Hecate Moon Base

Whoever said no one could own the moon was lacking in imagination.
— The Lunarian Megacorp Motto

Hecate is a base on the moon, established and owned by the Lunarian Megacorp. It serves as a refueling and shuttle platform for much of the asteroid mining industry as a half-way point between the valuable space-rocks and earth. A sprawling complex of shuttle-ports and hotels lie above the real Hecate - a maze of R&D and prototyping laboratories dug deep into the moon. And they're still digging.

by Johny Mnemonic

The Shuttle-Port

Asteroid mining is big business. A single, mineral-riddled asteroid can bring enough gold to earth to crash the market several times over. Hecate links up with the Damocles Sector in Megacorpolis as the main artery between space, earth and profit. About a fifth of the moon has been processed to accommodate the frequent launches and landing of shuttles, with space left over for smaller chunks of asteroid to get pulled in for processing. While the Lunarian Corp's own mining operation is one of the smaller, they make a killing off of renting the space (and Space).

Hotel Luna

It didn't take long after the first permanent facility to be set up on the moon before someone realized that people would pay to visit this grey, desolate space-rock. Hotel Luna is a five star hotel on the equator of the moon, contained within retro sci-fi style glass domes. Visitors can frolick in low gravity, eat specially made "alien" food and go for buggy rides across the moon's craters. It is a vacation only the very wealthy can really afford, but there are plans to expand operations and broaden the potential pool of visitors with a second, lower class set of domes.

Hologram, Hollow or Artificial? The Lunarian CEO, a reclusive old-school conspiracy theorist who just happened to be incredibly wealthy, first launched the Hecate project with the intent to prove that "The Moon Is Not What It Appears To Be". The whole shuttle and mining wing of the base was how he sold it to the shareholders. There's definitely something up with the moon, but only the inner circle of the Lunarian Megacorp know for sure - and they aren't talking.

Restricted Access

The Moon has been copyrighted and all rights are held by the Lunarian corporation. Any media that wishes to depict the moon in any substantial manner must first require a license to do so. The ruling has made other Megacorp look at other celestial objects in the solar system with renewed, legal intent. The first the establish a substantial and permanent presence could, in theory, own the entire thing.

Area 15

The R&D labs below Hecate's main complex are subject to a considerable amount of attempted corporate espionage, though their location makes it a difficult venture. The upper floors deal mainly with aerospace engineering, low-gravity manufacturing and other profit-generating research, not many knows what goes down below that. The research there is esoteric and under the personal supervision of the Lunarian's board of directors, reinforced with explosive employee-ID chips. Everything from time travel to alien technology is being alleged on every corner of the internet - and the Lunarian official statement of "Research" has done little to stop the rumor mill.