34 Tauri Solar-system – Austin Bunton Designs

This is where most humans were relocated since 2313.

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Table of Contents:

Introduction
History
Directory of Solar Systems
Solar Systems Hierarchy
2510s Update
Population
2023 September/+ Notes
Images

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Introduction:

Like so many solar systems in the Milky Way, this one has more than one star; 12, in fact, with 73 planets, 150 moons, and 2 bordering nebulae. 34 Tauri has been a region of heavy terraforming because of this, and infighting; there is an ongoing civil war ever-brewing across many of the planets, moons, and spaces in between out here. Humanity has continued its way of spreading and interacting here.

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History:

The original 34 Tauri was actually a planet misidentified. Decades later, another star in the constellation Taurus was discovered and given this designation which had gone unused since the mis-identification was cleared up in the 20th century. Stars in Taurus range from ~65 Light-years (LY) to ~490 LY from Earth, so any ships traveling there could take one or more human generations; sub-light drive ships would still take more years than the number of LY in the distance covered, while warp drive ships would take less than that number (Warp 1, for ex. = the speed of light, relatively; a worm-hole is created which warps Space, so light-speed isn’t actually being surpassed).

Plans to terraform this solar system began in the 2150s, terraforming began ~2200 A.D., colonization around ~2220, and from 2313-2510 the bulk of humanity migrated here; it took <1 Earth-year for advanced Star Fleet (warp drive enabled) ships to get here, but ~70-200 Earth-years for millions of lesser ships (those without drives capable of Warp 1). Thus, we can estimate that the average distance of this solar-system from the Earth is 150-200 LY.

In the early 2200s, there were only several thousand human pioneers out here.
2210? More than one billion; hundreds of millions were arriving ~monthly.
In 2250, there were nearly 4,000,000,000.
By 2300, there were more than 6,000,000,000.
2350: 9,000,000,000.
2400: 13,000,000,000.
2450: 19,000,000,000.
Now in the 2500s, there are nearly 50,000,000,000.

Even though most people live on the developed Core worlds, there are millions who help manage and service vast swarms of (billions of) mining drones which do the vast majority of precious-metals finding and harvesting out in the asteroid belts/fields. This number/portion/demographic is only expected to increase; the population of 34 Tauri is still on the rise, albeit much more slowly and stably, these days, so the demand on mined substances will indefinitely match.

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Since the early 2200s, there has always been at least 1 ICV on each of these worlds, as Inisfree’s Star Fleet‘s policy was to leave at least 1 ICV on any world we liked, or any world with any humans on it.
We liked these worlds because they were / would be easy for humans to terraform, and because we already knew humans were planning to migrate to them in greater numbers.
This is why we are able to keep Persephone flying in the blind-spots/dead-space of their sensors and own individual senses; 1 ICV on any world means everyone on that world is in range of that ICVs senses (because she can deduce and extrapolate based on all nearby minds, sensors, Internet devices, radio signals, satellites, etc.).

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It has been hundreds of years since wildlife was introduced to most terraformed worlds in this system, thus most of those worlds with it now have vast flocks, herds, and schools (of sea life). The trouble is that humans took with them DNA and specimens of almost all of the modern wildlife from Earth; they brought fellow primitive monsters and weaklings, recreating that hellish state only beings as severely deranged and degenerate as omnivores and carnivores are. Go camping or prospecting at your own risk.

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Directory of Solar Systems:

Bai Hu / White Sun: central-star (‘core‘) solar-system; all other stars here orbit this one (white, big)
Burnham: solar-system orbiting Qing Long, tiny, edge (pink-yellow, small)
Heinlein: farther solar-system orbiting Zhu Que, tiny (dim-red, small)
Himinbjorg: closer solar-system orbiting Zhu Que, tiny (orange-yellow, small)
Huang Long / Yellow Dragon, a.k.a. Georgia: largest of the 2 ‘border’ (middle) solar-systems orbiting Bai Hu (yellow, medium)
Lux: 2nd-closest solar-system to Bai Hu, tiny, core (pink-orange, small-medium)
Murphy: solar-system orbiting Huang Long, tiny (yellow-white, small)
Penglai: solar-system orbiting Xuan Wu, tiny, rim (yellow-orange, small)
Qin Shi Huang: closest solar-system to Bai Hu, tiny, core (orange, small)
Qing Long / Blue Dragon: farthest (‘edge‘) solar-system orbiting Bai Hu (blue, medium)
Xuan Wu / Black Tortoise, a.k.a. Kalidasa: 2nd-farthest (‘rim‘) solar-system orbiting Bai Hu (yellow, medium)
Zhu Que / Red Phoenix: smaller of the 2 ‘border’ (middle) solar-systems orbiting Bai Hu (red, small-medium)

