Outposts in space...what's out there?

Space Outposts​
• Academic Research Facility: Schools conduct research and need places to protect their personnel and projects.
• Archaeological Dig: <100 academics and guards.
• Archaeological Research Site: Digging up ancient alien artefacts and civilizations.
• Asteroid Mining Facility: Possibly 100 % automated.
• Bank: Where you can put valuable goods in storage and apply for loans.
• Biohazard dumps: Got to put the dangerous stuff somewhere why not in someone else’s backyard.
• Black Market Depot: Where you can place valuable goods in storage, be it of sentimental or money value, and be it legal or illegal. Also a nice place to hide hard-copies of sensitive—possibly blackmail or "insurance"—data. Outside of governmental regulations, sometimes can be not very trustworthy, often they are very trustworthy.
• Border Markers: ‘This is Our Space.’
• Business Centre, Independent: Sometimes it pays to be outside of a governmental oversight. See Business Centre for more information.
• Business Centre: Financial/administrative focused outpost.
• Cache: Secret or secure storage; fuel, ammo, weapons, droid army...
• Cemetery: Either bodies, ashes, bones, or keep sakes are stored here.
• Colony, New: A fledgling colony possibly under the guidance of a benefactor.
• Command Centre: Be it government, military, or corporate.
• Communication Outpost
• Communication Relay
• Construction Camp/Under Construction: Pick any outpost
• Containment Facility: Where dangerous compounds are kept because they cannot be destroyed.
• Destroyed: Pick from list, is destroyed either from without or from within.
• Diplomatic Outpost: Neutral territory or meeting place.
• Dissident Camp: Fleeing persecution because of their political views.
• Distribution Centre: Where goods are stored prior to being moved to further, smaller, locations; normally to retail centres.
• Embassy: For foreign governments, is normally sovereign territory.
• Energy Manufacturing/Collecting Plant: Either manned or automated, normally heavily guarded.
• Free Trade Post: Either outside of governmental control or encouraged by the government. This outpost hosts lots of traders. The goods are usually cheaper as there are few, if any, tariffs that are needed to be paid.
• FTL Beacon (depending of FTL technology): In real space and transmitting a signal to inform ships their location while they are in jumpspace.
• FTL Communication Booster (depending on FTL technology): To boost FTL communication signals. Maybe linked with FTL Beacon
• Hazard Warning Buoy: ‘You Better Shouldn't Be Here.’ Possibly multiple ones spread around a certain hazardous area; maybe near a black hole, near a star nearing his supernova state, a ancient mine field, or a quarantined planet or station.
• Hazardous Waste Dump: Where dangerous compounds are kept because someday it could be used, but right now it's dangerous thing that must put away in deep space.
• Homesteaders: Independent colonizers; left their home world for freedom of religion/beliefs/trade/political beliefs etc.
• Jump Gate (depending on FTL technology)
• Law Enforcement Facilities: To keep law and order in the system. Maybe a few corvette sized ships (3-10 people each), a frigate (20-30 people), or a destroyer (40-50 people) vessel. Small jail for prisoners and barracks for police. May have less or more police depending upon the type of government and how hostile the area is to the police.
• Long Range Sensor Outpost: Watching a border or a dangerous part of space.
• Manufactory, Black Market: As Manufactory, but the goods are illegal.
• Manufactory, Hidden (1): A hidden, possibly illegal, manufactory placed by a corporation near resources or where it's not supposed to be. The goods aren't necessarily illegal, but the base itself might is.
• Manufactory, Hidden (2): A hidden manufactory where secret construction products are completed. Also a top secret research and development may be present.
• Manufactory: A small space-based manufacturing facility; Zero-G metallurgy, Zero-G drugs/pharmaceuticals, ship parts, etc.
• Massive Data Storage Facility: Remote place, possibly outside of governmental control. Probably coupled with a high performance communications relay.
• Massive Particle Accelerator Station: Special type of science station, placed remote from colonies for safety reasons.
• Medical Station: For a sector of space or a single star system. Usually the best medical treatment found in the area. Sometimes specialised to a specific type of medicine.
• Mercenary Base, Training: Where mercenaries can train, can either belong to a single mercenary group, owned by a group of mercenary groups, or independent.
• Mercenary Base: Base of operations for a mercenary band.
• Military, Administrative: Military base focused more on logistics, training, and administration.
• Military, Decommissioned Shipyard: Where decommissioned ships are kept until they are scrapped, or are kept mothballed in case of future use.
• Military, Fast Response Base: Squadron of fighters, a small military unit, or a corvette or two; designed to quickly respond to enemy acts of aggression, patrol local space, etc.
• Military, Field Training Base: larger than the Minor Training Base and used for larger training exercises.
• Military, Forward Deployment Base: Where military forces are able to gather prior to an attack. Not necessarily a supply base though it can be.
• Military, Forward Operating Base: Where military forces are based during deployment while in an active warzone. Usually smaller bases away from the main administrative and central deployment bases close to or in dangerous zones.
• Military, Hidden Base: <100 Active Duty, maintains a secret presence. Can be camouflaged as another space outpost.
• Military, Listening Post: Observation post, possibly pointed towards enemy territory or an active war zone.
• Military, Magazine/Armoury/Depot: Resupply base; ammo, fuel, and other consumables.
• Military, Minor Base: <100 Active Duty.
• Military, Minor Training Base: <1000 active duty.
• Military, Research and Development: Weapon and ship design testing.
• Military, Scout Base: <20 Active Duty, base for 2 to 3 long distance scouts.
