Hell's gate

Statistics

Personnel

It used to be called the Stygia Mining Platform, but that didn’t stick. “Hell’s Gate” did, and that name has been an uncomfortably apt description for as long as anyone can remember. By population the second largest of the “Big Four” in Calliope, Hell’s Gate used to be a hive of activity, back when people thought Calliope could sell its vast mineral wealth to the galaxy. Nowadays, it’s barely holding on: nobody’s going to trek ten light years into the dark just to buy metal, and the only market for what’s left is other settlements in the system.

Hell’s Gate (often just “the Gate”) is a long, bulky maze of industrial facilities with a habitation ring at each end. The rings rotate oppositionally, producing spin gravity. The core of the station is stationary and does not generate artificial gravity, which provided a perfect environment for its myriad smelters and foundries back when they operated at full capacity. Nowadays they’ve gone dark and silent, and folks don’t know if many of the shuttered facilities could be brought back online. The few that still run are understaffed, and those who do show up for shifts are overworked. The Gate’s best years are long behind her, if she ever had any in the first place. Still, there’s a sense of communal responsibility to the Gate: if nobody works the mines, if nobody runs the smelters, the whole system will grind to a halt. There are two million people living on the station, and they all need somewhere to live. People don’t have much, but they share it freely, and they pull together.

The player characters are both employed and inhabitants of hell's gate:
They work for a newly instituted emergency unit, which has been created from the normal militia specifically to address existential threats to the station.
Otherwise, when not in a crisis, the player characters work as normal citizens of The Gate, doing all sorts of odd-jobs, including but not limited to working the printer, ship maintenance or even acting as private investigators, fixing odd issues here and there as they come up.

• What kind of work does your player character do off-duty?
• How well known is your player character in The Gate? are they famous or infamous?
• Do they have a smaller community or group of people within The Gate that they have in-depth relations with? how far back does it go?
• Life in The Gate can be hard, what does your character do to ease off when off-duty?
• What's your character's favorite spot within the station?
• How long have they been in The Gate? did they come in just recently? were they born here?
• Is your character more comfortable in low gravity or in artificial gravity?

The Gate’s forward docking bay (colloquially, “the Mouth”) was meant to be oriented towards whatever the station was currently mining, but that was a long time ago. Mining vessels would arrive, drop off their raw ore, refuel and leave for another run while the ore was funneled into the station’s cavernous refineries. At its peak, the station was sending out five or six ships every day. Nowadays it’s lucky to get a couple out in a week.

The forward hab ring is by far the least well-maintained of the two, a fact that rankles the station’s Miners Union something fierce given that most of them live there. It’s still airtight, but there’s leaks in the water lines, and the various grow-houses and hydroponics farms are pinched by materials shortages that don’t seem to hit the aft ring as hard. Jerry’s not blind to these problems, though; he lives here, too.

The middle of the station is occupied by a long tangle of refineries, smelters, foundries, and chemical plants. With all units online and functioning at peak efficiency, Hell’s Gate could render tens of thousands of tons of ore per hour into metal ingots, gravel, graphene, and fullerenes. Nowadays, it’s barely operating 8% of its facilities, and those aren’t working even close to peak due to staff shortages and a lack of maintenance. If Jerry hadn’t given himself a stomach ulcer negotiating with IPS-N for replacement parts, it’d be 4%, if that.

Part of the aft midstation is set aside for the Gate’s operations division. The station’s bridge is here, along with its omninode, primary reactor array, mainframes, and harbor control. Aside from Central Fabrication, this is the most secure and well-armored part of the station.

This area houses the Gate’s Schedule 2 printer (Union certification 126 years out of date). There’s always a backlog of at least five to eight days on medium-priority orders, and a month minimum for low. High-priority orders (such as the PCs’ mechs) go through within hours, to the ire of whoever got bumped. What’s left of Jerry’s Sherman Mk. I, the Severance Pay, lies nearby, half-in half-out of the wall and swathed in cables. Its coldcore is currently being used as an auxiliary power source.

Between the aft docking bay and Central Fabrication there’s a large hangar dedicated to the storage and maintenance of the militia’s mechanized chassis, including those belonging to the PCs. Except in emergencies, combat-rated mechs are not permitted anywhere else on the station.

More comfortable than the forward hab ring, the aft hab ring plays host to most of the station’s operational staff and acts as accommodation for the few guests and tourists the Gate receives. Unless they explicitly desire otherwise, all militia pilots – including the PCs – live here. At the very least, Jerry ensures the station’s defenders live comfortably.

A large wall in one of the aft ring’s public plazas has been dedicated as a place of remembrance to all those who died in the defense of Hell’s Gate. Every single militia member killed in action has an individual plaque engraved with their name, and there’s usually a little holo-widget displaying pictures of the deceased as well. Six new names have been added so far this year, all killed by the Hell Hounds. Andros Capella killed two of them himself, and is looking to up those numbers.

At one point in time, the Gate’s executive suite was a marvel of orbital decor. Situated in the aft hab ring, it was functional and stylish. It had real wood paneling and leather seats, gold inlay and paintings on the walls; not originals, of course, but high-quality reproductions. Lush houseplants flanked a viewscreen displaying the station. It even had a carpet. The wood was stripped out a century ago. The leather seats deteriorated beyond use. The inlay was recycled for circuitry repairs decades back. The paintings were sold to some casino on the Icebreaker just before Jerry took over, and Jerry has no time to look after plants. All that remains is a desk and endless piles of paperwork. It’s a sad, tired room for a sad, tired man.

A bare chamber with a bunch of folding chairs, a holographic projector and a desk. The lights flicker sometimes, but the projector doesn’t, suggesting it’s on a better circuit. Jerry briefs the militia here when their mission requires a more in-depth explanation than “please go shoot these pirates.” Jerry insists this room is a “no snack zone,” a prohibition no member of the militia has ever obeyed, Jerry included.

The Gate’s aft docking bay (there’s a nickname for it, not said in polite company) handles the majority of the station’s space traffic, and was intentionally designed as such. The station’s designers imagined a bustling flight deck, with dozens of freighters passing in and out each day. That vision turned out to be as much of a joke as the bay’s nickname. The team’s personal ship, the Dragon’s Tooth, is usually stationed here, alongside an ancient interstellar vessel called the Voidrunner that belongs to Zinfandel DeJean and hasn’t been touched for years.

Part labor union, part mining syndicate, part technosocialist committee, part mutual aid group, Hell’s Gate works as hard as it can to meet the needs of the Gate’s people. These needs are considerable: as the second largest population of the Big Four, but is by far the poorest. While the station’s promise to never charge its citizens for the basic essentials of life is noble, its revenue streams are low.

The station’s beloved director, Bai Zexian, vanished about three years ago, leaving the station’s previous militia commander, Jerry Masters, as acting director. Jerry is a kind and well-meaning man who genuinely wants the best for the station and its inhabitants, but he’s neurotic, anxious and somewhat unprepared for the burden of station management. He gets little sleep, is constantly overworked, and has few support staff other than his devoted ASURA-class NHP, Shelly.

A few people accuse Jerry of refusing to hold a byelection out of a lust for power, but the truth is there’s no-one else running for the position. Nothing would please Jerry more than to quit his job, but it really seems like if he won’t do it, nobody will. Jerry feels – and is likely correct – that he would be even less legitimate elected by default than semi-permanently occupying an unelected caretaker role.

Hell’s Gate is torn between the needs of its civilian residents – particularly its powerful mining and refining unions – and the needs of its defensive militia. Militia spending occupies a great deal of the station’s limited budget, for little immediate gain. The more anarchist voices on the station question the need for something only a couple of steps away from a police force. Under Director Bai, such critics held their tongues; under
Jerry, people are starting to grumble openly.
Hell’s Gate United really is in a tough spot. Also, the PCs work for them. Good luck.

• Make it through the day.
• Mine, refine and sell whatever minerals can be found to whoever will buy them.
• Provide at least the bare necessities of life to the citizens of the station.