— Anonymous ice miner, interviewed for The Final Frontier © 2118 GN
Look, I can give you all the advice in the galaxy, but it all boils down to two things.
The first is: The farther up you go in Olympus, the tighter the security. You can walk around the Pit with a dozen lasers strapped to you, but try that in Yutu Yinchon and you’ll get thrown in the brig faster than you can spit.
The second is: It’s not guns that make people dangerous.
LUNA The Underworld, a broad and
expanding area under Olympus proper, first divided along national lines. Subsequent reorganizations, murders and further realignments have made the region’s political makeup even more chaotic than those above the surface. Illegal drugs, mercenaries, killers, black-market organs, sex and weapons are just a few of the commodities available here.
The Corridor isn’t prime territory like the Pit and the Underworld are. Those sectors’
principal powers leave the Corridor to less-organized bullies. This leftover region is squabbled over by a number of angry gangs, which have varying levels of power.
Downside
— Dazyl Grenich, Lifestyles © 2120 MMI
We’r e a few levels down, now, in Downside — down levels, down scale, down class. This is the turf of blue-collar corp slaves on leave from sweaty spectra scans on Mars or Mercury.
This is the Brass Knuckles — no, wait, that’s down the strip. This is a little classier than that, but then, so is Ayvana Gar, that bastion of fashion sense (but that’s another story altogether).
This is O’Flaherty’s Pub, one of the busiest corp-service stations Downside.
It’s big, it’s hot and it’s full of loud, flashtemp miners.
Notice the discr eet holocameras in every corner — not a moment of privacy, but at least it keeps you from being crushed flat by a twitchy grunt with a chip on his shoulder.
Legionnaires appear in the wink of an LED to lead boisterous laborers away with a kind word about docked R&R pay.
“ OLD TOWN” > © 2120 DAZYLART out a small
b u t
s i g n i f i c a n t power base deep in the Pit.
Migrant workers, stranded and disillusioned immigrants, and hard-luck cases of every variety struggle to make livings and to raise
families in the Underworld’s depths.
Most do it without any legal pretenses. Those who want to survive align themselves with the local powers that be.
The Pit is dominated by a heavy-handed dictatrix known simply as “the Pr esident.” Having established herself some time ago in Yeltsingrad’s command center, her clan possesses nearly supreme control of the region’s life-support systems, power and limited security monitors.
Business
The Mount is the center of all spaceborne commerce.
Luna is the place for any company with an interest in stellar exploration or expansion. Every player in the space game has a major base of operations, if not corporate headquarters, on Luna. The most prosperous do business from splendid edifices that soar above the colony-state’s commoners, and have architecture that’s impossible to achieve on Earth.
The Pit
— Dazyl Grenich, Lifestyles © 2120 MMI
Let’s keep it quiet, kids;
we’re in a tough sec now. It’s the infamous Pit, home of black market, blackmail and way too much black light. The most dangerous twinks in the system live and breathe and eat and — well, this is a family show, so I won’t go there — down here. Far under anything that could be considered civilized, this place smells worse than a broken-down trashpactor. The water’s brown, and I wouldn’t drink anything but the bar’s highest-proof vodka — and that just to kill the biobugs that must infest the place.
Names you see scrawled only in graffiti up above are in neon here: Ekiwundu, Bear Under Glass, The Undertaker, Braza Verde, Jive. I don’t dare take you inside these places for fear that this would be my farewell broadcast! The whole Pit is like this, except for the poor elgee secs — and they’re worse. Take it from me: Stay Upside no matter how exotic the Underworld seems.
“ YELTSINGRAD” > © 2120 DAZYLART
MERCURY & VENUS
Mercury
Mercury is a moon-sized planet that has become known as the “hell of the universe.” Its faces, exposed to or sheltered from the sun, are contrasts in abuse: excruciatingly hot or deathly cold. The planet supports no life and has no water, but does possess an abundance of metals, silicates and other exploitable minerals. This opportunity for industry was the inspiration for the Mercury Mining Consortium.