• Military, Scrap Yard: Like the civilian Scrap Yard except military yards deal with decommissioned military vessels. Unlikely to sell parts but since they are typically not as well defended enterprising privateers may be able to raid the installation for outdated but still functional weapons and systems.
• Military, Special Forces Training Base
• Military, Staging Post: Build up of military forces as a prelude to military action. Not necessarily any outpost at this location.
• Mining Operation, Automated: Largely automated mining/refining post.
• Mining Operation, Penal: Hard labour prison.
• Mining Operation: Some automation but with a large amount of manual work still requiring to be done.
• Museum/Archive: Picture the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc...now imagine it inside a hollowed-out asteroid...
• Navigation Buoy: ‘You Are Here.’
• Peacekeeping Compound: An external force keeping peace in a dangerous, war torn, region.
• Penal Colonies: Have to put all the bad guys somewhere. Especially the ones that you don't want around anymore.
• Penal Death Camp: Prisoners are left here to die or are actively killed.
• Penal Work Camp: Prisoners serve their time though hard labour.
• Pirate Base
• Pirate Safe Haven: A large, or not so large, port where pirates can come to spend their gains, repair their ships, refill all their expendables.
• Prison Facility: A mixed level of security and possibly a barracks for prison guards.
• Prison, Alien: Maybe for an unknown alien race, and maybe a horrific one. Or maybe just for those of the same race but just not from the system.
• Prison, High Security: Very secure station used to hold very dangerous, even in just the eyes of the government, prisoners.
• Prison, Open: Minimal security, to segregate those minor criminals away from the rest of the prison population.
• Prison, Political: Where political prisoners are held, can be either comfortable or uncomfortable depending on the government.
• Prison: Secure station used to hold either a systems or sectors worth of criminals away from the general population.
• Private Residence: Private home of a wealthy individual, likely well guarded.
• Refuelling Depot: Space fuel station.
• Refugee Camp: Crowded and little spare wealth. Fleeing for their lives this is a home for desperate people who have lost everything.
• Relay Stations: Either for fast courier vessels or for unidirectional FTL communications.
• Religious Commune: Population <1000.
• Religious Compound: Either monastery or cult compound.
• Repair Depot: Maintenance yard/minor repairs.
• Research and Development, Corporate: Wide array of projects; dimensional/time travel, new ships, new weapons, new drugs, etc.
• Research and Development, Top Secret: Next generation technology today.
• Resort/Entertainment Centre: a space-based Disney-land.
• Resort/Gambling: a space-based Las Vegas.
• Restaurant Complex: A large or not so large eatery. Usually belong to a chain, though independent examples do exist.
• Rich Eccentric’s Compound: Those strange rich folks build in the darnest places for the strangest reasons.
• Ruin/Abandoned: Pick from outpost list then trash it. Either decayed, abandoned but in good order, or something happened to it or around it...
• Science Outpost, Applied Research: Biowar weapons, new starship engines, new secret weapons, etc.
• Science Outpost, Dangerous Research: Usually kept apart from inhabited or major transport routes in case something bad happens.
• Science Outpost, Top Secret: Very high security. The most secret of work goes on in here producing the most advanced science known, or the most dangerous.
• Science Outpost: Government/military/private sponsored science post; studies the star, local space/time anomaly, flora/fauna of local planet/moon, or some other science orientated project. Might not have an aim in studying science.
• Scrap yard: Deals with old run down ships, may be a source of valuable, but cheap, spare parts, particularly if the PC’s operate an older vessel.
• Secret Weapon Test Sites: Not where they build them but where they try them out.
• Security Compound: An internal force keeping peace in a dangerous, war torn, region.
• Service Station: Usually holds a small retail centre and a refuelling centre and are found along major transit routes.
• Shipyard, Corporate: ~50 slips of large size or a single assembly line producing shuttles or fighters.
• Shipyard, Nationalized: Over a hundred slips, all sizes of vessels.
• Shipyard, Private: Less than ten slips of moderate size or smaller size.
• Small Space Stations: On asteroid, small planets, or moons.
• Smuggler Base: Place to rest, relax, and recoup between smuggling runs. See also Pirate Safe Haven
• Space Hotel/Motel/Hostel: Possibly near an unusual or nice looking phenomenon, or a transport route or hub.
• Spy Bases: Usually hidden in a space outpost, pick an outpost to use as a cover.
• Star Mall: A large base with over 20 services under one roof. Sells everything from spacesuits and spare parts to jewellery and evening gowns.
• Summer Residence Station: Possibly near an unusual or nice looking phenomenon, or a transport route or hub. Usually for a small group of people, like a family, occasionally groups of them are gathered together or built into a single outpost.
• Surveillance, Covert: A hidden base designed to gather intelligence. Usually based along internal or external communication links, near major nodes and/or transport hubs. Can be corporate, governmental, military, or police.
• Surveillance, Overt: A base designed to gather intelligence. Usually based along communication links, near major nodes and/or transport hubs. Can be corporate, governmental, military, or police.
• Terraforming Facility: Small highly automated
• Terrorist Camp
• Terrorist Training Camp: Where terrorists are trained. Either in the open in a friendly environment or secret if operating in hostile environment.
• Tomb: For something alien really nasty; maybe it’s in suspended animation.
• Trading Outpost, Black Market: Home of the local black market, home also of some fixers. Fuel, supplies, weapons, and any other goods can be acquired: No questions asked.
• Trading Outpost, Grey Market: Semi-legal trading post.
• Trading Outpost: Above board trading post; fuel, supplies, etc.
• University
• War Memorial
• Warehouse: A location where goods are stored.
• Weapon platforms: Automated or manned.
 

