At Time's End

Chapter 4 - Clarifications

I think now would be a good time to tell you about the different categories of Space Stations. There are 5 specialty Stations, but we'll talk about that later in this short guide.

The first ring, called the Energy Station Ring... well, turns waste into energy. There's not much to it. Each Energy Station provides electricity and other types of energy for 5 different centers, matching it's own number, except the second digit is different. The Energy Ring's codenumbers are from 1105 to 1204. So, for example, Space Energy Station 1187 is responsible for the energy of 1287, 1387, 1487, 1587 and itself, plus any transport vehicles that have the same numbers.

After Space Energy Station 1204, we run into the Nutrition Station Ring. This ring mostly artificially grows food. There are some Terran plants, and some Cytherean plants that sprouted up there after Terrans began exploring there after cooling it down, which happened around 2680. This ring just grows and transports food around. This ring, similarly to the first, consists of Stations 1205 to 1304.

The third ring is kinda like downtown. It's the Central Ring. All of its stations have the codename, ex. Space Center Station 1387, but most have nicknamed their places - and last I checked, 1387 was just The House of Doom in a language I can't understand. I've heard it's a popular place for game nerds. Central is also the ring of the tourism industry. Obviously, it goes from 1305 to 1404.

The fourth ring is where we are now - the Research Ring. The ring for all science and research-related matters. It mainly consists of places like Eterna's home - 1477 - and this place, 1453, Mr. Engarde's home. Centres of research. There's not so much of a general agenda, everyone just does their thing and it works. If you can't figure the codenumbers out, you're out of luck.

Finally, the fifth ring. The Housing Ring. It's where most of us live - unlike time travelers like me. I don't have a home, sadly. I lost it due to skipping rent for 5 months, not because I'm poor, but because I absolutely despised the landlord. My childhood home used to be there, except now it's in the Central Ring for some reason... There's not much to say about this ring. They go from 1505 to 1600.

Now, methods of transportation are few, but there are transportation vehicles that get energy from their designated Energy Station if they have one. There are abandoned ones everywhere, but they usually don't have a designated Energy Station. It works so that when you get a transporter, you link it to your house or research center, or whatever. Then, you apply to change the trave's number to the same as your station. Now, if your apply is accepted (it is, they use Proximians, who I'll mention in a bit for it - who are very often dim-witted and will accept it even if it's full of holes, because they got pavloved into pressing the accept button by accident.) congrats! Your research station's energy supply station now supplies energy for the vehicle as well.

The other method is just... drifting, which I have demonstrated a couple times already. You just drift anywhere you want. It's not hard, it's not expensive, it doesn't waste the Energy Ring's resources (though they have plenty) and you get to look at the stars.

There are three main races here, Cythereans - former inhabitants of Venus, Terrans, the subrace Space Terrans - Terrans born in space, such as me - and Proximians, who I briefly mentioned - former inhabitants of the Proxima Centauri planets. There are also a couple of other races, but they're so small in number, yet still uncountable in variety that, even if you tried, you couldn't list them all.

Cythereans are mainly engineers - they're shorter than Terrans, fit in places and possess the brainpower to understand even the most complex concepts of engineering. Mainly found in the Research and Energy Rings, and a hundred or so work as advisors for Cytherean plants in the Nutrition Ring. Terrans are multi-use, possess brainpower to do a multitude of things, are of various sizes and have an incredible work ethic, but mainly work in the Central, Research and Nutrition Rings.

Proximians possess... well, nothing really. They're tall and don't fit in places very well, dumb as domesticated pigeons, and really are only good at efficiency. They are reward-freaks, and this liking of rewards is what led them to the 5 specialty Stations - The Government Stations. They needed cheap and efficient workers, and Proximians tick both of those boxes. 

However - as I mentioned, they're extremely dim-witted, which also unticks both of those boxes for me. They know how to do things quickly, but not very well. The highest score that has been given when a Proximian took an IQ test was 61. Despite all of that, Proximians seem to have thrived on their native planets.

The 5 Specialty Stations are the Apply Acceptance Center, Travel Control Center, Defense Team Center, Jurisdiction Affairs Center, and Government Affairs Center. I believe you should get all the info you need from those names, except Travel Control, which is mostly inactive but springs into action whenever a lockdown is needed, and limits travel as much as possible.

That's pretty much all you need to know.. for now.

AN: ahhh, my excuse for extra worldbuilding :D i like this chapter. and i'm not planning on rewriting it. it has all the things i needed to tell, it's a bit shorter than usual but still decent - overall, it's a solid chapter.