Embarkation on Sirius One is a rough and tumble affair. This venerable spaceport has retained its grimy, industrious atmosphere and the weary traveller is likely to get jostled and disoriented. Keep your nerve however and you will soon work out what’s going on. It’s a small planet with a lot of traffic passing through. Accommodation ranges from pods to rooms in ‘Houses’. Houses exist that cater to all the major species and cultures, and usually include with shared kitchens, washroom and workshop facilities.
Sirius One, ‘the Crossing’ as it’s sometimes still called, was the first colonised planet in the system. The pioneers found a lifeless rock with enough of a radiation-temperate climate to make exploitation of its minerals realistic, and a well placed staging post in the system.
Today a busy spaceport, the slightly run down feel is attributed, by supporters of Sirius’ dominion movement, to decades of neglect by Earth Central. Their opponents counter that Sirius One could never survive as a private or indie concern, at least not for many decades to come. The indie sector is making some inroads however, with the new ‘Strontium Service’ retro-fitters and augmentation services being rare examples of collaboration between the rival Androzani networks, and about half the accommodation is privately owned.
Sirius One is any travelers place to be in the Sirius system for engineering needs, orientation and stopover, and a bit of risky fun. A very down to earth community of engineers, builders and the odd entertainer.
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There are many myths and legends surrounding the Sirius system, which most attribute the the role it played in Earth’s ancient mythologies, but while the other planets have no shame in playing on these Romances, Sirius One focuses on the mundane and the business-like.
There are five planets. Sirius is a young hot star with a white dwarf companion. Initially it seemed to offer a poor prospect for colonisation due to generally harsh conditions: only one planet had breathable air, but was otherwise highly unpromising.
Sirius One was towards the edge of the wide habitable zone. The outer planet became a spaceport and service station, it’s size and position, also close to rich asteroids for mining, meant it was relatively sheltered from the deadly x-rays from the white dwarf Sirius B.
Expansion to the other planets in the system initially was limited to agronomists and systems thinkers; strange plants growing from modified imported seed, the colony also pioneered usage of x-ray shielding.
Resources discovered in the seas of the third planet attracted a lot of attention, but it’s an expensive colony requiring capital investment. Sealed, with air manufactured from the seas, the colony sits on islands on the mainly oceanic planet. As a result of the inward interest though, Sirius One was chosen for a new terraforming technique making the air breathable., the soil workable.
Words by Korvin M. 