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Inner System Fringe

Posted by: Jarvis Tryscuz, Firewall Sentinel

More than 10,000 asteroids tumble around inside Mars's orbit, and a full tenth of them are over a kilometer in diameter, which means they can house a bubble, cylinder, or beehive habitat. All this to say that you don't have to flee rimward to hide; there are plenty of places sunward the Consortium won't go or simple doesn't know about.

Economic exploitation of these asteroids isn't as lucrative as mining in the Main Belt. Many of them are in eccentric orbits that put them far from the ecliptic. There are still quite a few bodies in the inner system that haven't been properly mapped or detected. The inner-fringe settlements here range from paranoid to hedonistic to downright criminal.

Impian​

  • Habitat Type: Bubble
  • Allegiance: Shui Fong Triad

Impian ("Dream" in Malay) was once 1086 Ganymed, the largest of the Amor asteroids and the first settled and mined. It asserted its independence after the Fall, but was soon infiltrated by the Shui Fong triad. The Shui Fong kept Impian's simulspace-coding and software development hypercorps intact, running the station as a center of "safe vice for a price."

Sisyphus​

  • Habitat Type: Beehive/Cluster
  • Allegiance: Zrbny Limited

1866 Sisyphus is a binary asteroid orbiting between 0.8 and 2 AU. It's the home of the largest Zrbny Limited waystation in the inner system. It was built entirely by automated manufacturing robots after the corporation mysteriously went into lock-down and terminated all personnel. Zrbny's own paper trail runs out quickly. With no signs of transhuman involvement, it's not clear who's pulling the strings on Sisyphus and why.

PEX​

  • Habitat Type: Torus (Mars-Sol L2)
  • Allegiance: Planetary Consortium

The Planetary Stock Exchange lives on the creatively-named PEX station. You'd be hard pressed to find a more secure habitat in the inner system. It accounts for a major portion of mesh traffic during peak trading hours as suits from across the system wheel and deal. Oversight's central offices are here.

The habitat itself is appropriately luxurious; visitors and the handful of permanent residents can buy nearly any experience they want. The hab's halls are carpeted and ostentatious displays of money and power are the rule of the day. The finest French restaurant in the Solar System, La Petite Pigeon, is on PEX's second-highest floor. It can only be speculated how they source their pate.

Despite the tight security, someone released a biowar agent here that caused multiple traders to suicide or shew their own arms off in AF 8.