Dwarf planet · Asteroid Belt
Ceres Waystation
Fuel, food, mining tugs, and no Meeps past this gate.
Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt, and in 3455 it is the belt's capital: a huge waystation dug into the dwarf planet's icy crust, with docking arms reaching out to a constant stream of mining tugs and cargo haulers.
It is also on the front line of the Meep problem. Juvenile Meep Rocks love the belt, and Ceres customs has a whole department for politely turning them away before they eat the docks.
The waystation is built in rings around the dwarf planet's bright central crater, with tunnels running deep into the ice. The miners who live here call it 'the Rock', and they are tough, cheerful and brilliant with machinery.
Ceres is where the Solar System gets its metals and much of its water. Without it, Earth's shipyards would stop within a month.
Atmosphere
Inside: loud, crowded, warm and neon-lit. Outside: rubble, ice and the long slow drift of the belt.
Local quirk
Forms come in triplicate. Meeps eat one of the copies.
Regions · proposed names, not locked canon
The Docks
Twenty docking arms, open all hours. Parking is by the minute and the minutes are expensive.
Ice Market
A bazaar carved into the ice crust, selling everything from fuel to fried noodles.
Meep Gate
The customs checkpoint where Meep Rocks are scanned, fed a snack and sent away.
Occator Lights
The bright salty patches inside the big crater, now a park lit up at night.
Hazards
- ▲Asteroid trafficRocks and tugs everywhere. Fly slowly.
- ▲Low gravityWalk too fast and you'll float into the ceiling.
- ▲Hungry Meep RocksThey'll eat docks, ships and paperwork.
Visitor tips
- ✦Use the tethers in the docks.
- ✦Get your cargo Meep-scanned twice.
- ✦Try Old Rusk's noodles.
Local life
- ●Belt miners
- ●Traders of every species
- ●Meep Rocks (unwelcome)
A day on Ceres Waystation
The docks never close. Tugs come in, unload, refuel and go out again. In the Ice Market, noodle stalls steam and traders shout in fifty languages.
Every few hours a siren goes off at the Meep Gate, and someone with a clipboard sighs and walks out to meet another hungry rock.
Locals & customs
Gatekeeper Ondine Fay
Head of Meep Gate. Has turned away nine thousand Meep Rocks and knows most of them by name.
Old Rusk
A retired miner who runs the best noodle stall in the belt. Has opinions about Meep Rocks. All of them are long.
- ◆Pay your docking fees in water. Nobody turns down water.
- ◆Every crate leaving for Earth gets a Meep scan. No exceptions.
- ◆Tell a mining story, and someone must buy you noodles.
Legends & history
The Meep Who Stayed
Belt miners say a single Meep once refused to leave Ceres, ate its way into the crust and fell asleep there.
Some say the waystation's lowest tunnels are inside it. The miners just call it 'the basement'.
Crew log
“I declared nothing. That was the problem. Apparently 'nothing' was a Meep.”
“Good noodles. Old Rusk talks a lot.”
Story seed · in development
Meep Gate
A Meep slips through Ceres customs inside a cargo crate bound for Earth. It is small. It will not stay small.
Gatekeeper Fay asks the crew for help. The Meep they're chasing is Pebble's little sister, and she's only looking for her family.
Earthward stakes
Most of Earth's metals and water ice pass through Ceres. Close the docks, and Earth notices.
Onobo packs
Science inspiration
Ceres is real: a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt with water ice and signs of briny water. The waystation is fiction.
NASA: Ceres