Travelogue 1: Starbase: Concordia

23 April 2008

In the darkest years of the Earthgate War, after the drones had shattered all three Core World counteroffensives, an uninhabited system, RSS 0878-0122, hosted a historic meeting between the three remaining battlefleets, and all able-vesseled Homeworlders willing to band together to make a stand against the drone onslaught. The fleet which gathered there became the unified front of all the Homeworlds, and went on to win the war.

This system, now named Concordia, is the site of the Foundation's headquarters, Starbase: Concordia, a massive space station of unprecedented scope, a veritable metropolis in the sky.

The station has grown much since its construction, as it was, for a time, the only habitable space under Foundation sovereignty. It grew out, up, and down, as fast as its builders could keep up with demand.

It began as humble disk-and-spoke station, common in its era, though of notable and unique design. The central hub housed several fusion reactors, while the rotating disk housed the permanent residents and most operations. Further disks were added, first along an elongated central shaft, then further out on longer spokes. The shaft gained clusters of spherical pods, housing more modern fusion reactors, while the disks began to grow in parallel to shaft.

The station underwent a radical redesign years later, essentially rebuilt from scratch, as it became apparent it was much more than a space station...it was becoming a city. Artificial gravity, the latest technology, was used to allow new possibilities in the architecture.

The station now resembles a massive, sprawling disk, with towers jutting in both directions, the taller ones clustering toward the center. In other words, it looks much like two cities were lifted from the ground and stuck back-to-back.

Though the hull plating is predominantly polished white (the standard color of Foundation vessels and installations), the station usually looks blue to the naked eye, owing in no small part to light from the Concordia star, a blue giant. Interior lighting is provided mainly by solar light shunted through optical channels, thus the light from the windows on the dark side of the station is tinted blue.

The station rotates slowly, completing one rotation every 25 hours, a standard Homeworlds day. Most windows have holographic screens superimposed on them, so that, during the "day", the sky appears diffused, like a bright day on Earth, and during the "night", the sun is muted to a cool, dark blue, and the stars are visible. This feature can be disabled (within reason; one cannot project harmful amounts of light into the room). Technically, none of the windows are actually windows; they are fibrous optical channels on a transparent aluminum substrate, which filter out the vast majority of the otherwise lethal radiation of the nearby star, but the light which does reach the eye within is real light that traveled from space, so they are technically "windows".

Transportation within the station is accomplished by a network of transversal "pods". Typically, each floor of a building (or each pod lobby in a very large floor) has a station where a number of pods await travelers. Pods are large enough to fit about 8 people comfortably. They are somewhat egg-shaped, with a translucent white exterior. They navigate independently through a complex network of airless tubes, using small onboard gravity drives. At any given time, there are thousands of pods hurtling through the tubes, some traveling at hundreds of kilometers per hour, but, to date, there has never been a collision, as each pod has enough computing power onboard to manage the entire traffic flow without incident, let alone its own part.

The interior architecture is of a very modern style, deliberately influenced by all major cultures within the Homeworlds, but with a definitively "new" undertones. Owners of property within the station are free to redecorate the interior however they choose; fleets of nanomachines await the whim of decorators, able to construct all but the most exotic interiors literally while you wait. Public areas are usually vast and open, with great, quasi-domed ceilings which diffuse light during the day and allow in starlight at night.

The simplest observation of the public architecture is that it is very curvy. There's hardly a straight line to be found; every surface not meant for walking typically follows an asymmetric curve. General surfaces tend to be off-white, light gray, or desaturated blue. Many areas share a common theme, such as "Little Koruun", and are made to resemble the local architecture. In most areas, abundant vegetation breaks up the clean, sterile space station look, and ample flowing water lends a feeling of freshness.

Apart from the actual Foundation Headquarters, now a mere (admittedly massive) complex within the city-station, Starbase: Concordia is treated much like a city. While there is certainly a reasonable amount of security, most movement is unrestricted, and individuals find their own way. There are thousands of entrances and exits; most of the affluent residents have private spaceports for their residence or workplace. Like an earthbound city, security is usually specific to the structure being secured.

There is no "upper" and "lower" side; it was decided that such distinction would lead only to arbitrary value judgments. Instead, one side is labeled "green" and the other "gold" (in the future, both words have a similar, positive connotation). Gravity is directed toward the central disk, so travelers moving from one side to the other undergo a "flip", which is usually unnoticable, as most such journeys are made by pod.