Places

Following is a list of notable location in the Dark Cycles setting. It's worth noting that the total human population across all systems sits somewhere around fifty billion people.

Sol System
Known by most of it's inhabitants as the Solar system, it is the most populous of the three systems. This section won't list every planet, only ones that have been at all developed.


 * Earth
 * Population: ~25,000,000,000
 * Earth is by far the most developed location in humanity's reach. It has a population of around 25 billion people, though 50% of those live in megacities and on the two major habstations. Earth is the primary consumer of goods, second only to Mars. Because of it's notable development, Earth has it's own page that lists the most important locations on it. Aside from a massive population and booming economy, Earth is best known for the Veil - a ring of psychic hampering and suffering that surrounds it as a result of a mining accident on Luna. As a result, all who wish to enter Earth must do so through Terminus Station.
 * Notable Cities ('Mega cities' with a population above 1 billion people):
 * Greater York is a megacity that is the natural result of expansion from New York city. It is the economic, though not political, center of the AEC.
 * The political center of the AEC is Geneva.
 * Hong Kong now takes up most of the space of it's territory. It is technically AEC aligned, but with very close watch from the PaU.
 * Delhi is the largest city in Concord territory.
 * Mexico City isn't that far behind.
 * Beijing is the largest PaU city.
 * Sao Paulo is noteworthy as the former seat of the Concord.
 * Note: This list is not exhaustive.
 * Major Stations:
 * Terminus Station isn't technically the largest of Earth's stations - it's technically not even a habstation - but it is the most famous and most well traveled. Terminus Station has a permanent population of somewhere around two million, and so functions as a small city unto itself. It's arranged into five 'pillars' - a sort of flanged arrangement. The top pillar sees the most activity, and operates a great deal like a large airport. Only so many ships can pass through the Terminus at a time, so a great deal of the station exists as lodging. While the station started as little more than the top two pillars - one for travelers and one for full time staff and equipment - it has blossomed into something of a hybrid between a habstation and a waystation. That being said, because of it's extraterritoriality, the rights and nationality of full time residents sometimes comes into question. Many look down on the denizens of Terminus for this, thinking them second class citizens of Earth.
 * Gemini Station is the largest habstation orbiting Earth. It has a population of over three billion people. As one might expect given it's name, it is divided into two main regions where 80% of the population live and work. In the center connecting them is the Gemini International Platform. This is a large circular section of the station where neither the PaU nor AEC have full jurisdiction. At least, that's the idea. The reality is that both act as if they own the place, which leads to a confusing hybrid legal code. People joke that legal fees account for half of the Gemini Station GDP. This is an exaggeration, but it's certaintly not wrong. The risk of hefty legal fees and difficult to navigate regulations is that Gemini is one of the few places where there are no tariffs or major restrictions on trade with the PaU, and because of the distance many from the PaU go here to offload otherwise illegal goods. Everyone is treated as a criminal on the GIP, and because the law of the land is not getting caught criminals thrive here.
 * Axiom Station is the AEC's primary holding in space. It has a population of around 2 billion people. It's pretty similar to a lot of the rest of the AEC, except that it's in space. Axiom Station serves as a habstation and military platform. Most offworld business conducted specifically with the AEC happens at Axiom Station
 * Tiangong II is the counterpart to Axiom for the PaU, though it's a lot smaller in terms of fulltime population - sitting at only 1 billion people.
 * Tatsuo Station, as one might expect from the name, was originally founded by Japan. It has a population of about 500 million, and it's notable for being a neutral location - Japan has never officially joined the PaU or the AEC. This, mixed with the distance from Earth, makes Tatsuo station a popular place to set corporate offices free of many of the trans-national politics. Tatsuo Station also has a reputation for being where you go to conduct shady, technically legal transactions.
 * Alpha Station, formerly the International Space Station, was originally a scientific endeavor, but like most others it changed with the times. Once the Veil formed, it was modified to also be a port where cargo could be captured from sending stations. It's modern population sits at around 3 million people, but only maybe 25% of those are full-time residents. Alpha Station functions much like a trade port in that it houses large storage areas and bays for launching cargo retrieval vessels. It has the distinction of being the largest sub-Veil station. It also housed a great deal of the space debris cleanup projects that took place in the 2100's.
