[u]Working Title[/u]: Dr. Strangehab, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Meat Okay, probably not, but one of the little entries I've always found most interesting in the books were references to things like Meathab in the Outer Rim and in making a few notes around outer system general plot ideas I ended up halfway towards an adventure in Meathab.... Anyway, this is an early first draft focusing on story ideas, characters and the general layout of Meathab itself. As time goes on, I'll end up fleshing things out more. If you guys find it interesting, I'd love to hear your thoughts on themes, possible complications etc. Or tell me why I'm an asshole and everything in this thread is terrible. Anyway, enjoy! DISCLAIMER: The forum is being weird and randomly swallowing up fragments of text or shuffling it around against my will. If paragraphs merge into non-sequiturs, that's probably what's happened. Let me know and I'll fix it. This might be because of long posts, so I'll try not to ramble too much. [u][b]Plot Brief[/b][/u] A clade of exhumans, the Ascendant Brutes, attempted to colonize Meathab but were repelled by the anarchists in residence. The Brutes have rallied for a second attempt under a new leader named Unfettered-By-Weakness, who intends to displace Meathab's ego and enter the body himself. Firewall has received a distress call from the besieged habitat and rallied a cell of Sentinels; while the exhumans alone are little more than a hazard to local space traffic and MeatHab is just an artistic curiosity, an outer system Proxy fears that the exhumans taking over the hab poses a serious risk. [u][b]Themes[/b][/u] [u]Religion[/u]: Theology is a fairly pressing issue here and much of the groups can be seen as pursuing different issues towards religious faith, with MeatHab (or rather, the possible ego within MeatHab) as the god-figure. The anarchists are what you might term agnostics or deists - they think there might be a person in there, but are more concerned with how cool a space station made out of meat is. The Acolytes, of course, are theists but in a rather frustrated sense - their dilemma comes from their god's apparent rejection and mockery of their worship. The exhumans, of course, represent the idea of transhumans rising up to become godlike, to replace god. (Personally, I'm an atheist in case you're wondering.) [u]Tragedy[/u]: This isn't going to end well, for anyone involved. All the major players are being set up in fairly impossible scenarios by conflicting influences, but it's also important that they are quite sympathetic or relate-able - even the exhumans. [b][u]MeatHab Itself[/b][/u] This section is more to do with "fleshing out" (pause for appropriate groans at bad puns) with Meathab, it's regions and demographics. As described in the core book and Rimward, MeatHab is a roughly cylindrical habitat spun for half-Earth gravity. It is comparable in size to a Hamilton cylinder, and is also similar to the nano-active habitats in that its organic nature allows it to grow. However, due to the low suitability of the construction materials to the task it has significantly less habitable space. An equivalent Hamilton cylinder of this size could house a population of hundreds of thousand, while Meathab has a maximum sustainable capacity of perhaps 2000. Most inhabited space occupies the heavily insulated 'north' end of Meathab, with the length of the 'southern' half largely containing a long access duct used to ferry ships and cargo into and out of the hab. The ducts contain multiple layers of sphincter-like airlocks, which are not quite as efficient as a proper airlock of this size - this is why multiple layers are needed, to 'catch' and recycle lost atmosphere in transgenically-modified macro-alveoli. The [u]Epidermis[/u] is thick, frozen meat that serves largely as insulation and armor. The only interesting things to really occupy this level of the hab are the [u]Cell Lines[/u], the sites of active meat-growth, and the [u]Undulipodes[/u] (colloquially called Graspers), a number of motile macro-cilia kilometers long that move along the length of the cylinder to catch space debris and feed into the Cell Lines. The [u]Basale[/u] refers to multiple layers that make up the 'bulk' of Meathab; acres of muscle, thick cables of nerves and connective tissues. Some theorize that this is where the 'brain' of Meathab is kept, spread across the length of the hab, though this is unconfirmed. Basale is technically habtitable, though it is a bit cold and the atmosphere a bit thin for morphs without proper modifications. There are also very few passages at this level that even a neotenic could pass through without cutting into the flesh; Basale is largely the home of the resident maintenance lizards. Meathab tolerates people in Basale so long as they are passing through but a few people have noted "he" gets nervous when people poke around with purpose and function. Anyone attempting to probe Meathab will find walls of meat pushing them away - there have been reports of the maintenance lizards turning carnivorous when people push forward too far. The [u]Coelom[/u] is the habitable level of Meathab, where the atmosphere and heat levels are sufficient for splicers to live comfortably, thanks in no small part to an extensive level of fluid insulation. Coelom layer is also the smallest level of Meathab, though Meathab's growth in recent months has made it more comfortable. There are currently two settlements in the Coelom layer. [u]Calyx Major[/u] is the older, larger settlement, near the 'mouth' that permits access into Coelom layer. Its population (~750) is largely composed of anarchists, artists, curious genehackers and bio-tourists. Residents of Calyx Major have learned to try and make do with minimal inorganic materials, which either causes an immunological response in Meathab when used in large levels or just piss him off for missing the point of making a space station from meat. Either way, attempts to make permanent structures larger than a small tent out of metals and plastics are swiftly eroded by enzymes. As a result, architects in Calyx Major had to get [i]creative[/i]. Most use some form of transgenic meat, some even fashioning it from the pliable flesh of Meathab itself, and the town is large enough to even have some neighborhoods differentiated by meat-type. But one can also find houses made of wood, leather, hair and even keratin (finger/toenails).

Calyx Major is mostly anarcho-syndicalist in politics and government. Things like security, healthcare and so on are handled by ad-hoc committees and collectives and they have strong trading ties with local Scum barges. There are some curious hypercorp scientists and Extropian bio-designers, but by and large they are the minority and have to play the rep-game to get by most of the time.

[u]Calyx Minor[/u] is the younger, smaller town, recently budded off from Calyx Major after a spat between the anarchists and the Acolytes. The Acolytes reside and make their 'church' in Calyx Minor, singing hymns and holding religious services to give praise to the habitat, which they worship as a god. They regularly make the short pilgrimage to Calyx Major when they hear of new arrivals, in order to proselytize their faith.

Glorious Sepulcher is a motile devotional art piece the Acolytes have created; members who join in biomorphs must switch to synthmorphs and offer their meat to this offering to their god, a walking conglomerate of all the meat they don't believe they deserve. The result is... unsettling to behold, and it just gets worse (and bigger) as more people join the Acolyes. It also has a cyberbrain. A dumb AI is sleeved into Sepulcher, programmed to make circuits of Coleom singing hymns. Anarchists recently started pranking the Acolytes by hacking the AI to upload new audio tracks (hardcore Mercurial rap) and behavioral codes, causing it to aggressively frot the Speaker. This hack sparked the feud that caused the split into two towns.