Alien Suns Colonization

Tag List

• Settlement: This site has a significant permanent civilian population
• Security: This is some sort of military or state security-related site; by design they are secured against outside intrusion.
• Economic:
• Science: This site is science-related
• Industrial: This site is industrial-related
• Logistics:
• Neutral: The site is owned/controlled by a politically unaligned polity
• Alien: The 'colony' is primarily (if not entirely) operated by nonhumans
• Presence: This site provides military/sovereign presence in a system or orbital zone
• Space: This cannot be set up on a habitable planet as it is some manner of large freefall structure.
• Planetary: This must be set up on a habitable planet (including your own)
• Gas Giant: This must be set up near/in a gas giant's atmosphere
• Maintenance: This site requires some manner of annual upkeep

Outposts

Outposts are the lowest tier of colonies; outposts are, as the name implies, essentially appendages of your state that exist for a purpose. Some may be pleasant and others may be hardship posts, but they are all places to go, not places to be. This also means there is the largest variety in outposts as they are defined by their specific function; human space is dotted with hundreds if not thousands of outposts ranging from fueling stations to research labs to terraforming facilities to early warning stations.

Penal Colony

Tags: Security, Planetary, Presence

The penal colony is a favorite of oppressive governments, a distant settlement far far away where undesirables can be sent. They are often relatively subsistence level with the inmates expected to do everything themselves.

One per year, a penal colony can absorb 1 point of induced negative stability. Record this with the colony if they are Criminal or Political (generally forced effect vs player-instigated effect).

If the penal colony is ever captured, liberated, etc, there will be repercussions to criminality and/or stability based on the number of inmates and their type.

People's Champions (nations) or Poster Boys (UNTF) may never have Penal Colonies and gain prestige for liberating them.

Dirty Cops (nations) or Long Arm (UNTF) may double the effects of their penal colonies.

Blacksite

Tags: Security

Also known by such friendly terms as ULTRAMAX or Exclusion Zones the Blacksite is the ultimate in security. Generally they are used to protect a state's deep, dark secrets though in these unfortunate days they are finding increasing use housing criminals and terrorists that exhibit 'paracausal' abilities.

A Blacksite provides extreme security for anything inside, forcing an very large penalty to any attempts to uncover what lies within.

Blacksites can be used as Penal Colonies for negative stability directly caused by paracausal effects (such as Petitioner terrorism).

People's Champions (nations) or Poster Boys (UNTF) may never have Blacksites and gain prestige for liberating them *if* they have prisoners inside (but are you sure this is a good idea?)

Lobotomy Corporation (nations) or Firestarter Protocol (UNTF) may double the effects of their Blacksites.

Early Warning Station

Tags: Space, Security, Maintenance, Presence

The effective repudation of the Treaty of Paris and the explosive growth in piracy has starkly illuminated the fact that most worlds - never mind star systems - have painfully dated detection and tracking nets.

Early Warning Stations provide long-range detection and tracking in a large volume, comparable to a Picket Array, though they are themselves unarmed and essentially vulnerable to any meaningful weapons fire.

Exotic Lab

Tags: Science

Exploration into the deep cosmos has turned up occasional locations of particular scientific interest that can provide additional insight into natural forces or processes. Examples could be sites near gravitational anomolies or autoevolved post-technic nanotech 'mechanospheres'; both examples of opportunity to perform experiments and perform studies that would be impossible or at least significantly more expensive elsewhere.

An Exotic Lab acts as a conventional lab save that it is locked into a single field (eg Materials, Physics, etc) and may not be used for any other purpose.

Arco-Dig Site

Tags: Science

Humankind is discovering that the cosmos is not only vast, but also ancient. While petty tyrants and generalissimos have little time for things that aren't bigger lasers, humanity as a whole has found a voracious hunger for knowledge about the deep past. Once a niche profession on Earth, the trade of archeology has gone galactic.

Arco-Digs provide 1 prestige annually, representing fame accrued from uncovering artwork and knowledge of ancient humans and aliens. Additionally, they have a small chance of uncovering an Artifact every year.

Library of Ruins gets 2 prestige annually per Arco-Dig Site and has a higher chance of uncovering an Artifact.

Bubble Hab Cluster

Tags: Settlement, Space, Presence

Centuries of pre-FTL space exploration and settlement saw a thriving culture of space-adapted humans set up in various reasonably convenient parts of the Solar System. The discovery of FTL travel saw them migrate outwards, setting up habitats across a hundred star systems. These disparate groups - Belter, Quaddies, Minks, to name just a few - are part of the frothy edges of humanity. Often a state will subsidize one of these communities in order to lay claim to a particular region of space.

Bubble Habs have no particular effect (though they provide roleplaying services such as R&R), though they do create a zone of sovereign space.

