For later inclusion.
The Inner Solar System
The Inner Solar System is the most controlled region of the system. The Foundation keeps a tight grip on all activities, monitoring the planets closest to the habitable zone and spreading influence as far as they can reach. With the sheer density of habitable space stations, colonies, and people, the Inner System has become the new heart of humanity.
Out of all the solar system's planets, Mercury is likely the least inhabited. With such a close proximity to the Sun the surface is hell to live on, with only underground structures and specialized equipment capable of withstanding the temperatures. Instead of colonization, corporations have taken to the planet for mining purposes. Quarries dot the landscape, drilling deep into the crust under the guidance of automated systems.
The sole humans around: those workers left behind to oversee the machinery. If any issues arise, they're on their own.
Venus is a resort planet. While no terraforming has been undertaken, the upper atmosphere provides comfortable conditions, with temperatures cooler than the surface and with atmospheric pressure at tolerable levels. Using technology retrieved from SCP-████, the Foundation has constructed sets of aerial cities unlike anything else they have to offer. Luxurious, gleaming, expensive. It's the Foundation's reward for those in the solar upper class who follow full compliance with their rules, and they make it known.
Facility Dirae
Out of every sky city's sight is Facility Dirae, a Foundation high security prison complex extending from the upper atmosphere into the lower. Constructed in the late 2050s to account for revolutionary attempts on Mars, the compound is armed to the teeth with paratech security systems and weaponry. Cannons along the outside are set to shoot down escapees who manage to make it out, and, if facility control is lost, explosives are rigged to destroy the facility's buoyancy systems and plunge it straight towards the surface. If there is a way out, it's yet to be found.
Home.
Formerly. By the time the Veil collapsed the Foundation had come to the realization that, with threats such as SCP-001-AG and SCP-3848 events looming, the only route out is to leave. Colonization steadily lowered the population on Earth and, once the evacuations of the 2030s and 2040s were over, virtually none were left. With ED-K Lethe events those left don't even realize that they lost.
What had been built is falling apart. The abandoned containment sites have fallen into disarray, releasing anomalies into the emptied world or turning anomalous themselves. Nature is returning through the collapsing cities. While the Foundation allows people to "revisit" by controlling and watching through the eyes of drones on the surface, the threat of Lethe mind-wiping is enough to ward off any potential return trips. The planet is now left to the paranormal, the few humans left behind, and nature. We no longer have our birthplace.
Or, more accurately, what the Foundation wants people to believe is our birthplace.
Luna Korea
Luna Korea is a lunar nation and a giant in interplanetary politics. Initially formed by South Korean lunar colonies in the 2020s and 2030s, its territories rapidly expanded, using networking between corporations, allied governments, and lunar mining companies to accumulate massive amounts of resources and capital. The capital and largest city is New Seoul, built inside the Marius Hills lunar lava tube, sealed off from the outside environment. The central government is entirely run by the Eun M1 Presidential AI.
Tensions with the Foundation are high. The Veil's loss broke the trust between South Korea and the Foundation, which had not informed the nation on the hazards formerly in neighboring North Korea. Subsequent Foundation expansion has been taken as a threat to national security, resulting in laws criminalizing any Foundation activity in Luna Korean territory — a safe haven for those who have fought against Foundation control. To avoid interplanetary political backlash no direct action by the Foundation has been taken, though undercover intrusions are performed frequently.
Foundation Lunar Areas
Once construction of Lunar Area-32 completed in 1998, the Foundation had a whole new world of possibilities opened to them. Area-32 and its sister site Area-13 were the two first off-world sites to ever emerge, and with that they became hubs of activity for extraterrestrial anomaly research. Although the areas have progressively fallen out of favor as more interplanetary facilities are constructed, the legacy they hold persists.
Luna Korea's presence has put these sites in hot water. The placement of both toes the line of Luna Korea's borders, and the Lunar Area 13-32 subterranean railway intersects it. The need for both sites to continue operating so anomalies such as SCP-2821 stay contained worsens the situation.
It's only a matter of time before something snaps.
