Dross is the prison planet that Limbo-6 orbits, and the reason the station exists at all. In the backstory of DUST: Origins it is described as something the Sol Imperium considered worse than a death sentence: a world where criminals, defectors and other enemies of the state were sent either to make the place habitable or to die trying. Both outcomes suited the Imperium equally.
Settlement and Failure
Dross was originally settled to harvest its abundant valuable resources. That did not last. The planet's harsh atmosphere, poisonous flora and lethal fauna made the work unsustainable, and conventional colonisation failed.
The Imperium's response was to change who did the dying. Rather than abandon the planet, it flooded Dross with desperate prisoners, human and otherwise, to see whether life would find a way. Eventually it did. Despite grim odds the exiles built a system for survival and slowly bent the planet to their will until they gained a foothold.
The Limbo Stations
The exiles' success is what created the station the game takes place on. Once the Imperium saw that the model worked, it repurposed massive orbital platforms as cryogenic holding cells for new transfers and called them Limbo Stations.
Their function was population management. If the planet's population suffered a sudden dip from a catastrophic event, whether plague, famine or natural disaster, the Imperium thawed replacements and sent them down. Everyone else stayed on ice awaiting their turn. That gave the Imperium steady control over the colony and, at the same time, a standing roster of bodies for running tests and experiments.
Role | Purpose it served |
|---|---|
Cryogenic holding | Storing transfers indefinitely until the planet needed them. |
Population control | Replacing losses after catastrophic events on the surface. |
Test subject supply | Providing bodies for experiments, which on Limbo-6 became gene-splicing and infection trials. |
Abandonment
At some point the Sol Imperium Navy stopped arriving with new transfers. Supplies ran thin, oversight of the planet grew lax, and the stations themselves began falling into disarray. Whether the Imperium forgot about Dross or deliberately abandoned it is left open. Either way, the last of the crumbling stations above it, Limbo-6, has now entered its final days.
Why It Matters to the Game
Dross is backstory rather than a playable location, but it explains almost everything the player encounters. The prisoners aboard the station are there because of the penal transport system Dross required. The escaped creatures come from experiments intended to make people survive Dross's biology. The abandonment that left the station rotting is the abandonment of the whole colony. The desperation driving the survivors is the desperation of people the state stopped counting a long time ago.
Spelling Note
The planet's name is spelled Dross, with two letters s, on both the game's own site and its store description. A single-s spelling appears in some coverage of the reveal and is incorrect.
Not Yet Confirmed
Whether any part of the planet's surface is playable or visible in game.
The names of any settlements, factions or figures on Dross.
What the exiles' system for survival actually is, or whether anyone is still alive down there.
Which specific organisms were collected from Dross, and which of them are aboard Limbo-6.
Where Dross sits relative to the rest of the Sol Imperium, or how far away it is.
Whether the Sol Imperium still exists in the game's present day.