Castus
Role: Gas Giant
Circumference: 117,590 miles
Population: 50,000
Orbital Path: First
Rotational Period (days): 7.12
Orbital Period (days): 981
Primary Function: Gas Mining
Retention Index: 3
The Castus colony has no real culture of its own, as its personnel are consistently transferring back and forth from other, more desirable areas of Federation space. Visitors to the colony, however, note that there is an oppressive feel to the place. Some mark this down as a result of the omnipresence of stern-faced security guards. Others mark it down as a result of the colonists themselves.
The people of the Castus colony are there to work, and little else. They generally accept this posting because they have an urgent need for the extra money working on Castus brings but no one on the colony actually enjoys being there, making it a grim and humourless place.
Perhaps the least depressing and certainly the noisiest of the four orbital facilities is Installation One. This particular installation differs from the other three in that it is set up to accommodate families. It is the only one of the installations where one will fi and children and consequently, it is this installation that houses the Federation school and health clinic for the colony
History
Rather than indulging in the expense and trouble of creating a gas mining facility around either of the two worlds of the Barnard’s Star system, the Federation chose to entrust that task to the private sector. The mining rights to the two worlds were sold at auction in 2255 and the venerable Castian Corporation won the rights to the first of the two planets. As the de facto owner of the planet, the corporation also acquired the rights to name it. The corporation’s board of directors chose Castus, in honour of their own company’s name.
Within six months of acquiring the mining rights, construction began on five massive orbital facilities, and in fewer than five years, the first of these facilities was fully operational, extracting a variety of rare and useful gasses from the great planet. However, not all was as the Castian Corporation had hoped.
The first signs of trouble appeared almost immediately, as the gasses mined from Castus were dirty and charged with ions. Some degree of pollution was expected but this exceeded all the corporation’s expectations. As the cost of refi ning the gasses into a pure and useful state rose, the corporation saw its profits from this venture shrink.
Castus was the first restricted stellar colony and it caused a great many headaches for the Castian Corporation, particularly in the early years. It first went online with a crew complement of 35,000, employees of the corporation who had agreed to transfer here in return for an increase in pay. However, the five facilities of the Castus colony were built less as living quarters and more as a utilitarian factory, which the employees soon began to refer to as the Castus Penal Colony. Assaults, thefts, suicides and even murders became commonplace, as the Castus facility began to degenerate into anarchy.
The Castian Corporation considered scrapping the entire project then and there but its board of directors fi nally determined too much money had already been sunk into Castus to pull out yet. However, the decision to stay necessitated a complete reconditioning of the orbital facilities, as well as a rethinking of how employees would be assigned to the colony.
First, the corporation doubled the size of its internal security force to 1,000 officers. Second, the corporation began renovating the five facilities, one after another, attempting to create a less prison-like atmosphere. Third, the corporation changed its policies on colonisation at the Castus colony, allowing prospective colonists to sign up for two-year terms at the colony before rotating back to Earth. Though the second and third changes were the most appreciated, the first is likely the one that held the Castus colony back from the brink.
For a time, the five installations around Castus functioned as hoped and expected, the large security force keeping a careful eye on the civilian labourers, whose numbers had slowly increased to 55,000. However, this ill-fated colony had not yet seen its worst moment. On May 23, 2271, a series of unexplained power and equipment failures aboard Installation Two, one of the five orbital facilities, caused it to begin a swift and inexorable fall into the gravity well of the gas giant below. Fortunately, all colonists aboard the facility were rescued by cargo shuttles hurriedly dispatched from the other four facilities but there was no way to stop the fall of the installation itself, which plunged into the storm-tossed atmosphere below.
It appears the troubles the Castian Corporation has with this colony are not over yet. The quality of the gasses extracted from Castus, never very impressive, has begun to degrade even further in recent years. For now, however, the profit margin of the facility is just enough for the corporation to keep it operational.
Laws and Government
Considering the nearly lawless period in Castus’ early history, the laws on Castus are now rigidly and remorselessly enforced. The Castus Corporation has special dispensation from the Federation for its internal security force to act as the police force for the colony, though of course every one of these men and women must still be a citizen in order to carry a weapon and enforce the law.
There has always been a lingering suspicion that the destruction of Installation Two was the result of sabotage and the Castus Corporation’s security force makes a habit of reading all incoming and outgoing messages, as well as inspecting all incoming and outgoing cargo canisters. There is little in the way of privacy anywhere on this colony.
Economy
The Castus colony is wholly owned by the Castian Corporation and all income generated by it in any way flows directly to the corporation. Even the school and health clinic administered by the Federation are housed in space rented by the government from the corporation.
The Castian Corporation employees receive their housing for free while on the colony but nothing else. They buy their food from stores owned by the corporation, they eat in a mess owned by the corporation, they shop for everything from soap to clothes to birthday gifts for children in stores owned by the corporation and staffed by Castian employees. The prices are inflated but the cost is still less than it would be to have something delivered from elsewhere in the Federation. In essence, the entire colony is set up so that money flows in a constant loop from the corporation and back again. Many colonists leaving after a two-year stint in the facilities find that they have not saved more than 10 percent of what they thought they would from their increased pay and many even end up owing the corporation money, inducing them to stay on for another two-year stint in an attempt to pay it back.
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