Ashburn Station is an O'Neill cylinder space station, orbiting the sun between the paths of Earth and Mars. Comprised of two component cylinders (Ashburn Alpha and Ashburn Beta) each measuring 32km in length and 8km in width, the structure is the single most massive space habitat ever built by humanity. What that building process was is a layered in redactions — finishing the project in 2033 after a single decade of work is an impossible feat — but regardless of origin, the station has become the single most populated space habitat in the solar system.
Ashburn Alpha
Ashburn Alpha is the main population center, split into three sectors of different make. Sector 3 is a megacity for the station's central residence, Sector 2 is a recreation of old Earth cities with suburban components, and Sector 1 is wholly forested. The entire area is designed to appeal to those who are homesick, wishing they could return to any amount of what Earth used to be. The Foundation favors those who stay compliant to regulations and stay supportive of the organization for this, only permitting movement into Sectors 1 and 2 if a good track record is noted.
For those who aren't economically well off or pro-Foundation a massive disparity reigns. A third of Sector 3 is poor and crime ridden, working menial mechanical jobs intended to keep Ashburn operating or leeching from the infrastructure used by those better off for survival. Foundation security is tight around the borders, but so long as nothing spills into the rest of the sector they won't strain their resources. If it doesn't damage the station it isn't worth interfering.
Ashburn Beta
For the public, Ashburn Beta is an under construction habitation cylinder, interior exposed to the vacuum with no flourish on its structures. For the Foundation, Ashburn Beta is the chief coordination center for all interplanetary efforts in the inner solar system. Containment fleets dock to restock on supplies, databanks process wealths of information, command centers run the logistics on hundreds of operations, and factories pump out weapon after weapon for task forces. The total population of the cylinder is greater than that of any other Foundation space station or planetary outpost.
Rumors exist among staff that the O5 Council convenes there, though no confirmation has ever been given — the full business of everything undertaken at Beta is a mystery to even its own researchers. The Foundation is content with this, though. The spine of operations needs not know what the brain wills of it.
Mars is humanity's first stop for colonization. The sudden activation of a temporal weapon on the Martian surface reverted the planet to a state from millions of years in the past, a state where the planet was lush and inhabitable, ripe for easy colonization. A perfect replacement for Earth in the event of apocalypse. Civilian travel is opened by the Foundation and the native Martian inhabitants, resurrected by the temporal incident, are enlisted for their insight on the landscape. The first
In the decades since, the Martian settlements have turned to slums. Foundation-run megacities span the coastlines, housing those
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The goings on in the Belt are lawless. The sheer scope of the region and the vast distances between individual asteroids leaves full control of it by any one group impossible. Miners take to the most mineral rich asteroids while, at the same time, pirate groups bunker down in isolated corners that evade the watchful sight of Belt monitoring outposts. Unregistered space stations orbit through as well, the number of which is unknown. No order applies to the area — it's unlikely that any ever will.
Past the planetary colonies is a sprawl of space stations, spanning a range of orbits between the worlds and around the sun. None reach the scale of Ashburn but the cumulative population of each one comprises over a third of humanity.
Some of the stations are Foundation-run, serving for containment, civilian life, or for imprisonment. Some are independent, being entire nations or single states in wholly space-borne countries. Some are vacant, abandoned.
For many, this is now home.
The Outer Solar System
The Outer Solar System is where the Foundation's influence sharply drops. The action is dominated by interplanetary politics, driven by ice mining as a source of profit or the hope of discovering exploitable anomalies. Where governments lack influence organizations such as MC&D reign. The Foundation failed to properly oversee the area during the initial bursts of post-evacuation colonization, and the impact of it reverberates today.
The orbits between the gas giants are the conditions of the Belt to the extremes. Unregistered space stations, created without oversight in the early scramble for the outer frontiers, litter the expanse, many having been converted into hubs for Foundation opponents, anartists, or people who simply want an escape from the Inner System. Many are dens for Marshall, Carter & Dark.
The Foundation makes no attempt to monitor it all. Too much to analyze for too little reward. What happens out here is not up to any one groups to reign in — it's on its own.