 * The Vargas-Deventer Platform isn't as large or prominent as Tatsuo or Gemini, and is the most recent of the Megastations. It's population recently hit 1.5 billion. Unlike the AEC and PaU, the Concord is officially headquartered in space, on the Vargas-Deventer platform. Unlike the Axiom and Tiangong II, the VDP is mostly a launching point for coordinating travel, colonization, and business opportunities in the Sol system and beyond.
 * Luna
 * Population: ~3,000,000,000
 * Most Earthers just call this "The Moon", but that's confusing to everyone else since there are many moons, in this system and the next. Some people jokingly call the Moon "Little Earth", and that's not wrong. The moon is one of the most culturally diverse locales in the system, next only to Mars and Earth itself. The Moon has been extensively terraformed, the first of three celestial bodies ever repurposed for human habitation. The moon has a very spread out population with only three cities with a population of greater than 10 million. Because people have the room and need of the land, they spread out. Luna is the primary breadbasket of the station, and it's modern primary export is soy and soy-related products followed by Aluminum and Helium-3.
 * Hydrographically, the moon is a great deal like Earth. It's now a very green, somewhat unpleasantly warm and humid planet. It's a lot like Florida.
 * Major Cities:
 * Selene, the original colony and capitol
 * Agata (A-ga-tuh)
 * Morris
 * Mars
 * Population: 12 billion
 * Around two thirds of the Martian population live on it's various stations, chiefly Remus station. Mars itself, while now suitable for (somewhat uncomfortable) human habitation, isn't a very economically viable place to live. Remus was originally purposed as a refining and processing station for goods collected from the asteroid belt, and the plan was to set up colonization on Mars and have the first megacity online by 2275. The wind was taken out of this by the Proxcent migrations, leaving the Martian surface overdeveloped and underpopulated. These econmic pressures - sky-high debts for future investments that didn't pan out - lead to open rebellion. The Martians won their independence in 2278, a short 32 years ago. Tensions between them and the AEC and PaU still run high, which has worked out well for the Concord. There's a total of 40 stations in Mars and it's moons orbits, and no single megacity. Instead they have a large collection of smaller cities with a more distributed surface population. The cities of Mars are much larger than their populations would lead you to believe they should be, and the region is known to be unstable and rife with crime. In contrast, the stations are reasonably wealthy and primarily upper middle class.
 * Mars itself is much like living in a permanent, slightly gloomy/dim Arizona. It's hot during the day, it drops to below freezing many if not most nights.
 * Out-Belts
 * The Out-Belts aren't a specific place so much as a description of a variety of place. About 2 billion people are scattered around the space between the asteroid and Kuiper belts. Most live on stations, or on ships on extended voyages to gather resources.
 * Most notably, there's a colony of Automa who have created their own little polity between Charon and Pluto, the Automa League. Their settlements and stations are made up of stolen Aigner technology. Aigner has been unsuccessful in enforcing their property rights by rule of law. The Automa League has few dealings with Earth, but they are known to occasionally do some business with Remus station. They aren't inherently hostile, but they have little patience for anti-Automa sentiment.
 * There's a few gas collection and processing stations on Jupiter.

Proxima Centauri
As a note, the Proxima Centauri of Dark Cycles is somewhat different from the real one in that it is more stable. It doesn't produce the occasional massive solar flare the real one is sometimes known to do. If it did, Proxcent wouldn't be habitable because it would cause an extinction event every time that happened.


 * Proxima Centauri b (or Proxcent b)
 * The word Proxcent is often used interchangebly for Proxima Centauri b or for the system. Proxima Centauri is an oddity in that is is highly populated (population ~10 billion) but most of it's structures were created in the last fifty years. This has been due to a prevalence of mining, the use of potent automation, and the presence of many Automa. Additionally, Aigner has huge shares in Proxcent startups due to their liberal licensing of the QuikiFab printer line. This also means that a great deal of Proxcent is oddly sterile and plastic, with scanlines and artefacts of the forming process still visible on about 75% of structures and fabricated goods.