Kinnaville

Kinnaville, also known as Mackinnon Agricultural Cycler 1, is a massive asteroid colony known for its prodogious output of beef, poultry, and dairy products. More of a heavily-terraformed dwarf planet than a true asteroid colony, Kinnaville is the home town of many famed Cobalt Knight espatiers, including Knight-Espatier Howard Mackinnon of the ESCI Revelation

Demographics

Kinnavilleers are almost entirely Evermornan humans of long-standing Cobalt Protectorate heritage, the asteroid falling squarely within the jurisdiciton of Clan Mackinnon. Kinnavilleers are archetypal asteroid colonists, having a local culture defined by equal parts folksy, small town traditionalism and the intellectual and physical rigorousness required by long-term space inhabitation.

Defences

Aside from having extremely dense armor and a massive thermal capacity for the use of laser- and particle-based weaponry, the mining fleet based in Kinnaville constitutes one of the strongest clan-level merchant marine forces in the Evermorn-Armoa Binary System. A strong Cobalt Knight garrison on the cycler regularly replenishes its numbers with local recruits, as Kinnavilleers grow up with extensive spaceborne operations experience by dint of being lifelong spacers.

Industry & Trade

Kinnaville's final orbit approaches those of both Espedril, a hot world close to the system's center, and Mintigel, a gas giant commonly harvested for its gaseous fusion fuels. The heavy insulation provided by Kinnaville's rocky shell helps ameliorate the wide swings in external temperature inherent in this orbit. These changes in insolation provide the station's 'winter' and 'summer' seasonal cycles in place of the axial tilt that would generate seasons on a planetary surface.
One important benefit of this orbit is that it positions Kinnaville well to conduct regular trade with the orbital colonies of both planets. Kinnaville can provide luxury goods, such as beef, chicken, eggs, and milk, as well as small quantities of precious starbell fruit and coffee, in exchange for deuterium, tritium, phosphorus, nitrogen, sulphur, and rare earth metals. The Kinnaville-based asteroid mining fleet toils away in the inner asteroid belts between orbital cycles, gathering water and iron for use in on-site manufacturing processes - including limited shipyard capacity.

Infrastructure

Mackinnon Agricultural Cycler 1 was created in part by softening a large, metal-rich asteroid after having excavated and replaced the core with a small volume of water. This softening was achieved through a combination of pushing the asteroid closer in towars the star at the center of the Evermorn system and the heating of the other side by concentrated laser fire from the fusion-powered battery in Scrapyard. The asteroid gradually expanded and took a spherical shape as the soft metal was pushed away by the superheated steam at its core, then was allowed to cool and settle into a more perfect sphere under its own gravitational forces. The asteroid was then moved into a more hospitable orbit for human inhabitation, shored up with a system of vaults and trusses, and any remaining gaps sealed with composite cement.
Finally, the asteroid was spun up to create artificial gravity for the inhabitants before being seeded with crew, plant exografts, and farm animal fetuses in artifical wombs. Attitude control and station-keeping hardware were added and expanded as the construction carried on. The familiar node-based ultra-redundant architecture typically found in Protectorate infrastrucure was built up over the years on the inner surfaces of the asteroid until the colony became fully self-sustaining.

History

Kinnaville recently had a prion scare that required much of the closed ecological life support system (CELSS) to be purged and reset. Agricultural nanites are now in place to carry out passive soil remediation and prevent any future potential outbreaks of prion diseases, but this incident shook the population of Kinnaville to their cores because it directly threatened not only their own health, but the economic viability of the colony as a whole.

Tourism

Kinnaville is a popular tourist destination for native spacers and Evermorn 'grounders' in equal measure. The former come to sample the unique local cuisine and natural splender while the later come to experience spacer culture in a somewhat familiar environment - without the 'grosser' trappings of shipboard life (i.e. recycled urine as drinking water).

Architecture

Architecture aboard the cycler is blocky, modernist, and often integrated into the iron and stone of the asteroid itself. Because of the asteroid's enormous inner volume, however, Kinavilleers enjoy relatively spacious accomodations in comparison to other spacers.

Geography

Similar to long-haul colony vessels like the ESCI Revelation, Kinnaville features an equatorial river flanked on either side with tiers of farmland and residential modules. The regions closest to the axis of rotation function like mountains and provide the slope required for a naturalistic hydrological cycle. The central axis is strung with a support structure containing the cycler's Command Information Center, engineering compartments, and an array of lights and solar reflectors to keep the farmland far below warm and lit. Clusters of metal slats arranged along this axis are chilled to create condensation, which falls as rain to irrigate the crops and replenish the equatorial river.

Type

Orbital, Station

Population

ca. 15,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Kinnavilleers

Location under

Evermorn System

Owning Organization

Clan Mackinnon