Jovian space is a territorial mishmash. Stakes in its moons are claimed by the Foundation, Luna Korea, and hosts of other nations, having accumulated over the decades in hopes of hitting the jackpot for the anomalous materials amassed in the gas giant's pull. Chains of negotiations have been formed to ensure stability but conflicts still sporadically erupt, fighting for whichever resources happen to be most valuable at the time. The Foundation knows better than to instigate the violence themselves, though they aren't against supporting whichever sides show them the most favor.
Civilians hope that tensions can come to an end. Among the governments, there is no certainty this will be the case for a long, long while.
Europa
Europa is a mixed Foundation-civilian research and ice mining world. Mechanical rigs on the surface dig at the kilometers of Europan crust as research stations in the oceans far below investigate the aquatic life. The field of public xenobiology got a jumpstart in those waters, and it persists to this day. However, despite the moon's treatment by scientists, much of the ocean remains unexplored. For every thoroughly explored patch of seabed is dozens not yet touched upon. More is to be found.
The Ganymedian Kingdom
The Divine Ganymedian Pentarchy of Quintessence, commonly referred to as either the Ganymedian Kingdom, the Kingdom, or simply Ganymede, is a nation formed by a collection of early Fifthist colonists to the Jupiter region. The monarchy was established and deestablished four times in quick succession due to infighting and failures in governance, though once the turbulence had passed it rapidly picked up new inhabitants, calling out to all Fifthists throughout the solar system for a common home.
The Kingdom's main export is ice. Ice is the most valuable commodity for space travel, used in fuel, coolants, and food. Ganymede on its own has a dense crust composed of it, but the real ticket to success is in the anomalous: holes in the under-ice sea floor, leading to a pocket dimension. What's inside is kept a tight secret. The Kingdom forbids all entrance into the mines they have and forbids miners from speaking of their experiences. If word of mouth is to be believed, a second Ganymede lies inside the dimension. Potentially more.
Secrets aside, the Ganymedian Kingdom has the ice market on a tight lockdown. No other solar system region outputs as much as they do, and, while Fifthist beliefs have many on edge, gauntlets of tests have found the ice to be wholly normal in composition. This has led to the Foundation being one of the nation's primary financial backers — supplies and weapons sent in exchange for ice. Ganymede is careful to not oversaturate the market, though even if they did they would still be leagues ahead of the competition. As they say, fifth time's the charm.
Saturn is near lawless. While Jupiter has a degree of political order, no such enforcement has ever existed for Saturn. The closest to an overall governing body as there is is Marshall, Carter & Dark, who use the region as a site for concentrating and organizing their ventures. Nearly every nation in the area has ties to them to some degree.
The central source of conflict is ice. While Jupiter's moons contain it, the Saturnian rings are near completely water ice in composition, making it a motherload on the scale of Ganymede — potentially greater. Territorial disputes are frequently waged, the states on its moons vying for as much ring control as they can get. The Ganymedian Kingdom is as prominent as it is in Jovian space, pushing in to ensure they stay dominant force in the ice market.
The Foundation has attempted to step in on several occasions and has failed to make headway in all of them. For now, they leave it be. There's better efforts to attend to.
Inbetweener Station
Inbetweener Station is an unregistered cylinder station under MC&D management, orbiting within the Cassini Division of the Saturnian rings. Purportedly it is run by Carter themselves, and it shows: the place is tighter on security than any other MC&D station in the solar system. Vendors for illicit goods clog the streets, and apartments teem with workers running contracts for MC&D or MC&D-aligned groups. On the structure's exterior, networks of specters bound to the station manage its trajectory to avoid impacts with ring materials.
Foundation is aware of Inbetweener's existence. Undercover agents are deployed their, tracking persons of interest and monitoring the groups deemed most dangerous towards containment efforts. Carter's bunch is aware of this too. When either side will crack down on the other is a fact neither group knows.
Out of all the solar system's planets, Uranus is likely the second least inhabited. At an average distance of 19.2 astronomical units from the sun, any trips to the planet are arduous treks that even the best in subluminal rocket engines fail to improve.
The main motive for visiting: helium. Helium is a highly valuable resource for a range of technologies, and, with Uranus's atmosphere having a high concentration of the gas, it's the number one stop for corporate harvesting. Skimmer ships are launched into trajectories that glance off the atmosphere, scooping gaseous payloads before reentering space for retrieval. However, aside from the efforts of corporations, there is little point in traveling to the gas giant. No one would head out there without a good reason.