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Don't think these were mentioned yet ...

Mansion - where a really rich guy gets really away from it all
Outlaw hideout - where some folks on the run for the law are hiding
 

I've updated the list, at long last, and included Mishihari Lord's suggestions and a few more of my own. There is a PDF attached as well as the list of outposts.

If anyone can think of anymore outposts I'll update the list and PDF.

Space Outposts
• Academic Research Facility: Schools conduct research and need places to protect their personnel and projects.
• Archaeological Dig: <100 academics and guards.
• Archaeological Research Site: Digging up ancient alien artefacts and civilizations.
• Asteroid Mining Facility: Possibly 100 % automated.
• Bank: Where you can put valuable goods in storage and apply for loans.
• Biohazard dumps: Got to put the dangerous stuff somewhere why not in someone else’s backyard.
• Black Market Depot: Where you can place valuable goods in storage, be it of sentimental or money value, and be it legal or illegal. Also a nice place to hide hard-copies of sensitive—possibly blackmail or ‘insurance’—data. Outside of governmental regulations, sometimes can be not very trustworthy, often they are very trustworthy.
• Border Markers: ‘This is Our Space.’
• Business Centre, Independent: Sometimes it pays to be outside of a governmental oversight. See Business Centre for more information.
• Business Centre: Financial/administrative focused outpost.
• Cache: Secret or secure storage; fuel, ammo, weapons, droid army...
• Cemetery: Either bodies, ashes, bones, or keep sakes are stored here.
• Colony, New: A fledgling colony possibly under the guidance of a benefactor.
• Command Centre: Be it government or corporate.
• Communication Outpost
• Communication Relay
• Construction Camp/Under Construction: Pick any outpost and decide how far along the construction process it is.
• Containment Facility: Where dangerous compounds are kept because they cannot be destroyed.
• Destroyed: Pick from list, has been destroyed either from without or from within.
• Diplomatic Outpost: Neutral territory or meeting place.
• Dissident Camp: Fleeing persecution because of their political views.
• Distribution Centre: Where goods are stored prior to being moved to further, smaller, locations; normally to retail centres.
• Embassy: For foreign governments, is normally sovereign territory.
• Energy Manufacturing/Collecting Plant: Either manned or automated, normally heavily guarded.
• Free Trade Post: Either outside of governmental control or encouraged by the government. This outpost hosts lots of traders. The goods are usually cheaper as there are few, if any, tariffs that are needed to be paid.
• FTL Beacon (depending of FTL technology): In real space and transmitting a signal to inform ships their location while they are in jumpspace.
• FTL Communication Booster (depending on FTL technology): To boost FTL communication signals. Maybe linked with FTL Beacon
• Hazard Warning Buoy: ‘You Better Shouldn't Be Here.’ Possibly multiple ones spread around a certain hazardous area; maybe near a black hole, near a star nearing his supernova state, an ancient mine field, or a quarantined planet or station.
• Hazardous Waste Dump: Where dangerous compounds are kept because someday it could be used, but right now it's dangerous thing that must put away in deep space.
• Homesteaders: Independent colonizers; left their home world for freedom of religion/beliefs/trade/political beliefs etc.
• Hypermarket: One stop shop for all your consumables. Food, cleaning products, fuel, and anything else you may need.
• Jump Gate (depending on FTL technology)
• Law Enforcement Facilities: To keep law and order in the system. Maybe a few corvette sized ships (3-10 people each), a frigate (20-30 people), or a destroyer (40-50 people) vessel. Small jail for prisoners and barracks for police. May have less or more police depending upon the type of government and how hostile the area is to the police.
• Long Range Sensor Outpost: Watching a border or a dangerous part of space.
• Mansion: Where a really rich guy gets really away from it all. Likely very heavy security.
• Manufactory, Black Market: As Manufactory, but the goods are illegal.
• Manufactory, Hidden (1): A hidden, possibly illegal, manufactory placed by a corporation near resources or where it's not supposed to be. The goods aren't necessarily illegal, but the base itself might is.
• Manufactory, Hidden (2): A hidden manufactory where secret construction products are completed. Also a top secret research and development may be present.
