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Sol Asteroid Belt

Asteroid Belt in the Old Solar System.

Rockhopper 1
Image from Copyright Lilly Harper
A Rock Hopper Belter ship in the Solsys Belt.
Population: ~160 billion sophonts (47% low gravity and micro-gravity Tweaks, 15% Uploads, 15% Vecs, 10% Provolves, 5% Cyborgs, 5% Nearbaseline humans, 1% Baseline humans, 1% Splices, 1% Rianths)

Government: The Asteroid Belt is home to literally thousands of different governments, ranging in size from single habitat city-states, to nations or alliances encompassing hundreds or thousands of habs, asteroids, and computronium nodes. While all nominally independent entities, in practice millennia of long association and interaction have evolved a low key, but surprisingly effective federal structure in which local matters are handled by the various local governments while system or Belt spanning issues are the purview of the Solsys Organization and its hyperturings.

asteroid belt solsys
Image from Steve Bowers
The orbits of several hundred larger Solsys asteroids and their associated colonies are shown in this image
Belt Space: While the largest dozen or so Belt asteroids have been honeycombed, converted to micro-gravity shellworlds, worldhoused, or some combination of these, the vast majority of Belt development has seen the various asteroids used mainly as resource nodes rather than habitats. Individual asteroids or small clusters of different types of asteroids have been fitted with thrusters, shifted into stable, organized orbits, and equipped with automated resource extraction systems. Materials from these are transported to nearby clusters of small to medium size habitats, some spun for gravity, many operating in low gravity or freefall conditions. Most are situated in the shadow of their home asteroid to provide additional protection from solar flares and radiation, although with modern shielding and medical systems such positioning has been reduced to a matter of cultural tradition, with little practical basis.

Low thrust shuttles and ferries ply between nearby rocks, while constant acceleration liners and the occasional boostbeam cross longer distances. The Transys is ever present, but less widely used due to a local preference for 'homegrown' systems.

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Appears in Topics
Inner SpherePlaces and LocalesSolsys Organization
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Updated 7 November 2021 by Orion's Arm Editors
Initially published on 02 August 2002.

 
Additional Information
Image 'Rockhopper Ship' copyright by Lilly Harper used with permission. Please contact her for conditions of re-use.
 
 
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