DShomshak Posted January 4, 2016 Report Share Posted January 4, 2016 Years ago, I did some work on a homebrew Star Hero setting. Most of it never got used or developed in detail because my players wanted Planetary Romance instead of Space Opera. Discussion of Sy/fy's new series The Expanse reminded me of it because the "Star Horizon" setting included Belters -- including a treatment of Ceres, which is one of the important locations on the show. So, what the heck, here's my version of /Ceres. Maybe someone will find it amusing. You might try seeing how much of the wider setting you can extrapolate from this one location. CERES (Sol 4½ #1) Distance: 0 LY Primary: G2 Luminosity: 1 sol Orbit Radius: 413.9 x 106 km Illumination: 0.13 sols Revolution: 4.6 Earth years 4440.9 local days Eccentricity: 8% Rotation: 9.08 hours Axial Tilt: ? Mass: 1.2 x 1021 kg Radius: 465 km Gravity: 0.37 m/sec2 (0.038 g) Density: 2.8 Atmosphere: None (local Oxygen-Nitrogen, standard pressure) Hydrosphere: None Population: 110,000 Satellites: None Astrography: 1 Ceres is the largest asteroid in the Solar System. Like most asteroids, it orbits between Mars and Jupiter in the “main belt” dividing the inner and outer Solar System. Geography: 1 Ceres is a cratered ball of carbonaceous chondrite. The outer hundred meters of 1 Ceres contain permafrost of water with carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane mixed in. Three refineries orbit the asteroid. These facilities slice small asteroids into chunks and extract metal from them for further processing on Ceres’ surface. Ceres’ colonists live in underground cities and large domed habitats covered by rock shells, creating kilometer-high round bumps on the planetoid. High-speed magnetic rail lines connect the cities and domes. Few regions use artificial gravity. Ceres has 10 intact habitat domes, and the nuked remains of four others. Fusion lamps at the apex of each dome light the interiors. Ecology: Blessed with abundant volatiles and rock rich in simple organic molecules, the Cereans decided to make soil, air and water. Cerean researchers worked for centuries to adapt plant and animal species to thrive in very low gravity. As a result, the habitat domes boast diverse and stable biospheres, with several species of trees (all of them bearing fruit or nuts and producing other useful products), dozens of insect species, and numerous birds and small mammals. (The rats and roaches came by themselves.) Seven domes hold actual forests. Ceres holds more nonhuman biomass than any other human space colony. History: Humans settled 1 Ceres because it was the largest asteroid, and because it made a good source of carbon and volatiles for other asteroid and space colonies. The European Union sponsored initial colonization after the First Surellan War as a way to match Greater California’s mining station on Juno. Extracting metal from carbonaceous chondrites turned out to be less cost-effective than hard-rock mining from metallic or stony-metal asteroids, so Ceres needed subsidies from the EU up until the 2080s. Ceres, like the EU, readily accepted the new World Governance Board. As the Cerean colony expanded, it became a center for research on turning carbonaceous chondrite rock into actual soil: O’Neill space habitats had become large enough that colonists wanted to create the Earthlike environments envisioned by early space advocates. Synthetic soil finally made Ceres a viable colony. Establishing Earthlike habitats on the low-gravity asteroids became a natural extension of this program. The genetic techniques developed to adapt plants and animals to low gravity were eventually applied to humans. The ‘Belter’ genotype deliberately avoided any external alterations to the human form and remains interfertile with baseline humans: Public opinion back on Earth firmly said that space-dwelling humans should still look human. The geneticists restricted the modifications to preventing bone loss and other unpleasant side effects of prolonged life in low gravity. This genetic research, however, made the cladist experiments possible. (90% of all Cereans are now of the ‘Belter’ genotype.) The extensive biological research on Ceres made it a center for other education, too. In 2146, a variety of small technical schools consolidated into the Ceres Technion. The Technion added liberal arts and social science courses in the 2160s, becoming a fully-rounded university. In the First Cladist War, a cladist fleet captured Ceres after a fierce battle and held it for 17 months. They wanted the colony’s biological and