Patchwork

General

Orbit: Saturn B-Ring Station Type: Mix between Beehive, Cluster and Scum Barge Allegiance: Autonomist+Alliance (Scum, Anarchists) Primary Languages: Englisch, Finnish, German Major Industries: Logistics, Trading, Gasmining, Resort Services (WIP)

Appearance

Patchwork is a Mix-and-Match hab formed out of several types of construction. The core is a Beehive, an asteroid with several big caverns on the inside, housing the production facilities and a major part of living space. On the "topside", one can see the first signs of a dome construct. Permanently docked is an old Scum Barge called "Nomad of Sol", a now defunct colony ship. Between those two major landmarks, a cluster-construct bloomed up, providing modules for whatever the transhuman owner can provide. There are two major docking points, one freightdock on the "southside" of the of the hive and one for passengers on the Nomad.

The Beehive is anarchist-dominated, they got the gas-mining going shortly after the news of a new hab hit the mesh. The "Challengers of Hades"-collective operates a raffinery for Helium3 in one of the bigger caverns, near the freight-dock. The gas is given to the extropian Traders or titanian Hypercorps in exchange for fuel, spareparts and other useful stuff to keep the hab going. Some of the more successfull extropians provide offices to earn reputation with especially good customer service.

The Nomad of Sol is the main-living space of its old crew, the Scum. The barge is the prime trading center and entertainment district of Patchwork, featuring white-, grey- and black market simultaneously. Goods from the whole solar system flow through here. Featuring the only place with gravity, the Nomad is home to the most popular club aboard: Der Krieger und die Hure. Operated by Zeli, this pit will offer every physical joy imaginable, be it lust for sexual adventures or for battle. One can bet on every possible outcome or engage themselves in a morph of choice against whatever the genehackers came up with at the moment. Rumors go round, that you can even take up battles without cortical stack or wager your backups, but so far, Zelis good reputation dismisses those rumors.

On the outer hull of the Nomad, an interesting subculture emerged. The so-called Helvettin (fin: Hell) is the rallying point for the clanking masses home to Patchwork. Resourceful anarchists improved gravshoe-blueprints so they can be produced more cheaply and faster. These were used by the first inhabitants of Hellvettin to create the first structures on the outer hull. This slum-like maze grew over time and produced some impressive architecturial works, compared to the relative poorness of the inhabitants. Most of the structures serve as warehouse or big safe of some sort, since synthmorphs don't actually need a place to rest.

The Spiderweb is the nickname the clusterconstructs got from its first inhabitants. It could be called an exclusive residential area but this is a blatant overstatement. Disregarding that, transhumans incorporate high quality living modules into the cluster when they can afford at least this quality of living and not quality and the scarce gravity livingspace on the Nomad. One modul is of particular note, since it houses a weapon depot of Gorgon Defense Systems, defended by Medusan Shield.

While not much is to be seen right now, the "topside" of the asteroid shows first signs of the Dome that will one day serve as extended living space and tourist resort. Anarchists and extropians pooled their resources to make it happen, the former to get another reason for tourists to visit the habitat and provide good rep for its services, the latter for a high quality target for inner system tourists, which can be supported by the credit-owning extropians. This may prove a major point of friction in the future between the three autonomist factions, since the prime motivation of the hypercorps is spun to sound positive to anarchist memetics.

Places to be

District of Artists A medium-sized cavern in the Beehive houses not only a lush middle-european themed forest with a big hill in the center. The walls are dotted with architectonic artworks of every imaginable kind. Spiral towers neighbor to modernized temples from old earth which are presented against a backdrop of a basilica from the renaissance. On top of the hill one can find a magnificent crafted sphere, housing a labyrinth-like maze. This maze serves as display for the finest works of art Patchworks artist produced. The sphere is dubbed "Pinnacle of Autonomist Art" and deemed a cultural treasure of the habitat.

Cavernum The biggest cave inside the beehive serves as a literal beehive. The walls are dotted with the residences of the wealthier inhabitants of the hab, in the middle is a giant honeycombed sphere. Every honeycomb serves as living space for up to two egos and in regular intervals, one can enter the sphere deeper to find another, smaller sphere. This goes on until there are nine spheres in total, dubbed "Nine Circles" - in a hommage to La Divina Commedia - or Matryoshka if one has a more affectionate feeling towards the construct.

Law and Security

While Patchwork abides to the Treaty of Uniform Security, the reality is, that on-site trials are much more common than extradition, which usually means, that the prosecuters need to extract the criminal via clandestine means or simply post a bounty on the public mesh, though this has other consequences if the individual is particularly well liked among the inhabitans. If an individual needs to be put on trial, a triumvirate is assembled, appointed by three high-rep individuals which are expected assess the situation and pronounce the verdict. In reality, this means that Tuareg and Hillevi get their turns on appointing quite often. It's best to know how to handle a weapon on Patchwork since deterring works pretty good in keeping away thieves. Having an idea on how to program a lockbot helps as well. For keeping the peace, the presence of Medusan Shield and moreso, a good presence of Ultimates helps. It happened in the past, that escalations were stopped because the Ultimates stepped in and forcefully disabled would-be combatants. Which at first seemed like "interfering with not-your-buisness" became a source of positive rep for the Social Darwinists.