Sun Sol
Sun’s spectral type G2
Mass [Earth = 1] 0.006
Equatorial diameter [miles] 3,031
Gravity [Earth = 1] 0.38
Atmosphere none
Indigenous life none
Rotation period [hours] 1,416
Closest distance to Earth 0.54 AU
Primary satellites none
Several company exploratory missions mapped the surface of the planet and per for med extensive spectr oanalysis.
Although Mercury has several veins of “luxury metals,” such as gold and platinum, the planet’s real wealth lies in rare metals — tungsten and molybdenum — used in ship-steel manufacture and other heavy industries.
MMC teams have been dropped to Mercury’s desolate surface. Though not hospitable,
detrimental to both worker and machine life spans than the sunward does. Mining teams rotate on 25-day shifts, and find respite on a sparsely furnished orbital station (officially designated MMC Orbital Station 1, but known as
“Purgatory” among its tenants).
Miner culture is tight and cliquish.
Managers must maintain close relations with workers, prying into personal lives, addictions, debts and bad habits. Even a small error could kill an entire team on the harsh Mercurian sur face. If someone has a conflict with another worker, no effort is spared to resolve it.
If it cannot be resolved, one of those involved is transferred immediately.
As compensation for this brutal lifestyle, a Mercury miner receives excellent pay — and the death benefits are simply astonishing.
The breakthrough of olaminium, a new space-age element, has MMC worried about the future profitability of its operation. Investors are pressuring the corporation to do anything necessary to be competitive with the revolutionary space-industry material.
Rumor has it that MMC agents are curr ently sear ching for flaws in olaminium, in an effort to discredit the substance and its UAN manufacturer.
Venus
Although commonly con-sidered Earth’s sister planet, and even once thought to be habitable, Venus has such an inhospitable environment that colonization has thus far proved impossible. The planet’s dense, poisonous atmosphere is such an ef fective “greenhouse” that its surface is hotter than Mercury’s.
Any water that Venus might have once held has been vaporized.
Violent winds also rip at clouds in the atmosphere’s upper layers.
Venus underwent extensive volcanic activity in the past; much of its surface was formed by lava flows.
Modern volcanic activity is minimal.
The planet has an incredibly slow retrograde rotation — a Venusian day lasts 243 Earth days.
Sun Sol
Sun’s spectral type G2
Mass [Earth = 1] 0.82
Equatorial diameter [miles] 7,520
Gravity [Earth = 1] 0.88
Atmosphere carbon dioxide
Indigenous life none
Rotation period [hours] 5,832
Closest distance to Earth 0.27 AU
Primary satellites none
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
VENUS & EARTH Ltd., established Perelandra
Orbital Station around Venus, both to study the planet’s surface and as a private spacedock. Despite Venus’ harsh conditions, OE investors hope that the planet’s relative geological similarity to Earth will yield rare minerals. OE is advancing the development of exploratory work vehicles to test that theory, and sends probes into
governments are suspicious of OE. The company is suspected of trying to form a
“corporate state” in orbit around Venus, not dissimilar to the FSA’s military-corporate establishment on Earth. Orgotek assigns patrols to Venus on a regular basis — to ensure that aberrants cannot use Venus as a base, of course.
project succeeds, OE will reap tremendous profits, not only from mineral mining, but through sales of advanced exploratory craft.
Perelandra Station is already one of the private sector’s primary manufacturers of orbital vessels.
Although a number of Earth governments purchase ships and parts from Offworld Enterprises,
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Earth
Luna is the Earth’s shining gem in the stars, but the planet has gained a number of artificial satellites in addition to the Moon. Most large corporations maintain offices in at least one of the three major Earth OSs, which orbit at Earth’s Lagrange (or “L”) points.
Indeed, it seems that in order for one to succeed on Earth, one has to get off it.
Lulong Station, in the L5 point, houses the MultiNational Stock Exchange, where brokers make enough money to visit Earth every weekend.
UAN’s Mujukuu shares Lulong Station’s Lagrange point. The St. Petersburg Modern Freeform Ballet
Sun Sol
Sun’s spectral type G2
Mass [Earth = 1] 1
Equatorial diameter [miles] 7,926
Gravity [Earth = 1] 1
Atmosphere nitrogen
Indigenous life human
Rotation period [hours] 24
Closest distance to Earth n/a
Primary satellites Luna