Description
Well off due to its water purification facilities, the Spirit of Botswana is held up as an example of recovery from the Catastrophe. From this station, Aquatic Resources Corp manages the largest ice mining and water purification operation in the galaxy.
One of the largest stations ever built, Botswana is where ice, mined from the rings of Saturn, is brought for purification, bottling, and shipment. Every person who lives on or near a space station is dependent on the bounty that the miners of Aquatic Resources Corp (ARC) haul back from the asteroid belt. The Shipping Bay of Spirit of Botswana is always busy with the coming and going of ships, both large and small, and their precious cargo.
Chronicle Text
On the Spirit of Botswana, residents stuck to doing what they did best even through the Catastrophe and thus, some would argue, kept humanity alive. Botswana was an ice mining station, and remained an ice mining station. Without ice, there could be no water. Without water, there could be no life. The Spirit of Botswana became the patron station of perseverance, of quenching the undying thirst.
Arrival Text
Spirit of Botswana welcomes you! Drink deeply and be sated weary traveller.
Statistics
System: Alpha Centauri A
Affiliation: Consortium
Level: 9
Legal: Strong
Orwellian: High
Areas
Bank
An escalator with tarnished chrome rails descends into the stone of the station’s bedrock. Warm light from sunburst wall sconces casts the bank in rich, welcoming tones. Painted directly onto the bedrock walls, are red creatures, some with impossibly long necks, others with sharp horns protruding from their long snouts.
Thick, soft carpet marks a red path to the bank tellers. Well-dressed citizens wait in line ignoring each other, using their CORETECHS to catch up on intrasystem news. Soft music plays gently through speakers hidden around the room, and small side rooms provide private spaces for discussing financial matters.
Brig (Prison Services)
Heavy transparent doors seal the prison off from the rest of the station. Inside, an open floor plan allows the prisoners to move easily between the dining, gathering, and exercise areas. When they aren't being confined to their cells…
The station’s prison is located in a rough-stone gray building. The floors and walls inside are a clean, lustrous brown, and each locked entrance is overseen by a uniformed corrections officer with a slate, a checklist, and a drive to tick every box.
NPCs
Clones (Anima Foundation Clones)
Racks of metal containers hangs from the ceiling. One chrome cylinder begins to move, disengaging from the rest to be lowered to the floor. Locking into an anchor point, it peels open and reveals a clone pod inside.
The cloning center is a circular building, several stories tall. Above the double doors of the entrance, the words, “Work with Peace of Mind” glow with a soft green light. Workspaces and offices for the staff are intermittently placed throughout the round room, providing comfortable areas in which to toil and provide consultations. The ground floor is where new clones emerge, having been stored in the stories above and brought down when the time is right, or for regular inspection. The building's domed ceiling of brushed steel arcs high above the racks of hanging pods, and nothing, save one back door, breaks up the smooth lines of the curved wall. The Aquatic Resources Corp provides free clones for each of their miners, and heavily funds the Anima Foundation's research and development.
Available Clones
Decommissioned Area (Water Plant)
The water processing plant is an enormous building, full of assembly lines, purification machines, and huge tanks. Inside, workers watch over ancient machines that help take ice chunks from their original, harvested state and turn them into drinkable water for the thirsty populace.
Armed guards patrol the high walls that surround the treatment facility. They walk along high catwalks, their image shimmering and blurred by the blue static that arcs across the top of the walls. Cameras scan the area, quickly locking on to and following any sign of movement nearby. A large gate is the only way into the plant, and badges are scanned and checked by security guards who wear huge rifles slung about their necks. Inside, another guard scans both badge and employee, checking on the way in for weapons or contraband, and on the way out for smuggled water. Between the massive tanks within, employees wearing sky-blue lab coats bearing the Aquatic Resources Corp logo walk up and down aisles, checking gauges and making notations on their slates.
NPCs
Government Center (Government Enclave)
Squat and long, the Enclave is painted a pale yellow. Along the front and sides of the building are tall columns, made from a combination of regocrete and a red, marbleized stone. The columns hold up white arches, which provide a roof over a walking area around the building.
Along the side of the Enclave, the columns encompass a small plaza, which has fountains, spraying real water gently into the air. A large structure before the building mimics the arches: Four of the regocrete and marble columns, with a long arch set atop them. Suspended under the arch is a metal sculpture of the local star system.
NPCs
Inn (Aquarian Oasis Hotel)
The Aquarian Oasis Hotel is nearly as tall as it is wide. Built to accommodate thousands of guests to the station, the hotel is just luxurious enough to feel posh, and just comfortable enough be affordable.