industrial resources. The battle to retake Ceres featured incredibly bloody tunnel-fighting. Cladist deep-cover agents seized Ceres again at the start of the Second Cladist War, and turned it into a major base for attacks throughout the Solar System. WGB forces nuked several habitat domes to open the way for a ground assault. Since then, nothing very exciting has happened on Ceres, which is how the Cereans like it. Society: Ceres is a self-governing polity, distinct from Sol Belt, though subject to the World Governance Board. Ceres offers full adult suffrage and enjoys high voter participation. Its government sends ombudsmen to Mars, Jupiter and Sol Belt. The asteroid remains a center for astro-biological and genetic research. Cerean society awards great prestige to scientists and engineers — the basis for strong political and cultural ties to Mars. Technicians receive no explicit legal privilege as individuals, but Ceres’ three largest biotech companies and the Ceres Technion appoint aldermen to the Ceres Council. These four delegates can veto decisions made by the ten habitat aldermen and Mayor, but only if they act unanimously. (This rarely happens.) In many ways, Ceres is a university town in space. The research institutes dominate life economically and culturally, as well as politically. Cereans boast a high education level even by spacer standards, and the cultural level is even higher. The mood is relaxed and Bohemian, even if the student bio-engineers play weird pranks now and then. A favorite highjink is to get a fellow student drunk and graft a tissue-engineered body part onto an embarrassing location. A number of student groups agitate for secession from the WGB, but everyone knows that’s just post-adolescent bluster. Nothing ever comes of it. Ideology/Religion: Cerean society is highly secular. About 10% of the population consists of practicing Roman Catholics, various Protestants, Sunni Muslims or Buddhists. Like all Belters, Cereans hold firm Manager opinions: In space, any failure in planning or systems operation tends to leave everyone in mortal peril. Cereans bridle at any suggestion that the Belter genotype constitutes cladism. Nevertheless, some Cereans hold mild cladist sympathies, no matter how strongly they reject the label. Some Cereans want further genetic ‘adjustments’ to improve their adaptation to low gravity. Technology: The Ceres Technion is in the top tier of scientific research institutes within human space. The Technion and the three biotech companies lead humanity in genetic research (since the Prometheans no longer count as human). Most high-tech industries on Ceres are specialized, but up to Solar System standards: The Cereans can draw upon all the technological resources of Luna, Mars and Jupiter. Low gravity and high tech lead to a few unusual specific technologies. Many Cereans live in treehouse “lofts” in the forest domes. Miniaturized, self-contained and portable appliances make life in a loft quite as technologically comfortable as any bedroom community. Indeed, the forest domes are towns of treehouses. The low gravity of 1 Ceres makes man-powered flight easier than walking. Cereans have long worn “flight vests” incorporating fold-out wings of fabric and smart plastics that turn rigid at an electrical signal. The person grabs handles on the unfolded wings, and flaps. Of course, all the popular sports are aerial. Flight vests and wings are a fashion accessory as well as a means of transportation. Feathered wings colored to imitate Earthly birds (most, alas, now extinct) are currently fashionable. Cereans who travel to other worlds often buy or rent a grav belt so they can keep flying. The height of fashion, however, consists of bionic wing implants. Such wings are far more maneuverable, besides leaving the person’s hands free, but they are a major purchase comparable to a speedboat or other recreational vehicle. Some flight fanatics obtain bioengineered wings that become a permanent, living part of their body. They claim this is a “purer,” more complete embrace of aerial life. Bionic wings, however, can be unplugged so a person can fit within a standard space suit or other garb. Economy: Ceres has a managed market economy as far as the biotech institutes are concerned, and a largely free market for other businesses. Either the companies are too small for the WGB to annex, or their parent companies give them a loose leash. Cereans know they pay high taxes, but citizens receive universal health care and all the education they want at public expense. Ceres’ chief exports remain soil, air, water