In 2172 CE (Earth reckoning), The Octagon Book, a history of the Octagon Society was published by Lent Publishers of Wochiers. The following is a precis of what that book contained. It is the best source of information on the Society extant.

In 1836 CE, early on in the colonization of the Spinward Marches, many (if not most) of the worlds in the sector stood at low tech levels, and travel between the few high technology (and well-settled) worlds was a dangerous undertaking. One traveller, Foren Caliphren Doon,an employee of Halloran Surveys and engaged in a preliminary reconnaissance of several worlds for the company, met with trouble. The free trader on which he took passage developed engine trouble in the Frisini system (it became Beck's World/Regina later, during the Civil War): he was marooned for nearly ten years.

With rescue, Doon was a changed man, obsessed with a new-found purpose: to stop such a fate from happening to anyone else. His tool was almost a church, but with a purpose very clear at the practical level. The group's continuing activities centered on fund-raising and on building shelters for spacefarers on all possible worlds. The Octagon Society, headquartered at Regina, and with major branches at Feri, Wochiers, and Alelt, actively solicited funds for the construction of shelters out the Marches. Video programs of progressively higher quality struck a responsive chord in the audiences on high-population worlds, and cash flow synergized with a competent organization to make the various octagon projects viable. Regina subsector was furnished with shelters on all worlds in the course of forty years (1888 to 1928 CE). Most notable is the current Travellers' Aid Society hostel on Regina—a large,now on1y vaguely octagonal building obscured by addit ions and renovations. Less populated frontier worlds received stone, concrete, or metal octagonal shaped buildings which served as shelters for marooned or distressed travellers, and were furnished with radios, survival equipment, and food.

In 1960 CE, the group expanded its efforts to adjacent subsectors and even sent construction teams into Vargr territory. The entire movement fell apart in the early 2000s CE when scandal surfaced. Embezzlement had diverted much of the funds pouring into the society's coffers, and substandard she!ters were being prciduced.

A complete list of all octagon shelters constructed or planned is included in The Octagon Book. Locations on worlds are not given, but it does indicate that there was at least one octagon constructed or1 each world in the Regina, Lanth, Rhylanor and Ararnis subsectors. No shelter was produced, however, in the Macene Belt, on Dinom, or on Roup. The shelters on Regina, Dinomn, Jenghe, Rhylanor, Jae Tellona, Celepina, Risek, and Inthe were staffed and operated as hotels and actually turned a profit.