I haven't blogged - conceded. I need to figure out how to get these things on Twitter. But anyway. Here's the water tanker Aquon Irrinugga in orbit over Titan approaching the Tourbillion orbital exchange. I never really conceived The Deep System as being full of space stations. It's an odd name for starters because they're not stationary but never mind. I eventually got to the logistics of operation large orbit-only ships and at the very least, you need some big petrol stations to refuel them. Tourbillion, in particular operate a large mining fleet and have more ships that settlements so for them, I guess they would have the largest supply stations, which I've called 'Exchanges'. From water and food to fuel and waste disposal (no, you can't just throw it out of a window) the exchange takes on board supplies in bulk from corporations like Aquon (water), Protolite (Deuterium and Trileum) or Eponyx Biomass (foodstuffs). These are then transferred out on to resupplying Tourbillion ships as required without everything having to be shipped down to the surface and back up again.
They are not pretty - more like a cobbled mess of buildings, accommodation, facilities, small refineries and storage volume. Who said living in space wouldn't be glamorous?
Here are more images of the components: the Aquon Beluga Class tanker and the Exchange (not to the same scale).
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