Mars Station

Vital Statistics

Name: Mars Station

Other Names:

Location:

Permanent Population:

Transient Population:

Imports: Nearly everything, although they are supported with food and goods from Mars directly.

Exports: None. The station exists merely to act as an intermediary for Martian commerce.

Description

The Mars space station is the oldest original station still in operation today. It has been retrofitted and overhauled more times than anyone can remember and continues to be modified to this day. Its sole purpose for existence is to act as a go-between for imports/exports to and from Mars proper, and as a place for tired spacers to stop and unwind a bit between trips. There is a thriving black market on Mars Station that the Conglomerate continues to ignore due to the Earth’s and Luna’s dependence upon Martian exports of food and goods.

The Mars Station is now more of a third-world country than a center of commerce. Living conditions for most of the population, which numbers into the millions, are terrible at best. The environment is unclean, the infrastructure for waste disposal and clean water distribution is in constant need of repair and power is available in some areas only intermittently.

The hallways are filled with merchant’s tents that are set up alongside ramshackle tents and lean-to’s where those that are unable to afford their own housing make their homes. The people that live here re generally of two different types, the squalidly poor, unable to even look someone else in the eyes, and the immensely rich, unwilling to give anyone else the time of day.

Features/Places of Note

Government

History

The Mars Station is a large space station that was built in geosynchronous orbit around the red planet hundreds of years ago. The original purpose of the station was to allow larger vessels to dock in orbit and allow smaller vessels to haul goods to and from the planet at a much reduced cost. It quickly grew into a center of commerce for the Sol system since nearly all food was grown on the surface of the planet.

As technology changed the cost and value of space travel, and made much smaller, faster, more affordable ships capable of hauling more and more cargo, the station was used less and less for its original midway purpose and more for general habitation.

As the years progressed, the station was added to and modified to accommodate more and more people until it now no longer even resembles its original design.

Spoilers

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