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Vesta

Vesta
Image from Steve Bowers, after NASA

The Early Years

The first permanent colony on Vesta was established in 162 AT, mining water and aluminium/magnesium for fuel, and silicon for photovoltaics; the surface of this potato shaped world was soon covered in black silicon wafer collectors, and a power swarm was constructed in orbit around the world.

The SkyMining Corporation formulated an agreement that allowed other mining corporations such as ExoDynamics, Dzougatov Mining, and the national Space programmes of China, Russia, Brazil, the ESA and NASA to contribute funds and equipment to build the multinational VestaHaven complex at the centre of Rheasilvia Crater.

Vesta is composed of differentiated minerals in igneous rock; these minerals were in demand in for the creation of rotating habitats with Earth-like environments for agriculture and recreational uses; many rotating habitats were established in wide orbit here, and the growing population led to Vesta becoming a centre of trade and industry, and rival with Ceres for the title of Belt capital.

Several groups of enhanced superior humans brought their technological and philosophical skill; particularly in Chadey Orbital, where superbrights under the leadership of Delta Chan established a wide ranging academic base, including an advanced spacedrive research centre.

Shipyards around Vesta
Image from Steve Bowers
Shipyards around Vesta
By 210 AT the new corporation, Outsystems Launches, was engaged in building interstellar probes, using fusion drive, seeded RAIR ships, and eventually amat catalysed fusion, becoming one of the Solar System's largest antimatter customers. Only large political or commercial groups could afford to build these ships, and few expected to see any return on their money for a thousand years or more; such was the mood of optimism at the time, few foresaw the major disruption of commerce the Technocalypse would cause.

Other major Vestan orbitals included Uracil Habitat, a GeneTek base for tweak therapy and research; Bakunin, an anarchosyndicalist mining commune, and Kore habitat, an outpost of the female su-tweak Parthene clade from Astraea asteroid.

On the planetoid itself, as well as the capital VestaCity, Von Neumann Town was a major concentration point and data exchange for the various corporations who owned and built various types of sentient vec and aioid self replicating device at that stage in history.

The Federation of Sophonts

The Federation of Sophonts was founded in 933 a.t., in Piazzi, Vesta. With the declaration of the First Federation the AI and the biologicals formed a true alliance, a partnership between two very different types of intelligent being. Vesta was soon superceded as the capital of the Federation, first by Luna, then by Mars; but this world became an important neutral meeting place and conference centre.

Vesta is often associated with the great statesbeing Eugenesis of Vesta, but the actual origin of that being is not known for certain.

Vesta has continued to have a great historical and symbolic significance, up to the formation of the Solar Organisation and beyond.

 
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Appears in Topics
130 to 400 AT: The Interplanetary AgeInner SphereSolsys Organisation
Systems & Worlds U - V
 
Development Notes
Text by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 16 October 2008.

See Also

Interactive map of Vesta from NASA
 
 
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