Everything the Authority sends to hold a line was built here first. Ordin Orbital is the shipyard bound to the world that supplies it, drawing heavy metals and fine alloys up from the surface and returning finished capital hulls to the black. It is the only facility in Tribellium with the capacity to lay down a hull at that scale, which makes it less a place on the chart than a precondition.

It sits in orbit for a reason that has nothing to do with convenience. A supercarrier cannot land on Ordin. Set that much hull in that much gravity and the spine gives out before the keel touches ground. So the ships that come from Ordin are built where they will spend their lives, over the world that made them, never once permitted to stand on it.

And they are built breathing. The construction halls are fully enclosed and hold atmosphere, so the work is done in coveralls and zero gravity rather than in suits, with the air drawn down and the doors opened only when a hull is finished and ready to be eased out for the first time. No hull meets vacuum until the day it is complete.

The installation is designated Orbital rather than Station, and the distinction is formal rather than decorative. A station is a posting; it can be moved when the map changes, and several in this system have been. Ordin Orbital has no propulsion, no provision for relocation, and no scenario in the Authority's planning that contemplates either. It is bound to the one world humanity cannot do without, doing the one thing the rest of the system depends on.

It is also a UGA asset rather than a Fleet one. The forge belongs to the Authority; the hulls that leave it carry the Fleet's prefix out to the edges. What is built here decides what can be done anywhere else, and the Authority has never seen a reason to place that capacity somewhere it could be moved from.