Starbases

Starbases are moon-sized spherical stations built and maintained by the Alliance Fleet as military bases, FTL relays/switching stations, Pad relay stations, and starship fuel and weapon-making facilities. Each sector has a starbase.

The military section of the starbase tends to be small and set apart from the rest of the station, which is inevitably colonized by major civilian populations and used as merchant trading hubs.

Appearance and Layout

External

“Is it… it looks like a world!” “It does,” Briana answered, her eyes on her displays which hung before her in translucent panels like incense smoke trapped in geometric patterns. “That’s not entirely a conceit. If you’re making a visual approach it’s easier to orient yourself with patterns, and we’re used to making sense of maps so it feels natural.” That Briana might speak of it being ‘natural’ to navigate based on a view of the world that implied a way to see it from so far above its surface both exhilarated and shamed her, that her world had somehow never had this ability, and refused to embrace it. “Is it paint then?” “Oh no,” the Tam-illee said. “A projection.” <ref="gof-10">Girl on Fire, Chapter 10</ref>

(Vasiht'h, arriving at Starbase Omicron:)

Intellectually he'd known that starbases were hollow, and that the structural member that ran the diameter of that hollow core was used to service Fleet vessels, and to shuttle them the fuel made by the colliders that covered the starbases's surface. [....]

[T]he interior of the starbase looked like ... an enormous empty sphere, studded with the globes of the habitats, with its single bar connecting each 'pole.' [....]

[T]he hatch at the pole...: a vast glittering collar ringed with lights, with traffic flowing in and out of it, all so small it had to be magnified to be seen unless it was very, very close.

The inside of the spindle was not a single, solid column, but several narrower ones that spiraled around an empty core. Those columns were surrounded in what looked like cables and gantries.

There are enormous, pressurized bays lined by a corridor where small vessels (those capable of landing on planets) are repaired or resupplied; the largest of those vessels are typical Fleet Intelligence's, holding thirty crew. Anything over that size is relegated to the Spindle's microgravity, or the external slips.

Protocols

Approach

Approach to the docks is overseen by Traffic Control (prefaced by the base name, so 'Alpha Traffic Control'). Question/response goes like this:

• **Base Name** Traffic Control to Name-of-Ship. Report in.
• Ship-name reporting. Requesting (whatever is requested: usually inbound) to (military or civilian dock). (Usually at this point confirm the ship type.)
• TC will confirm request and assign a berth ("Civilian Passenger Dock" will be CPD with a number, like 'CPD-47'), and given a lane (incoming and outgoing traffic to various destinations have lanes, in which they will have queues. So 'sixteenth in the queue, inbound lane 17'). Followed by a request to confirm.
• Response is something along the lines of 'we have inbound lane assignment number, and berthing assignment number. Confirmed.' (Thank you is always appreciated.'
• Closing courtesies are brief: 'Name of Ship, out' and 'Base-Name, out.'

Fleet Activities

• Building
• Refit
• Repair
• Overhaul
• Refuel
• Demolition/Decommission

Described Starbases

• Alpha
• Veta
• Ana
• Omicron