The High Frontier (Development Thread)

[Milo Tyranne]

This is the development thread for Island Ease and Island One, two large Miln space habitats. Over the course of the next 20-30 posts, I will be detailing the history of these large space stations, including their construction, renovation, and rise to prominence after the Miln-Imperial War.
So, without further ado, let's get started.

- The High Frontier -​

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Early "space workshop", in orbit over Hafnip.​

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"Clearly our first task is to use the material wealth of space to solve the urgent problems we now face on Earth: to bring the poverty-stricken segments of the world up to a decent living standard, without recourse to war or punitive action against those already in material comfort; to provide for a maturing civilization the basic energy vital to its survival."​

_ Doctor Gerard K. O'Neill, The High Frontier, 1976 AD.​

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"We stand now at the limits of our terrestrial civilization. We have made great strides over the last few centuries of our development, but in recent years, we have run into barriers: overpopulation, the degradation of our ecosystem, the dwindling of our natural resources.​

"But all barriers can be crossed; it is only a matter of climbing. So we must go up; to orbit, to the stars. To the High Frontier, where finally we might achieve the way ahead."​

_ Professor Tomias Milo, address to the Hafnip Global Institute of Aerospace Research, 300 BBY.​

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The story of Island Ease, and indeed, of the Miln presence in outer space, dates back nearly three centuries before the Battle of Yavin, to an obscure corner of Wild Space not yet visited by the outside Galaxy.
It was here, at this time, that an outspoken Miln scientist, Professor Tomias Milo, first proposed that his species could leave their world to settle outer space via the construction of enormous artificial habitats in orbit. Tomias had written a book with the dry title of "On the Prospect of Miln Habitation in High Orbit", but which had captured the public imagination with the phrase "High Frontier", the way the Professor described space; as a venue for development and colonization on a grand scale.

At the time, it had only been a few short decades since the Miln had achieved space travel in the first place; in 350 BBY, they had orbited their first artificial satellite with the use of a giant cannon, subsequently launching more sophisticated devices and later piloted spacecraft via chemical rockets. Miln astronauts had walked on both of their planet's moons within 20 years, and 10 years later had established a semi-permanent outpost on the nearer one, in addition to several space stations orbiting Hafnip, mainly used for research purposes.
Professor Milo's proposal was much more ambitious than anything the Miln had done in space up to that point, of course. It would require massive new infrastructure to be built in orbit, as well as on one or both of Hafnip's moons.
Milo took great pains to extol the benefits of such an undertaking as space colonization; at the time, the Miln were struggling with overpopulation in many parts of the world, as well as less abundant natural resources and environmental damage caused by industry and urban development. These were all problems the colonization efforts could solve; natural resources were abundant in space, with virtually guaranteed return on investment to anyone who attempted to extract them from the moons or asteroids. With the construction of space habitats, virtually unlimited living area at any population density desirable could be achieved, allowing migration of excess population from Hafnip, not only affording the immigrants a greater amount of living space and higher standard of living, but reducing the strain on Hafnip's ecosystem in the process.
Of course the project would be monumentally expensive, at least in the short term.

"I say, not a decicredit for this ludicrous fantasy!"​

_Representative Millian Prozmir.​

Milo's proposal was actively supported by many members of the scientific community, though he knew this would not be enough. Determined that he would see the project started within his lifetime, Tomias began to pitch his idea to commercial interests, stressing the untold wealth to be found in resources and new manufacturing methods in space, not to mention the fortune in aerospace contracts to be had closer to home.
Oddly enough, the project was not difficult to sell to the general population. Besides general dissatisfaction with then current living conditions, the Miln had never been at the top of their planet's food chain; even in spite of their technology, the Miln still found themselves preyed upon by the monstrous predators which inhabited their world along side them. Space habitats sounded like just the thing; being located in space, the inhabitants could be truly safe from the dangers faced by those on the ground.
Though the project would take decades, and many would not live to see it come to fruition, younger generations would inherit a safe and bountiful future.

 

[Milo Tyranne]

Despite these factors, the Miln Global Assembly twice rejected proposals to support the development of space colonies. One of Professor Milo's greatest opponents was a politician named Millian Prozmir, a Representative in the Assembly who had built his career on attacking "frivolous spending" on the part of the government, and who twice worked to defeat citizen proposals to back Milo's idea, as well as attacking other space science and infrastructure programs. It was not until Prozmir was eventually voted out of office in the wake of scandal charges that the Assembly finally approved funding.

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The construction of a sphere type habitat in Lagrangian orbit.​

Over the course of the next few decades, Miln activity in space doubled and redoubled, with both public and private agencies laboring to build the infrastructure needed for the migrations. The first phase, huge orbital "workshops", were constructed using material shipped up the gravity well from Hafnip, but later construction was achieved with the use of materials mined from the two moons, shipped to Hafnip orbit via mass driver. Within 10 years of the first lunar shipments, several enormous solar power satellites had been constructed, providing a visible benefit to the program by beaming clean, renewable energy to receiving stations on Hafnip via microwave transmission.
Within 40 years of the program's start, construction had finally begun on the first pilot habitats.