• Manufactory: A small space-based manufacturing facility; Zero-G metallurgy, Zero-G drugs/pharmaceuticals, ship parts, etc.
• Massive Data Storage Facility: Remote place, possibly outside of governmental control. Probably coupled with a high performance communications relay.
• Massive Particle Accelerator Station: Special type of science station, placed remote from colonies for safety reasons.
• Medical Station: For a sector of space or a single star system. Usually the best medical treatment found in the area. Sometimes specialised to a specific type of medicine.
• Mercenary Base, Training: Where mercenaries can train, can either belong to a single mercenary group, owned by a group of mercenary groups, or independent.
• Mercenary Base: Base of operations for a mercenary band.
• Military, Administrative: Military base focused more on logistics, training, and administration.
• Military, Command Centre: Either for a single branch of military or for multitude of branches.
• Military, Decommissioned Shipyard: Where decommissioned ships are kept until they are scrapped, or are kept mothballed in case of future use.
• Military, Fast Response Base: Squadron of fighters, a small military unit, or a corvette or two; designed to quickly respond to enemy acts of aggression, patrol local space, etc.
• Military, Field Training Base: larger than the Minor Training Base and used for larger training exercises.
• Military, Forward Deployment Base: Where military forces are able to gather prior to an attack. Not necessarily a supply base though it can be.
• Military, Forward Operating Base: Where military forces are based during deployment while in an active warzone. Usually smaller bases away from the main administrative and central deployment bases close to or in dangerous zones.
• Military, Hidden Base: <100 Active Duty, maintains a secret presence. Can be camouflaged as another space outpost.
• Military, Listening Post: Observation post, possibly pointed towards enemy territory or an active war zone.
• Military, Magazine/Armoury/Depot: Resupply base; ammo, fuel, and other consumables.
• Military, Minor Base: <100 Active Duty.
• Military, Minor Training Base: <1000 active duty.
• Military, Research and Development: Weapon and ship design testing.
• Military, Scout Base: <20 Active Duty, base for 2 to 3 long distance scouts.
• Military, Scrap Yard: Like the civilian Scrap Yard except military yards deal with decommissioned military vessels. Unlikely to sell parts but since they are typically not as well defended enterprising privateers may be able to raid the installation for outdated but still functional weapons and systems.
• Military, Special Forces Training Base
• Military, Staging Post: Build up of military forces as a prelude to military action. Not necessarily any outpost at this location.
• Mining Operation, Automated: Largely automated mining/refining post.
• Mining Operation, Penal: Hard labour prison.
• Mining Operation: Some automation but with a large amount of manual work still requiring to be done.
• Museum/Archive: Picture the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc...now imagine it inside a hollowed-out asteroid...
• Navigation Buoy: ‘You Are Here.’
• Outlaw Hideout: Where some folks on the run from the law are hiding. Can be an outpost from this list converted, or subverted, to being a hideout.
• Peacekeeping Compound: An external force keeping peace in a dangerous, war torn, region.
• Penal Colonies: Have to put all the bad guys somewhere. Especially the ones that you don't want around anymore.
• Penal Death Camp: Prisoners are left here to die or are actively killed.
• Penal Work Camp: Prisoners serve their time though hard labour.
• Pirate Base
• Pirate Safe Haven: A large, or not so large, port where pirates can come to spend their gains, repair their ships, refill all their expendables.
• Prison Facility: A mixed level of security and possibly a barracks for prison guards.
• Prison, Alien: Maybe for an unknown alien race, and maybe a horrific one. Or maybe just for those of the same race but just not from the system.
• Prison, High Security: Very secure station used to hold very dangerous, even in just the eyes of the government, prisoners.
• Prison, Open: Minimal security, to segregate those minor criminals away from the rest of the prison population.
• Prison, Political: Where political prisoners are held, can be either comfortable or uncomfortable depending on the government.
• Prison: Secure station used to hold either a systems or sectors worth of criminals away from the general population.
• Private Residence: Private home of a wealthy individual, likely to be well guarded.
• Refuelling Depot: Space fuel station.
