Applevale Resort

Applevale Resort is an orbital cycler that doubles as a casino resort for native Evermornans and asteroid colonists.
Originally a haven for greenhorn spacers looking for cheap thrills on their way out to the inner belt colonies, Applevale became the subject of much controversy after it became known that the owners had embarked on a number of criminal enterprises, including the establishment of the Hornapple Syndicate. Evidence of forced labor, arms smuggling, and bloodsports aboard the Applevale cycler eventually drew the attention of the Cobalt Protectorate. An intervention by the Cobalt Knights - in which future ESCI Revelation alumni Knight-Airman Enzo Salt and Knight-Espatier Howard Mackinnon both participated - saw the station uncrewed and towed into a parking orbit pending new ownership.

Purpose / Function

Like all orbital cyclers, the purpose of the Applevale Resort was to provide regular and low-energy transit between the planet Evermorn's orbit and the orbit in which many asteroid mining sites (and now asteroid colonies) lay. With minimal stationkeeping, Applevale's eliptical orbit crosses both of these other orbits on a set schedule; passengers board above Evermorn via shuttle, enjoy themselves for a few months, then disembark via shuttles in the inner asteroid belt. Instead of relying on cryostasis or suffering the isolation that comes with living within the cramped confines of an interplanetary spacecraft that must be ruthlessly optimized for mass, guests aboard the cycler can enjoy a shirtsleeves environment and various forms of almost terrestrial entertainment for the duration of their stay.

Alterations

As the Hornapple Syndicate, the owners of the Applevale Resort realized that they had an advantage over the competition when it came to smuggling of all sorts, whether the goods to be smuggled included weapons, drugs, licensed technology, or even people. Because the cycler only had to burn fuel for stationkeeping activities - rather than as part of a brachistocrone maneuver as with independent spacecraft - and had incredibly massive pykrete cladding as a part of its radiation shielding, it would be incredibly difficult to guess what the cycler was carrying based solely on its sensor signatures. Furthermore, as guests would come in waves at each waypoint along its journey, small amounts of contraband smuggled in aboard shuttles could be accumulated into large amounts aboard the station without arousing much in the way of suspicion against the organization.
Mezzanines were constructed in some of the cargo holds to support additional entertainment venues, each of which served more mundane tastes before being converted for criminal activities. A second, less expensive spa space was converted into a bordello. Another set of conjoined cargo areas was originally intended to be a huge laser tag course, but guests with the right connection could pay to see 'after hours' events where the harmless toy lasers were replaced with pulsebows and carbon-crystal knives. As the station become more popular, the recycling 'chipper' that fed the ship's maintenance auto-fabricators was increased in size to accomodate the forms of bloodsport losers, witnesses, and those who became too indebted to the house without talents the Hornapple Syndicate could put to use in lieu of repayment.

Architecture

Like many such cyclers, the Applegate Resort was constructed from a small, metalliferous asteroid and based on a broadly spherical 'napkin ring' design to optimize for volume. A membrane full of water vapor was suspended in a tunnel bored through the center of the asteroid. The asteroid was then heated from several directions using beamed, focussed sunlight until it became plastic in consistency. The expanding water vapor forced the red-hot iron into a broadly spherical, hollow shell that would go on to form the outer hull; vents drilled along the perimeter of the hull released the vapor and provided the resort with its first spin so that construction crews could operate with the benefit of centripetal gravity. The inside of the asteroid iron shell was matched with an carbon composite membrane inflated with belt-mined water, which was then frozen to create pykrete. A decorative polycarbonate membrane woven with lighted pixels was wrapped around the whole of the craft to provide visual flare, advertising space, and a limited degree of abrasion resistance.
The Applevale Resort's habitable volumes were constructed in three layers along the inner surface of the shell. Cargo holds, drone holds, and infrastructure spaces fill an outer ring where the cycler's 'gravity' is heaviest, though these are only nominally pressurised. The next deck up contains crew accomodations, the sick bay, luxury medical and spa services for guests, kitchens, and the high-density hydroponics array that provides much of the cycler's closed ecology life support system (CELSS) infrastructure; though shipboard operations are highly automated and distributed, the ship's sparsely-populated command information center (CIC) is also located on this deck. The second deck up consists primarily of guest accomodations, including commuter-class bunks, restaraunts, and other hotel functions. The 'top' (innermost) deck is a faux tropical village of sorts for first class passengers and features skylight windows through which reflected sunlight and the glow of neon signs percolate down. This top deck also includes casinos, entertainment venues, and open green spaces and pools which, though they do help the CELSS balance somewhat, are mostly for aesthetics and to preserve the psychological health of the spacers. The fore and aft lips of the shell provide ample debris protection, so the fragility of windows here is less of a concern than it would be for other spacegoing vessels.
A set of four elevator gantries rise up from the habitable volumes to support the docking facility at the station's central axis. Applevale Resort is powered by a combination of solar arrays radiating out from the hull and a small D-T fusion torus mounted in a pod near the aft central axis. The exhaust from this fusion reactor provides a pitiable amount of thrust during normal operation, as the station is massive in comparison to most true spacecraft, but it is generally sufficient for stationkeeping maneuvers and can be boosted by the injection of water from the pykrete jacket into the hot exhaust stream. Waste heat is disposed of via radiator panels along the aft of the cycler.

