Gamemaster First Orbital Zone: Mercury (IF)

Hard Science-Fiction Setting

Former mining colony destroyed by Icarus Fall.

Mercury hosted an industrial boom starting around 2225, focusing on night-side and twilight-zone settlements mining rare metals. Ruins of the old Solar Alchemy Project — including dangerous plasma containment chambers and wrecked magnetic launch infrastructure — remain as hazardous salvage sites. Ruins of extensive solar power generators are common in the twilight zone and make orbital hazards.

Mercury weathered the Fall unexpectedly well, but it was still a major disaster. Rumors let many people escape into the shadow of the planet's dark side. Much work back then was done remotely from habitats or bases on mercury itself in a way that is impossible today. Still all solar infrastructure, both in space and in the twilight zone, was destroyed. Countless humans perished, well over half the population, and many of those who survived got psychological scars. Many were evacuated back to Earth. The present population is a mix of survivors and their descendent who remained to maintain and repair what could be salvaged, and adventurers, often from the Belt, here to score big on salvage.

The planet’s most important infrastructure before the Fall was a human-rated magnetic accelerator capable of launching people and cargo directly into solar orbit. This massive installation was destroyed during the Fall, but enough was salvageable to reconstruct a shorter, cargo-only launcher. The rebuilt version can send 5–10 tons per shot into low Mercury orbit every few minutes, feeding a “twilight station” depot in a low polar orbit that stays in Mercury’s shadow. This is not enough to be a major export, but specific orders can be fired directly into orbits that can be harvested from orbits near the Sun. Tugs constantly work to keep loads on station and deliver loads to customers in orbit of Mercury. It is well-known that some tugs will occasionally lose a load to a solar storm and sell it without registry or questions.

Sunward zone on Mercury reaches 700 K+ (about 430 °C) with molten metal flows, constant solar wind bombardment, and extreme radiation. Twilight zone is cooler, 250–350 K (–20 to 80 °C), still harsh but more manageable, and hosts most current settlements. Both require extreme engineering to survive thermal stress, radiation, and seismic instability. The molten metals of the sunward side are used for exotic industry and occasionally as natural hazards in adventure sites.

Nearby asteroids and debris orbiting in solar orbits close to Mercury include volatile fragments from the Solar Alchemy disaster, valuable but hazardous for explorers.