NPCs
Bar (The Watering Hole)
Loud and boisterous, The Watering Hole is a raucous place. A stage takes up one end of the long room, and live musicians and DJs, playing every manner of music, ebb and flow from the stage starting at midday. The dance floor is nearly always packed.
Music the from this two-story building can be heard at nearly all hours of the day. Patrons come to see musicians, both local, and from other stations, play live, or to dance for segments to their favorite DJs. When not dancing, people crowd together, standing in large groups, or sitting at the few tables and booths, chatting and laughing. Many also lean against the railing of the second floor, looking down on the dancers and musicians. There are bars on both levels, with a thick crowd around each. Outside the front door, a large patio, full of tables, lets customers have a seat where they can talk without having to shout over the music.
Menu
NPCs
Hotel Rooms (Oasis Lodge)
Rooms at the Oasis Lodge are clean and comfortable. Most rooms have large four poster beds, with curtains draped artfully about them, with a thin rug, made to look like zebra stripes, at their feet. Each room has a balcony that looks out over the street, where people wander and gather to chat and laugh together.
Prices
- 1 day: 73.2 cr
- 5 days: 292.8 cr
- 10 days: 512.4 cr
- 30 days: 1317.6 cr
Lounge (Remembrance Lounge)
The steady thumping of the music from The Watering Hole dies down instantly when one enters the Lounge. Inside, simulated wood walls gleam a polished mahogany color that lends warmth to the room.
The exposed beams of the Lounge's cathedral ceiling rise to a point high above the heads of all, interrupted on one side by a huge regocrete fireplace, around which sit large sofas. The walls host changing displays of animal trophies, first displaying the head of a snarling lion, then shimmering and becoming the head and neck of a gazelle. Chandeliers made to look like tangles of antlers hang overhead, and rugs, with the patterns of zebras, tigers, and leopards, dot the floor. In one corner, a rhino stands, its magnificent horn raised up high. A moment passes, and its projection is replaced by that of a giraffe, whose long neck stretched up higher than the mantle on the fireplace. Here and there on the walls are cases of ancient-looking guns; long rifles with thick stocks. During certain times of the day, the Lounge is opened to small groups, usually tour groups of small children, who come by to see what the animals of Earth looked like.
NPCs
Employment (Job Center)
The well-maintained employment terminals far outnumber the few souls scrolling through their screens. A woman wearing the badge of the Aquatic Resources Corp waves and smiles, encouraging job seekers to risk life and limb out in the rings of Saturn.
The corners of the room are dusty but the wall-mounted terminals are clean and smooth, quickly displaying available jobs sorted by a variety of parameters. Aside from mining jobs, there are numerous available jobs in the water processing plant, which is located next door. The jobs available in the employment center always outnumber the job seekers.
NPCs
Side Jobs
This is the right place if you are looking for quick and easy jobs.
| Name | Description | Credits | Statistic |
| Cargo Mover | Daily shifts available. Join the Shipping Bay workers crew for around the clock cargo work opportunities! | 37 | 5x Strength |
| Hull Wipe | Our customers want their ships cleaned and they want it done fast. Work available in the Port, if you can hack it. | 37 | 5x Agility |
| Prison Cell Cleaning | Even the guilty deserve a clean place to sleep! Help us keep our prison cells clean. | 37 | 5x Stamina |
| Water Bottle Filling | A smiling man is standing behind a desk, calling out, "Processing Plant jobs! We pay good credits for capable individuals." | 37 | 5x Strength |
Market
Shaped like a sunken oval, the market is lined with moving sidewalks that slide along each of its terraces. Actual green plants grow beside benches where people sit and look out across the area. Along the sidewalks, numerous shop buildings line the walls of the station, with stalls and kiosks sat before them.
The merchants here are quiet and polite, waiting at their stalls or in their shops for customers to come to them. One hawker does make the rounds beside the moving sidewalks, holding up a portable display. An occasional breeze ripples through the plant life and lends to the serenity of the bench areas, sometimes disturbed by music from buskers. The tall buildings of the reclaimed residential area look down upon the market.
NPCs
Vendors
Here you can find many things sold by different vendors.
Storage
You can find here enough space to store the things you do not want to carry.
- Small: ??? cr
- Medium: 439.2 cr
- Large: 1098 cr
Port (Sir Seretse Khama Port)
The port is divided into three sections: the Shipping Bay, which mostly deals with the import of ice and the export of purified water; the Docks, where private vessels are collected by huge mechanical arms and gently guided into their parking areas; and the Local Shuttles, where people travel to and from nearby stations. Large Consortium flags hang next to the flag of the country of Botswana on Earth: a field of light blue with a horizontal black stripe bordered by a thin white frame. The black stripe is dotted with white stars, and the center of the flag bears an emblem of an ancient spaceship, nose pointed to the sky.
