At the center of the Talocan labyrinth lies... a rock. A large, somewhat elongated and spiky asteroid made of minerals that are worthless to mine.
What is the significance the Talocan attached to this strangely shaped asteroid in close orbit to the sun of Aphi? Is the rock created by a natural process or was it sculpted? Why did the Talocan build this elaborate labyrinth around it? There are no clues I could find from the rock itself, it is absolutely barren. Scans reveal no structures in or on the rock - although I do not dismiss the possibility that the Talocan knew how to fool scanners. There are these strange spikes, rising like a demonic crown at each end. There also seem to be some crevices and caves, as can be seen from this zoomed in image of the rock's surface:
We have no idea what the rock meant to the Talocan, but what we do know is that it became a holy place for the Takmahl. Over the centuries, a vast space industry grew around the rock, centered around a massive space temple where the sacrificial blood flowed day and night. Around it arose a sprawling complex, with libraries, prisons for the sacrifice victims, smaller subsidiary temples and chapels, places for pilgrims to rest and dine, and souvenir shops.
After the fall of the Takmahl empire thousand years ago, the Takmahl religious space hub around the rock started its inexorable decay. The only thing that now remains of it are twisted fragments of the temple, space ruins and rubble, drifting around the rock, locked by its weak gravity. Among this rubble, you will find library logs from the library chapels and transcript logs from the pilgrims. Pieces of the temple still contain various artefacts and ritual texts. And plastic replicas of the rock inside a snow globe from the souvenir shops can also still be found. Finally, of course, there are profitable remnants of Talocan technology that we still use in applications such as specialized armor plating.
The ruins and the rubble accrete in a disk around the rock's equator. They are floating in a cloud of dust and also organic particles that turn out to be vaporized frozen blood flakes. Below is a closer look at a part of the debris ring:
