User:NewOriginalSchwann/Sandbox

Epsilon Eridani V, known as Nebthet, and Epsilon Eridani IV, known as Set, are ice giants orbiting Epsilon Eridani. Until recent years, they were home to masses of decaying industrial structures that previously serviced extensive gas collection operations taking place on the planets. Once abandoned due to the greater profitability -- and power -- of phoron, the facilities that were once seemingly doomed to break up in the atmosphere of their gas giants have been reopened and repaired by the largest single megacorporation in the Orion Spur: Einstein Engines, the original constructors of the facilities. But all is not well on the platforms of the gas giants: the recent influx of Einstein workers and Eridanian Suits has disrupted the lives of the resident Offworlder Humans that have long called the platforms home, and are unused to the harsh life of a typical Eridanian.

History

When Epsilon Eridani was first settled in 2199, the system was chosen in part for what Set and Nebthet could provide: massive reserves of Helium-3, humanity's primary (and, at the time, only) reliable fuel source for faster-than-light travel. Einstein Engines followed behind the original settlers of Eridani and quickly secured mining and extraction rights over Nebthet and Set in 2200 thanks to their deep involvement in the colonisation of the system and influence in the Solarian government. The original platforms of Epsilon Eridani V were engineering marvels of the 23rd century, and were the largest Helium-3 extraction platforms of their time, with the gas giants only eclipsed in production by the Oort Cloud-mined Helium-3 refined in the Soviet-colonised system of Pluto. For much of the 23rd and 24th centuries Epsilon Eridani V continued to produce much of the Helium-3 consumed in the Eridani Corporate Federation, and helped turn Einstein Engines into the Orion Spur's largest megacorporation in the process.

Of course good times cannot last forever, and Epsilon Eridani V's fortunes seemed to come to a rapid end in 2417 when a new material known as phoron was discovered in a gas cloud on the edge of the Solarian member state of Biesel. The economies of Nebthet and Set crashed nearly overnight as the demand for Helium-3 dried up and corporate investments by Einstein Engines dried up as the megacorporation looked inwards, and the facilities were abandoned in the early 2420s. Einstein Engines was now engaged now in a desperate struggle for its very survival that would only end when Dr. Noelle Lopez-Zhang, its new CEO, radically restructured the megacorporation in the mid-2400s. However this restructuring came too late to save the facilities in Epsilon Eridani V, which had been written off by Einstein Engines as too expensive to reestablish. They had simply gone too long without regular maintenance to justify reactivating them, and Helium-3's price remained low. Additionally Pluto, due to its better location in Sol and the support of its colonial master on Earth, was able to do what Nebthet and Set had not: it had weathered the storm of the phoron crash, and even expanded its Helium-3 production to make up for the gap left by the closure of extraction facilities in Eridani.

But while the usefulness of Epsilon Eridani V's platforms to their corporate owners seemingly ended in 2417 another community came to call the platforms their own: offworlder humans living on the edge of the Epsilon Eridani system outside of the influence of its corporations. These offworlders, finding that most platforms had been left unattended or otherwise deactivated by Einstein Engines quickly established their own settlements over the course of the 2420s. These outcasts and drifters established a society that they could call their own in the remnants of these abandoned facilities, and turned many into perfectly habitable structures complete with hydroponics facilities, local governments, and improvised dockyards. By the 2460s these offworlder societies had formed a truly unique culture in the Epsilon Eridani system dissimilar from the Suits and Dregs of its other systems, due to its relative freedom from the corporate culture that pervades the rest of Eridani's day-to-day life.

paragraph four Einstein comes back

Society and Life

For the few that eke out a living on the platforms around these giants, life is difficult. What little enterprise exists in these communities is based on salvaging and smuggling. The government of the Federation pays little heed to the majority of these groups, unless their criminal activities become especially unprofitable for the Federation to tolerate.

Notable Locations

Platform Sigma

Refusing to settle for their meager income on Eridanian planets, Einstein Engines has attempted to re-purpose many of these platforms as power plants, habitation hubs, research facilities, factories, or many other things. A notable example of this is platform Sigma in the orbit of Nebthet - a former filtering facility, now repurposed as a R&D center, as well as a server hub for the other local researchers. While Einstein Engines continues to occasionally invest in the project, many of the employees themselves consider the local gaseous matter research fruitless, with no major breakthroughs or even returns on investments being made here.

Platform 5

A platform once used for habitation for those employed working in the facilities nearby, Platform 5 is one of the only structures in a stable orbit around Nebthet. What little local administration that exists is located in this repurposed platform, which also holds the biggest stable population on both giants (around 12 million offworlders). Being transferred to work here is often considered a death sentence for one’s career due to the platform's stagnating industry and quickly emigrating citizens, with particularly disagreeable employees sometimes sent to the platform by corporations.

Platform Styx

In orbit of Set, this repurposed facility which was once used for processing isotopes is now a prison for processing especially onerous prisoners in the Federation. Little is known about life inside the prison, with released convicts nearly always refusing to speak about their imprisonment. The current head of operations at the correctional institution is the legendary Sifiso Agwuebwo, a harsh disciplinarian who has solidified Platform Styx’s reputation as truly inescapable.