• Refugee Camp: Crowded and little spare wealth. Fleeing for their lives this is a home for desperate people who have lost everything.
• Relay Stations: Either for fast courier vessels or for unidirectional FTL communications.
• Religious Commune: Population <1000.
• Religious Compound: Either monastery or cult compound.
• Religious Site: Pilgrimage destination, home for holy relics, or an old religious centre.
• Repair Depot: Maintenance yard/minor repairs.
• Research and Development, Corporate: Wide array of projects; dimensional/time travel, new ships, new weapons, new drugs, etc.
• Research and Development, Top Secret: Next generation technology today.
• Resort/Entertainment Centre: a space-based Disney-land.
• Resort/Gambling: a space-based Las Vegas.
• Restaurant Complex: A large or not so large eatery. Usually belong to a chain, though independent examples do exist.
• Rich Eccentric’s Compound: Those strange rich folks build in the darnest places for the strangest reasons.
• Ruin/Abandoned: Pick from outpost list then trash it. Either decayed, abandoned but in good order, or something happened to it or around it...
• Science Outpost, Applied Research: Biowar weapons, new starship engines, new secret weapons, etc.
• Science Outpost, Dangerous Research: Usually kept apart from inhabited or major transport routes in case something bad happens.
• Science Outpost, Top Secret: Very high security. The most secret of work goes on in here producing the most advanced science known, or the most dangerous.
• Science Outpost: Government/military/private sponsored science post; studies the star, local space/time anomaly, flora/fauna of local planet/moon, or some other science orientated project. Might not have an aim in studying science.
• Scrap Yard: Deals with old run down ships, may be a source of valuable, but cheap, spare parts, particularly if the PC’s operate an older vessel.
• Secret Weapon Test Site: Not where they build them but where they try them out.
• Security Compound: An internal force keeping peace in a dangerous, war torn, region.
• Service Station: Usually holds a small retail centre and a refuelling centre and are found along major transit routes.
• Shipyard, Corporate: ~50 slips of large size or a single assembly line producing shuttles or fighters.
• Shipyard, Nationalized: Over a hundred slips, all sizes of vessels.
• Shipyard, Private: Less than ten slips of moderate size or smaller size.
• Small Space Stations: On asteroid, small planets, or moons.
• Smuggler Base: Place to rest, relax, and recoup between smuggling runs. See also Pirate Safe Haven
• Space Hotel/Motel/Hostel: Possibly near an unusual or nice looking phenomenon, or a transport route or hub.
• Spy Bases: Usually hidden in a space outpost, pick an outpost to use as a cover.
• Spy Training Camp: Its location may be common knowledge but it’s infrastructure is usually kept secure.
• Star Mall: A large base with over 20 services under one roof. Sells everything from spacesuits and spare parts to jewellery and evening gowns.
• Summer Residence Station: Possibly near an unusual or nice looking phenomenon, or a transport route or hub. Usually for a small group of people, like a family, occasionally groups of them are gathered together or built into a single outpost.
• Surveillance, Covert: A hidden base designed to gather intelligence. Usually based along internal or external communication links, near major nodes and/or transport hubs. Can be corporate, governmental, military, or police.
• Surveillance, Overt: A base designed to gather intelligence. Usually based along communication links, near major nodes and/or transport hubs. Can be corporate, governmental, military, or police.
• Terraforming Facility: Small highly automated
• Terrorist Camp
• Terrorist Training Camp: Where terrorists are trained. Either in the open in a friendly environment or secret if operating in hostile environment.
• Tomb: For something alien and potentially it could be something really nasty; maybe it’s in suspended animation or maybe it’s got some ancient and dangerous automated defences protecting it.
• Trading Outpost, Black Market: Home of the local black market, home also of some fixers. Fuel, supplies, weapons, and any other goods can be acquired: No questions asked.
• Trading Outpost, Grey Market: Semi-legal trading post.
• Trading Outpost: Above board trading post; fuel, supplies, etc.
• Underground Railroad: An outpost—either pick from the list or is dedicated to its role—that is used to cover the movement of a class of people escaping from a regime to a place of freedom.
• University
• War Memorial
• Warehouse: A location where goods are stored.
• Weapon platforms: Automated or manned.
 

