A century ago, a Charon engineer working on efficiency in astro-logistics realized that if conventional thrusters were removed from a ship that the bluespace drive would have a much greater efficiency and be able to teleport larger, denser objects and become mobile, ad-hoc space-ports.
Then a few decades later, another Charon engineer was looking over an abandoned planetoid, mostly hollowed out by Hephaestus mining operations and left vacant for decades, and she thought, “Huh. You know what?”
Six years later in 2495, the Gladwyn was opened.
Purpose
For the purposes of play, being outside the playable area is the Gladwyn - a dwarf planetoid shell world with access to FTL. The playable station is its small moon and tertiary point of docking and entry. A 'shell world' is a structure built with concentric matryoshka doll-like layers. These layers are held up by the pressure of the layer's air as well as load-bearing columns.
Gladwyn acts as a persistent location for shore leave or residency off-screen.
If you want your character to be off-station and have a place that they can meet up with any other character also off-station, the Gladwyn is the place to do it. When your character isn’t present for a shift they can be presumed to be out on a mission or down on the Gladwyn.
When the Gladwyn is in orbit of a civilized place with on-map shore-leave we encourage participation in that locale. There may also be events or gimmicks which presume the Gladwyn is inaccessible.
The Gladwyn has accommodations for characters of most wealth levels, with the quality degrading and locale getting more scuffed the lower class your character is. Each level has its own divisions based on wealth as expected anywhere else.
General Details
Cargo Shipments to the station may come from the Gladwyn. At round-end a shuttle ferrying people to and from the Gladwyn can be presumed to arrive for transfers.
The Gladwyn has almost no defenses except a handful of combat drones to zap asteroids or carp wandering too close as well as any ships docked in the playable station area. Anything more dangerous would overwhelm the settlement, and for that reason it almost never warps into dangerous locations, leaving that work for expedition teams.
The world has a few thrusters for spin-correction which may inch it in some direction or other but for practical purposes it’s completely immobile. With four-hours of spooling up the world may warp to a new sector.
The population is about two-hundred thousand in total, with roughly thirty-four thousand residents per level. While in the lower decks this can feel crowded, closer to the exterior things get a lot more spacious and less dense.
Because of the world spinning for centrifugal force the ‘ground’ is upside down and the ‘sky’ is the bottom of the next level up. From the perspective of people on the ground however, holographic (or genuine) clouds obscure the ceiling and help prevent vertigo. This cuts the need for gravity generators by half, which provide the necessary push of gravity in areas unaffected by centrifugal force.
The Gladwyn provides maintenance and repair for the station and other vessels and is the reason the station repaired from any canonical damage. Ships gaining entry that are too large to dock at the playable station match the spin at the poles and are then conveyer belted to the center of the world in the Bayside Docks or the Floating Core.
The Levels
Level 0: The Floating Core
The shell world spins incredibly quickly for most of its gravity so the center of the planetoid is, ironically, the part most suitable for offworlders due to objects ‘floating’. Hotel and motel rooms here are eclectic because of this, with things like beds being on the ceiling and chairs being on the opposite wall.
There are large accommodations for hangars and repair bays, which eat away at space that could otherwise serve as housing or amenities for the off-worlders. Because of this, when not in use, empty hangers are overrun with temporary bazaars, markets, festivals, or other accommodations that can be hastily dismantled and moved out. The Operations team of the Gladwyn are extremely punctual with their docking schedules in order to not repeat the “Courier #77 Docking Incident of 2591”.
Level 1: The Bayside Docks
With weaker “gravity” the inner shell’s centrifugal force is capitalized on by having most of the cargo and logistics work taking place here. There aren’t a lot of recreational areas here, and businesses which do exist tend to have the same energy as a fast-food joint just off a highway overpass. Its population is very diverse as people from all over the shell work here. It is considered a heaven by local exosuit enthusiasts because of the heavy use of industrial suits. Exosuit strength and racing competitions became so frequent that Gladwyn Command eventually gave up on enforcement and the games have now proliferated into weekly events.