NPCs
Shipping Bay
Huge haulers towing immense chunks of ice, and gargantuan mining ships, their bays full of harvest from Saturn's rings and large enough to hold smaller ships, arrive at every segment of the day. A massive freighter slides slowly by a walkway on the pier, ominous and easily within reach of anyone standing at the railing. Large, complex cradles wrap around each ship. Cradle and ship turn as one and glide towards the correct berth, eliminating the claustrophobic maneuvering that might otherwise happen in a busy port.
The Shipping Bay is enormous, and can handle multiple haulers as well as the larger freighters which arrive with their hulls full of ice and their bays full of Hornets, the small, quick, and easy to maneuver ships that dart into the dangerous inner rings around Saturn and return with smaller pieces of ice that are then deposited on the freighters and brought back to Spirit of Botswana. Private vessels, owned by contractors and independent miners, come and go, as well as the Aquatic Resources Corp ships, whose thickly armored sides bear the company's logo of a brilliant blue drop of water surrounded by rings of ice. The bay also plays host to the vessels that handle the shipments of purified water to the thirsty galaxy. Huge stacks of boxes, full of water pouches, bottles, and huge barrels wait their turn to be boarded onto cargo ships bound for every known station. One section of the bay still bears the marks of the Catastrophe, where a huge mechanical arm juts out from the station wall, having been tossed there during the explosion that it caused, and melted in place from the heat of the ship it destroyed.
NPCs
Local Shuttles
The Local Shuttles are a bustling section of the Port, full of miners who are returning from or heading off on leave. It's easy to tell which is which, as those returning usually seem to walk with a lighter step, and hold their shoulders back a bit more.
NPCs
Residences (The Village)
Regocrete structures stretch on as far as the eye can see, though only those near the market are in use. Large apartment buildings offer affordable housing to the miners, while larger families live in small houses painted in light pastels with identical red roofs.
Before the Catastrophe, millions lived on this station. Now, everyone has housing that wants it, and empty buildings stretch on for thousands of meters, most empty since their inhabitants gasped their last breaths decades ago. Near the market, the local government in conjunction with Aquatic Resources Corp has contributed resources to renovate and provide housing for miners and station residents. Tall buildings and houses, stand proud, freshly painted, a sharp contrast to the derelict buildings and decrepit skyscrapers beyond the residential area.
Ruins (Old Metropolis)
Damaged buildings and dark streets full of rubble denote this section of the station, which still bears scars of the Catastrophe. With so few survivors remaining, this former metropolis was abandoned decades ago, and is now home only to bones, rats, and the occasional squatter who shuns society. Security rarely bothers to come down to this end of the station, and even dedicated Ruins Rats think it's too dangerous to do much treasure hunting here.
During the Catastrophe, most of the station's air was vented into space, killing nearly everyone on board the station. A huge hauler, with an enormous ice chunk in tow, crashed into the Shipping Bay as the mechanics, who operate the enormous arms that secure ships and their towed cargo, suffocated. The mechanic collapsed forward onto the controls, sending the arm crashing into the hauler. The hauler's core exploded as the huge behemoth crashed, and the damage from the explosion, as well as the ice chunk's collision with the station, turned parts of the Shipping Bay into slag, and blew apart sections of the residential and downtown areas of the station.
NPCs
The Wrecks
Botswana's Wrecks still tell the story of its Catastrophe experience. The shredded hull of a dry bulk hauler dominates this cavernous space. Various mechanical arms and braces, some dozens of meters long, extend from fixed mounts on the former Shipyard's walls, tempting scavengers with their valuable hardware.
A thick, grey slag covered much of this area in the cycles following Catastrophe, preserving the scene of a horrendous accident. With near-total lifeline systems failure, the ghastly event unfolded unsupervised. A fully laden ice-hauler was mauled by a malfunctioning handling arm. The vast metallic blast doors slid shut just in time to contain a ruinous reactor fire on-board, unleashing a toxic slag upon the hangar. Many cycles later, the slag-entombed corpses now offer rich pickings to scavengers seeking their well-preserved personal items.
The Wilds
Where the toxic slag of the Ruins is thickest, that's where the Wilds begin. Even today, these sectors are still covered with solidified waves of the thick, grey substance. It's solid enough underfoot, but irritating to the skin and lungs.
The demented few who reside in the Wilds are easily identified by the thickly-crusted blisters which cover their skin, and the deathly rasp which passes for their voice. Such are the symptoms for those who spend long periods here without the aid of hazard suits. Not that you're likely to have time to notice: those who reside here deal in guerrilla tactics and rarely come off second-best in battle.
