LDS04 - Thordin's Secret

System Description

The Thordin system has five orbital belts, with three planets, a comet, and a massive asteroid belt orbiting a massive red giant. The two inner gas giants are both small and devoid of their own moons, and the fourth belt holds a massive gas giant with ten of its own moons, but all are rocky and devoid of life. The last orbital belt holds only a large comet. Thordin’s Belt occupies the third orbit and is home to the only permanently inhabited station in the system.

The Thordin asteroid is the largest and most mineral rich asteroid in the Thordin asteroid belt. It is an irregular rocky asteroid nearly 500 miles at its longest point, and 200 and 300 miles crosswise and perpendicular to that. It resembles an oblong double-sided arrowhead. It masses 100 billion tons, and its gravity is 0.01g (microgravity). There is no atmosphere to speak of, and no known life forms are indigenous to it.
 

The Belt

The belt orbits the star at a rate giving it a solar year of about 700 standard days. Contrary to popular opinion, asteroids are quite distant from each other and pose little problem for piloting. All the asteroids in the belt have about the same velocity and vector, so it is easy for a pilot to set his vector to match theirs and then cruise in like they are sitting still. Occasionally asteroids do break off, or are knocked around by comets or other impacts, but this is the exception and they generally fall into the system gravity well before anyone notices.
 

The Dwarves

Thordin, the largest asteroid in the belt, was once the center of a long-term dwarven mining operation. The dwarves abandoned the base over fifty years ago, leaving behind a wealth of minerals and all of their permanent structures. No one knows what happened to the clan that mined the belt or why they left.
 

The Camp

When refugees fled the invasion of their planets, many began to drift to the abandoned mining base, knowing that enough technology functioned to maintain lifesupport, and the uninhabited system would be unlikely to draw further attention from the invaders.

The main mining complex is on the trailing tip of the asteroid. Few buildings sit on the surface because of the solar radiation. There are only three surface access buildings, and the station pole. The surface buildings are connected by shallow tunnels to the station pole, and are the only access to the surface of the mine. The station pole is the tubular pole that sticks out like a tail, which holds the docking stations for the rare few freighters that come through the system.

Everything else on the asteroid is below the surface, in a twisting labyrinth of tunnels dug by the dwarves to follow the veins of ore. The tunnels have been filled in with habitation modules and atmosphere generators and populated on all sides. The low gravity makes it possible for refugees to occupy all sides of the tunnels.

The tunnels are usually round in cross section, and the refugees hang hammocks from the ceilings and place storage and work areas along the sides. A winding road twists along the bottom of the mineshafts.

Thousands of miles of tunnels wind throughout the asteroid, and they almost never cross. The refugees have explored only a fraction of the tunnels; only a few miles surrounding the station pole are inhabited, and a dozen more in any direction have been explored.
 

Government

There is no defined governmental structure in the refugee camp, but King Ordham, once a ruler of a great Outlands kingdom, has become the central figure in the camp, organizing the people to keep the life-support systems functioning, and sending pleas for aid to the imperial worlds. Some of the refugees refuse to recognize his right to rule, and the outskirts of the tunnels are populated by gangs with strictly defined territory.

Dwarf Junk

In addition to the permanent structures, the dwarves left behind a vast assortment of equipment, much of it completely unfathomable to the most tech savvy of refugees. The technology is all made from a strange, dark alloy, and often is designed in fluid curves and whorls. No one has ever found more than the occasional scrap of Dwarf Junk – never enough to resemble any actual device – but it is common for children to scour the tunnel outskirts for bits of the junk and trade it for a few cents to interested collectors.

Trading

Traders occasionally frequent the station. They trade for what goods the station has: people, ore, and Dwarf Junk. Most refugees with any amount of money have paid these rare traders to take them off the asteroid; the rest scrounge up whatever they can to trade for food,
water, and other essentials. It should be noted that pirates sometimes come through Thordin as well. They recruit new crew, heal up, and lay low safely away from any kind of government.

Life on Thordin’s Belt

Life in the tunnels of Thordin is bleak and crowded. Lights work half the time at best, as power is diverted from the few existing power plants to run the atmosphere generators. Every inch of space is used through the tunnels, with only a winding narrow passage for walking. Days and nights are all the same, slime rations are all most can afford to eat, everything is covered in dirt and dust and there is no water to waste on bathing. Everyone is left wondering just what will run out first: the food, the water, or the power to maintain  the atmosphere.