The earliest habitats to be constructed by the Miln were not, in fact, the enormous cylindrical types which would come to be the most numerous in subsequent decades and centuries, but a much smaller spherical type, proposed over a century before by a Miln mathematician and re-discovered by Professor Milo and his students. More compact and easier to build, they were developed as housing for the thousands of workers who would be needed to build even larger habitats.
Built using raw materials mined from Hafnip's moons, the first two spheres took 10 years to construct, and were named Island One and Island Two, respectively. In anticipation of mass immigration to the colonies as more were completed, Island One was outfitted in part as an administrative center. The habitat was visited by the aging Professor Milo, who later took up permanent residence there; he lived to the age of 90, becoming the first Miln to die of natural causes in space.

After the first two large habitats were finished, the Miln were able to achieve an economy of scale, and 10 more new sphere type colonies were completed over the next 20 years. With each new habitat that was finished, 10,000 new workers were able to join the construction effort, rapidly increasing the rate at which new and larger projects could be completed. Though still not close to the scale necessary to alleviate Hafnip's overpopulation, the constellation of power satellites beaming clean energy back to the home-world was beginning to have a definite positive impact on the environmental strain imposed by Miln society, supplanting hydrocarbon and other "dirty" power sources.
70 years after the program's start, however, the future that Professor Milo had spoken of was finally beginning to come true. After the 12th sphere type habitat was completed, simultaneous work began on 5 pairs of the new cylinder type habitats. These had been the gigantic structures proposed back at the earliest phases of the project; self-contained cities in space, where a population of 5 million Miln could live in comfort and safety.
These were the places where future generations would live.

 

[Milo Tyranne]

An early Miln asteroid mine, building simple habitats for engine fitters working in the Belt.​

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As the Miln effort to colonize space begin to enter its most important development phase, the 120,000 workers now living in the orbital habitats began their largest construction effort to date. Able to be seen with the naked eye during nighttime hours on Hafnip, 10 enormous cylinder habitats began to take shape, mere skeletons at first but becoming more tangible by the day. Even with the enormous workforce, of course, construction would take decades yet, as each cylinder was to be just over 20 kilometers in length.
Not all effort was being expended on the cylinders' construction, either. As work schedules ramped up, and more and more resources were consumed, it became clear that the small mines on Hafnip's two moons would not be able to keep up with demand on their own, and it would of course be far too expensive to ship raw materials and components up the gravity well from the planet itself.
New lunar mines were opened, of course, but at the same time, a force of 1,000 engineers and prospectors was sent to the system's asteroid belt.

This phase of the project had been planned since the beginning; the mining of the asteroids was to be a major source of the resources needed to build the great shoals of space habitats which would be required for the Miln population's eventual migration into orbit. The asteroids, it was known, contained massive concentrations of metal, radioactive material and other elements. These raw materials would be relatively easy to mine and process, and could comfortably supply the demands of the vast orbital infrastructure projects being undertaken.
The scheme was simple, in concept. Scouting the asteroid belt, prospectors would find those rocks which contained the necessary concentrations of elements. These would then be fitted with propulsion systems by a small army of engineers, and be moved from the belt to an orbit around Hafnip. Once they arrived, miners would begin work, providing construction materials for the habitats more or less on site.

An early resource asteroid arrives in the "Hafnip System".​

Things went more or less as planned; within 10 years, the first large resource asteroid, KN427, arrived in Hafnip orbit. The asteroid contained, among other elements, approximately 5 times the total amount of iron mined on Hafnip throughout its entire history. This metal was put to good use as the first 10 habitats began to take shape, and KN427 was hardly the only asteroid to arrive over the next two decades...

 

[Milo Tyranne]

100 years after the start of the program, the goal was beginning to come in sight.
In the 20 years after the first resource asteroid had been brought to Hafnip, dozens more had followed, their combined output and enormous efficiency dwarfing the entire accessible mineral output of the planet below. The excess of this production was shipped down to Hafnip for use by its industries, but the vast majority was used in orbit; as decades rolled by, the first of the cylinders began to take shape, and hopes on the home-world surged that soon, very soon, there first entirely civilian space pioneers could begin to homestead in high orbit.
Meanwhile, on Hafnip, rumblings of an equally momentous change had begun to become known.

For centuries, the world government of Hafnip had represented all Miln. While generally functional on a planetary scale, there were concerns; as the first truly large capacity habitats neared completion, people began to wonder about how they would be governed, and what kind of representation they would have in Miln politics.
In point of fact, this had long been considered; Island One, the first sphere type habitat, had been outfitted in part as an administration center, with plenty of room to grow. That being the case, many felt that terrestrial methods of governance would not be sufficient, and that in order to grow and prosper as they should, the new colonies should be considered separate entities, albeit with ties to a central government.
Under overwhelming public pressure, the Hafnip government agreed to pursue comprehensive reforms. By the time the first cylinder opened, the old Miln Global Assembly would be no more, and in its place, the Hafnip Federation would stand, a smaller, more agile entity which would facilitate cooperation between the home-world and the new nations in space...

