[Added] Space Settlements: What they COULD look like.

[Ricky_the_banshee]

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System): Space Settlements

Founding/Settlement Date (if applicable): 22th Century (Estimated 2125-ongoing)

Region of Space: All space colonized by Humanty

Controlled by (if not a faction): Depends on the territory (But very likely only Human/Skrell controlled territory)

Other Snapshot information: So, are there any members of the Lore team who could share their thoughts? Other players who have their own ideas as to what these Space settlements COULD look like? Share them please!

Long Description: So, yeah. Our lore contains indications of so-called Space Settlements, where people simply live (perhaps work as well, considering maintenance, security will be a thing onboard as well.). When people talk about these stations, never has there actually been a well-detailed description of what they look like other than "It's just a Space station where people just live like people do planetside.".

I'm a fan of sci-fi/Sci-fantasy. Hell, I've watched tons of Science Fiction movies from Aliens to even anime series based in space such as the Gundam Franchise and most of them cover the appearance of what Space Settlements could look like.

So, here is my lore suggestion for one potentional appearance of Space settlements;

(WARNING, PICTURE IS QUITE BIG.)

Taking the Gundam Franchise's Space Colony design for a example;

And here are some examples to the interior of the colony;

 

Of those who frequently follow news of space travel/settlement projects or generally like to dig into physics, some of you might say; "Hey, wait a minute. This looks like the O'Neill Cylinder". That's because IT IS the O'Neil Cylinder. A settlement designed created by Physicist Gerard K. O'Neill who had written about it in his book, The High Frontier. It's one of the most accepted potentional concepts of futuristic Space Settlements that even NASA has based designs on O'Neill's original concepts, improving on it to compensate with the recent discoveries after the book was published in 1976.

A small bit of explanation as to how the Artificial Gravity works;

The Cylinders were originally meant to be placed in Earth's Lagrangian points.For those who don't know, the Lagrangian points are sights within the Earth and Moon's Orbital configuration whereas gravitional pull within these "points" assures that any object within remains in orbit with the Earth and the Moon, meaning that they will not drift away as our Earth and Moon embark on their journey around our Sun (This applies to any other Large bodies within our universe). Moving on the the artificial gravity. The settlement will utilize centrifugal force (Inertial forces) which deviate from the Cylinder's axis by rotating the Cylinder approximitely twenty-eight times PER hour around it's Axis. Of course you can find more information on the O'Neil Cylinder with a simple Google search, a documentary on Youtube OR by reading the book of the original designer of the O'Neil Cylinder, Gerard K. O'Neill.

[LordFowl]

There will never be a universal outline for how a "Space Settlement" should look under the current lore, which leaves such broad miscellany to the players and instead focuses mostly on things that could possibly impact the denizens of the NSS Aurora.

That said, it is not unreasonable to imagine such a common trope of space stations could be prevalent, although I should mention that not only does our current (albeit non-habitation) station not reflect that design, it is implied that the NMSS Odin (A megastation with habitation elements) also does not reflect that design, and there were once mechanical items to explain this - the Gravity generator, which would likely be either commonplace or not.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

There are passing references to several large space stations being dependencies of the Sol Alliance, and generally space stations can be independent settlements or even micro-nations in their own right. I don't want to standardize what a space settlement looks like for reasons Lord-fowl has said already. You are, of course, always free to create space stations like in Star Trek where everything spins around and call it an older model, though it might make a smoother fit if these stations utilize the common technologies we see on the Aurora, i.e. gravity generators.

[SierraKomodo]

There will never be a universal outline for how a "Space Settlement" should look under the current lore, which leaves such broad miscellany to the players and instead focuses mostly on things that could possibly impact the denizens of the NSS Aurora.

That said, it is not unreasonable to imagine such a common trope of space stations could be prevalent, although I should mention that not only does our current (albeit non-habitation) station not reflect that design, it is implied that the NMSS Odin (A megastation with habitation elements) also does not reflect that design, and there were once mechanical items to explain this - the Gravity generator, which would likely be either commonplace or not.

 

That being said, such a gravity generator or similar device to create gravity would be expensive to acquire and maintain in comparison to the relatively simplistic method of centrifugal force, would it not? Additionally, with the Odin, perhaps only that docking back and the access areas with ERT, CCIA, NT Administration, etc are on a subsection of the station not under centrifugal gravity but utilizing a gravity generator, while the habitation sections are connected to centrifugal rings. There isn't really aset description of how, exactly, the Odin is built - Only a vague idea and implications based on the map of the rather small section of the Odin we do see.

[LordFowl]

That being said, such a gravity generator or similar device to create gravity would be expensive to acquire and maintain in comparison to the relatively simplistic method of centrifugal force, would it not? Additionally, with the Odin, perhaps only that docking back and the access areas with ERT, CCIA, NT Administration, etc are on a subsection of the station not under centrifugal gravity but utilizing a gravity generator, while the habitation sections are connected to centrifugal rings. There isn't really aset description of how, exactly, the Odin is built - Only a vague idea and implications based on the map of the rather small section of the Odin we do see.

 

You assume the Gravity Generator is expensive, but that is mere assumption. Furthermore, the "simplistic method" of "centrifugal" force is still extremely expensive.

[Ricky_the_banshee]

Boy, am I glad with all the replies. Thanks everyone for answering.

[Bedshaped]

Spacetime did a good video about artificial gravity.

In SS13 an O'Neill cylinder would just mean a station with many Z-levels and if you walked in one direction, you'd end up back where you started.

[coolbc2000]

My view of Space settlements changed when I saw the new Star Trek

Pretty much what they have (Yorktown)

Pic's for Reference:

[Bokaza]

Actually, forgot to mention that I already wrote something similar on the wiki: https://aurorastation.org/wiki/index.php?title=Arcology

It's not a space station, but it explains some engineering challanges population centers on low gravity and low pressure worlds face.

[Guest]

I'm not too huge on understanding what the intrinsic purpose of this is, but I'm gonna move it anyway and consider it done, since an arcology article exists.

bleh, bleh, bleh.