E.G.S.S.T.F - Overview

Extra Galactic Space Station Terra Firma was commissioned on 4048-11-11. A human-only scientific expedition, its mission is to observe ancient radiations with its satellite array of 50,000 probes spread out in a 10 light-year radius. Its placement is in a rare and optimal dimensional peak allowing the observation of an unprecedented amount of the universe from a single location.

Statistics: The appearance of the station is of a tear drop shape encircled by three rings along its axis. The station was specifically built with the same capabilities as a inter-galactic starship, but allowing for a much larger crew and secondary accommodations.
Population 10,062.
Overall Dimensions: 975 meters long, 1508 meter diameter wide


Specific Dimensions:
Station Core: 750 meters tall, 675 meter diameter
Interior gravity orientation for the station core is considered Above Horizon, or simply Above. The surface of the Core is called the Skin and its gravity is the only exception, with “down” directed to the center axis.

The Core is broken down in to four component areas:

Maintenance and Life Support: This section is the lower third of the Station Core, and located just above the central lake. It contains the Base-Fabric Core Generator (which is one of the largest ever made), the Capacitor Arrays (necessary to power the Primary and Secondary Warp Rings), Secondary Complex Matter Generators (allowing for any station repairs or modifications), Circulatory/Metabolic Systems (including air filtration and water filtration), and Central Processing (which houses Esstif and secondary computation systems).


A.T.I.D.U.: Array Tethering, Integration, Distribution and Utilization (typically spelled without punctuation, ATIDU, and pronounced as one word) encapsulates the middle third of the station. Its primary purpose is to maintain and communicate with the 50,000 Observational Array Probes surrounding the Terra Firma. This includes recalling and reestablishing links with drifting or malfunctioning probes.

Its secondary purpose is to distribute all of the amassed data that is collected by the satellites to all of the substations, science quarters and observation decks.

The tertiary concern for the ATIDU is the maintenance of the Entropic Collection Threads and the Cohesion Fields that encompass the station which protects the station from the high entropy state and dimensional shear of their current position. 

In between the Primary Warp Ring support struts, there are three massive repair bay doors. Each of the bays contain a Primary Complex Matter Generator and are capable of housing a single Observational Array Probe. Each can construct a Probe from scratch within a week's time.


Docking Ring: This is a simple two level deck between the ATIDU and the TOD, and just above the Secondary Warp Ring. Polymorphic docking clamps and bridge extend out secure to up to eight visiting ships or to connect to a larger orbiting station.


T.O.D.: Located at the tip of the station's tear-drop shape, the Technical Observation Deck is the bridge of the station. All systems can be routed and controlled from the location, and it has the necessary accommodations to host formal events and official meetings.


Arboretum: 225 meters tall, 630 meter diameter
While technically part of the Station Core, the Arboretum is the only section considered Below Horizon and containing the gravitational orientation accompanying the designation.

A 630-meter radius within the heart of the Terra Firma, the arboretum is the primary recreational location on the station. Roughly 47% of the oxygen supply is created by the 4,615 different flora housed within. The center of the arboretum is a small lake of roughly 100,000 cubic meters. Its shores contain a resort-like area with designated locations for lounging and sport.

The perimeter of the Arboretum is intermittently lined with store fronts and restaurants.


Habitat Ring: 1,395 meter OD, 1305 meter ID, 45 meter diameter thick
4,380 meter Outside Circumference, 4,098 meter Inside Circumference
Capable of housing over 12,000 people.

Designed for comfort, the Habitat ring is structurally situated so as to incur the least resonant distortion (which creates a powerful sense of vertigo for organic sentients) from the Primary Warp Ring.


Primary Warp Ring: 1,508 meter OD, 180 meters wide, 40 meters thick
Capable of generating a warp field large enough to jump the station over 5.8 million light-years per hour (around 1.8 million parsecs) It is the most powerful warp field ever created by the Alliance and is subsequently too dangerous to use at full power within a star system.


Secondary Warp Ring: 795 meter OD, 90 meters wide, 30 meters thick
Dedicated to precision navigation and inter-star-system travel. The secondary ring also provides the basic propulsion for the station . 

