Gamemaster Port Good Hope (IF)

Solar Hard SF Setting

Port Good Hope (simply “Hope”), a standardized Tier 4 spin habitat built during reconstruction after the Fall. It can be placed anywhere in the Solar System as a versatile home port for an adventuring crew.

Overview

A typical reconstruction cylinder: radius ~2 km, length ~60 km, garden surface around 700 km², popularion around 3 million. The rotation period is ~140 seconds — slow enough for stable daily life but too fast for reliable natural sunlight. Illumination comes from artificial arrays surrounding a central microgravity tunnel. Power is supplied by “Old Hopeless,” two D–D fusion reactors hurried into service during reconstruction with all the problems of rushed contruction.

The garden ring is a stylized savanna with a meandering river, cattle, and minimal habitation. The population lives on the level below, taking recreation above and working in the habitation and industrial ring beneath.

Hope was an early emergency refuge and suffered for it. Many evacuees were traumatized survivors from habitats destroyed by the solar storms. The mix of cultures, trauma, and scarcity created social tension but also opportunity: anyone can find a place on Hope, if they are willing to fight for it. A significant habitat in this is Oranjeland — a Dutch/Afrikaans trading habitat whose people carried cultural identities and prejudices into Hope.

In 2336, the old administration was indicted for trafficking colonists to higher-Tier habitats as indentured labor. Earthforce intervention shattered the ruling structure, leaving Hope leaderless and trying to rebuild while wrestling with its Oranjeland legacy.

Factions

The factions of Hope are diverse, many having a inheritance expressed in language and culture, but Neme translation makes this mostly transparent; two organizations using different languages can still communicate, but subtle nuance might be lost.

Earthforce Relief and Reconstruction Office (ERRO) — T5 Oversight

A tiny Earthforce oversight post: a handful of administrators and a single marine squad. Locals call them “error.” They have one mandate — prevent further crimes against humanity — and one threat: calling in the Navy. They overlook minor infractions to avoid destabilizing the station. ERRO provides quter access, licenses, technical designs, and virtual training, but lacks personnel to enforce anything consistently.

Administration — T4 Logistics Bloc

A former logistics branch from a Caribbean habitat forced into political leadership after the 2336 scandal. They attempt to manage Hope through infrastructure, schedules, supply chains, and protocols — treating social problems as routing issues. Technically competent but socially overmatched, they are accepted yet not respected. Their internal language is Jamaican English; little cultural heritage survived their home habitat’s destruction, leaving them hollow and pragmatic.

Cape Good Hope Brokerage — T4 Cartel

The de facto power on Hope. They control salvage rights, prospector markets, and external trade channels. With deep Oranjeland roots, they brand themselves with Dutch East India Company imagery, including a full-rigged ship emblem. Afrikaans is their internal language. They do no physical labor, relying on Administration for execution. Their wealth and off-station contacts give them disproportionate influence — and lingering bigotries carried from Oranjeland.

Paratil — T3 Defense Squadron / Police

The battered remnants of the original defense squadron, forced into police duty after Earthforce intervention left Hope without a civilian authority. Too small to defend the station and too undermanned to police it well, they survive through stubbornness. Their internal language is Dutch, inherited from Oranjeland.

Maasai — T3 Cult

A syncretic ecological sect descended from Maasai pastoralists. They maintain Hope’s ecological systems but use the garden ring as a shared cultural retreat. They shape it into an idealized savanna and don adapted Maasai attire “on the range.” This is spiritual and psychological renewal, not performance. They face accusations of monopolizing the garden deck but maintain visitor corridors and structured retreat access. Internal language is Maa; their culture blends pastoral tradition with high-tech environmental engineering.

Rivierlicht Biofarmacie — T3 Cartel

Grey-market pharmaceutical designers specializing in drugs many communes ban: stimulants tuned for low-gravity labor, anti-vertigo regimens for spin sickness, tailored antidepressants for post-Fall trauma, and euphorics with narrow therapeutic windows. Legal on Hope only because ERRO tolerates them under strict reporting. Their wealth and biotech expertise make them influential — and frequent targets for “reformers,” thieves, and vigilantes. This makes them hire gangs for protection; Afrikaans is their internal language.

Hope University — T2 Cabal

All the reconstruction habitats came with standardized university facilities. Sadly, Port Good Hope never developed a faculty; what there is are training facilities without competent instructors. At present, the university functions under the auspices of Administration. It attracts technicians, scrappers, and savants, making it a very haphazard organization full of internal conflict.

Sons of Helios — T2 Cult

A belief movement rather than a culture. They see humanity’s downfall as divine punishment from the Sun and regard technology as a necessary evil. Members come from everywhere and hold all kinds of jobs, but their ideology is uniform: suffering purifies, comfort corrupts. The harshness of life on Hope has driven them toward apocalyptic rhetoric. They have no shared internal language.

River Boys — T2 Street Gang

A street-level power bloc formed from Brazilian-heritage refugees. They provide security — or protection rackets — for small traders and for Rivierlicht. They avoid firearms, favoring physical intimidation and martial arts. Core members speak Brazilian Portugese, most recruits only a few battlecries. Capoeira is their martial art and cultural signature; they sponsor a small yearly carnival that briefly unifies parts of the station. Beneath the rough edges lies a cohesive identity; together with Administration they could form the backbone of a functional regime, if aligned.