and biological products to other asteroids; and refined metal to Jupiter, Mars and Luna. Military: On Ceres, it’s bad manners to talk about the six heavy weapon emplacements that guard the minor planet from attack. Ceres also has a small contingent of light WGB Astry vessels as its “coast guard.” Notes: Because the domes and tunnel-cities have controlled climates, Cereans need clothes only for protection, modesty or style. The growing popularity of the “Bird” lifestyle leads to clothing both scant and skintight, at least for younger folk: Clothing caught in a tree branch is no fun. This also leads to an emphasis on physical culture and body ornamentation such as skin and hair dye jobs to match one’s “plumage,” and adhesive or piercing-attached jewelry. Vanity becomes less flamboyant with age but does not disappear. Elderly Cereans generally wear bodysuits that hide wrinkles and correct sagging, not that many people really let themselves go. Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted January 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2016 And here's a bit of background on my treatment of Sol Belt as a whole, including explanations for my players who are not up on their astronomy. SOL BELTThe asteroid belt divides the inner and outer Solar System. It consists of thousands of sub-planetary objects that orbit between Mars and Jupiter. The largest are hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The smallest are gravel. The total mass is not enough to make even a small planet: When the Solar System formed, Jupiter sucked up most of the proto-planetary material in this region, and Jupiter’s tidal influence prevented the leftovers from coalescing into a single object. Most asteroid orbits are rather elliptical. Not only does the gravity from the planets tug them this way and that, their gravitational interactions with each other tend to bend their orbits away from tidy circles. Asteroids vary in composition. Most asteroids are made of a soft, crumbly black rock called carbonaceous chondrite — the primordial material of the middle Solar System. It’s blacker than coal. As its name says, this rock contains a lot of carbon. It also tends to include a lot of water, carbon dioxide and other volatiles in chemical combination. Other asteroids are made of various sorts of rock, nickel-iron alloy, or combinations thereof. A few asteroids have stranger compositions: For instance, a few asteroids have a surface layer rich in hydrocarbons, as if a bit of tar were mixed in with the chondritic material. Not all asteroids orbit within the Asteroid Belt itself. Two large clusters of asteroids share Jupiter’s orbit, caught in the giant planet’s Lagrange points. These are called the Trojan asteroids. Other asteroids pass inside Mars’ orbit or even cross Earth’s orbit — a group that Sol’s astronomers monitor closely indeed. A few asteroids never go further from the Sun than Earth’s orbit. All of these asteroids with peculiar orbits are quite small. Major asteroids have both a proper name and a catalog number that tells the order in which it was discovered. Minor asteroids just have the catalog number. People who live in the Belt don’t say the catalog number in ordinary speech — as Belters say, the number is silent — but it is always written when referring to the asteroid as a physical object. The number isn’t needed when referring to an inhabited asteroid as a community. Thus, “1 Ceres” is the asteroid itself; “Ceres,” without the number, is the community that lives on the asteroid. Before Earth’s devastation, Sol Belt formed a county within the Earth Commune (and Ceres formed a county of its own). Since the World Governance Board abandoned Earth, Asteroid County has become an autonomous state. Single corporations own many asteroid communities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted January 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2016 And another one of the major asteroid settlements. Note that these were all written before the recent probe visits to Ceres and other asteroids; I'd need to re-research them If I began a new Star Hero game. JUNO (Sol 4½ #3) Distance: 0 LY Primary: G2 Luminosity: 1 sol Orbit Radius: 399.6 x 106 km Illumination: 0.14 sols Revolution: 4.37 standard years 5,314.7 local days Eccentricity: 25% Rotation: 7.2 hours Axial Tilt: ? Mass: 3.34 x 1019 kg Radius: 121 km Gravity: 0.15 m/sec2 (0.016 g, locally variable) Density: 4.5 Atmosphere: None (local Oxygen-Nitrogen, standard pressure) Hydrosphere: None Population: 80,000 Satellites: None Astrography: The 