Security (Police Security Service)
The Police Service building is housed in one of the tall, gleaming skyscrapers that was built ages before the Catastrophe struck. Part of the building was badly damaged by explosions and ship shrapnel, and the new regocrete exterior is slightly lighter in color in those areas.
The words, “Botho, Excellence, Integrity, Teamwork,” arc above the Police Service's front desk. Though all of the security personnel are Consortium, an agreement with the station means that all of the officers are also local to Spirit of Botswana. The security officers are sharply dressed and have their weapons always at the ready, though they most often field calls about miners who had a bit too much fun during some downtime while back on the station.
Sick Bay (Hospital)
Polished gray halls branch into waiting lounges and examination rooms. Ceiling panels glow with a warm, light that encourages patients to nap as they wait for their notification bracelet to buzz.
The curving hallways of the hospital are lined with darkened rooms. As a medical technician leads a patient to a room, the lights within gently brighten without prompting. Complex, delicate machines shine in the dim light. These relics from the time before the Catastrophe are treated with reverence by patients and medical staff alike, touched gently and carefully as they are used to assess conditions and provide treatment. The hospital specializes in trauma and rehabilitation, with the majority of their patients coming in as a result of mining accidents.
NPCs
Gym (UltraFit Gym)
Cool air circulates through the facility as dedicated gym members workout to the sounds of energetic music, pumped in through speakers along the ceiling and walls. Small displays on each exercise machine show video tutorials and track each athlete’s statistics and progress.
The workout room is a long, narrow oval, around which a running track loops. Runners, joggers, and walkers go around and around, while others in the center of the room lift, push, and pull heavy weights. A lower level of the building caters to those who wish to meet with trainers and specialize their regimens.
You must have minimum combined physical stats of 36 to avoid injury at this gym.
University
Granite ramps along each wall curve down to a cool, well-lit lobby. Mirrored glass cubicles create an illusion of both space and clutter, reflecting hundreds of images of the students entering them to receive their class injections.
The sweeping, eccentric architecture of the university stands out in stark contrast against a backdrop of utilitarian apartment buildings that were built in the past decade or so. Judging by the steady trickle of students entering and leaving at all times during the day, the university does a brisk trade in information implantation.
Classes
- Combat
- Engineering
- Leadership
- Spaceship Operations
Notes
- Orwellian level was Low before the update on August 1, 2018
- Formerly had a Gaule Embassy; removed with the update on February 28, 2019
"Galactic Destinations" Introduction
Life in space is harsh and unforgiving. The recycling systems for space stations, now many hundreds of cycles old, were never 100% efficient. There is always some small bit of loss, of things essential for sustaining human life. Foremost of these is water. Read on to learn more about how one station serves the star systems as the provider of this most crucial of resources.
Life Before – Stretching into Space on the Backs of Diamonds
Hundreds of years ago, the discovery of a diamond mine on Earth, in the country of Botswana, took the small country from near poverty to rapid growth and economic stability. In order to diversify, the government next poured resources into mining of a different sort. They became one of the premier innovators and forerunners of mining ice, in space.
Eventually, the massive Spirit of Botswana station was built. It quickly became the galaxy’s largest water purification plant, and was the home base for ice mining operations across the star systems. The once-landlocked country was now entirely focused on water, and they carried their innovations into the far corners of space, stretching out and providing water for the majority of the stations in the Sol and Alpha Centauri A systems.
The Catastrophe – Neither Air Nor Safe Haven
This golden era of plenty was not to last, however. During the Catastrophe, most of the station’s air was vented into space, killing nearly everyone aboard. When the mechanic operating the enormous mechanical arms that secure ships and their towed cargo suffocated, a huge hauler, with an enormous chunk of ice in tow, was sent plummeting into the station. The hauler exploded as it crashed, and the damage from the detonation, as well as the collision of the ice with the station, turned the shipping bay and surrounding decks into slags of molten metal and caused enormous craters in the station. The blast also blew apart sections of the residential and downtown metropolitan areas of the station. Nearly all on board Spirit of Botswana were killed.
In fact, very few on Spirit of Botswana survived the Catastrophe that day, but some did, both station-side and those who were returning from mining expeditions. Together, they went on to rebuild and make the galaxy’s most important station operational once more. It took many cycles, but the water processing plants are finally back online. Starships once again make the loop out to Saturn, through the jump gate and back. The massive shipping bay has been repaired, though the scars of destruction can still be seen.
Today – That None May Thirst
Today, the Aquatic Resources Corp manages the mining operations, providing jobs to those brave enough to risk life and limb out among the ice and stars. These brave souls hold the fate of the star systems in their hands; their precious cargo essential for life in space to continue.
<— Return to Alpha Centauri