Factions

Scum

The Nomads of Sol responsible for most the the habitats trade and entertainment. They operate most of the bodybanks and medical stations. Recently, a big part of the Scum is unhappy with the fact, that the anarchists dominate most of the going-ons in Patchworks politics, and long for the time, the Nomad could travel freely and unbound as it once had. A sub-faction of Scum even started calling themselves "The Unbound" and started pooling resources to either repair the Nomads engines and tear away from the habitat or establishing a new Scum fleet. And since the former would be easier to achieve than the latter... The most important member of the Scum is Tuareg, one of the first transhumans to embrace the title of Scum. He changes morphs on a regular basis, most feature the color blue in a way, and his ideas keep the genehackers on edge. Tuareg seems to have taken no stance in the Unbound-schisma.

Anarchists

Most of the anarchists live in small collectives and offer a bright spectrum of services or they operate a gas-freighter and transport Helium-3 from Saturn to the habitat. The "Challengers of Hades" collective runs a refinery aboard and is the shark in a pool of small fishes. Without their refinery, the rep-income of the other collectives would be significantly smaller, a fact the Challengers know. Even if they hold the obvious political power aboard, there is one anarchist whose words are deemed more important than theirs. Hillevi is without a collective but this didn't stop him from helping almost everybody on the station in some way. He was the one who distributed the mag-adaptor design to the habs fabbers and made sure, that every new synthmorph aboard comes with built-in magnetic systems. His morph of choice is a heavily modified exalt with dark grey skin and white tattoos, his black hair a wild mane.

Extropian

Administration, contract-handling, charity, those three words describe the public face of the extropian hypercorps at best. Headquarters on Extropia invest money in goods and services which are then gifted to the community of Patchwork. The gained rep is then used to get antimatter and iceteroids for sunward shipment. Smaller corps earn their rep with enforcing contracts and other administrative jobs. The biggest local hypercorp is Gorgon Defense Systems. The corp uses Patchwork as a depot for arms and other goods the corp produces, for which use they actually implemented a whole module into the Spiderweb. This module is heavily defended by their subsidarie, Medusan Shield. Right now, Medusan Shield tries to bully the Ultimates away in terms of buisness and stress the classy looks of their agents and simple mindset ("You give us stuff or a good review, we protect you") in comparison to the Ultimates artificial looks and darwinist philosophies. The underlying message being, that the Ultimates will stop working for you, if your objectives are not well liked. GDS spokesperson and local CEO is Triglaw a former lunarian banker turned anarchist. It is well-known that he was offered his job because of his history with the inner system. A pragmatic octopus-uplift, Triglaw has no qualms with actively hurting the Inner System in any way. The rumormill runs hot every few months, claiming, that the cephalopod sponsored again a terrorist strike against martian or lunarian habitats.

Criminals

The Consortium likes to describe the whole Autonomist movement as a hive of scum and villainy where no upright citizen would spend any more time than he should do and leave immediatly. Autonomists argue, that without laws, nobody is a criminal. Nevertheless, some transhumans thrive on things which would make said Autonomists grow pale. Between the absolute liberty of the Scum and the authority-defying philosophies of the Anarchists life the criminal elements of Patchwork. Several smaller cartels produce unaccepted goods and ship those into the rest of the system, sometimes with the help of the Extropians, safe from the nosy sensors of customs officers. Those who refrain from production offer services to fuel the vices of their fellow transhumans. Services such as smuggling, prostitution with forks, ID forging and fencing. Operating in the shadows, the Guanxi-reppers can offer services, which would get them kicked out of the @-list and without fear of retribution. They eagerly accept forks as means of payment and sell them to brothels to activate another meat puppet. Of importance are the so-called "Shades", transhumans who keep their Guanxi and @-List rep high enough, to conduct buisness with both groups and keep the flow up. Criminal Top Dog aboard the habitat is without question Zeli, an evacuee from the Fall who fought his way to the top and now owns the nightclub "Krieger und Hure" (Warrior and Whore) aboard the Nomad. In his own words, he offers Satisfaction, be it your carnal desires or pugnacity wether as an implanted memorie, XP, Simulspace or real with morphs of your choice or even made to measure, if the price is right. And you can always offer your ego, if you have nothing else...

Ultimates

Many first-time visitors aboard Patchwork notice the large presence the Ultimates show. It's like they want to say "keep it down here". The darwinists operate a training camp in the beehive, focusing on inter-habitat and zero-g combat and possess some of the finest morphs for combat on board. The rumormill states, that the sole reason the Ultimates are on board is because of the settled position of the Scum and their genehackers, leeching off their better ideas to improve their own designs. So far, there is no proof of this, but when one does look, the patrols of Remades travel most often between the Nomads Genelabs and the training camp. Recently, the Ultimates have to defend themselves against the memetic attacks coming from Medusan Shield, directed against the hierarchy of the Ultimate higher-ups. The Ultimates are happy for every dirt they can unearth about Triglaw, GDS and MS operations in the Saturn-system. Their own counterattacks are more physical in nature and they are now preparing to bust some of the criminal rackets and "freeing the slaves", sometimes with active help in form of sleeper-forks who will act their part out if needed. Centurion Terry Bryant is the highest-ranking Ultimate aboard the Patchwork and oversees recruting and training of newcomers. He and his forks are also responsible for contracts the Mercenaries offer and they work hand in hand with the hypercorp ContrServ in working out the details of their contracts. He seems to stand on good terms with Tuareg, Hillevi and Zeli.