14th-largest asteroid in Sol Belt has an unusually elliptical orbit but stays within the main asteroid belt. Geography: 3 Juno is a ball of rock and nickel-iron alloy, like a stony-metal meteor. Four orbital towers rise 215 km from 4 Juno’s surface to large space stations. These stations include drydocks for building and servicing spacecraft, and habitation zones 3 km in diameter and 1 km wide. The habitat wheels spin around the orbital tower ‘axle’ for artificial gravity. (Three habitats spin for Earth-normal gravity, one for Martian gravity.) Mountain-sized chunks of slag — the remains of small, captured asteroids that supplied material for the towers — hang at the end of each orbital tower as counterweights. Each orbital habitat holds about 20 square kilometers of living space: a bit over 9 square kilometers of surface area, but built on two levels. Each habitat’s top level holds equal proportions of urban area, parkland and real, honest-to-God farmland, all lit by a tubular fusion lamp. The habitats are large enough that they generate weather. Most people live in the habitats, and commute to work in the shipyards, factories and mines. Ecology: Juno has about 50 square kilometers of farmland and parkland with real soil and simplified ecologies of Earthly plants, insects, birds and other small critters. Somehow, rats and cockroaches reached the habitats without invitation. The farmland is not sufficient to feed Juno: The colony needs industrial food production, both yeast/algae synthetics and cloned-tissue farms, but the “natural” farms give the colony some slack in case a disaster wrecks the food factories. History: German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovered 3 Juno in 1804. Telescopic and other long-distance observations suggested that 3 Juno had a stony-metal composition. This, and its stable rotation, made 3 Juno an early target for exploration and exploitation. Greater California sponsored the Juno mining venture in the 2040s. When the surellans attacked, they took over the colony and used the miners as slave labor; on the other hand, they introduced superior mining technology. After the First Surellan War, Juno became the first asteroid colony to pay for its own operation, through metal sent back to Earth. Not only did the Junoans mine their own asteroid, other miners used Juno as a base from which to prospect, slice up small asteroids, and refine them or redirect them to Earth or Mars. Since Juno already offered fusion power plants and lots of metal, the asteroid became a center of heavy industry along with mining and refining. The volume of material passing to and from Juno’s surface became great enough that orbital towers became economical. Empyrean Associates completed Juno’s first orbital tower in 2236. When a Daedalan fleet destroyed Earth’s L4 military shipyards early in the First Cladist War, the World Governance Board expanded Juno’s small shipyards as quickly as possible to replace them. Juno eventually took over as the Solar System’s largest military shipbuilder (though the Jupiter Industrial Zone and the rebuilt L4 surpass it at building civilian craft). Today, Juno is the second-largest settlement in Sol’s asteroid belt, after Ceres. In addition to manufacturing and mining, Juno hosts a large base for the WGB Astry. After all, the shipyards need protection, and the Astry needs facilities for repairs and maintainance. Society: Juno is a municipality within Asteroid County. The Junoans think of themselves as WGB loyalists through and through. Juno is very much a company town, dominated by the Astry and three industrial megacorporations. Juno has a popularly elected Mayor as chief executive, and four elected aldermen in its Council (one from each orbital tower and station). The WGB Astry, the Juno Small Business Chamber of Commerce, Empyrean Associates, Brosong-Tedesco Inc. and the Asteromo Group each appoint one alderman. Juno hires private companies to provide government bureaucratic functions. It also hires its judiciary, but the contract always goes to the Astry’s Office of the Judge-Advocate General. With so many astral personnel around, and so many jobs dependent on defense, patriotism naturally runs high among Junoans. They proudly call their little world “Sol’s Arsenal.” Many young Junoans join the Astry. Ideology/Religion: Juno holds small communities of every major human religion, but few people feel their religion strongly. Patriotism dominates Junoan ideology, making them fervent Manager and Coccooner advocates. Junoans like a strong government and a strong defense against