Orbital Cities

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Orbital Cities are large spherical cities orbiting many of the planetary possession of Orion's Arm. Orbital Cities frequently house more people than the planets that they orbit and often have developed an urbane, hustle and bustle port culture.

Location

Orbital cities are designed to maintain the interstellar day for their inhabitants. They are placed in an orbit around their parent body such that the tidal locked time of rotation matches the interstellar day. Rarely ever is this a geosynchronous orbit, as the local day on most planetary bodies does not match the interstellar day. So, from the perspective of someone on the parent body, the city is frequently seen moving through the sky, always with the same side facing it. From the perspective of the orbital city, the surface of the parental body rotates through a full cycle at a variable speed, sometimes faster than one day, sometimes slower.

Orbital Days

Depending upon the angle of incline of the plane of the orbit of the city and the plane of orbit of the parent body to its star, people living at different points on the orbital city would experience different amounts of daylight. In general the angles are kept as close to each other as possible so as to prevent acute differentials in light (and energy) on the orbital city. As a result, the length of daylight on the equator of most orbital cities is relatively close to 12hrs and it gets progressively longer or shorter as you move towards the poles. At the north pole, it is always daylight. At the south pole it is always nighttime.

Size

The distance between the center and surface level of orbital cities is usually between 3km and 9km. A 9km radius generates a surface area approximately the size of Los Angeles, whereas 3km radii orbital cities feel more like the size of Boston. At all points along the surface level of an orbital city, it is 'flat' with normal (Earth) gravity. But, due to the small size of these spheres, there is a noticeable curvature to the horizon. Every 50 meters, there is a 1% decline to the horizon along the small orbital cities. Large cities are three times larger, making it less noticeable, but still very clearly curved.

Orbital Seasons

With a typical circumference between 18 and 60 km, it is not uncommon for residents of orbital cities to move between different 'seasonal' zones over the course of a day. In addition to that, the casing around the exterior structures of most orbital cities contain photomorphic glass able to wavelength shift (or block) nearly all the light coming from the parent star and well managed orbital cities maintain a built in fiber-optic distribution net to disperse the light throughout the orbital city's interior spaces and solariums. As a result, lighting conditions can be made to suit the numerous purposes of its inhabitants.

At one point, these systems were maintained by predictive intelligence algorithms. But after The Plague, voice activation controls the lighting conditions in the quarters of the well to do. In other areas, it is the job of the labor force to adjust lighting.

Spires

The differential in gravity is also something that is noticeable. Due to the drop off of 'weight', towers can be built extremely high. But, the tallest of the towers are not places where people live. They are the locations for solariums, theaters, private gardens and storage facilities more than living quarters. Even the well-born rarely reside in penthouses above a few hundred meters. So as to avoid the deleterious effects of long term exposure to low gravity, the kilometer towers are used only for special purposes for limited amounts of time.

From the perspective of someone on the surface, it would appear that the highest towers shoot off at an angle to the horizon and rise close to the same distance as the horizon itself. On orbital cities with many towers, this frequently makes it appear like there are sky scrapers that you can walk on in all directions into the cosmos. From the perspective of a starship anchored in the orbit around a city, the surface would seem pointy with lots of spikes that rise out of it like a sea urchin.

Docking

Orbital cities frequently have one or more docking platforms which extend from the equator high into the space. At three to four times the distance from the center as the surface, these docking platforms allow ship's boats (the name for the landing craft that moves men and materials to and from starships) to land on extra-large platforms without disturbing the traffic near the surface and to take advantage of even lower gravity conditions to transfer supplies.

Well organized orbital cities and hubs of commerce frequently have developed an entire ring for docking. These docking rings can support hundreds of landing craft at the same time and employ a large pool of dockworkers. They also have dozens of elevator spokes to transfer supplies from the ring to the surface and commonly have warehouses and supply stores directly attached to them for redistribution.

Although a starship will frequently anchor in a matching orbit with the orbital city, the areas typically set aside for anchoring around the orbital city are between 100x and 200x the distance of the surface in order to avoid drift and gravitation deformation of either the starships or the cities. Nearly all orbital cities have a harbor master to manage the location of starships and local ship's boat traffic for ships expected to anchor for a while. Large commercial hubs need an entire office of deputies and underlings to manage this.

Orbital Palaces

The masterpiece of Jean Duvillard's estates was his orbital palace above Bayonne. In this case, the entire orbital city has been turned into a single estate for the purposes of holding court, showcasing his power and patronage and administrating government across his Principalities. If he has a chateau on the planet, it would be a retreat from this palace and its politics. It would serve the duel purpose of a respite from those functions as a place to entertain privileged guests in the sport (like hunting) which require large tracks of physical land.

The orbital city around Juneau also acts as a capital... with the seat of government and its many offices found along the sphere. But, its spaces are less grand since, besides the official public buildings, the residences are all privately owned. As a result, many immortals have a townhouse near one of the public parks/courtyards which they use while on Juneau. But the orbital capital has also created many extensions and buildings to accommodate the lodging demands of all the people who participate in government.

Property rights in the Republic are based upon a free-market principle. So, property on the orbital capital of Juneau is some of the best property that can be 'bought' and hence commands some of the highest prices in Orion's Arm. As a result, only certain industries can afford to take up residence there and they need to compete with embassies and immortal's for the prime locations. It is no where near the same kind of free-wheeling and dealing that has occurred for centuries on Terra Nova, Cambie (a republic between Juneau and Bayonne) and the orbital cities built around the planets along the Cassiopeian Line.