Encyclopedia Hyperia: The Cosmic Castaways Lounge

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Article Excerpted from the Encyclopedia Hyperia. Copyright ©2452 All rights reserved, GETCo Publications.

[b]ENTRY: The Cosmic Castaway's Lounge[/b]

Most historical datacubes detail the signing of the SOLSEC accords as taking place aboard either a Freespacer Diplomatic Cruiser, or an abandoned mining station. Little of the surrounding room that housed the table where Merjan Kathrada, Primarch Anjuren Khan, and Admiral Idowu sat once to sign the accords formally ending the Hyperspace Gate War.

The truth, as an old Terran writer once penned, is "a long strange trip that is more polished than the fiction that comes later".

In fact, the exact location of the treaty signing was a disused mining station that a Freespacer had purchased at a steep discount from a Terran Trader. Of potentially greater historical significance might be that this was one of the very few times that the merchant princes of Old Earth actually lost a great deal of money.

The Cosmic Castaway's Lounge had been in operation as a gas and mineral refining station as COSMOR Refinery Station 5, originally an independent contractor to Orsini Extraction Enterprises (LLC). Initially, the times were great as Jovian and Progen miners fed a steady stream of resources and revenue into the coffers of COSMOR (and of course, Orsini), while very capably feeding a steady stream of cheap foods and liquors and Hydroponic Herbal Remedies to the miners.

In a not terribly unusual development, the Lounge's reputation as a point of interest began to overtake that of the station for being a refinery, and in the crossroads of what would eventually be designated Asteroid Belt Beta, it attracted much traffic. The Glenn Commission is said to have modeled the Friendship-7 HighPort, Hotel, and Casino as a super-expansion on the concept of The Cosmic Castaway's Lounge.

While the tides of the war disrupted the Orsini operation, along with the intrusion of the various Red Dragon tongs, and the owner feeling that the Lounge's best days would soon be behind it, sold it to a Freespacer who wanted to establish a bridge between settled humanity in the core worlds and his brethren in DeepSpace (which arguably at that time, was most of everything that was not in the Sol or Centaurus systems).

The Freespacer owner, Janik Kuznetsov, was slowly able to grow his contacts within the Progen Republic and EarthCorps, and by family contacts to the famed Shinwa Tzu clan, and brokered the first secret meetings between all the warring factions - which ultimately culminated in the peace treaty that was signed on top of a pool table in the back of a once-proud miner's lounge.

The Lounge today appears to remain marginally profitable, although Janik claims that his first profit is from the [b]Super Dzurai Podmother Slammer[/b], said to be mixed from a recipe involving Manes essence, Ostarae fur, and some other secret ingredients. While questionably drinkable, this concoction is said to supercharge a starship's systems and provides random beneficial effects for a short time after use: Progen Warriors have commented on their shields nearly doubling, and Jenquai report that their reactors seem to double in their charge. Terrans have noticed effects that improve combat and warp speeds.

Although much mining remains in the asteroid belts, few miners can be found there; however, travelers in Asteroid Belt Beta may yet find company and good times, and perhaps a melted brain and an overcharged reactor at The Cosmic Castaway's Lounge, just west off the main nav path between the gates to ABG and ABA.

It may look like a rusty old dump of a refining station, but by Jove, it has a heritage to it.