other states. Most Junoans view aliens as a distant threat. To the extent that they think about the Galactics, Junoans advocate developing weapons powerful enough to defeat even star-spanning Elder Race demigods — or at least trying. Technology: Juno has technology in quantity more than in quality, focused upon heavy industry rather than cutting-edge research and development. If it’s big, Juno can build it. Economy: The shipyards dominate Juno’s economy. The Junoans export some of the metal they extract, but factories within played-out mines turn much of the metal into components and parts of spaceship hulls. (Since some of these factories lie beneath 30 km of rock, they are well defended.) The parts go up the orbital towers to the shipyards, where the Junoans assemble them into spaceships and modules for space stations. The Astry accounts for another large part of Juno’s economy. The small businesses on Juno depend on the spill-over from miner’s and astral personnel salaries. Military: In addition to visiting warships, Juno has six massive bunkers equipped with nuclear missiles, mass drivers and heavy lasers. Each orbital tower and habitat also carries lasers, particle beams and stranger energy weapons. In the Second Cladist War, Juno successfully repulsed an assault by a cladist fleet all by itself. Notes: Juno never produced any sort of noteworthy art or culture. Clothing often imitates astral fatigues. Point ‘n’ shoot VR games and live-action laser tag games are popular recreations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted January 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2016 Incidentally, does anyone know why the font keeps changing in the posts? It's all the same in the text before I paste it into the post. Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted January 5, 2016 Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 Great job detailing those societies! Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted January 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 Next: Vesta, capital of Asteroid County. VESTA (Sol 4½ #4) Distance: 0 LY Primary: G2 Luminosity: 1 sol Orbit Radius: 353.4 x 106 km Illumination: 0.18 sols Revolution: 3.63 Earth years 5960.2 local days Eccentricity: 9% Rotation: 5.34 hours Axial Tilt: ? Mass: 2.7 x 1020 kg Radius: 260 km Gravity: 0.26 m/sec2 (0.027 g, locally variable) Density: 3.3 Atmosphere: None (local Oxygen-Nitrogen, standard pressure) Hydrosphere: None Population: 70,000 Satellites: None Astrography: 4 Vesta is the second-largest of the asteroids orbiting Sol. It orbits in the main asteroid belt. Geography: Unlike other asteroids, 4 Vesta formed with sufficient internal heat to melt, causing its interior to segregate before freezing again. 4 Vesta has a small iron core surrounded by a mantle of olivine and other minerals — just like those in Earth’s mantle — and a crust of basaltic lava flows. A collision with another asteroid knocked the basalt crust off a section of 4 Vesta, leaving an enormous crater with a central peak 8 km high. Vesta has two permanent towns, Vestagrad and Peak. The former is mostly subterranean, a city of tunnels and chambers. The latter is the Asteromo Group’s headquarters, built on top of and within the great crater’s peak, that grew into a small town. Where Vestagrad is drab and utilitarian, Peak is an architectural showpiece dedicated to corporate glory. Peak has the only parkland on Vesta, held within bubble-domes affixed to the mountainside. Vesta also hosts several small mining camps, none with more than 50 people and most of them temporary. Ecology: Like most asteroid settlements, Vesta has no real ecology. For food, Vestans use yeast/algae synthetics or cloned-tissue factories. The parklands of Peak form the lone exception, but these are entirely ornamental and not self-sustaining. History: The astronomer Heinrich Olbers discovered 4 Vesta by telescope in 1807. The first mineral exploration of 4 Vesta actually took place in the 20th century, decades before any person or probe landed on the asteroid, when astronomers identified a certain rare type of meteorite as chips knocked off the minor planet. 