Embassy Ark

Location	Circinus Stream / Elpis System / Third Orbit (Aistanar L3 point)
Population	1.300.000
Capital	Sector Zero
Ownership	Embassy Committee

Embassy Ark - the millenia-old great Yoni worldship that ferried us over from the doomed Globula and dismantled itself to provide us with all of our early needs. Look at the Ark now. Well-to-do traders and residents inhabit the central tower whilst the Ark's underclass struggle to survive on the impoverished Ring-Below.

The Embassy Ark is a major, sovereign space station which has served as a hub for colonial efforts in the Elpis System. This worldship brought millions of refugees from the dying Pyxis Globula and was designed by ancestors unknown to provide them with Programmable Matter to build new settlements and colonies with.
The Ark is a living relic of times and galaxies gone by. The hulking station went nearly abandonned as many of its residents of fortune left to found new colonies. For decades the station went nearly silent as newer colonies took centre stage. Yet for the last thirty cycles, the Ark has attracted capital, corporations - as well as migrants and refugees anew. Its new inhabitants seek to stir the Ark from its long slumber - to serve once more, as it did during the Great Jump, as a beacon of hope and unity for a system on the verge of losing to the grip of authoritarian polities. Where species have drifted apart from each other, Embassy boasts a growing cosmopolitan society which, whilst flawed in its own ways, radiates pride in equity and offers refuge in collaborative democracy. The current leader of the elected Embassy Committee is the Zaalan activist Zhovia Kharasa.
The general structure of Embassy consists of a giant and mostly hollowed-out central tower that once served as storage for Programmable Matter. The four pillars that protude connect the tower to the Ring-Below, a large and partly abandonned Stanford torus with its own environmental control and where gravity is provided through the centrifugal force of the rotating station. There are five traditional sectors : Sector Zero comprises the central tower structure and much of the dockyards, whilst the Ring is divided into Sectors One to Four.

Layout

Sector Zero (the Tower)

Sector Zero forms the upmarket part of the station, where foreign and domestic corporations stand and some more well-off residents live. It is best described as a maze of large avenues lined with beautiful cherry trees and holographic butterflies which give way, seemingly at random, to pedways, streets, staircases, lifts, and indoor areas. It is connected to the Ring-Below through elevators (and endless staircases) in each of the four Pillars. There are few options for gravcars, so many residents use a network of pods called Travel Tube, which lines converge onto four lavish Transit Hubs sitting at the upper base of each of the four Pillars.

Exiles' Sanctuary

The Sanctuary is a residential complex located in Sector Zero primarily aimed at housing exiles and the more impoverished. it was founded in the 129th Cycle, after decades of debate over the status of Boshaari exiles in the Wayward Belt.

Speaker's Park

The extensive Speaker's Park, roughly between levels 12 and 37, is a multi-layered public park notable for holding public debate and rallies in the auditorium at its heart. Its waterfalls and ecosystem are tidy and impressive, and birds mingle with shimmering holograms. At its centre is a giant crystal, a prized relic and keepsake from the Mewei homeworld. A sect of technodruids maintains the park and several areas are home to endangered species - especially a few which have not managed to acclimate to any world in Tau Elpis.

Embassy Plaza

This expansive plaza where holographic koi fish hover and play is the central hub for several key organizations in Tau Elpis. Here one might find Infinity Hotel, Arkblazer Tower, Starlyft House, and Committee Parliamentary House.

Whitespire

A faciltiy here provides traffic control for large parts of the Elpis system using Quantum Entanglement switchboards . Just off Daytona Hub, which connects to Sectors 2 & 3, many tourists visit the Loading Bar - a large cabaret and entertainment facility. Here the Arkblazer Order occupies several floors which sport their own small dockyards.

The Pillars

The Pillars are the four structures which connect the central tower structure to the Ring. Built out of highly advanced alloys, they can withstand immense pressure and dominate the skyline of the Ring structure below. The Pillars each house a Fusion Reactor; all four reactors provide enough power to fuel the entirety of Embassy Station as well as any passing ships.
Along each Pillar are spiralling elevator banks which provide connections between Sector Zero and the residential and industrial areas of the Ring below. The elevators connect pairs of Transit Hubs (one topside and one ringside), which in turn allow commuters to travel onto local transit options. The Hubs also act as shopping malls and recreational centres.