The Dockside Unionists — T2 Syndicate

A loose coalition of cargohandlers, shuttle techs, and tug operators who never regained stable employment after the Fall. They operate semi-legit load crews and “priority access” to berths, and sometimes enforce their claims with improvised tools. Their heritage is mixed Terran orbital cultures; their identity is built on shared work songs, dockside rituals, and a belief that the station cannot function without them — which is partly true.

The Painted Saints — T2 Gang/Cult Hybrid

A shrine-building street gang formed by refugees from multiple fallen habitats, united by a practice of painting devotional murals in abandoned corridors. They serve as vigilante protectors of certain blocks and extortionists in others. Their iconography is fragmented and syncretic, drawing on dozens of lost cultures, which sometimes causes internal friction over interpretation.

The Menders’ Circle — T2 Cooperative

A paramedical mutual-aid network drawn from former clinic staff, first responders, and biotech apprentices who couldn’t secure positions with Rivierlicht or the Administration. They do back-alley medicine, prosthetic repair, and counseling for the traumatized. Not a gang, but they confront River Boys and Cape brokers when they intervene in domestic disputes or exploitation. Their inheritance comes from scattered communal health traditions across many habitats.

The Grainsong Collective — T1 Agrarian Refugees

Displaced agricultural workers from small spin farms destroyed in the Fall. They occupy unused hydroponic niches in industrial levels, growing low-yield crops and sharing food through a strict ration-rotation ethic. Too small to exert force, they survive through mutual support and quiet barter. Their cultural inheritance is rural: work chants, seed rituals, collective planting days.

The Axle Rats — T1 Microgravity Gang

A group of zero-G youth who live around the upper service galleries near the spin axis. They use magnetic skates and improvised gliders to move in the low-G environment and survive by scavenging and courier work. Mostly nonviolent, but known for theft and sabotage when cornered. Their inheritance is station-born rather than Terran — slang, songs, and games born from life in microgravity.

The Lanternfold — T1 Refugee Commune

An ad-hoc community that formed during the darkest days of reconstruction. They maintain dimly lit shelters using hanging lanterns and reflective cloth, believing that gentle light protects the psyche from the chaos of the Fall. They trade small comforts — teas, stories, quiet rooms — and serve as a refuge of last resort. Their inheritance comes from varied meditative and contemplative traditions carried from multiple lost habitats.

Floors and Sections

Garden Level

The Garden Level of Port Good Hope is a continuous interior landscape stretched around the inner curve of the cylinder. Most of it is managed by the Maasai ecological sect, shaped into a broad dry savanna reminiscent of their ancestral lands on Earth: rolling grasslands, scattered acacias, rocky kopjes, and long sightlines under a warm, artificial sky.

Biome and Terrain

The terrain follows the elevated savanna pattern of the old Maasai Mara and Serengeti. Low, rounded hills rise from the plains; boulder outcrops break the horizon; and seasonal grasses ripple in long bands between cultivated tree clusters.

Water flows through a network of engineered streams. Hidden pumps release water near hilltops, feeding meandering channels and shallow seasonal rivers that circle the ring. These flows look natural at a glance, maintaining the illusion of gravity-driven watersheds inside a rotating habitat. Weather is similarly controlled, creating seasonal rain and dry periods.

Maasai Range

Outside the visitor zones and small towns, most of the Garden Level is Maasai-controlled range. Herds of cattle roam freely under their supervision. Management blends ritual practice with technical expertise: drones monitor soil hydration, predators, and trespassers, while cultural tradition guides the herding patterns.

The Maasai treat this ring as both workspace and spiritual retreat, and access is regulated by custom more than law. There are many routes down to the residential level, a common pastime is to dodge Masai patrol and party in restricted territory. Unbeknownst to partygoes, they are usually spotted by overhead drones and tolerated as long as they don't litter and have a clean record. Occasional attempts at cattle rusting usually end in disaster.

Towns and Access Shafts

Several small towns sit where major installations from the Residential Ring break upward into the Garden Level: the university, the hospital, administration nodes, and technical hubs. These facilities were designed for a full Tier-4 population but lack the personnel to operate at full capacity.

Dozens of additional elevator shafts connect the Residential Ring to the surface. These access points are lightly camouflaged — disguised as rock formations, thickets, or low maintenance huts — to preserve the landscape. Most see little traffic outside maintenance crews.

Visitors and Spin Pod District

Near one of the cylinder’s endcaps lies the Visitor Garden Zone, a subtropical oasis separate from Maasai oversight. It surrounds the Spin Pod docking district, where visiting crews berth their pods and where Port Good Hope’s itinerant operators maintain their lairs and bases.

This area serves as the public face of the habitat: warm light, lush greenery, water features, and social spaces. Residents often come here for leisure precisely because it is not governed by Maasai cultural norms.

Raids and Romps

Gangs from the Residential Ring occasionally stage unauthorized “cattle raids” or simply spill onto the savanna for gravity-play and mischief. True theft is rare and quickly suppressed; the cattle are valuable, tagged, and drone-guarded. Harmless romps — racing gliders, mock skirmishes, daring runs across the grasslands — are tolerated as long as the participants avoid damaging the landscape or interfering with herd patterns.

Drones watch everything, and a polite warning usually ends the fun.