4 Vesta’s unusual geology made it an early target for exploration in the 21st century. A resurgent Russia planted a mining colony on 4 Vesta in the 2040s, as part of that decade’s “Great Powers” competition in space industrialization. Although 4 Vesta turned out to be a poor source of iron, the Russians extracted calcium, magnesium, aluminum and other light metals using massive, brute-force nuclear furnaces. A surprising deposit of high-quality serpentine made 4 Vesta the first source of ornamental stone from another world. The Russians also steered small nickel-iron asteroids to Vesta’s refineries. The colony limped along on subsidies until the Conglomerate War of the 2090s. Unlike the Ceres and Juno colonies, the Vestan Russians refused to accept the new World Governance Board. They turned to China for help and gave them an asteroid base in return for continued subsidies and military protection. Two years later, the Chinese took over Vesta completely. The Vestan Russians did not roll over as hoped; 18% of Vesta’s population died in the months of fighting that followed. China used Vesta as a military base and a station for locating and processing other asteroidal material. Vesta remained a Chinese colony until the 2160s, when the WGB finally dissolved the People’s Republic of China. The WGB used Vesta in exactly the same way as the Chinese. In 2187, a Vestan Chinese cartel merged with another asteroid mining company to form the Asteromo Group, still the largest company to exploit Sol Belt’s minerals. Vesta suffered attacks in both Cladist Wars. The Second Cladist War severely damaged Vesta’s military base. It was rebuilt but JUNO (q.v.) became the Belt’s largest astral base. Vesta is now the third-largest settlement in the asteroid belt, and the city of Vestagrad became Asteroid County’s capital. Society: Vesta still shows strong Chinese and Russian influences; the WGB did not actively suppress local culture as long as people did not resist corporate control. Indeed, the Russian minority briefly welcomed the WGB as liberators from Chinese dominance, and the WGB used the Russians to counterbalance the Chinese establishment. Although English is the official language of modern Vesta (just like the rest of Sol Belt), the asteroid has associations devoted to Russian and Chinese language and culture. Asteroid County has a Director and governmental service companies appointed by the WGB. Naturally, Belt-oriented megacorporations such as Brosong-Tedesco and the Asteromo Group exert the greatest influence on the Director’s choices. Belt residents hold the same rights as anyone else if they own stock in WGB member corporations, but Belters have no direct voice in their governance unless their asteroid has its own municipal government. The nine largest asteroid colonies (excluding CERES — q.v.) are all municipalities. Ideology/Religion: The most popular religions are the Russian Orthodox Church and an “unsuperstitious” version of Buddhism developed by the People’s Republic of China. Some wags call it “Buddhist Calvinism.” Like all Belters, the Vestans tend toward Manager sentiments, since careless actions are deadly dangerous in space. Technology: Vesta has lots of heavy machinery but no cutting-edge technology or scientific research. It’s the Rust Belt of the Solar System. Economy: The Asteromo Group accounts for more than half the Vestan economy. Vestan miners not only delve into Vesta itself, they push small, iron-rich asteroids into its orbital docks where they are broken up using explosives and lasers, and melted down in large nuclear furnaces. Vesta’s own olivine-rich mantle rock is unique among the asteroids in its utility as building stone. (Not that space colonies use much quarried stone, but it does happen as the colonies mature.) Asteromo also owns numerous heavy-industry companies that turn metal and asteroid rock into boring, low-tech stuff such as girders and concrete. Military: Vesta has a small WGB Astral base. Most of the ships that use it as a home port are sublight cutters. Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted January 5, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 And for something rather different, one of the smaller settlements in Sol Belt. Because going into space won't all be about resources and politics. DIOTIMA (Sol 4½ #423) Distance: 0 LY Primary: G2 Luminosity: 1 sol Orbit Radius: 459.1 x 106 km Illumination: 0.11 sols Revolution: 5.38 standard years 10, 245.6 local days Eccentricity: 3% Rotation: 4.6 hours Axial Tilt: ? Mass: 1.21 x 1019 kg Radius: 108 km Gravity: 0.069 m/sec2 (0.007 g) Density: 2.3 Atmosphere: None (local Oxygen-Nitrogen, standard pressure) Hydrosphere: None Population: 260 Satellites: None Astrography: 423 Diotima is the 21st-largest asteroid in the Solar System. It orbits near the outer fringe of the main asteroid belt. Geography: Although some larger asteroids have irregular shapes, 423 Diotima is almost spherical. It is made of soft, crumbly carbonaceous chondrite material, rich in hydrocarbons and other volatiles (a ‘P’-type asteroid). 