The Ring-Below

The Ring (also called the Ring-Below, the Torus, the Undercity or the Slums) is the Stanford Torus which encircles and frames the central tower structure. There is no artificial gravity here; the rotation of the station provides enough centrifugal force for comfortable dwelling conditions. Both sides of the Ring are flanked with a large wall, into which buildings and transit facilities are carved. An artificial sky lights up the Ring for ten hours a day and manmade rivers criss-cross the area. Each Pillar defines the skyline of the Ring. In contrast to Sector Zero, and despite the best efforts of the executive Committee which strives for equity and levelling-up all sectors of the station, the Ring has long been neglected, and to this day, parts of it remain impoverished - and larger parts still were simply abandonned.
Prior to being discovered, the Ring already featured a grid of transversal streets and longitudinal avenues, ready to be built up. However, there was not much time for orderly settlement for those seeking to escape the Pyxis Globula. The establishment of shantyvilles and townships all but ignored the Ring's nominal organization. Whilst many left the Ring following the Great Jump and became pioneers on the many worlds of Elpis, a few people stayed behind, soon joined by low-wage workers keeping Embassy running. Nowadays, it is estimated that 60% of the Ring is abandonned - littered with junk, refuse and old emergency habs. The few shantyvilles and walled-off townships that remain feature buildings ranging from permanent structures to crude edifices such as mobile-homes and discarded colony-habs.
The Ring is cut up by structural walls into four Sectors. During settlement, each race was assigned a sector, though this recommendation was rarely heeded in practice. A network of gravtrains connects many of the shanties and towns of the Ring with each other as well as with the Transit Hubs at the bottom of each Pillar. The Ring is not only plagued by rubble and industrial ruin, but also the presence of monsters and malfunctionning robots that roam the abandonned scrapyards between townships and make foot travel difficult. On the edge of the Ring are several docking areas that are variably connected to the inner Pillars.

Sector One

Sector One - the Boshaari sector - was once abandonned and was little but a heap of emergency habs and rubble, but has seen a revival in recent cycles. In the centre of the Sector, spanning both sides of an artificial river, one can find a walled town called Asa Serin. Organized around a central market, it features apartment buildings, a shrine, and several factories. The walls stretch to both edges of the Ring, connecting Daytona Hub (the S4/S1 pillar hub) to a dock facility on the outer edge of the Ring. The presence of the river leads to a few homely areas alongside it. Further away, junk and rubble somehow blend into more idyllic scenes with cottages and gardens.
There are a few other shanties and towns found dotted amongst scrapyards and industrial refuge. An old-fashionned train line connects Asa Serin to towns and hubs in Sector 2 & 4 - but not Sector Three.

Sector Two

Sector Two is littered with junk and refuse from the many Hiderid refugees that once hunkered down here. There are a few shanties and towns dotting this sector, but the main settlement here is Abydos, the town that sprawls from the Abydos Transit Hub at the base of the S2/S3 pillar. A shantyville of repurposed habs and crude buildings, Abydos is known as a seedy nightclub and entertainment district which operates away from the reach of the Committee. Leading away from Abydos towards the outer docks, Goldsun Strip is a continuation of the town, but visitors docking at Abydos Outer Docks are strongly advised not to stray from the main avenue.

Sector Three

Sector Three - the Hhrot sector - was completely abandonned by its original occupants, who all elected to leave the Ark and resettle on Planetfall instead. Nowadays the S2/S3 side of this sector acts as an extension of Abydos, albeit full of factories and processing plants. On the S3/S4 side of the Ring, the Mewei seek to reclaim waste and junk to expand agricultural areas. In between, there is a nearly impassable refuse dump where a ship is said to have crashed shortly following the Ark's arrival.

Sector Four

Sector Four, once assigned to the Mewei, is home to a few townships that nominally belong to the Mewei Domain. In constrast to the other sectors, the empty or abandonned areas here are filled with trees and orchards and act as an agricultural sector that helps meet food and oxygen requirements across the station.

Culture & Economy

Embassy Ark is, more than on any other world, a city of immigrants. Here early explorers and the descendents of the few who initially stayed mingle with newly-arrived citizens from other polities, desperate for new starts and a shot at freedom. For the Zaalan diaspora, Embassy is a second home, one relatively free of the prejudice faced on Hakaria. Nevertheless, the culture of the Ark's growing population is a constant melting pot displayed in the music, clothing, architecture and food one can experience in the Ark.
The Committee strives for a more equitable society, though such a noble goal often conflicts with the reality of balancing ledgers. Still, the Ark is by far the most equitable society in Tau Elpis. Its economy is fairly capitalistic - though the Committee enforces strong policies in the market. Banking (albeit with Boshaari ethical characteristics), space construction, tourism and biotech are amongst the growing sectors of the Ark economy, though what truly keeps the Ark aloft is trade (the Ark is the largest trans-shipment facility in Tau Elpis) and its orbital yardworks. Much of the station's food supply is imported (notably from Aistanar), which enables a much higher population threshold in Embassy - even just in those areas still inhabited - than was achievable across the whole Ark back when the station was a standalone worldship drifting through the interstellar void.
Diplomatically, Embassy stands neutral and cordial to all polities, and many of the pan-colonial organizations have elected to base themselves there. Public safekeeping is the responsibility of ArkSek, though citizens are expected to intervene.

