Asteroidicus

Contrary to the cliche of industrial settlements everywhere, Asteroidicus is a clean, well maintained megacity devoted to the happiness of it's citizens and the mass production of, well, everything. Once a single piece of machinery on a humble chunk rock, this triumph of modern thinking now encircles the entire asteroid.

Demographics

Primarily baseline humans. Massively transient, with only 47% of the population considered permanent residents.
The population is overwhelmingly rich, with 90% of inhabitants earning at least 150% more than the Fringe Fringe average.

Government

Technocracy - A panel of experts from the fields of science (three representatives), economics (one representative), law (one representative) and marketing (four representatives) are voted into the positions of leadership annually by the current leadership group. They cannot vote for themselves and no being can be on the panel more than once in a ten year period.
All policy decisions regarding social, monetary, commercial, defence etc are handled by the government in its roles of both protector and boss.

Defences

Asteroidicus maintains seventeen cold production sectors, mothballed until needed for defence. These sectors can be activated and productive within an hour. They are mostly focused on churning out automated defence drones.
The surface of the city is sparsely dotted with small blisters, as camouflaged as possible, that contain automated turrets for first response defence. These are only designed as a deterrent and a means to buy time while the city produces it's defence drones.
Additionally, Asteroidicus houses one of the galaxies largest jump drives, capable of moving the entire city up to half a light year away. The immense power necessary to make this jump requires the powering down of 100% of the cities production capacity and the activation of five hundred and nine reactors to provide additional power.

Industry & Trade

The production of almost everything humankind has ever invented, from plastic bread bag ties to starships. While a disproportionate percentage of this is consumed locally, the vast majority is still exported across the galaxy, though primarily to the Core systems and the richer Fringe systems.

Infrastructure

Engulfing the entire surface of the asteroid, Asteroidicus is a series of giant production lines churning out all manner of products for the consumers of the galaxy. Where some mega cities a chaotic mass of buildings exhibiting a bewildering range of shapes, colours and sizes, Asteroidicus enforces strict height and form rules, though this excludes the Old Quarter where settlement first began. These rules give the city a uniform look from space, a light grey blanket of development marred by the Old Quarter's rough circle of dark jagged fingers.
Spacious, modern residential areas dot the interior, positioned to take full advantage of the weapons of commerce within. Beautiful apartments overlook spacious plazas and green areas, seaming effortlessly into commercial areas full of eateries, bars and shops. No place of work is more than a twenty minute walk away, and all automated transport runs a loop from residential to commercial to industrial and back again, moving people and goods together, ensuring the people get to work (or somewhere to spend their money) and the goods not exported to the galaxy get to the shops for consumption.

Guilds and Factions

Each resident is assigned an overseer position in the nearest production section, with most of the actual work being automated. Naturally, this arrangement has led to the formation of a vast bureaucracy and inherent tribal thinking. Each resident labels themselves with reference to the section they live, work and play in. A large part of the government's work is to ensure that residents are regularly moved around the city or turned over (transferred elsewhere, made redundant etc) to avoid the formation of factions. Residents are encouraged to consider themselves 'citizens of the rock', though this does little to stop the never-ending formation (and eventual collapse) of parochial bubble groups focused on their area and how much better it is than the inhabitants of the identical section only a few kilometres away.

History

Legend has it than a few centuries ago an automated mining scout landed on the rock that was to become Androidicus and declared it to be good. Following a disappointing period of mining, the owners of the rock decided to abandon it. For reasons that are not discussed in the legend, the residents of the mining station decided to pool their money and buy the plant and equipment from the owning company, backed by money better not enquired about too closely.
To pay off their debts, as the legend continues, a daring plan of commerce was drawn up by twenty-nine otherwise quite boring people. This led to the creation of the government and the first megafactory, supported by what came to be known as the Old Quarter. After paying off their debts the new owners christened the expanding colony Androidicus. Further expansion was restricted to the new rules of uniformity and efficiency, formalising the physical layout of residential/commercial/industrial clusters. Over time, this philosophy led to the creation of a single all encompassing mega city.

Type

Large city

Population

~One Million

Inhabitant Demonym

Asters