Attachments


This may be mundane, but I didn't see this on the list: Space Weather Buoy/Satellite.

The closest thing I saw on the list to this would be the Hazard Buoy, except that Hazard Buoy's were defined as marking specific hazards.

Space Weather is a very real thing and includes: Solar Particle Events, areas of Debris and Dust - like debris from a cometary tail, Cosmic Radiation Emissions (Gamma Ray Bursts, Supernovas, etc.).

In an FTL space civilization, such buoy's would be placed throughout space at regular intervals (say every light year or so in explored/colonized areas of a Galaxy, and only as necessary throughout as much of the Galaxy as possible - such as the perimeter of the Galaxy to detect Gamma Ray Bursts from other Galaxies, etc.). Since they can communicate at FTL speeds, information from these buoy's/satellites could be shared between them and collated at a central point for space weather bulletins and accesible forecasts. They'd be extremely common, small, with redundant satellites/sensor packages at each location. There would litterally be trillions of them throughout a Galaxy.

With such buoy's placed throughout Space, both planets and interstellar travellers could have warning of such deadly events (like Gamma Ray Bursts) from days to millenia prior to an event.

This would probably be something very standard and expected of a Galactice FTL Civilization.
 
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• Administration Buildings (civil and military)
• Powerplant (primary plus backups, esp. for military)
• Water purification/distribution plant & network
• Farms (produce and livestock)
• Shops (food, clothing, devices)
• Manufacturing Facilities (for items not imported)
• Fire Department
• Police Department (to go with the prison)
• Hospital
• Entertainment (Bars, Games/Gambling, Prostitution, etc.)
• News Office


[edit] Ah... I see the list on this page is much more thorough than that in the OP...
 
