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STARCOM BIBLE Provided courtesy of: Martin Joynes, martin.joynes@bbc.co.uk 
It runs to 85 pages, was written by Brynne Stephens, and is Copyright: DiC & Brynne Stephens, 1986.The following are pages 71 through 80. More pages: 1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31-40 | 41-50 | 51-60 | 61-70 | 71-80 | 81-End  PAGE 71: EARTH Earth is now the way it should always have been. Pollution free, peaceful and prosperous. Earth is mainly a resort planet -whose only real entertainment is her tenderly cared-for natural beauty. There are a few cities, but these are clean and well-run, nothing like the smog-ridden metropolises of the twentieth century. All heavy industry is gone, having moved first to Luna, then even farther out. There are many artist colonies on Earth, most of them devoted to restoring lost arts and crafts to common practice, as well as several remarkably self-sufficient back-to-nature communes and holistic health spas. All in all, a thoroughly pleasant place. PAGE 72: La Grange - 5 A totally man-made habitat stationed in Lunar orbit, L-5 was the first off-Earth colony. It is primarily used as a foundry and industrial processing plant - a mining town. L-5 also functions as a relay point for subspace communications. The colony is old and beginning to run down a little, equipment works intermittently, and the inhabitants are great fixer-uppers. PAGE 73: LUNA Earth's moon houses an enormous recreational facility, and serves as a way station for Starcom and for the colonists both leaving from and arriving on Earth. Starcom has a large administrative facility and training area here (the Fort Bragg Annex) as well and a memorial park set on the site of the first Apollo landing. There are also small, privately owned mining concerns, one of which is secretly controlled by Dark himself, throuyh his Grand Trine Corporation. It is here that General vondar most often attempts espionage. Possibilities for counter-espionage are promising, so StarCom personnel have been instructed not to molest the facility. Most of the heavy industry that was based on the moon during its early colonization has been moved into space leaving many abandoned and minimally staffed factories and processing plants. The generally seedy ambience has attracted a certain unsavory element to Luna. There is a thriving subculture of shady types, most likely to be found in Noveau Reno, the Las Vegas-style resort on the dark side of the moon. Which is under the jurisdiction of the locally stationed members of Starcom. PAGE 74: MARS It was here that the first evidence of the existence of the Builders was discovered. The Obelisks - dozens of tall, ornately carved obsidian-like towers, varying greatly in size and shape - are the focus of intense, top secret study. The Obelisks seem to have no intrinsic powers, they are simply repositories of information. However, since the unexplained accident wit an Obelisk fragment on Mercury, it has been decided that colonization of the planet should be carried out at a great distance from the Obelisks. Apart from the research facility based there, I4ars is basically a terraformed colony. several of the rift canyons have regenerating atmospheres, and in addition there are two domed cities. All in all, Aars has a population of about twenty thousand, including children. Slim's family lives here. The main industries are hydroponics and water processing, and there is a very busy shuttleport, servicing the pilots, crews and passengers freom the spaceport on phobos. In spite of the busy industrial nature of the colonies, Mars is still very much a strange new world. The vast underground caverns have barely been explored, and there is a strong sense of the dangers present - the terrible dust storms, subzero nights, and dangerously thin sandstone plains covering treacherous chasms. PAGE 75: [continued from Page 74] Mars is administered by CAPTAINS TIM MURPHY and DOUGLAS KADREY. Murphy is a Astromarine Engineer, primarily in charge of the water processing plants, and Kadrey is a satellite Command Botanist who oversees the hydroponics labs. They are equal in rank, and make all decisions concerning the colony jointly. PAGE 76: PHOBOS The larger and closer of Mars' moons, Phobos' low gravity and proximity to iAars make it a perfect spaceport. ships of all sizes dock here, sending and recieving cargo and personnel to and from Mars by shuttle. Phobos has one mining colony, near the crater stickney, which produces a great percentage of the industrial grade diamonds needed throughout the solar system. PAGE 77: DEIMOS Because of the extremely low gravity on Deimos, an object, when dropped, can take at least thirty seconds to fall. For this reason, Deimos is primarily a hospital colony, with an extremely successful Physical Therapy section. PAGE 78: THE BELT The asteroid belt is composed of rocky fragments from the size of sand grains to tiny moons. Though they're so widely scattered that more than two are rarely visible together, still there are enough of them to support a profitable mining colony, whose city-sized mining ships scour the belt in search of precious ore. The miners who operate the huge smelting and refining machines are a colorful, rough-hewn lot, very independent by nature - but this is not a goldrush. Running the enormous mining ships takes brains and skill as well as daring, and, while there is competition, it doesn't take the form of a free-for-all. The asteroid belt is the money belt of the solar system -- nearly all the metal and elements needed to support life in the colonies comes from here - but it is a very dangerous and unpredictable place, and the miners are very aware that they are all in it together. They have a strong brotherhood that tolerates little interference from outside and no dangerous backbiting from within. Along with the main belt, there are also two smaller belts - the Amor Belt, whose elliptical orbit barely misses crossing Earth's orbit; and the Apollo belt, whose orbit does cross Earth's. These smaller belts each contain fewer than a dozen PAGE 79: [continued from Page 78] asteroids each, but the asteroids are made up of large percentages of nitrogen - something which is very precious in space. Everytime an airlock is opened, nitrogen is lost. plants raised in water need it to grow, soil needs it to support plant life. The asteroids are grappled or explosively "herded" into the orbit around Luna or L-5, where they are broken down and processed. The people who mine these special asteroids have life and death power over the solar system. They are dedicated almost to the point of mysticism. There are only a dozen at any one time, and they are known simply as "The Nites". PAGE 80: JUPITER Jupiter is the most recent colony, and by far the most dangerous. Two tiny floating research stations rest in the upper atmosphere, there to study the indigenous - and non-sentient - lifeforms, including the beautiful "plankton" eating AIRWHALES and their immediate superiors in the food chain1 the deadly KITES. Mostly automated, the delicate instruments on the research stations need a great deal of monitoring and readjusting. The human personnel needed for this are based on Ganymede. More pages: 1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31-40 | 41-50 | 51-60 | 61-70 | 71-80 | 81-End Written by Brynne Stephens, Copyright: DiC & Brynne Stephens, 1986 |
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