The Belt

Fifty million people live in the rocks and habitats beyond Earth and Mars, according to the United Nations. If you ask census-takers who live there how many are in the Belt, they’ll say the number edges up to a hundred million. The latter would go further to state that it’s rare for those who live outside the Belt to consider those who live within to be human. The inhabitants of the Belt are the dispossessed and forgotten of those who came from Earth. Marked by a sense of abandonment, self-reliance in the face of an obvious lack of self-sufficiency, and quiet resilience, the Belter psyche endures as a powerful force simmering and ratcheting up the instability between the great powers.   Out beyond the terrestrial planets, in the shadow of the giants rivaling Sol, the Belters eke out a precarious existence dedicated to fueling the ambitions of others, grimacing as they’re stepped on. They’re often styled as colonists, but unlike the hopes of Martians, nobody believes the Belt will ever be more habitable than it is. Air finds no purchase, crops will not grow in solid rock, and few natural resources exist to support life. Those who work in the asteroid belt harvest minerals for funding and send massive haulers to break great, icy asteroids apart for water. The two solar superpowers have become dependent on the mineral and scientific wealth of the Belt to maintain their standards of living, but they give little in return to the Belters. The nominal capital of the Belt, inasmuch as it can be said to have one, is Ceres, the dwarf planet in the asteroids and one of the largest objects in the Belt.   Prior to the Eros incident, Ceres and much of the rest of the Belt were technically a United Nations protectorate governed by Earth—though one living under constant fear of seizure by Mars in a system-wide war. Earth would naturally launch a full-scale war in retaliation, leaving the Belt to lose no matter who won the conflict. In the wake of Eros, however, various cells and Belter nationalist factions have attempted to set themselves apart as a third independent system power: the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA).