Tycho Colony (WW3 Era)

Tycho Colony
British Overseas Territory
Official Name	Tycho Colony
Primary Language	English
Motto	TBD
Area	22,700 Square Kilometers
Politics
Owner	United Kingdom
Governing Body	Governor and Council of Ministers
Government Type	Dependency under a Constitutional Monarchy
Head of State	Queen Elizabeth II
Head of Government	Governor Natalie Bass
History
Established	1984 (construction began in 1980)
Demographics
Population	22,485

The Tycho Colony is the United Kingdom's primary facility on Luna. Located in the southern hemisphere of Luna's near side, it always has line of sight to Earth.

Layout

Old Colony

When someone refers to the 'Old Colony' what they are actually referring to is the first round of subterranean habitats built into Tycho Crater's central mountain peak. Historically, this is actually the second colony, as the first was the original exploration base that remains near the spaceport. The Old Colony consists of a 6-level underground facility, with 2 levels above ground level and 3 below ground.

Level 2

Colony management offices, large open spaces with 'outside view' screens, fancy apartments, political offices, high-class eateries, fancy hotel

Level 1

Corporate offices, white collar work, shopping mall, upscale eateries.

Corporations With Offices

• Metapharma
• Mondessa, Ltd
• Nova Lunar Resourcing
• Pizutto Industries
• Solar Dynamics
• Yang Enterprises
• Yang Enterprises Astroconstruction (a wholly owned subsidiary of Yang Enterprises)

Ground Level

The Ground Level of the Colony is where industrial activities take place. MetaPharma and Mondessa have extensive facilities here and are the two largest occupants of this level. Solar Dynamics has a production facility here, used for rapid prototyping of equipment to be tested out at their R&D Facility on the crater rim.

Sublevel 1

More industrial facilities, blue collar work, aquaponics facility, food court

Sublevel 2

'Blue collar housing'

Sublevel 3

By far the most expansive level, sublevel 3 is dedicated entirely to maintenance facilities, piping, power lines, and all the behind the scenes things that keep everything above it functioning. It is a tangled maze of crawlspaces, pipes, treatment vats, transformers, and a nightmarish array of more than 30 years of replaced-in-place-and-bypassed hardware. Consequently, Sublevel 3 is also home to the Colony's criminal underground, with illegal operations scattered all over the Escheresque floor.

Colony Expansion

The Colony Expansion began life as a landing facility for the cancelled Iron Arrow super-heavy lift rockets. Acres upon acres of regolith were excavated away and replaced with tens of meters thick lunarcrete slabs sitting atop pilings driven deep into the regolith. All of this was situated a sizable distance away from the central colony for safety purposes. Control facilities were located underground, as were transportation tunnels with rail links to the colony. However, with the cancellation of the Iron Arrow, the construction workers were essentially left stranded at the colony, which was having a housing crisis. Sensing an opportunity, Zhong Yang, an investment banker from Hong Kong, stepped in to form a new construction company with the intent of converting the landing pads into a new housing complex. The tunneling hardware used to construct the original colony was rebuilt, and a grid layout of underground housing blocks was carved out in and underneath the lunarcrete slabs. In the early 2000s, surface domes began to be constructed for recreational and agricultural use. The Colony Expansion has turned into the new housing area of the colony, with continual plans to add additional domes and deeper layers of residences.

At present there are currently 6 surface domes, and a 5-layer-deep grid of housing tunnels.

Exterior Facilities

The exterior facilities of the Colony are those that are at the surface level and separate from the Old Colony and the Colony Expansion. These are primarily greenhouses for food production, solar power facilities, communications arrays, and the spaceport. Pizzuto Industries has a construction facility here, supplying 'handcrafted' (as much of a claim as that can be) spacecraft for the rich and powerful.

Colonial Enclaves

The Colonial Enclaves are several small, privately-owned facilities within the Tycho Colony's jurisdiction that are technically separate from the colony infrastructure.

• A few privately-owned residential compounds
• Solar Dynamics R&D Facility
• Yang Enterprises Astroconstruction Test Yard

Governance

Political System

Governor: Her Excellency Dame Natalie Bass, appointed representative of the British Crown. De-facto head of state for the colony. Appointed 2010.

Cabinet:

• Minister of Economic Development and Finance ABC 123
• Minister of Infrastructure and Development Planning ABC 123
• Minister of Communications and Security William Dayton Forest
• Attorney General ABC 123

Defence

There is a small contingent of the British Army stationed at the colony. The Royal Air Force maintains a small contingent of patrol spacecraft as well. There is a single recruiting office, however it is not common for residents of the colony to sign up for military service proper. It is more common for residents of the colony to serve in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force or the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve - fully 40% of the colony population have been affiliated with one of these two organizations at one point in time.

While the Wolf Brigade is not responsible for the defence of the colony proper, several of the colonial enclaves have contracts with them for security.

Population

Demographics

The first wave of immigration happened during colony construction itself, when the British Government began an experimental effort of offering deportation (and effectively temporary exile) to 'politically disruptive elements' during the Troubles. As part of plea bargains, these people were offered a choice between prison and construction labor on the moon (with training included). Many people who violated minor laws during the Troubles were subjected to this choice as well, leading to a sizable amount of non-criminal-elements winding up on the Colony as well. When construction was finished, a sizable amount of these workers chose to stay behind when it was found that they would have been charged for the return trip.

The second wave of immigration occurred in the early 1990s when the British Government gave amnesty to any of the inhabitants from the soon-to-demolished Kowloon Walled City that signed up to travel to the Colony to act as construction workers for the new heavy lift landing facilities. These heavy lift rockets were supposed to take these supposedly-temporary workers home after the pad was completed, but the Iron Arrow super-heavy lift rocket (also known as the Thatcher's Thousand-Ton Travesty for the fact that it was supposed to launch 1000 tons to the moon) was cancelled in the mid-1990s. Left with no practical way to get home and a useless super-heavy landing complex, the workers began to stage an occupation of the facility and issued a list of demands, which started with better housing. They were negotiated out of most of their demands (such as free rides back to Earth), but the demand for better housing was met with a counter-offer - "Okay, but you have to build it yourself." The workers were going to reject this demand when a financier from Hong Kong sensed an opportunity. Zhong Yang, a Chinese expat living in Hong Kong, stepped in to negotiate on behalf of the workers, and in the process laid the groundwork for what would become Yang Enterprises's core business, Yang Enterprises Astroconstruction.

Religion

While the Luna Colony is technically a part of the Diocese of Space, the majority of the residents of the colony are not members of the Anglican faith. As a melting pot of three distinct cultures (British, Irish, and Chinese) the colony is highly diverse in its religious practices.

Worship Facilities

• Cathedral of Holy Trinity (Anglican)
• Hindu Temple Society of Tycho
• Islamic Center of Tycho
• Temple Beth Israel
• Tin Hau Temple (Taoism)
• Tycho Gurdwara
• Tycho Meditation Centre (Buddhism)

Languages

English is the primary and official language of the colony. There are sizable populations in the colony speaking Irish and Hong Kong Cantonese as well.

Notable People

The Right Honorable, The Viscount of Luna Darian Goodwin Watson Sanderson, Viscount Sanderson of Luna. Life Peer in the House of Lords.

Economy

Telecommunications

• Intra-Colony - The entire Colony is wired up for data links, with telecommunications being paid for as part of ones' residence taxes. Higher tiers of service are available for purchase, offering additional programming channels, priority access to bandwidth, and dedicated secured data links for private and business use. Wireless is included, and the colony's wireless coverage covers the entire area of the colony both inside and out (effectively the entire Tycho crater). Enclaves and exterior buildings are connected via line of sight V-band links for further locations, and dedicated subterranean data lines for closer ones. Data lines can be run to any non-hardwired location for a cost.
• Inter-Colony - There are dedicated K_a links to the nearest colonies, done via relay towers along the route. These links route to the American Fra Mauro Colony, Chinese Tsiolkovskiy Crater Research Institution, and Russian Shackelton Crater Resource Operation.
• Orbital and Earth - Communications to orbital assets are done via an array of X, S, and K_u band antennas capable of operating on all current frequencies in use. Colony to Earth communications use a separate antenna array located on the crater rim and connected via subterranean fiber lines. These antennas are kept away from living areas due to the high power of the transmissions, and are considered a danger zone. Additionally there are several optical data laser links available for use for direct secure connections, however access to these is offered at a premium charge by the colony government as these are primarily intended for government communications.
• Interplanetary - Communications to the United Martian Colonies are provided via MarsLink, operating UHF and X band links via their orbital relay satellite constellation and Lagrange relay stations.

Transportation

Intra-colony transportation happens via elevators and rail links. The Old Colony is linked to the Colony Expansion via subterranean rail links. Exterior facilities are connected via subterranean rail links and walking tunnels. The colony has rovers available for rent to reach destinations within the colony territory - they are programmed to not be able to leave the territory without an override code. For longer duration trips, there are private rental corporations offering rovers outfitted for further journeys, as well as low-altitude spacecraft.

Orbital lift vehicle transfers to Gagarin Station happen multiple times per day via British Spaceways, as well as private charters. The Colony spaceport is capable of handling any vehicle currently in service, though only two super-heavy pads remain after the rest were converted into subterranean housing.