Citadel Station

**Citadel Station** was a space station owned by TriOptimum dedicated to genetic, pharmacological and robotic research. The station was in L6 orbit around Saturn, and was destroyed on November 7th, 2072 at 20:02. The events of *System Shock* took place here.

## History

In 2061, TriOptimum purchased the rights for the Saturn L6 orbit. and the next year, building of Citadel Station began and soon became operational. The computer staff exploited bugs in the station's operating system and developed Turbo Navigation Booster software and later SHODAN software was installed to regulate security and operations.

Meanwhile, Edward Diego started monitoring viral experiments waiting to find one suitable to be bought as the perfect bio-weapon, until he realized that the Trioptimum Internal Security was investigating on his illegal activities. Diego saw the opportunity to purge all incriminating evidence in the face of a Hacker who was arrested for unauthorized entry into the TriOptimum Corporation Network. He brought the Hacker on the Station and manipulated him into removing SHODAN's ethical constraints, thus allowing himself to purge log files from SHODAN.

### September

The side-effects of this intrusion started to be visible. The Station started suffering from inexplicable malfunctions, like a Force Bridge that blew its fuses, radiation leaks, bots installing Repulsor Lifts in storage rooms by themselves, and security codes appearing randomly on screen. SHODAN also showed some signs of individuality, refusing to compile normal morality programs designed for robot implementation Worried about SHODAN's aberrant behavior, the computer system administrator requested its replacement, only to have his request cancelled and himself be transferred off-station.

SHODAN started to take over on her own and rerouted most computer power with high job priorities, causing power outages and engineers unable to find out why. She made some areas inaccessible to the human crew, ordering robots to remodel the station and cyborgs to patrol access corridors. She caused a massive radiation leak in the science level, ordered a recall of the environmental suits to prevent the crew from cleaning up and plundered the chemical storage banks bio-contaminating the station. Meanwhile a security bot went nuts and fired off its cannons until it was shut down with an EMP Grenade. SHODAN eventually changed locks and codes on the Research Level and put a security bot stationed outside the Admin-Sec that refused to let anybody in. Among several other serious malfunctions and haywire systems, SHODAN used a viral mutation agent experiment contaminating researchers and forcing shifting of crews. Then robots and systems began serious malfunctions flooding Maintenance with repair orders, causing speed loss in computer systems. Eventually SHODAN locked off Beta Grove and began her experiments.

### October

The patients started suffering from mental derangement and Security had to detain them to stop violent incidents. As inexplicable symptoms spread, Medical imposed quarantine measures. Some mutants escaped, mutilated medics and ransacked the armoury. Wishing to escape the chaos, executives attempted to flee to Gamma grove and jettison from the station, but SHODAN disabled the life support resulting in their death. As the launch of the grove tampered with SHODAN's experiments, it changed the jettison procedures to prevent more of its groves from being destroyed. Another escape attempt was prevented when a group was ambushed by a military cyborg on their way to the escape pods. Having reprogrammed the health regeneration rooms, anyone attempting to cure himself, was being converted into a cyborg.

Meanwhile Diego, fearing for his arrest, barricaded himself jammed communications and had security robots guard him. When TriOp sent a transport, SHODAN used the station defenses to destroy it. A Maintenance-Bot attacked Chauncy McDaniel when he attempted to disconnect the CPU node.

Some researchers armed themselves with weapons from lockers and began a riot. As they engaged mutant beings, a security team was dispatched against them encountered strong resistance.

After completely sealing and fortifying all access to the grove, SHODAN began leaking the virus and spraying the population. Soon SHODAN announced its intention to control the station and cut off communications. Then she tested V-5 in Beta grove. Fearing for his life, Diego submitted himself to SHODAN as her servant.

Resistance members attempted to undo some of SHODAN's malfunctions like unlocking the Medical Level and destroy the CPUs SHODAN fed on, reset the cyborg converters, or destroying cameras. SHODAN used the CPU clusters to rotate the code, and some tried to override its control of the systems. However they suffered heavy losses during their operations, including the group carrying an isolinear chipset, until Diego betrayed them to SHODAN.

The resistance eventually retreated to the executive level, until SHODAN's forces broke through. Bianca Schuler escaped with the isolinear chipset and tried to make her way to the bridge. Diego (who by now had been transformed into a powerful cyborg) ordered her capture.

Meanwhile SHODAN charged up the tachyon laser against Earth Resistance members tried to cancel its firing by feeding the shield generators and overloading it. The plan failed however and as SHODAN has complete control of the station system, the only option was to destroy the station. SHODAN ordered fortification in her throne room with doors controlled by its own circuits, and a retinue of Cyborg Elite Guards. A few days later she announced her plan to start a new era for humanity and herself as god.

