TFL/Space station

Space stations are sapient created locations capable of protecting their inhabitants from the dangers of vacuum. Most space stations are in orbit around a habitable planet, but some orbit the primary star of a Star System, a moon of a planet, around a Lagrange point, or sometimes around another space station.

Most interstellar cargo in the Fringe is picked up from and delivered to a space station, even though less than 25% of the population of a typical star system lives on a space station. Local distribution of goods is rarely the concern of the interstellar freighters, and it generally isn't worthwhile to tie up an expensive Starship to move freight to a planet. Blockade runners and smugglers sometimes need to land on planets to acquire or deliver their cargos.

## Types of stations

### Docking Spindles

All spin stations (Cole Habitats, Stanford Torii, and O'Neil Cylinders) usually have non-spinning spindles above and below the main body of the station. Each spindle is a long tube, with an inner usable diameter of 7 to 12 yards. The spindles are in 0g so that spacecraft can easily dock on them. The spacecraft are secured to the spindle by multiple electromagnetic clamps with the ship's long axis perpendicular to the long axis of the spindle, and then flexible umbilical tubes provide power, air, and hassle free access to the spindle and station.

The spindles are divided into notional levels of 7-10 yards, and every 4 or 5 levels can be closed off by massive pressure doors in case of pressure loss. The levels are numbered from 0 where the spindle attaches to the space and increase. Dock rental fees decrease slightly as the levels increase. There is never more than 1 set of ock airlocks to the umbilicals per level, and consecutive docks spiral down the spindle with 120 degrees separation.

Spacecraft service businesses often rent space on the edge of a spindle. Business rentals are always are the far side of the spindle from the spacecraft dock on the same level.

### Asteroid Hive

Tunnels can be dug into an asteroid and structures built out of the surface. This is possibly the simplest and cheapest style of space station, and the most variable in population. A tiny asteroid with minimal tunnels might support only a dozen to a few hundred people, while a large asteroid with extensive tunnels could theoretically support billions. Most support 1,000 to 10,000 inhabitants.

Asteroid hives do not support spin gravity but rarely have enough mass for significant mass gravity. This makes them unpopular with most sapients, but AIs and gravity adapted races like Quaddies find them tolerable. Across the Fringe, there are relatively few asteroid hive stations outside of Haven aside from orbital beanstalk stations.

The Fortress of the New Panama Citadel is possibly the largest and most famous asteroid hive in the Fringe.

Many visitors find life in an asteroid hive to be cramped and claustrophobic. The relatively limited pressurized volume means hives are vulnerable to random debris strikes creating an air leak, and thus all the sections of tunnels are separated by air locks. Individual dwellings often have separate air tanks and air locks. Hive residents usually wear skinsuits just about everywhere, just in case they get trapped on the wrong side of a pressure leak.

Hamerkops (Orbital Beanstalk Stations)
The station at the top of an orbital beanstalk is technically an asteroid hive, though usually not an extensively tunneled one. Hamerkops have 3,000 to 5,000 permanent residents and a few hundred transient visitors at any time.

As most people who are born on a planet arrive in space via a beanstalk, and hamerkops tend to be struck by debris more than any other station, the hamerkop's skinsuit culture tends to be drilled into new spacers. This can cause problems when those new spacers move on to stations with a more relaxed attitude toward pressure leaks.

### Cole Habitat

Solar mirrors can be used to melt an asteroid to slag, and then the molten slug can be spun and allowed to cool. This creates a cylindrical habitat that can be spun to produce some spin gravity, known as a Cole habitat. Cole habitats are limited in size by the ability to melt an entire asteroid and keep it melted while spinning it, and are usually less than a mile long and a quarter mile in diameter. They are relatively cheap to make, though more expensive than hives. They usually support around 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, but some are much smaller and support 2,000 people or less.

Cole habitats have enough spin gravity to be comfortable for most races, but the curving walls and people visibly walking on the ceiling overhead can be disorienting for visitors. They have relatively thick outer skins which makes them resistant to debris strikes creating air leaks, but they have no systems of internal airlocks and relatively limited air volume, so depressurization is a concern. Cole habitat residents, like Hive residents, prefer to wear skinsuits everywhere in case of emergencies.

### Stanford Torus

Stanford torii are metal rings with spokes connected them to a central spindle. The station rotates for spin gravity. The rings are usually a half mile or more in diameter. They usually support around 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, but some are much smaller and support 2,000 people or less.

Stanford torii are relatively unpopular designs: more expensive that Cole habitats without allowing a lot more population, while still having some of the crampedness and claustrophobia issues of an asteroid hive. The outer hull tends to be thick enough to resist depressurization, but Stanford torii are still segmented by airlocks and residents often wear skinsuits, but not as obsessively as residents of hives and Cole habitats.

