Northway Station

## City Layout

Northway Station is a Planetary Surface Settlement, specifically classified as a Surface Station due to the number of starport services it currently has.

Northway Station is roughly square in layout, with a core composed of the Administration Complex, Agritower A-1B, and Megabuildings A1-B7 BLUE RIDGE and A2-B8 APPALACHIA, as well as smaller single-unit habitation buildings. The station is powered by a class 4 Tokamak fusion reactor, and will be ringed by a wall/mound with more landing pads capable of hosting Cruiser class vessels, as well as surface ports capable of housing navy vessels. Northway Station has multiple planned Surface Railgun emplacements for Ground-To-Orbit Anti-Spacecraft defense capacity. Northway Station has a unique architecture style, blending highly utilitarian Ikaran architecture with the rough ceramics and sintered composites of 3D printed colony structures. Most city structures were produced via a Class V Construction Printer, capable of sintering rock and sand into hard Duracrete composites and extremely resistant ceramic-ablative thermal shields. Early structures can be easily distinguished from Phase 2 structures, as the older Phase 1 colony infrastructure is far more simple in design, likely due to being 3D printed and not constructed by actual construction crews.

The city services a maximum of 6 ships at a time via it's three medium landing pads, one small landing pad, and two large landing pads. The station can service ships up to Strike Cruiser class warships. Larger warships such as Battleships cannot safely enter a planetary atmosphere and thus cannot land at Northway Station. Most buildings near landing pads have dense ablative ceramic coatings to shield them from the high-energy radioactive plasma plumes generated by most ships fusion torch drives. As Ikarans are naturally radiation resistant, they don't have to worry about the non-thermal radiation from these plumes, but humans and other less resistant species are advised to wear anti-radiation armor when vessels are landing or launching, as a way to avoid large doses of beta and Ultraviolet radiation, and smaller doses of gamma and X-ray radiation. Most landing pads are situated near water, which is used as a radiation absorber and is sprayed onto landing pads during launch and landing operations.

Northway Station has no independent standing army, with all of its citizens being registered in the NFR National Armed Forces. The NFR Armed Forces consists of the NFR Ground Forces, NFR Air Force, NFR Navy, NFR Marine Corps, and NFR Space Authority. The NFR Armed Forces are only called into active duty for defensive purposes, with the sole standing branch of the NFR Armed Forces being the NFR Space Authority, as it manages all inbound and outbound space traffic from Northway Station's starport facilities. The NFR has a universal draft in times of war: all citizens must defend their nation.

Northway Station's law enforcement is provided by a court of citizens and the Northway Station Security Command (Aka Sec-Com). Sec-Com is not a part of the NFR Armed Forces, and is not licensed to use lethal force unless no alternative is possible. Sec-Com answers to the Senate, while the NFR Armed Forces answer directly to the President.

Currently, Northway Station hosts one AEGIS class Ground-To-Orbit Kinetic Railgun capable of firing 40 ton tungsten slugs at mach 12, built specifically for asteroid defense capacity. This railgun is incapable of surface targeting, and can only target objects on a collision course in space.

Northway Station also is host to the Shard Orbital space station and weapons platform. This station has self-contained hydroponics bays, sleeping quarters, and research labs, as well as smaller Orbital Defense weapons systems, such as integrated PDC arrays.

## Starport Services

-Agritower A-1B Hydroponics Facility

-Refuel

-Vessel Repair

-Various shops/bars

-Housing Megabuildings

## Military Technologies

- Unmanned Mobile Platforms (UMP Units): Large autonomous combat drones built for border control, handling hostile wildlife, and basic defense. UMP Units are heavily based off of the Gekkos from Metal Gear Rising. UMPs are usually armed with light weapons, such as machine turrets. They are not programmed to see individual humanoids as a threat unless they are in war mode.

-Ground-To-Orbit Railguns: Large railguns built to take down asteroids and starships that are on impact courses with NFR controlled territory. They fire multi-ton tungsten slugs at multiple times the speed of sound. They cannot target objects in the atmosphere or on the ground.

-X-12 AV units: Armored Personnel Carriers based on the AVs used by MAXtac in Cyberpunk 2077