Level 2: The Winter Palace
Keeping a crisp baseline temperature hovering around 10C the Winter Palace accommodates primarily Tajara with the appropriate amenities. They are a majority but humans do still form a sizable minority with populations who prefer colder climates, such as Earth’s Alaskan Commonwealth or the Antarctic Free Union. Hydroponic bays which focus on cold-biome preferring plants are also present here.
In an emergency, and much to the chagrin of its residents, this level also serves as an emergency back-up radiator. Such an emergency happened only once which, while thankfully there were no fatalities, it infamously ruined the 2589 exhibits from the Museum of Galactic Ice Sculptors.
Level 3: The Desert Oasis
Keeping a balmy 30C baseline the Desert Oasis is home to a large Unathi population. There are also humans who prefer hotter climates, such as Earth’s Duchy of Arizona or the Karakum Republic. Because of the high Unathi Population a lot of buildings here look out of time, with bright, colorful pyramids and colorful banners strewn between buildings. There are a lot of slabs installed in buildings with UV lamps over them for Unathi to bask during off-hours. There are also frequent festivals, singing concerts, and food carnivals, with the Unathi population almost infamous for how eagerly they invite other levels on the local use-nets. Hardy desert plants are tended to on this level.
The temperature of the level primarily comes from redirecting existing heat from other levels, which includes pumping air directly from the industrial zones through pipes. These pipes have the most meticulous maintenance schedule to ensure they are sealed, as Gladwyn Command do not want a repeat of the “Great Stink of 2588” which required a full scale evacuation of the level for an entire week.
Level 4: The Astro-Gardens
Kept a balmy 20C, this level is the most ‘natural’ zone on the Gladwyn. It serves primarily as an ancillary to the life-support system with natural trees and parks accessible to the people and guests of Gladwyn. It is home primarily to Dionae who tend to what can reasonably be considered the galaxy’s largest bonsai garden. A few log-cabins are scattered through the level which can be rented out for a time for people that want to ‘rough it’. There are even two large lakes on the two sides of the level that act as counterweights for the planetoid's spin which are used for fishing or other recreation. There are also hydroponic towers that focus on many staple foods and spices for the station’s consumption and export.
The level wasn’t always a positive addition to the Gladwyn – before the arrival of Dionae and their powers of cultivation, the inclusion of large trees was a nightmare as the roots would, over time, cause serious damage to pipes and even force the smallest cracks to become entry-points for roots. The ‘Flood of 2577’ and the cascading disasters that almost pancaked the whole planetoid were traced back to the roots of a single Silver Maple that had been transplanted erroneously near a lake years’ prior by a well-intentioned botanist.
Level 5: Gladwyn Sea
Keeping the space-standard 20C, Level 5 serves as the main reservoir for freshwater. It serves as a series of massive sealed water tanks that ring the entire level. A quarter of the level is kept as an open freshwater sea, with a population of Skrell living underwater or on its surface. There is still a population of humans who are used to ‘island-life’, like the Khanate of Guam. The underwater settlements have amenities suitable for Skrell, while the floating towns have a mix.
Historically there were incidents of hoodlums somehow bypassing the sealed reservoirs or water treatment plants and vandalizing them or worse. Knowledge of hooliganism blew up into a political scandal from the “2566 Asparagus Festival Incident” and the stench coming from water faucets in Level 6. Now each reservoir has a taser turret installed in the access airlock and anyone found breaking into a tank is arrested and has their face broadcast on the use-net with a signed attestation reading “I PEED IN YOUR DRINKING WATER.” The public shaming remains controversial for some, but highly popular with the areas which had their drinking water impacted by the Asparagus Festival Incident.
Level 6: Slingshot City
Slingshot City spans the largest of the shells, being the outermost. It would take three days of walking to circumnavigate Slingshot City. Calling it a ‘city’ is almost a misnomer. It’s built like one large town and satellite villages. There is the Downtown with the expected skyscrapers housing the Capitol building for the command staff, the Gladwyn Public Library, and other ‘capital city’ functions. Around that the smaller towns come with all the amenities and expectations of town life. There is a robust mag-Lev system and trams that shuttle people around the surface, but beyond that walking is the primary means of travel.