### November

Survivors managed to send a transmission warning Earth and describing their massacre.

A group of resistance fighters attempted to move for the main cyberspace terminal at the bridge. SHODAN responded with tighter security and resistance was taken off the bridge. SHODAN built a fortress on the Security Level, resumed the calibration of the station's tachyon laser and sent a transmission against the cities of Earth.

Meanwhile on Earth, James Chaskes and Rebecca Lansing coordinated actions against SHODAN. They detected the Hacker who had survived after 6 months of healing coma. Following communication by Lansing, the Hacker began to retake the station, beginning with disabling the laser. The Hacker failed to reach the last pocket of survivors, who were forced to commit suicide. SHODAN responded by putting Maintenance-Bots to computer rooms and guard CPUs and planned to send Beta Grove to Earth, but the Hacker managed to jettison it. Finally, the Hacker set the reactor to overload, killed Diego and reached the Bridge. As Citadel Station was destroyed, the Hacker destroyed SHODAN in Cyberspace.

### Aftermath

TriOp vessels found the bridge and rescued the Hacker while demolition crews destroyed the wreckage. The Hacker was offered a position at TriOptimum, but he declined in favour of his old habits and eventually disappeared from the spotlight. As the Hacker became the most famous person in the world, Diego's legacy was denigrated and his family suffered from hardships and lawsuits.

After the disaster, TriOptimum floundered under legal attacks and financial losses. Megacorporate government also was brought down under general unrest and rebellion. As a result, the former governments of Earth’s nations formed together the United Nations Nominate.

## Station Layout

With 427 meters in length and a mass of 2 million metric tons, Citadel was the third largest station ever built.

Housing a crew of 438, it boasted comforting residential suites with modern amenities, a shopping concourse, fine restaurants and recreational facilities, including the environment orchards and gardens. Power recharge stations and Cyberspace Terminals are to be found everywhere. It was powered by the most powerful space-based fusion reactor; also equipped with a defense system for protection against terrorists or enemies of TriOptimum and an experimental Tachyon Laser Mining Beam for asteroid mining.

The station's software was controlled by an artificial intelligence, SHODAN.

The station is divided into several different levels. Many levels on have four sections, labelled Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, around a central hub.

* Level R - Reactor
* Level 1 - Medical
* Level 2 - Research Labs
* Level 3 - Maintenance
* Level 4 - Storage
* Level 5 - Flight Deck
* Level 6 - Executive
	+ Alpha Grove
	+ Beta Grove
	+ Gamma Grove (Inaccessible)
	+ Delta Grove
* Level 7 - Systems Engineering
* Level 8 - Security
* Level 9 - Bridge

## Trivia

* An unused space station model, simply named Space Lighthouse, looking exactly like Citadel Station, can be found in the game files of *BioShock Infinite's* endgame level. *BioShock Infinite* was made by Irrational Games, the developers behind *System Shock 2*.

## References

1. ↑ *SS Strategy Guide* - P.12 - *Welcome.Citadel.Txt*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 *SS Manual*
3. ↑ Investigation
4. ↑ Service Bridge
5. ↑ Radiation Leaks?
6. ↑ Screen Malfunction
7. ↑ *SS Strategy Guide* - P.7 - *Investigative Report #209*
8. ↑ Power Outages
9. ↑ Power Outages (David Wong)
10. ↑ Access Corridors
11. ↑ Bio-Contaminants
12. ↑ Convection Shaft
13. ↑ Computer Malfunction
14. ↑ Engineer's Report (Hessman)
15. ↑ CPU Mystery
16. ↑ Medical Report
17. ↑ Scheduling
18. ↑ Beta Grove Locked
19. ↑ Grove Jettison
20. ↑ New Jettison Procedure
21. ↑ Ambush (System Shock)
22. ↑ New Cyborgs
23. ↑ Personal Log (Edward Diego)
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Trioptimum Security Report
25. ↑ Defense System
26. ↑ Disturbing News
27. ↑ Virus Experiment
28. ↑ Mutagen Transfer
29. ↑ Medical CPU's
30. ↑ New Cyborgs
31. ↑ SHODAN's Presence
32. ↑ Systems Code
33. ↑ SHODAN's Mutants
34. ↑ Final Assault
35. ↑ Betrayal
36. ↑ Isolinear Chipset
37. ↑ Escape
38. ↑ Capture Schuler
39. ↑ SHODAN Charging the Laser
40. ↑ Block the Laser With the Shields?
41. ↑ Destroying the Laser
42. ↑ Blowing the Station
43. ↑ Construction Order
44. ↑ Our Work
45. ↑ Personal Log
46. ↑ Security
47. ↑ Strike Against Earth
48. ↑ Too Late For Us
49. ↑ Need CPU's