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Thanks for the extra ideas, RPG_Tweaker, I'll see about adding them and the weather bouys sometime soon (a lot sooner than my last update I hope).

Kenny
 

Feral Nanite Dump: Nanites which have gone into 'grey goo' mode, but hurled safely into space, but stll dangerous. Any former sateilte or even ground based structure could carry this contagion.

Temporal Warp Processor: A tiny, split second portal to the past, caused perhaps by an accident when making a jumpgate- what purpose does it serve? Well, you can beam information back through time using it, allowing for a supercomputer that constantly tells itself the answers nanoseconds before it's asked the question.

Gravity Refrence Sphere: An ultradense sphere of something like depleted uranium that orbits a star on a stable orbit, teamed with a small scaning satelite which orbits it. It's purpose? Ships passing by it influence it with their mass and gravity well, which the satelite can then scan. This gives ships a refrence point on their relativistic mass, and the gravity of nearby planetary and stellar bodies.

Clone Relay: Some ancient civiisation- or possibly some race or clture still around- has created highly advanced cloning technology, making them essentially immortal- by trasferrring their conciousness to new bodies. However, they need or believe they need to do this within a short distance of where they die- hence the relay stations where they record their dna, so that if they die in the area, they can be resurected easily. It may be that they genuinly tansfer conciousness, or it may be that the stations are just for show, and not really doing anything at all- the belief in proximity conciousness trasfer could be quasispiritual instead of scientific. Then again, what if they're right- and one of the relay stations malfunction, releasing a scourge of souless clones in the sector, who hunt down their originals, murder them, and take their place?

Biomass Fabricator: An all purpose biomass creator, actually a space station built around and into an asteroid comprised of the proper compounds to make organic life. All the need are the basic atoms, and they can tank-grow all sorts of biomass, from food, to space body parts, to whole clones, or maybe even bioengineered organisms made to order.

Battle Faker: Mercenaries and bounty hunters often get a bonus if they suffer battle damage. So some clever sorts started to create battle fakers- small docking bays that a merc or bounty hunter can park their ship in for an hour or so, while a set of cheap, low-power blastes mounted on the inside of the bay blows the hell out of their shields- not enough to do any real damage, but enough to get a merc their danger pay. The cheaper ones could be abit risky, while the better run ones would plug into the ship's computer and modulate the shields to make each blast leave a superficial but impressive looking burn on the hull.

Cracker: In the far future, there are some pretty impressive materials-ultra high grade armor could defeat even the most impressive portable explosives, vaults and bunkers designed to survive a super nova, and some hazardous substances which could also be near-impossible to destroy. So, wether you're trying to crack the solar system's strongest safe, breach the hull of an ancient ultratech spacecraft, or vaporise what's left of an immortal AI Nanotyrant, a cracker might be just what you need. This is a space station built around a large reactor and a single large jury-rigged capital ship weapon calibrated to fire at ultra close range with extremly high precision and versatile prameters. Weapons like this are usually fired rapidly using the power of huge reactors at distant targets, but a cracker can only fire once every few minutes, normally on an object located in it's targeting bay. The result is like a gigantic cutting torch, although like battle fakers, the precision, sophistication, and safety of such a location could vary from high to low, depending on the region, tech level, and cost.
 


stealing from movies and tv:

functioning Stargate on primitive world
damaged stargate
crashed shipwreck with infectious cargo in stasis
shipwreck with criminals in stasis
shipwreak with criminals forming a brutal colony
marooned criminals on barely habital planet
small escape pod traveling through space with passenger in statis
abandoned/derelict ship, adrift in space with "something" onboard
ship in distress, damaged propulsion
ship in distress, under attack
ship in distress, life support critical
ship in distress, false pretenses
Dyson sphere
ship trapped in a black hole event horizon
giant space carcass harvesting operation (boodong)
Commerce planet
Industrial Farming Planet (few people, mostly automated)
Pleasure Planet (Risa from TNG)
Doomsday device (planet killer)

Just to name a few
 

Wouldn't you just dump this into a Star or something?
Yeah sure, if you had a tractor beam or something, but even getting it out into space would be hard enough and it would just devour anything you attached to it. It could even be on a decaying solar orbit, or was before it stabilised it's own orbit by flinging off bits of itself.
 

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