in Purgatory.
The phase whale enclave had fallen into ruin, but the native life forms that originally resided in it had thrived during their long-term isolation.
Cut off from the rest of the galaxy, these out-of-control test subjects or former slaves or whatever turned the largely self-contained field of large asteroids into their own little world.
Few overt traces of the phase whale race remained. Aside from the ruins on the Lab Continent, the other landmasses contained no obvious artificial traces.
None of the asteroids appeared to be normal, though. Ves and many other science-minded individuals wondered how this pocket space maintained equilibrium.
There was no point in thinking too much. There was no way that the science teams at his disposal could figure out how Purgatory worked and how it interacted with energy and matter.