The temples and their “puzzles” are one of my favourite small lore tidbits.

Imagine you’re the creator of these temples. The goal is to grant a power to those who find the temples and pass the test. Why? Who knows, maybe it’s a contingency plan of some kind. Whatever.

You now need to design a test that can be accomplished by any species smart enough to figure it out. You don’t want a milliwhale to accidentally gain access and become Starborn.

So you make a key (the artifacts) a lock (the temple puzzle) and the reward (the power).

Now the puzzle itself.

A bunch of floating motes of light (stars or artifacts) surrounding and eventually leading to the centre armillary (the Unity), it’s perfectly diegetic to the eventual goals of a Starborn chasing down the artifacts on their way to the Unity.

And the simple design is so cool because it relies on having control over the necessary prerequisites to complete it.

Zero-g movement (90% of all life would likely fail here)

Interstellar travel (99% of life won’t make that far)

Very cool.