### O'Neil Cylinder

O'Neil cylinders are massive - a mile or two in diameter and five to fifteen miles long. This gives them an interior surface area of 15+ square miles and allows for populations in hundreds of thousands to millions. Unfortunately, they can't be built from rock slag like Cole habitats, but have to fabricated in sections. They are substantially more expensive that the smaller stations.

O'Neil cylinders have spin gravity, enough to match the home world of their builders. Unlike smaller stations, they spin slowly enough that Coriolis effects are minimal and they feel much more like the surface of the planet. The horizon rises instead of falling away, and there is ground up above instead of sky, but the people walking on the ceiling are too indistinct to be disorienting for most visitors. O'Neil cylinders have a dozen or more cubic miles of air in them, and the pressure leaks from random debris would take days to cause issues for the residents. Thus, O'Neil cylinder residents rarely bother with skinsuits unless they are in the docking spindles, and consider people who always wear one and keep a hand on a 0-g maneuver ring at all times to be paranoid hicks. O'Neil cylinder residents who visit smaller space stations without losing the attitude tend to be viewed as idiots who will die in the first pressure emergency, even though pressure emergencies are rare events.

### Double O'Neil Cylinder

Two O'Neil cylinders can be built next to each other, connected by trusses, and set to spin in opposite directions. This is actually the preferred design, as the counter spins resolve some complicated issues with gyroscopic procession. However, if one O'Neil cylinder is expensive, two O'Neil cylinders is an insane expense and they are relatively rare. Most star systems don't have enough population living away from a planetary surface to justify building more that a few O'Neil cylinders throughout the system, and so two of them together is an uncommon luxury.

The home world of a space faring race, such as Sol or Seelluggue, is more likely to have multiple double O'Neil cylinders.

# Rotating Space Station Directions and Real Estate

Directions
Directions on a rotating space station are somewhat weird for natives of planets. Instead of north, east, south, and west, people use up, down, spinward, and a'spinward and sometimes high and low.

Up and down refer to moving along the inner surface of the station relative to the axis of rotation (which is usually perpendicular to the system's ecliptic plane) and are somewhat arbitrary - one side of the station is the up side, and the other is the down side. The very ends of the docking spindles are the farthest one can travel in the up and down directions. The spindles are usually divided into levels that are a measure of distance from the joint of the spindle and the cylinder - so Level 70 is about 3500 feet from the joint.

Spinward means moving along the inner surface either in the direction the station is spinning, while a'spinward is a contraction of anti-spinward and is the opposite direction. Spinward and a'spinward directions are loops, similar to traveling east or west on earth.

Low and high refer to moving farther from or closer to the axis of spin, usually by changing vertical levels. Felt gravity increases as one heads low, while it decreases as one goes high. The outer hull of the cylinder is as low as one can go, while the 0-g area in the center of the the cylinder is as high as can be reached. While low eventually reaches the end of the station, going high eventually results in reaching the center of the station and continuing travel means going low. This is similar to going north on a planet to reach the north pole and then going south from there, even if one continues to move in a relatively straight line.

Double O'Neil cylinders add the complication that there are two cylinders spinning in opposite directions. Spinward and a'spinward are always defined relative to the local cylinder, while the two cylinders are distinguished as the CW (or clockwise) and CCW (or counter-clockwise) cylinder. A neighborhood in the V'Altrin double O'Neil cylinder might be described as being in CW-Downs and a distant docking port would be at CCW-Up Spindle Level 120 - the neighborhood is in the down side of the clockwise spindle, while the docking part is on the other spindle, on the up side, and nearly a mile away from the cylinder itself - more than 15 miles away.

Real Estate
Very broadly speaking, O'Neil cylinders are divided into three bands, called "Ups", "Mids", and "Downs". "Ups" is the 3rd of the interior surface on the up direction nearest the docking spindle (which is known as the Up Spindle). "Downs" is the 3rd of the interior surface on the down direction nearest the docking spindle (which is known as the Down Spindle). "Mids" is the band of surface between Ups and Downs.

On most stations, trade is the lifeblood of the economy and spacecraft dock at the spindles. Thus, real estate in Ups and Downs is worth more than real estate in the Mids. Real Extremely tall buildings have less apparent gravity and more pronounced coriolis effects at the top that lower buildings, and is usually worth less - though Quaddies and other 0-g preferring races mean there is often a decent market in the high levels of residential towers. The parts of a docking spindle that are close to the cylinder allow for quicker travel to the cylinder than the more distant parts, and docking fees and rents reflect that - low numbered levels cost more than high numbered levels.