Hestian Rush

The Hestian Rush refers to a period of Elpis history during which the outer planets and asteroids of the Elpis system started to be exploited following Frex Whxxr's establishment of a small hydroponics colony in orbit of Hestia.

Context

All of the civilizations which arrived aboard the Embassy Ark had been spacefaring prior to the destruction of their home Pyxis Globula. Once arrived in the Tau Elpis system, however, supplies started to run out as each civilization developed a colony of its own. The Ark came with modular Programmable Matter designed to tide colonies over and build early critical infrastructure. Nonetheless, there was a severe shortage of Thaumium necessary for fusion power generation, Magitek and Dive Drives. To make matters worse, nany ships predated the Great Jump and were starting to break. These deficiencies made space travel a slow and expensive affair, threatening to set back the Elpis colonies by centuries, and entirely wipe out their nascent and fledging economies.

The Luminex Facility

Well into the 80th and 90th cycles, there had been sporadic attempts at creating Belter colonies in the years leading to the 80th Cycle. Many were unsuccessful, but it would change when polymer magnate Frex Whxxr built a moonbase on a barren rock orbiting the mineral-rich Hestia, at the far reach of what supply lines could manage. He was a visionary, and sought to turn his newly built base into a genuine spearhead for future efforts. To offset some of the costs, he ordered the construction of a large hydroponics wing in which to grow food onsite. Astonished at the yields - which were reveleaed to be possible only by the unique property of his moon's magnetosphere - he decided to shift his sight from polymers to agronomics. Despite the objections of his board of directors Whxxr turned much of Luminex Facility into a hydroponics bay. Its success enabled ships to rely less on Inner food (though not live dirt).

The Height of the Rush

Soon all Inner factions started to capitalize on the newly created spearhead. Because food was available on-site (in however small amounts initially) Whxxr became a very rich Hiderid, and many of his company's profits were used to expand his initial site. Meanwhile, the sudden availability of minerals at lower ecological cost pushed other companies and outfits to mine. Soon other settlements were built across the Hestian moons - some as caches or shelters and others as true colonies. Moreover, the orbit of Hestia enabled ships and supply lines to reach the even further planet Zindra, bringing its much-needed Thaumium supplies home.
In only ten years, nearly a hundred settlements were mining ore and more were planned on the way. Notoriously, there was the ill-planned attempt to turn the alien ruins of the Wayward Belt into a Boshaari Council prison, leading to the first truly free Belter community. Yet the Wayward Belt was too close to Inner space and, despite its alien mining tech, had little Thaumium and lacked in other critical minerals.
The Rush led to an enduring economic and technological shift. The price of critical resources such as Mithral, Titanium, Uranium, Helium (and to a lesser extent Thaumium) came crashing down as vast amounts of minerals reliably enter the Inner markets. In only five years, this led to the collapse of a few early Elpis banks - and the Coalition economy endured its first recession, driving suddenly unemployed workforce into the Belt and leading to many financial changes still relevant to this day. Yet abundance of previously very scarce key materials continued to help Inner powers regain more of their pre-arrival spacefaring capability.

Legacy of the Rush

Experts often state that had the Rush been delayed by as little as ten cycles, it might not have happened at all, as the Inner colonies' dwindling interplanetary capabilities were reaching a point of no easy return. The Rush enabled the peoples of Elpis to remain interplanetary by creating new supply lines that helped maintain spacefaring capability.
As the Rush ended, the pioneering spirit shown by the peoples of the Belt endured and many colonies continued to function, soon becoming a key part of the Elpis economic cycle. It enabled core planets to continue to protect their environment from overmining. When colonies around Hestia started to be mothballed by their corporate overlords, many rebelled, unionized or otherwise banded together. This furthered an already quickly growing Belter culture. The first signs of what would become the rogue Hodeth Alliance started to emerge as unions and abandonned workers banded together against the perceived hegemony of inner worlds.