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

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 levels are a separate array of subsurface construction, created during the 1990s as the population of the colony began to rise. Unlike the original colony which was constructed in and under the central peak of the Crater, the Colony Expansion consists of several domes at surface level and an extensive array of new subsurface tunnels. These are connected to the old colony through surface and subsurface rail links. The domes are primarily used as recreational areas and for agriculture, while the subsurface tunnels contain housing, life support infrastructure, and associated facilities.

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.

Population

Demographics

The first wave

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 Folly) 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.

Languages

English is the primary and official language of the colony.

Notable People

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