Looptown
The Grand Loop’s port town was a tiny subterranean outpost of graft, excess, and opportunity, propped up by a continuous flow of travelers with loose resource chips to spend. As a public representative of the Cobalt Knights’ honor, Enzo was expected to be on his best behavior in such places. It was tacitly understood, however, that career spacers could not be blamed for seeking out as much port-side stimulation as possible between missions. Months to years of drinking recycled piss and breathing recycled farts would make a man yearn for the pleasures of simple things - like clean, non-alginated beer - and Looptown was ready to deliver it. The vendors found along the main thoroughfares were happy to keep any truly tawdry conduct restricted from the sight of the Cobalt Knight port authorities - purely out of economic self-interest of course. Still, all variety of vice and entertainment could be found if one knew where to look. Muggings and similar unpleasantness were fairly rare, local seediness notwithstanding. If one was smart, one would just assume that any person found in Evermorn space was armed, and therefore not a good mark. It was, regardless, prudent to watch one’s pockets for unwanted guests when in port. Enzo, ever the prudent man, always kept his Knight Special 308nm charged in Looptown. Just in case.Looptown is a port town built around one of the equatorial launch complexes on Planet Evermorn's equator. Specifically, Looptown sits at the entrance end of the West Equatorial Grand Loop.
Demographics
Being attached to a spaceport, the population of Looptown is eclectic, multiethnic, and transient. Few people actually live in Looptown full-time, with most 'locals' actually being commuters from the surrounding rural hamlets.
The number of Loopies with non-violent criminal records is somewhat higher than the Cobalt Protectorate average. Illicit business is extremely lucrative in Looptown - so long as no one gets hurt and no one angers the port security forces. In contrast, the crime rate among Loopies with clearance to work at the starport is vanishingly small, as no one wants to risk a high-paying government job with extracurricular shennanigans.
Government
Though not large enough to qualify as such, the municipality of Looptown features the same 'representative sortition' model of governance employed by full-sized arcologies. Looptown falls under Clan Fyarrulain jurisdiction. Within the starport proper, the Cobalt Knights hold sway, as this is considered national territory shared by all consitutents of the Protectorate.
Defences
While seldom used for modern payloads, the old laser launch batteries of the Looptown spaceport are still kept in good working order. The Cobalt Knights recognize that, in the event of a planetary assault, every starport represents a beachhead that the enemy will attempt to take at all costs. As such, protocols are in place to turn these old launch lasers into devastating anti-air and anti-orbital weapons. The Looptown fusion reactor can operate independently from the national electrical grid, allowing the starport to keep repelling attackers even if the rest of the planet is reduced to so much radioactive glass.
Infrastructure
Most of Looptown is actually contained in an underground geodesic dome, emulating the bunker-city structure of interterranean arcologies in this respect. The surface level is almost entirely dedicated to official structures associated with the starport, including the parking areas, public terminal, SSTO landing strips, hangars, fuel depot, and cargo handling areas.
The biggest infrastructure asset connected to Looptown is the West Equatorial Grand Loop, also known simply as the Grand Loop. This structure is a busy launch loop used by numerous spacing interests, including the Cobalt Knights and the Evermorn Strategic Colony Initiative, to loft payloads into orbit for a fraction of the costs associated with traditional rocket launches. The Grand Loop features four separate armature fountains, meaning that one or more can be deactivated for maintenance without compromising the integrity of the active structure.
Districts
Enzo walked down the shallow-sloped boulevard until he came to the place. It was a small glass-fronted shop, lit wanly with flickering fluorescent lamps. The words “Applied Synthetics, Vb.” were scrawled in neon orange tubing above the off-kilter glass door, the business name sub-texted with painted block letters spelling “A Vbyifabid Flock-Family Holding, LLC”. Enzo was surprised - A.S. gear was good, but few alien-held companies were permitted to operate anywhere near the Evermornan space. Upon entering, Enzo was briefly overwhelmed with the sudden stench of ozone and the fading dregs of stale cigarette smoke. The wall to the left and the one directly ahead of him were half embedded with vertical metal cylinders, each roughly the size of a coffin and sealed with a sliding pressure door. The corner formed by these walls was truncated by a small service desk behind glass; there was no apparent employee entrance, and steel shutters had been pulled down to indicate that proprietor was not entertaining visitors. The remaining wall was plastered top-to-bottom in leaflets and scrawled extranet addresses, except for a large monitor in the middle that flashed images of products and blared sales pitches in a half-dozen humanoid languages. Something began to tug at the back of Enzo’s mind. “Say, Sara," he asked, "how exactly did you pay for this platform?”The neighborhood at the interface between Looptown and the starport is a customs-free zone. This portion of the city is decidedly less business-like and more tourist-centric than any other part of town, catering to nearly every taste in human space. While violent crime is low in Looptown - the customs-free zone being no exception - those in the known seldom are found there alone or without personal sidearms. While seedy, this part of Looptown is famous for its wide array of Auto-Factory boutiques catering to the specific needs of a career spacer clientelle, including armories, HLAI service centers, and vac-ops outfitters.
Architecture
The architecture of Looptown is a throwback to a previous era, with lots of neon and garish holographic advertisements keeping the dome bathed in an electric blue haze at all hours. The concrete and glass facades of the business towers are water-stained despite the dome's protection from the surface rain, as the old municipal moisture scrubbers are almost always operated in maintenance mode to cut costs.
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