423 Diotima’s sole settlement is the Charterhouse of St. Bruno, consisting of a monastery, a nunnery and a small spaceport, all connected by a small rail line. The asteroid is also studded with more than a dozen kilometer-wide fields of solar cells as a backup power supply. Ecology: None, but the monastic settlements make synthetic food from yeast and algae. They also have hydroponic “gardens” — even a grape arbor, so they can make their own wine. History: In 2066, Japan planted a mining colony on 423 Diotima, hoping to process the hydrocarbons into useful petrochemicals. The Diotima venture went bankrupt in 2079 and the asteroid was abandoned. In the Monastic Revival of the 2120s, Neo-Carthusian monks decided to revive their order’s founding practice of establishing communities in wilderness regions; one group chose the wilderness of space. The Roman Catholic Church bought the abandoned asteroid for a modest price. The monks turned it into an abbey, the second monastic house established off Earth but within the Solar System. (The first was a friary on the Moon; several abbeys and friaries were also established in extrasolar colonies.) Decades later, the Carthusians added a nunnery several kilometers away. The Charterhouse of St. Bruno is named after the founder of the Carthusian Order. At the end of the First Cladist War, the St. Bruno Charterhouse received an unexpected honor as the site of the surrender negotiations between the cladist worlds and the World Governance Board. Of all the “neutral” sites proposed by the WGB, the cladists chose the abbey as the most trustworthy. In the Second Cladist War, this made Diotima a target for a revenge occupation by Heracleans. The cladists used the Charterhouse as the seed of a POW camp. An attempt to use the monks and nuns as bargaining chips, trading their freedom for cladist POWs, backfired when all of the monks and nuns refused to leave. When the cladists escalated their demands and threatened to kill hostages if cladist prisoners weren’t released, the Charterhouse’s abbot and several other monks and nuns became martyrs. (The Church has beatified Abbot Ousman Kerekou.) After the war, the Carthusians cleared out and sealed off the prison camp extensions to the charterhouse and nunnery. Since then, nothing exciting has happened on Diotima. Society: The Carthusian Order’s founders would hardly recognize monastic life on Diotima, but many patterns stay the same. The monastics pray on Earth’s 24-hour schedule, following Rome Standard Time. Monks and nuns spend a third of their day working, as per the Benedictine Rule, though they tend environmental-maintainance machines instead of sheep, and their period of study and writing involves computers rather than illuminated manuscripts. The Charterhouse holds separate houses for monks and nuns. The Abbot and Mother Superior rule their houses and hold regular video conferences to discuss the operations of the Charterhouse. Physical travel between the two houses seldom becomes necessary. Some monastics choose chemical neutering to make their vows of celibacy easier to bear, but old-fashioned nuns and monks say that’s cheating. Ideology/Religion: Everyone on Diotima is Roman Catholic, of course. Their monastic life naturally inclines them to Coccooner attitudes toward aliens: Diotimans hope to see the Galactics converted someday, but the rest of the universe doesn’t concern them very much. The neo-Carthusians on Diotima hold no truck with Luddism and like technology very much. Technology: Because the Carthusian rule of self-sufficiency says the monks and nuns should build and repair everything themselves if at all possible, the Charterhouse includes extremely well-equipped machine shops. Fabers turn asteroid rock into raw materials and tools. Experts in environmental maintenance consider the Charterhouse a superb example of tight recycling. Economy: The Charterhouse of St. Bruno imports nothing but a small yearly supply of tritium fuel for their fusion reactor. In an emergency, the Charterhouse could survive for weeks on solar power alone. (The light is weak this far from the Sun, but the monastics have plenty of room to spread solar panels.) They export religious VR simulations and holograms. A steady trickle of small spacecraft also visit Diotima for repairs, attracted by low prices. Military: None. The monks and nuns own some nonlethal weaponry to discourage potential space pirates, but they cannot defend themselves against space-based attack. They rely on the WGB’s police and the grace of God to keep them safe. Notes: The cladists left some extremely interesting technology on Diotima, mostly biological and cybernetic, and some of it highly experimental. The Carthusians didn’t report it to the WGB after the war, because they feared how the corporations might use it. The monks and nuns have studied the salvaged technology for decades, carefully figuring out how it works, but it still scares them. Someday, the monastics might decide what to do with their trove of deadly techno-treasure; perhaps the choice will be thrust upon them. Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted January 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2016 The last item from Sol Belt is more of a sketch than a complete society, but it exemplifies what I saw as an important element for that part of Human space: the asteroid fiefdom, space-age counterpart to the billionaire's private island. TOUTATIS (Sol 4½ #4179) Distance: 0 LY Primary: G2 Luminosity: 1 sol Orbit Radius: 137.3 - 613.8 x 106 km Illumination: 1.19 - 0.059 sols Revolution: 3.98 standard years 5627.2 local “days” Eccentricity: 63.4% Rotation: 6.2 hours Axial Tilt: n/a Mass: 9.1 x 1013 kg Radius: avg. 3 km Gravity: n/a (local 1 g) Density: n/a Atmosphere: Oxygen-Nitrogen, standard pressure Hydrosphere: n/a Population: 2,000 Satellites: none Astrography: This small asteroid’s orbit swings from just inside Earth’s orbit out to beyond the Asteroid Belt. Its orbit makes it an example of an “Apollo” object — so-called after the first one discovered. Geography: 4179 Toutatis began as an irregular chunk of rock. In the course of 300 years, 4179 Toutatis has been completely consumed. The asteroid is now a hodgepodge of domes, tubes and cylinders. Toutatis includes docking bays for spacecraft, three large habitat domes, warehouses, machine shops and more — a whole small town, shuttling through the inner Solar System. The largest habitat dome holds the parkland estate of the family that owns Toutatis. Habitat areas have artificial gravity set at Earth standard. Ecology: Toutatis has no natural ecosystem. Humans live on artificial food made from yeast and algae on the station itself. The estate dome, however, includes gardens, trees, birds and insects: It’s a self-sustaining little ecosystem a kilometer wide. History: Robot mining machines came to 4179 Toutatis in the 2080s. A decade later, someone realized that the asteroid could become a shuttle between Earth and the Belt. 4179 Toutatis wasn’t quick, but it was cheap. Cargo only needed transport along Earth’s orbit, or within the Belt, to the rendezvous with 4179 Toutatis. The little asteroid did the hard work of transfering the cargo up and down the Sun’s gravity well. The work eventually became too complex for robots to handle, so workers needed a place to live on the “flying warehouse.” Thus the habitats, life-support machinery and spaceport facilities slowly grew. In the 2130s, Empyrean Associates billionaire BJ Olliver chose Toutatis for his home, bought the whole asteroid-station, and built the large domes. In the First Cladist War, Heraclean commandos attacked a WGB meeting hosted by the Ollivers. Nothing obviously important has happened since then, though the Ollivers have hosted some epic parties. Society: Toutatis is an example of an asteroid fiefdom. Super-rich businessmen (especially those in space industries) can buy small asteroids outright and turn them into luxury estates and company towns. The Ollivers own everything on Toutatis. The population breaks down as 30% slave, 40% indentured servant, 29% contract employee, and 1% the Ollivers themselves. They rule their fiefdom as despotically as any plantation master or feudal lord of Old Earth. Ideology/Religion: The Ollivers are Pavonists, so Toutatis has a small Pavonist chapel — making Pavonism the dominant religion on the asteroid. Technology: Toutatis has the typical technological resources of a good-sized space station. It also has a small but very good hospital. Economy: Toutatis remains a flying warehouse. This function is less important than it once was, but Toutatis still makes enough money this way to pay for itself. After the docks and warehouses, the chief industry is catering to the Ollivers. Military: Toutatis has emplaced weapons for defense against possible pirates (or, more likely, kidnap or murder attempts against the Ollivers) and a small armory of hand weapons for the Ollivers’ security guards. Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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