History

Built by an unknown precursor civilization (refered to as the Yoni), the Ark had lain dormant for centuries in the darkness of the Pyxis Globula before being rediscovered by the Boshaari and subsequently kept as a state secret. During this time, scientists and researchers who worked on the Ark figured out that the worldship's powerful dive-drives, extremely advanced reactors, and use of unreplicable Programmable Matter were used to seed new systems and galaxies. Nonetheless, the Boshaari mothballed the worldship and initially did not plan to make much use of it.
When the Oberon Incursion scourged the Pyxis Globula, the Ark suddenly became a beacon of hope for billions and the Boshaari invited all other major races and factions to join them as they planned to use the Ark to flee the looming war. However, the war became so devastating in such a quick amount of time that only a small fraction made it to the Ark in the first place and preparation for the Great Jump was rushed. In the end, only about one to two million refugees made it to the Ark before it executed its one-way intergalactic jump. This had huge strain on the life support systems of the worldship, which were not designed to carry that many people.
For ten years, during the years of the Great Jump, the colonists did the best they could on the Ark environment. The Ring was quickly settled, though as they were seen as temporary accomodation, few efforts were made to organize and look after its sectors - and much was left behind by colonists following their arrival into Elpis. There was much hope for a united colonial government at the end of the Great Jump, but one did not emerge despite the efforts of the administration, which instead reformed as the Embassy Committee. Upon arrival, four main groups loosely coordinated with the Committee to unpack the Ark and build their own planetside colonies. The Ark, now called "Embassy", was now to serve as a colonial and support hub for the fledging colonial governments. The Arkblazer Order was founded to support all colonies that requested their help.
Most colonists left the Ark at that point, eager to start new lives on one of the planets of Elpis. Even though the current population actually surpasses the initial number of refugees, the station alone with no colonial facilities to trade with simply could not sustain itself. Most of the Ring was abandonned for a long time, with many remaining citizens moving to the Tower instaed and only a quarter-ring dedicated to agriculture. The rest was used as a dump for industrial waste. When its reserves of programmable matter started to run low, the station was placed in the L3 point opposite Aistanar.
Thanks to its reserves of Thaumium and to its fusion plants, Embassy Ark managed to scrape by as a colonial support hub and diplomatic centre until the time of the Hestian Rush which saw the colonial economy start to soar elsewhere. At this point, the Ark became a giant shipyard and industrial facility for many of the system's colonies, and disaffected workers from across the system started to flock to the station, finding cheap work easy to find. Finding no help in the overpriced tower, they instead founded new towns in the Rings-Below, and whilst some grew into townships, many were simply refuges for the downtrodden and became shanties instead. This underpaid workforce was critical to the running of the Ark's growing operations and the key to its corporate prosperity - but many would find it practically impossible to leave, whilst the rapidly gentrifying Tower section became host to a growing number of companies and corporate types.
Nowadays, Zhovia Kharasa runs Embassy Ark as she seeks to transform the aging station and its more decrepit sectors into a beacon of equity and prosperity - or her vision of such anyway.

Defences

The Embassy Ark has several layers of defense. It boasts its own Embassy Fleet, officially a small peacekeeping force which also acts to support ringside and topside police (ArkSek). The Citadel also uses point-turrets to ward off smaller ships. ArkSek are a commissionned public security organization that are effectively the eyes and ears of the Committee, and handle law and order on the Tower as well as ringside. ArkSek boasts a culture of public service, but they also enforce much of the Committee's harsher laws in the interests of the public and station self-preservation. ArkSek also handles monster infestations ringside.

Trade Table

Embassy Ark (-2 Cultural, -1 Military, +1 Luxury, +2 Arcane) (Base Friction : 2)

Trade Good	Types	Cost / Unit
Clothing	Common, Cultural	1,000
Colonial Survival Supplies	Survival, Postech	5,000
Drugs, Recreational	Luxury, Biotech, Compact	50,000
Exotic Jewels	Rare, Mineral, Luxury, Compact	25,000
Parts (Advanced)	Tool	75,000
Parts (Starship)	Arcane, Tool, Rare	25,000
Programmable Matter	Low Tech, Tool	100,000
Small Arms, Energy	Military	10,000
Small Arms, Projectile	Military, Low Tech	5,000
Fine Liquor	Luxury, Low Tech, Compact	10,000

Type

Orbital, Station