There are all the divisions one would expect in a metropolitan environment, with high class houses with lavish fenced-in lawns, small ‘drive-through’ towns with a seedy motel and dive bar, to everything in-between. The population is very diverse. Anything that your character could experience planet-side can reasonably be encountered here.
The Dreaded Civics Lesson
Government
The Command jobs are very similar to the Horizon. By UNIP regulations and to the amusement of its residents, the Gladwyn is legally considered a passenger liner and thus is legally required to have a Captain and traditional command roster. Command is appointed by UNIP authorities who tend to lift the roles from within the Gladwyn population when the previous one retires or transfers.
Command Staff
The current Captain of the Gladwyn is Zarkir Samra, a 44 year old Tajara native to Slingshot City. She is rather stern and impatient as well as being a teetotaler who expects the same from her staff. She has a soft spot for libraries and uses her wealth to patron the Slingshot City Public Library. She also maintains a bounty for rare books that she then donates to the library.
The XO equivalent is the Mayor. The current mayor is the Dionae Speaker of the Wayward Lances, a recent arrival of just a few years who ran a bar in the Bayside Docks and was known to be personable and a great conversationalist. They are known to stretch the truth to tell a good story. The Mayor position is the only directly elected member of Command.
The Head of Security equivalent for Levels 1 - 6 is the Gladwyn Police Chief. This job is the only Command job appointed by the Mayor. The current Police Chief is Ebazer Surru, a 55 year old Unathi native of the Desert Oasis. He is very courageous, almost to the point of bravado. He complicates simple situations and is in constant tension with at least one other member of Command. He is a part time wrestler and appears in televised local tournaments.
The 2nd Head of Security equivalent is Marcie Huai, a human responsible primarily for security for Level 0 and its docks. The position is notable for a small committee of corporate representatives picking the person for the job. She had a fashion minor when admitted to law school where she ran its largest sorority, and later was a popular patron within Idris Incorporated. She is energetic, friendly, and fashion-obsessed. Her management of the Gladwyn Docks has been seen as a success, with a firm control of her jurisdiction, despite sparring with the Chief of Police. She runs a line of 'Starlight Blonde' lipstick for charitable causes and is known to be more lenient to anyone in her custody wearing it.
The Chief Medical Officer is Tibaud Johanne, a 33 year old human. He was transferred from an administrative role in a UNIP relief operation under mysterious circumstances. He is very slow to trust other people. He is totally oblivious to etiquette and social expectations. However he is considered a savant of medicine and is one of the best doctors in the Spur. He always prioritizes the needs of other people, even to his detriment. He has cultivated an extremely loyal team of doctors and staff.
The Chief Engineer is Araka Dz’an, a 48 year old Tajara native to the Winter Palace. He lost his leg in a freak construction accident at a young age and has a custom golden-plated prosthetic replacement. He is a very materialistic person and dresses in very expensive clothes. Despite his apparent vanity he runs a tight ship and has ruined more than one pair of expensive clothes during crisis repairs - though half of Gladwyn tends to hear about it from his loud complaining to anyone in ear shot. He maintains a bounty for ‘interesting mechs’ and is eager to buy them or unusual modules for them.
The Research Director is the dionae The Roots of Thought Trickling Down Through Our Body And Giving Us Form. [WIP]
The Operations Manager is Krriq Qr'Xull, a 117 year old Skrell who hails from a Nralakk Federation outer system with a booming logistics hub. They have held the position for 23 years. They foster a tight-knit community in their department which has made the logistic operations on the Gladwyn exceptionally efficient. Where delays and snags occur, it's almost always inconvenient only to individual who irritated the Operations department. In their free time, they enjoy playing music gigs locally, favoring a custom acoustic guitar, and are renowned for their melodic songs in their native Nral'Malic. They maintain a personal bounty for shipping labels from exotic locations and is willing to pay proportional to the rarity.