Drifter Bazaar

Tags: Economic, Aliens, Neutral, Space

Drifters have been steadily moving across human space, integrating into similar groups as those that inhabit bubble habs. However, while accepting human space laws (many of which are compatible with common-sense Drifter customs) they are not citizens of any human state and thus act outside of the more structured relations of human politics. Instead, their so-called Bazaars act as freeports, flea markets and pawn shops.

This grants access to the annual Drifter sale list and provides $100 in annual upkeep for civilian units.

Cloudscoop

Tags: Logistics, Gas Giant

While much of human space is supplied with fuel by the MEHC, there are an increasing number of sites (and an increasing number of states) that are underserved by the helium monopoly. This has led to the growth of non-MEHC cloudscoops and a slow decentralization of humanity's fuel source.

A Cloudscoop allows for ships (including supply ships) to refuel and replenish supplies without needing to head to an inhabited planet or system.

Whaling Station

Tags: Economy, Gas Giant, Maintenance (1 Prestige)

The discovery of Leviathans has sparked a search in other oxygen-rich gas giants for these majestic beasts; it is now understood that they and the aerial ecosystems they are part of were seeded across many planets by a long-ago technic race that predates even the Quon. Their bodies collect and bioconcentrate exotic matter and an adult Leviathan is a treasure trove of valuable compounds. Of course, many also consider the practice of space-whaling to be deeply immoral.

Whaling Stations provide $200 annually (war machine bonus does not apply) in 'parts' for xenotech applications (eg artificial gravity, antimatter weapons, etc) or items noted as 'Exotic'.

Supply Depot

Tags: Security, Logistics

Supply Depots are an important part of a military's logistics base. Ranging from planetary supply dumps to free-floating collections of fuel tanks in a cometary orbit, they allow ships to refuel, rearm and even conduct field repairs.

Supply depots can act as drop-off points for supply ships, essentially holding a nearly arbitrary amount of supplys for future use. Having supply depots that are bursting to the seams with an entire task force's worth of loot and no guards is sure to invite piracy and theft though.

Cloning Vats

Tags: Industrial

Installation: $100, 1 prestige

Upkeep: $100

While artificial gestation has been used for centuries even before humanity left the Solar System, various long-standing agreements and social scruples against using it for less savory purposes maintained a loose status quo until relatively recently. The deployment of bioreactor-created "flash clones" and the dissemination of Sutukurean Wildejagd cloning techniques saw the spread of mass soldier cloning throughout the Verge. Many still consider it highly unethical, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming part of the military lexicon.

Constructs $200 worth of ground forces annually. Peacenicks and War Machines reduce the prestige cost by 1, People's Champions and Poster Boys increase it by 1.

Shipyard

Tags: Industrial

Installation: $200

Upkeep: $100

Starships need to be built somewhere.

Constructs $150 worth of ships annually.

Environmental Processor

Tags: Planetary, Civilian

Installation: $1000

Upkeep: $100

Terraforming a planet is a long, intensive process spanning multiple phases. Each terraforming plan is also unique, a complex process tailored to available resources, desired outcomes and, of course, the starting conditions of the target planet. One of the final stages of terraforming is the installation of environmental processors. These are large facilities (or networks of facilities) that can process the atmosphere or regolith, culture tailored microorganisms to 'grow' soil, greenhouses for larger plants, etc.

Environmental processors generate 1 prestige per year, so long as they are operating for most of the year.

Settlements

Settlements are the next step up from outposts, with the critical distinction being that settlements are broadly speaking where people live as opposed to merely work. The population of settlements can vary widely but few are smaller than 10,000 souls and well-established settlements can sprawl over significant tracts of land and have a population of a million or more.

With the exception of settlements tagged 'No Pop' you may only construct 1 settlement annually, or 2 with Mayflower Society; your population is only so big and people move to the frontier only so fast.

Frontier Settlement

Tags: Planetary, No Pop

Installation: $50

Upkeep: $0

The Frontier Settlement is little more than surveyors cutting up the land into various parcels and selling or granting them to homesteaders. Other than a prime source of wagyu beef and quadrotriticale, frontier settlements have no effect other than maintaining a state's claim. They are also essentially immune to mundane piracy simply because no pirate with a spaceship would find enough valuables there to make the stop worth doing.

Urbanized Settlement

Tags: Planetary

Installation: $

Upkeep: $

Capital Settlement

Tags: Planetary, Planetary Capital

Installation: $

Upkeep: $

Capital settlements are the final growth of a planetary settlement; they inevitably grow up around the original and often primary spaceport with the secondary cities and towns forming a spiderweb away from them. Capital settlements gain a second outpost slot and, once one exists, the option to convert the entire planetary settlement to a province is unlocked.