Hello!
A not so quick design for a L1 Lagrange point (or Euler point) space station. I wanted to do it quick with procedural modeling (Blender geometry nodes homemade tools). But it’s not that quick to design the minimum required to make the features visible. In this current state, pictures are raw 3D renders, the ring and the Wanderer remain to design. I share it to get some feedback on the style and concept.
It’s very much a hard scifi aesthetic I’m looking for with this project. If it seems even remotely possible, I think the immersive effect – sense of wonder – is all the stronger. I also find this approach more relevant from a narrative or worldbuilding perspective because I figured out broadly how it works, how, by who and why it was built, and therefore it’s already a pre-set stage for stories and characters. This is part of my Shared World project. The goal is to publish a table-top RPG based on this universe.
Context
The Shared World is a (hard) scifi and ecological story I have been making (writing and pictures) for a few years now. It’s a kind of post-AI world at the end of our century. AIs, known as Sapientes, is now declining as the high-end semi-conductor industry to sustain it is becoming increasingly disrupted. Ecology and nature restoration is a major axis of the AI-driven policies implemented by a Sapientes alliance called the Greenhouse. A dissident faction, the Vault, has turned toward space exploration since 2079. I aim to create a table-top RPG based on this universe.
Heliopolitics
The year is 2099. L1 is permanently between Sun and Earth. It’s a very strategic place at this early stage of expansion across the solar system, the favourable locations are known, and there are not many of them. First take it, so that nobody else can claim it, then figure out what to do with it. Free sunlight allows massive electrical power to run an always power-hungry last gen AI Wanderer class.
Sundance station
Height: 1826m
Diameter: 910m
Mass: 30000 tons (half of it is the Wanderer)
System: Sundance, a whole Wanderer class system of the second Sapiente generation (strong not-so-aligned AIs).
Crew: between 50 and 100 humans (300 max), 30 synth.
from bottom to top:
Solar panels
The first ring is a relic of the construction stage. The small gap between the two allows direct light directed towards the greenhouse quarters of the rotating ring.
Old station
(hidden behind that white shield), the first station hosted workers. It has been retained as an emergency evacuation vessel. Above is the engineering section, also hidden.
Rotating ring
structured in three floors. 6 Magnetic fields lifters grant acces between the ring and the station
First floor: Accommodations, services (medical), Second is the public space, a continuous passage: 2 restaurants (one is seasonal, one is permanent), (non)shops(not selling any fancy stuff but provide free clothing and goods), sport, leisures, offices, 2 gardens, one library.
Third: farms, G-workshops and labs.
Wanderer class AI system
That large cylinder above the ring is the Wanderer class system, an AI Sapientes. (It’s just a cylinder proxy for now). It requires massive electrical power to process. The main design feature here will be heat dissipation in space vacuum.
Factory
A vast pressurized bay, producing and maintaining critical parts and sub-systems. Various specialized zero-G workshops are robofacturing consommables, advanced materials, spare parts such as solar panels.
Space port
Supply hub for the larger L points domain operations and beyond. Containers are moved through dedicated lifters between the docks and the storage areas.
Docks
for large vessels such as tankers and cargos.
Shipyard
no internal beam here, they are outside to free space inside.
Operation ring
A rotating ring, monitoring the station, port and docks ins and outs.
Small docks
for service vessels such as skiffs, labors and shuttles.
Services and storage
Among many subsystems, air and water are recycled here.
Propulsion
The station needs constant positioning corrections to stay at L1. There are also spinning and corrective ionic propulsers at the solar panels level.
Telecom Mast
Various antennas and sensors, they ensure communications with Earth and L4 & L5 acting as communication relays for L2 & 3.
