Nav Beacon

[Ian Doncaster]

It's not really made up. That's what happens in game.

Before a system gets colonised there is no nav beacon.
As soon as the first station is build a nav beacon gets placed.

To be really picky, this isn't always true - there have been a few cases where systems have had a station and population but no nav beacon, at least temporarily - a couple of the ones around Colonia did, early on. (This was before nav beacons got an actual use for relaying system data, though)