The advent and implementation of Vigicore, commonly known as “sludge” and in its dehydrated form “turds,” was a culmination of two major factors. The first of which was global climate change. The development of extreme weather shifts compiled over the years to make the great plains of the U.S. a harsher, more desert-like climate. Boiling hot summers and blisteringly cold winters left much of the farm lands of the mid-west all but unusable.

Which led to the second of the two factors, the genetic modification of the world food crops. Greed was the worst contributor to this half of the equation. Although the development of more resilient plants, both from pests and the weather, allowed these threatened farmlands to continue to thrive over the years, it was this very advancement that was targeted by opposing political entities.

By the time of insertion, October 2024, over 95% of U.S. crops and 67% of world crops were generated by the top three seed manufacturers. These modified seeds produced tough, yet full and flavorful crops in even the harshest of conditions. Needing phenomenally low amounts of water and thriving in the new heat levels, the farms were beholden to the producing companies. For not only were the seeds plentiful and productive, they were also severely limited. The life cycles of the plants from these seeds were capped at one season without the ability for the germinating plants to produce additional seeds. By this model, the three major companies were guaranteed a return consumer base.

The Blight came from Asia. It was tracked back to 12 different countries and hundreds of separate food distributors that supplied the airlines with their on flight meals. The bacteria which caused the Blight was ingested by passengers, gestated within their GI tract, and then spread by unhygienic bathroom practices. It took over 6 months before the first of the effects were detected, and years before it was traced back to its regional origins.

The basic purpose of the Blight was for the engineered bacteria to join the local cultures of a given plant and then begin secreting a designed enzyme that targeted the genetic markers which limit the lifespan of said plant and trigger that marker early. In the wild, this attack might shorten the lifespan of a normal non-engineered plant by several months, perhaps a year. But for the GM plants, the effect was a premature death before maturation. It is assumed the Blight backfired on its creators, because although the original strain had been narrowed to effect the markers of just the top three producers, the bacteria had evolved within a year and rapidly killed off all plants using this limiting technique.

Once the initial stages of the Blight had been confirmed, the governments of the world began an immediate campaign to find a cheap alternative to the loss of fruits, vegetables, grains, and eventually the livestock that also fed off of them. Several companies came forward with scalable plans to grow a complete nutrient and protein substance, but it was ultimately Dolsen International which produced the first viable food substitute, Vigicore.

It was during this time that many countries declared martial law and subsequently outlawed many of the firearms popular during the early quarter of the century. Since then, the price of heirloom seeds has exceeded the price of gold and only those of the superclass can afford a regular diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats.   

History of Internal Personal Technology (IPT)

IPT began in the mid 2000's.

Body artists and Trans-humanists pushed the limits of this concept by inserting magnets, RFID chips, and other simple chip sets coated with sterile medical grade plastics into the sub-dermal layers of their skin in order to “feel” electromagnetic fields or gain access to wireless key entries with the wave of a hand.

It was exciting and edgy for this tiny fraction of society, but the majority of the populous remained skeptical, even creeped out by the concept. This perception continued for several additional years until the year 2021. This was the year the medical technology firm Heliomedic commercially released a refined gastrointestinal filtration system intended to help individuals with Inflammatory Bowel Disease called the HX-1 (Heliomedic Extraction System version 1.) The system was profoundly reliable, scalable, and above all, inexpensive.

The FDA trials before the release had created a media storm over the product. Not only did it do what it advertised, those who tested the HX-1 system reported increased vitality and multiple regenerative side-effects. It was touted as the technological fountain of youth.

History's first commercially viable IPT device was a screaming success. Within the first three years, every US health insurance company included the HX line of internal filters in their top tier coverage as a preventative care measure. After only five years and a handful of refinements, over fifty percent of movie stars, politicians and any random millionaire had undergone the outpatient procedure.

Public opinion had changed. A machine brought into one's body was no longer aberrant, it was the norm.

So by the year 2029, when Dr. Shannon Baker, a professor of neuroscience from Caltech, lead a cross-disciplinary team to develop, then patent, the first addition coil, it was greeted with an enthusiastic reception. An elegant device which could wrap around any of the cerebral nerve bundles and intercept, record, or augment the signal passing through.

Finally, the ability to view files without enhanced contacts, listen to music or conversations without ear plants, even smell across the nextnet without clunky atomizers. All delivered by a simple out-patient procedure... and a lot of money.