 

[Milo Tyranne]

Meanwhile, 110 years after the project's beginning, the cylinders neared completion, finished but for one final, all-important step.
The internal biosphere, which would sustain millions of settlers.
The first step in creating this biosphere was, at the same time, simple and profoundly difficult.
Sunlight was not a problem; the huge reflector mirrors were already in place, supplying heat and light and power, but as yet, the interior of the habitats were still a vacuum, an environment where not even the hardiest lifeforms known to the Miln could grow. Though it had been done on a far smaller scale with the sphere types, using resources from the moons, finding enough gas in space to provide normal air pressure in a structure as large as the cylinders would prove difficult indeed.
The answer lay in deep space.
Far away, beyond the asteroid belt, the green-and-grey banded globe that was the gas giant Katryus loomed. King of the outer planets, it had been explored only recently by the Miln. It was from here, however, that such massive gas reserves could be mined; shipping them up the gravity well from Hafnip would have been even more difficult and expensive.
And so, the tankers were built, and sent on their way.

Some of the largest vessels ever built by the Miln, even today, the tankers set out for Katryus, born on nuclear plumes with cavernous spherical holds, designed to hold billions of cubic meters of pressurized carbon dioxide. Upon arrival, they began to set up infrastructure; bases were established on some of the gas giant's moons, and resource asteroids, hauled from the belt, were mined to build small habitats, as well as the orbiting stations which would dip long collection probes into the atmosphere of the planet below.
After 10 years of travel, 10 years of construction and 10 years of mining, the ships set out for home once more. 150 years after the start of the project, the mining fleet returned with holds of CO2, with which the first few completed cylinders were inflated.

The atmosphere inside the cylinders, though toxic to the Miln themselves, was ideal for plant life. After another two decades, generations of simple photosynthetic organisms had converted much of the carbon dioxide into oxygen, and many had decayed into a layer of fertile topsoil.
At last, serious colonization could begin.

 

[Milo Tyranne]

The first two cylinders had developed stable biospheres 170 years after the start of the project, and though they were no technically ready for habitation, their initial population was not much larger than that of the early sphere types. Rather than going for full population density, these early colonies were used for the cultivation of biological resources; plants, animals and atmosphere which could be used to furnish other habitats.

Over the next 30 years, the colonies which had been completed were brought up to livable standards, though as before, were only filled to around half their residential capacity, the excess space being used to cultivate biomass for the next generation of habitats.
Even so, the first wave of colonists was a major leap forward for the Miln.
Chosen by lottery, the first 25 million people were allowed to immigrate to the orbital habitats, becoming the first entirely civilian Miln population in space. They quickly took to their new homes, creating a society and a way of life millions of miles from the soil of their mother world.
This first wave of settlers reinvigorated Miln interest in space, and billions of volunteers clamored to climb the gravity well and homestead among the stars. Early on, accommodations were of course in short supply; new colonies were under construction, their available space filled well in advance by eager volunteers. Though the pace of construction increased rapidly with the influx of labor and materials, it still took time and expense to build a cylinder habitat, and the waiting lists could be decades long...
But finally, finally, the Miln dream of life in outer space had come true for the general public, and in the years to follow, the scope of that dream would only grow...

 

[Milo Tyranne]

And so, as the new dawn of Miln space colonization began to finally break for the general population, so too began the process of bringing Miln society into the new age...
200 years after the start of the project, the new nations in space proposed at its earliest stages began to finally take shape. Self-governed by their citizens, each new habitat encompassed what was, for all intents and purposes, an independent city-state, with its own laws and governing body, selected and organized to best meet the needs of its population and ensure potential for growth.
All of these separate countries cooperated through an organization known as the Hafnip Federation Central Assembly, a sort of united nations council designed to facilitate international cooperation, and provide a forum to decide on common laws and standards to be shared by all member states.
Though its administration was rocky at first, the Hafnip Federation quickly became an effective organization, creating smooth relations between the regions of Hafnip and the various colonies.

Under the guidance of the new Assembly, the rate at which new habitats were constructed was increased. With the ever increasing supplies of raw building materials and biomass, the number of cylinder type habitats doubled within 20 years. After another 20, that number quadrupled.
240 years after project start, 500 million Miln now lived in space, and things were only getting started...

 

[Milo Tyranne]

It was during this second wave of habitat construction that Island Ease, destined to be among the largest and most enduring Miln colonies, was built.
Laid out as a pair of standard 20-kilometer cylinders joined at the ends, Ease 1 and Ease 2 were built at the same time, each rotating in the opposite direction of the other in order to cancel out gyroscopic effects which would have interfered with the habitat's mirror vanes.
Designed at the outset with a maximum population potential of 10 million, 5 million per cylinder, Island Ease started as all habitats did with 2.5 million per cylinder, allowing ample room to grow. In most respects, Island Ease was considered an unremarkable habitat pair in its early years, located as it was at the outer reaches of a cluster of such colonies.
Little did anyone know at the time, its relative isolation would become its greatest asset, decades hence...