The Regolith and Kytholith Hotels

Describe a building in your world is used for leisure pursuits? What does it look like, and what do people do there?

99% of the Regalti population live off of their homeworld of Collena and in space, over 100 billion people total. They have lived in the lower gravity space habitats and have worked there for their whole lives. Very, very few Regalti have ever stepped foot on a planet since the Exodus started over 300 years ago. Still, many of them miss their homeworld and every few weeks, the more well off head to a captured asteroid called the Regolith. It is a small, hollow Asteroid, about 1km in diameter and functions as a large hotel and casino, that sits on the end of a long tether that has a space elevator in it. People can ride this elevator down to Collena to the Argen Space Port to the Kytholith, the surface hotel.

Type

Orbital, Space elevator

Seconday Type
Hotel
Capacity
1,500,000 guests (Regolith)
250,000 guests (Kytholith)
Year Opened
25 B.E. (Space Elevator)
250 A.E. (Regolith)
265 A.E. (Kytholith)

The Regolith Hotel

The Regolith Hotel orbits Collena at a distance of over 35,000km from the surface in a synchronous orbit around the planet Collena, and matches its rotational period of 28 hours a day. Many well off Regalti come here for weekend trips and even less well off Regalti plan a trip every few years, if only to experience the pull of their homeworld's gravity again, even if they are looking up at the planet instead of standing on it.

Here, they might just relax and take a few days away from the rigors of living in space, which many consider easier than living on the surface. Or, they could head to the Aura Casino and play some games, gamble a little bit of money, bet on races, or just drink and relax. Alternatively, they could head to the Chalco World Shopping Center, where just about anything you could think of that is manufactured on the surface, you can get.

The Kytholith Hotel

On the Surface in the center of Argen, is this large hotel with a capacity of 250,000 guests. It is at the base of the space elevator and has a height of 2km. Here, similar amenities are offered as the Regolith, including an identical Aura casino and Chalco World Shopping Center that the 150 million residents of Argen also regularly visit.

Additionally, there is a large area to the east, well outside Argen city limits that the hotel transports guests back and forth to. This houses a large Zoo/Wildlife Preserve and Theme Park. It also has several themed resort hotels reserved for the richest Regalti.

The Wildlife Preserve starts at the coast, north of the base of Sil Ventarsan and goes almost to the Tundra level at 5000m elevation, capturing most major planetary habitats. This preserve has an area of 75,000sq km, making it one of the largest on the planet.

The Space Elevator

The Space Elevator itself, Designated Elevator 4, is one of 4 remaining Equatorial Space Elevators spread across Collena. These are located in the centers of the planet's largest space port cities, where two thirds of the planet's billion people live. They were constructed shortly before the Exodus, and were the primary means of getting off of the world. As many as a million Regalti left the world every day for nearly fifty years on these elevators. After the exodus mostly ended, they started to be used less and less, and were in danger of being decomissioned alltogether, which would leave planetary Regalti with only expensive options to leave the surface, and stellar Regalti with almost no cheap option to visit the surface. Of the sixteen space elevators built, only four remain.

The Leuthera corporation bought one of the elevators about 200 years after the exodus, and over the next fifty years, converted it into their dual hotels and vacation resort, and heavily advertised them to attract the Stellar Regalti offering weekend and extended vacation packages. By this point in time, there were multiple generations of Regalti that spent their whole lives in space, at about 65-70% Collena gravity, and that alone made them curious. Even today 100 years after the hotel opened, it still draws half a billion visitors a year.