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"Kline Station was a accretion of three hundred years... It straddled a region of space where no less than six fruitful jump routes emerged within a reasonable sublight boost of each other. The dark star nearby hosted no planets at all, and so Kline Station rode a slow orbit far out of its gravity well, cresting the stygian cold.... A poor fortress, but a great place to do business, it had changed hands a number of times as one or another of its neighbors sought it as a guardian of its gates, not to mention a source of cash flow. Presently it maintained a precarious political independence based on bribery, determination, suppleness in business practice, and a stiffness in internal loyalty bordering on patriotism."
―Ethan Urquhart visits Kline Station[src]

History[]

Kline Station was a self-governing space station whose nearby space included six useful wormholes, one of which led to Athos. It was 300 years old at the time of Ethan of Athos, taking a slow orbit around a dark star. It had approximately 100 thousand citizens, and at any given time, there were typically 20 thousand transients. The oldest parts of Kline station still used turning wheels at that time to produce centrifugal gravity, but these were gradually being recycled for other purposes.[1]

Astrography[]

Kline Station was founded as a waypoint for a wormhole junction. The region of space it occupied had no planet, but was littered with wormholes, six of which led to useful destinations. 

The only specifically confirmed route was to Athos, a very distant world. However, Kline Station also had useful routes to Jackson's Whole and Escobar, both of which were large, well-connected world within the Nexus. Also, Tau Ceti was on the route from Orient IV to Kline Station.[2] Kline Station was "past Earth" from Orient IV as well.[3]

Life Support Issues[]

Oxygen generation was done by algae, which was kept under control by newts that ate the algae. The newts were eaten by people, who generally were very tired of eating them. Sometimes the newts were put into vats to be grown into other types of meat protein, which people generally ate more willingly. When stationers died, their bodies were cremated and the remains were fed to plants instead of being put into the meat-generation vats.[4]

Gravity controls existed in many rooms on the station; to adjust the gravity, a person opened a wall panel and turned a rheostat.[5]

The station had strict environmental and quarantine policies, enforced by its so-called Ecocops, more officially called "biocontrol."

Uniforms[]

Uniforms were generally color-coded on Kline Station: Blue was for atmosphere control, red was for Docks and Locks, and Station Security wore uniforms that were orange and black, with higher rank indicated by increased amount of black versus orange. Biocontrol wore uniforms that were pine green slashed with sky blue, and their logo was a stylized fern and water. There were also green and yellow uniforms, but the jobs associated with these colors are not provided in text.

Places on Kline Station[]

  • Transient's Lounge
  • "Elhamburger" - a replica of Alhambra on Wikipedia
  • Betan Embassy
  • Various Jacksonian Consuls
  • Atmosphere Control
  • Ecobranch: Recycling

Kline Stationers[]

Notes and references[]

  1. Ethan of Athos chapter 3
  2. Falling Free chapter 1
  3. Falling Free chapter 7
  4. Ethan of Athos chapter 5
  5. Ethan of Athos chapter 7

See also[]

Space Stations and Orbital Facilities

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