Earth Tier starts tonight! For those who haven't checked the main book for the location, here is my expanded write-up for where the first game is set.
HOTEL CALIFORNIA
Hotel California is a massive asteroid repositioned into high-Earth orbit before the Fall. A number of now defunct hypercorps mined the asteroid for rare elements for years leading up to the apocalypse, making enough progress to install a fairly sophisticated facility in the honeycombs left by the drilling.
In the Fall, the station became abandoned, either due to attack or evacuation. A number of refugees, unable to secure interplanetary transport or farcasting facilities, maneuvered their ailing vessels and took over the mining base. Using salvaged parts from their wrecked ships, the refugees managed to retrofit the facility for basic human habitation.
Years later, when new hypercorps laid claim to the asteroid’s salvage, they found the squatters less than welcoming. When the fools didn’t even offer a contract resettling the refugees, the PC diplomats were expelled with force. Thus the asteroid earned its name: Hotel California, where you check in, but never leave.
While the facility has no orbital defenses, taking the asteroid back by force isn’t realistic. To attack the squatters, ships would have to infiltrate the Vent, a large core tunnel formally used to ship out materials in the days of operation. There is no telling what nefarious defenses the squatters could have rigged up in the Vent. Using heavy ordinance to crack the shell of the asteroid would likely destroy the entire structure. Soft entry has been made impossible; the squatters destroyed their only ego bridge after learning about the hypercorp interest. Any attempt to take the station back is likely to result in the destruction of all useful salvage and a guerilla war against locals with a decade to prepare.
Despite their unanimous resistance to being expelled, the residents of Hotel California have yet to develop any form of government. It is fairly easy to dock with the asteroid so long as ships announce themselves on the limited mesh and approach slow. The desperate refugees need the trade brought by occasional ships too much to be completely isolationist. These circumstances have lead to more than a few of transhumanity’s fringe elements calling the Hotel home. Aside from the original squatters, California is almost entirely populated with criminals, runaways, political refugees, and straight-up nutters. There is no law, trade operates strictly on a barter system, and the anarchism is strictly of the non-cuddly variety.