This is fortunate for the Foundation. The orbit of Uranus is set as the boundary line for what humanity is allowed expand up to — further than that, no exploration is permitted.
It gives the Foundation all the secrecy it needs for exploring the stars.
Neptune is under full Foundation control. Shipyards and and containment satellites and security outposts riddle its orbit, constantly on patrol for intruders. While the station density isn't as high as it is for planets such as Mars, the security is far tighter. The operations being run here can't be found by the public.
Orbital Area-11
Orbital Area-11 is Extrasolar Activities Division HQ. On the advent of the Lang Distortion Drives, the Foundation found that their FTL ships would commonly be tugged into the strongest gravity wells at their destination as they arrived. For ships returning to the edge of the solar system, this would always be Neptune. Ships launched from there and returned there.
With the planet being a hub for extrasolar travel, it was only fitting for EAD to construct their main base there. The station runs no containment of its own, instead being a massive command center in constant contact with probes and researchers traveling across the galaxy. The Astronomy Department operates in the station as well, checking in on their arrays of telescopes. Orbital Area-11 is the Foundation's eye on the sky, on lookout for what lies in the extrasolar expanses ahead.
Zeta-01
Location of Interest Zeta-01 is an extradimensional city-state with entrances strewn throughout the galaxy (and likely farther) and a massive extraterrestrial population. The locale has picked up hundreds of groups and entities, ranging from the evacuees of war-torn star systems to groups of wandering tradescreatures. Dozens of layers segment the interior, containing ranges of atmospheres and compositions to accommodate a range of species. Initially it was only believed that a single entrance was present in the Kuiper Belt — turns out there's more than can be found.
Since the 2040s the Foundation has managed extraterrestrial immigration from Zeta-01 into the solar system. All travel is directed through Transit Compound Naught-11, inside the cavern walls Zeta-01 rests within, and exits through a Way at the Red Zeta Kuiper Belt outpost. From there ships distribute the arrivals throughout inner system areas. On occasion, some are recruited into the Foundation.
More importantly than simply managing immigration, though: managing Marshall, Carter & Dark. Next to Saturn the organization has a heavy influence, not directly impacting the communities there but rather enlisting them for aid. How much alien tech they've attained this way is unclear. All that's clear for the Foundation is that they need to be on constant watch, lest they obtain something they should never have control of.
While the Kuiper Belt has the rare station or planetoid, the Oort Cloud is desolate. It's the border of the solar system, effectively extending beyond the defined borders of it into interstellar space. While it's necessary for Foundation FTL ships to cut through the region on their way out, the intersections are so short lived that no discoveries can be made. The sheer scale prevents easy exploration in non-superluminal transit. All the Foundation has are arrays of monitoring equipment for gravitational phenomena and particle bursts.
Strange things lie in the boundary where our system contacts the extrasolar realm, and most of it is yet to be encountered — if ever.
While the Kuiper Belt has the rare station or planetoid, the Oort Cloud is desolate. It's the border of the solar system, effectively extending beyond the defined borders of it into interstellar space. While it's necessary for Foundation FTL ships to cut through the region on their way out, the intersections are so short lived that no discoveries can be made. The sheer scale prevents easy exploration in non-superluminal transit. All the Foundation has out there are arrays of monitoring equipment, alone and far from civilization.
Strange things lie in the boundary of where our system contacts the extrasolar realm, and most of it is yet to be encountered — if ever.
Foundation Lunar Areas
Once construction of Lunar Area-32 completed in 1998, the Foundation had a whole new world of possibilities opened to them. Area-32 and its sister site Area-13 were the two first off-world sites to ever emerge, and with that they became hubs of activity for extraterrestrial anomaly research. Although the areas have progressively fallen out of favor as more interplanetary facilities are constructed, the legacy they hold persists.
Luna Korea's presence has put these sites in hot water. The placement of both toes the line of Luna Korea's borders, and the Lunar Area 13-32 subterranean railway intersects it. The need for both sites to continue operating so anomalies such as SCP-2821 stay contained worsens the situation.
It's only a matter of time before something snaps.