Defenses

Even in its new state, the Applevale Resort enjoyed the benefit of massive hull armor for protection against both collisions with debris and radiation from solar storms. Like most pieces of Evermornan space infrastructure, the cycler's design was inspired by the principle of multiple redundnacy, meaning that many systems could operate separately and autonomously even if a significant portion of the cycler were to be destroyed. Each crewed section can be sealed off from the others in the case of emergency, every bunk becoming its own little habitable volume until a given emergency blew over. Though not equipped with the strong magnetic field of military-grade spacecraft, the combination of asteroid iron, ice, and fieldproof meshing that comprises the Applevale Resort's superstructure is very good at absorbing radiation of all types. Moreover, the habitable volumes of the cycler are somewhat centrally located, meaning that damage to the station's brightly-decorated exterior is more a danger to repair crews' sanity than it is to human lives.
To support its new criminal underbelly, the owners of the Applevale Resort slowly began to retrofit the cycler with facilities to increase illicit income and, should law enforcement come poking aroud, to defend the cycler from unwanted boarding parties. The fore and aft pairs of multispectral scope arrays, normally intended for sensory and light-duty debris clearance functions, were super-charged with cobbled together free electron generators from Dolo Class vessels. Internally, the original security staff was slowly replaced with picked toughs from the asteroid colonies who were subsequently hardened through cybernetic augmentations and live fire practice in the cycler's arena. The head of security and his shift leads wore full Nautilus III power suits and were so augmented that they presented a rare challenge for the Knights-Espatier of Mackinnon's Rock Renders.
As part of these defensive upgrads, a motley assortment of combat drones were purchased from salvage yards or taken as collateral for gambling debts and situated in parts of the cargo holds repurposed as drop bays. While the Applevale Resort was briefly more potent of a drone carrier than a Tetrain- or Dolo-Class ship of the line, it lacked an experienced drone operator, relying on automation to fill this role. The contrast in skill between the Applevale's drone control software package and trained military operators would ultimately prove party to Hornapple Syndicate's undoing when Knight-Airman Enzo Salt and his CKV Mercury Sable dismantled the entire Applevale swarm with only a handfull of Razorbills.

Tourism

The Applevale Resort's CELSS system is officially rated self-sufficient for 1,000 living human passengers, but occupancy is routinely stretched to 2,000 or more through a combination of scrubber system upgrades and reserve supplies.
The Applevale Resort was considered a choice pick for accomodations among spacers going to and from the belt. Any portion of the Applevale Resort meant for human habitation is richly appointed by spacer standards, even the commuter-class bunks. Razor-thin sheets of stained wood are warped to wall surfaces which, along with a tasteful selection of furnishings and carefully selected lighting frequencies, creates the impression that one is living in a sort of retro-futuristic beachfront bungalow despite being surrounded by metal, ice, and vacuum in all directions. Artifical exografts in the hydroponics bay include a wide variety of citrus fruits and aromatic herbs for the kitchens' use, and low concentrations of the oils thereof are piped into the ventlation exhausts to mask the malodorous tang of long-recycled air.
The guest complement of the Applevale Resort remained high even when its seedy reputation became more well-known - right up to the very orbital transfer when the Cobalt Knights forced their way aboard and slaughtered the Syndicate operators. A certain segment of the prospective customer base was actually more excited to book a trip on the Applevale by the knowledge that illicit activities took place there; under the Protectorate, crime is low enough and artificially-generated delights so easy to find that the thrill of actual danger is a rare elixir for adrenaline junkies. Furthermore, it was widely understood that the Hornapple Syndicate, for all its moral degeneracy, was not a threat to paying customers that asked no risky questions, reported no crimes witnessed, and didn't accrue debts to the house. Moreover, wealthy and powerful individuals who had murky connections to illicit markets would occasionally bring along their families, friends, and entourages on journeys to the belt, and the Applegate Resort could afford such individuals greater luxury and discretion than many older 'mom and pop' cyclers.

Alternative Names

Applegate

Type

Orbital, Station

Parent Location

Evermorn System

Owning Organization

Hornapple Syndicate