Asteroid Belt (IF)
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| Hard Science-Fiction Setting |
The Belt marks the outer edge of the Sun’s dangerous weather. Solar storms are rarer here than in Mars orbit, but when they hit, there’s no planetary bulk to hide behind. Belters rely on deep-shielded shelters and storm warning networks to survive.
Politically, Earthforce is the biggest single player, controlling one of the Belt’s major accelerators and backing several corporate mining fleets. Their influence is resented: actual compliance with their rules is low, and most enforcement stops at the gates of their own stations.
Culturally, Belters prize independence. The ideal of the hardy frontier prospector still shapes their identity, even for those living in plush spin habitats. Prospecting is high-stakes work: mapping and claiming valuable rock. Rich finds may be worked by the discoverer; lesser ones are sold to big mining firms, who bag and feed the rock into industrial grinders.
Isolationism runs deep. Belter settlements tend to be tight-knit and xenophobic, accepting individuals but keeping other communities at arm’s length. This fuels extreme diversity between communes — many are theocratic, ideological, or run as corporate fiefdoms. The Belt is a fertile ground for cults of all stripes.
Major hubs like Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta serve as industrial and political centers, each with multiple heavy accelerators for moving cargo and feeding smelters. Ceres is the de facto capital, a warren of tunnels and domes supporting trade, manufacturing, and a volatile mix of cultures. Smaller stations cluster near rich resource zones, often around captured asteroids already half-dismantled by mining.
Standard Belter Community
Most Belters live in free-floating cylindrical habitats drifting in heliocentric orbits near mining zones or trade routes. These are repositioned as needed by tugs or slow ion drives. Building into an asteroid offers better radiation and impact protection, but once the rock is mined out there’s little reason to stay.
A typical Belter habitat is a 400–600 m diameter spin station housing 50,000–100,000 people. The standard layout is:
- Central axis — Zero-G docks and transit hub, with microgravity cargo handling.
- Mid-decks — Workshops, industry, and utilities. This differs from the standard practice of having industry below the residential layer, adopted to the large mass of materials traded.
- Biological ring — Farms, parks, luxury housing, with just under 1G spin gravity.
- Habitation Layer — Most people live below the Bio layer, along with schools, hospitals, and other community services.
- Shield layer — Water, volatiles, or slag tanks wrapped around the hull for radiation and impact protection.
Belter stations are rugged and self-sufficient, recycling everything, growing food, refining local ore. Trade brings luxuries, spare parts, and specialist equipment. Governance is usually by council, charter, or corporate board, with culture ranging from loose and permissive to rigid and doctrinal.
Prospectors often base here, heading out for long forays and returning for repairs and recovery. Their money and rough ships bring a rowdy edge, and in emergencies their vessels can be pressed into service as warcraft — reinforcing local independence.
Long-term settlers form a clannish core community. Visiting Belters are respected, but the core has the final say. Outsiders can join, often by marriage, but most move on as new opportunities arise.
While this model is common, no two stations are identical. Some run lighter, with minimal spin rings and sprawling zero-G arrays; others go heavier, with deep-shielded core vaults for storm season. A few cling to mined-out rocks as fortified citadels — but most of the Belt’s life is in the drifting cities between them. Socially the differences are even greater, with all kinds of communities thriving on their own habitats.
Example communities
- Kirov Haven — An anarcho-syndicalist commune built into a hollowed carbonaceous asteroid, known for ship repair yards and hardline refusal of corporate contracts.
- Aletheia — A theocratic habitat orbiting a small M-type asteroid, its life governed by a rigid solar-worship calendar.
- The Forge of Ishtar — A corporate-run mining complex doubling as a fortress, bristling with automated defenses and worker-barracks dug deep into nickel-iron.
- Free Prospectors’ Guild — Nomadic flotillas of prospecting craft, sharing maps and intelligence only with members in good standing.
The Belt is noisy with transponder beacons, half-broken claims, drifting hulks, and unregistered rockhoppers. Out here, the line between miner, smuggler, and pirate is thin — and Belters like to keep it that way.
Major Asteroids
Largest Asteroids
Below are the ten largest bodies in the main belt, with type, size, mining or colonization potential, and notable features.
Ceres — Dwarf planet; carbonaceous icy-rock. Radius ~470 km, mass ≈ 9.4×10^20 kg (about one-third of the belt’s total mass). Excellent for mining and colonization: ample water, cryovolcanic activity, possible brine flows. Features Occator bright spots and Ahuna Mons cryovolcano.
Vesta — Differentiated rocky protoplanet. Radius ~263 km, mass ≈ 2.7×10^20 kg. Rich basaltic crust, excellent for metals and geology. Home to Rheasilvia crater with the tallest mountain in the solar system. Solar history research
Pallas — Carbonaceous silicate. Radius ~256 km, mass ≈ 2×10^20 kg. Good for hydrated minerals; irregular shape complicates construction. Highly inclined orbit with extreme seasonal lighting.
10 Hygiea — Carbonaceous (C-type). Radius ~217 km. Ideal for ice and carbon-rich deposits; nearly spherical shape aids stationing. Considered a candidate dwarf planet.
704 Interamnia — Likely primitive rocky/icy (F-type). Radius ~166 km. Promising for water and metals but little-studied; strong potential as a frontier hub.
52 Europa — Carbonaceous (C-type). Radius ~160 km, mass ~3.3×10^19 kg. Viable for mining, though smaller yields. Dark, low-albedo surface makes it difficult to observe.
511 Davida — Carbonaceous (C-type). Radius ~147 km. Mining feasible but low reflectivity and deep insulation slow detection and survey work.
16 Psyche — Metallic (M-type). Radius ~113 km, mass ~2×10^19 kg. Rich in iron and nickel; a major mining target. Possibly the exposed core of a shattered protoplanet.
15 Eunomia — Silicate (S-type). Radius ~134 km. Stony minerals and metals available; irregular, heavily cratered terrain.
24 Themis — Icy-carbon (C-type with ice). Radius ~100–150 km. Excellent for water and ice mining; confirmed surface ice and possible subsurface water replenishment.