Everything in 34 Tauri orbits Bai Hu, its central star. Two vast (system-spanning) nebulae border it all.

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Solar Systems Hierarchy:

Stars orbiting Bai Hu (the central system, a.k.a. The Core), in order from closest to farthest:

Qin Shi Huang: closest solar-system to Bai Hu, tiny, core (orange, small)
Lux: 2nd-closest solar-system to Bai Hu, tiny, core (pink-orange, small-medium)
Huang Long / Yellow Dragon, a.k.a. Georgia: largest of the 2 ‘border’ (middle) solar-systems orbiting Bai Hu (yellow, medium)
Zhu Que / Red Phoenix: smaller of the 2 ‘border’ (middle) solar-systems orbiting Bai Hu (red, small-medium)
Xuan Wu / Black Tortoise, a.k.a. Kalidasa: 2nd-farthest (‘rim‘) solar-system orbiting Bai Hu (yellow, medium)
Qing Long / Blue Dragon: farthest (‘edge‘) solar-system orbiting Bai Hu (blue, medium)

Star orbiting Huang Long:

Murphy: solar-system orbiting Huang Long, tiny (yellow-white, small)

Stars orbiting Zhu Que, in order from closest to farthest:

Himinbjorg: closer solar-system orbiting Zhu Que, tiny (orange-yellow, small)
Heinlein: farther solar-system orbiting Zhu Que, tiny (dim-red, small)

Star orbiting Xuan Wu:

Penglai: solar-system orbiting Xuan Wu, tiny, rim (yellow-orange, small)

Star orbiting Qing Long:

Burnham: solar-system orbiting Qing Long, tiny, edge (pink-yellow, small)

“The Core” (everything within the asteroid belt named “The Halo”):

Bai Hu / White Sun: central-star (‘core‘) solar-system; all other stars here orbit this one (white, big)
Lux: 2nd-closest solar-system to Bai Hu, tiny, core (pink-orange, small-medium)
Qin Shi Huang: closest solar-system to Bai Hu, tiny, core (orange, small)

“The Border” (everything outside “The Halo” before getting to Xuan Wu):

Huang Long / Yellow Dragon, a.k.a. Georgia: largest of the 2 ‘border’ (middle) solar-systems orbiting Bai Hu (yellow, medium)
Zhu Que / Red Phoenix: smaller of the 2 ‘border’ (middle) solar-systems orbiting Bai Hu (red, small-medium)

“The Rim” (the two multi-star sub-systems in the outer section of their multi-star parent-system):

Qing Long / Blue Dragon: farthest (‘edge‘) solar-system orbiting Bai Hu (blue, medium)
Xuan Wu / Black Tortoise, a.k.a. Kalidasa: 2nd-farthest (‘rim‘) solar-system orbiting Bai Hu (yellow, medium)

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2510s Update:

All the stars and worlds in this multi-star system are well-known and fully mapped.

The two nebulae beyond this system are not mapped at all, except for their general location / “area” (volume of Space).

The insides (caves, etc.) of the 34 Tauri worlds are also not yet mapped.

*Planet “Miranda” was fully mapped as part of all that, but no one other than a handful of government and corporate elites have access to its information anymore, as all information about it was wiped from this multi-system’s interplanetary version of the Internet, following a disaster there.

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Population:

Population by sub-system:

Bai Hu ~37.9B (~89% of 34 Tauri’s human population)
Burnham ~5,200 Reavers
Heinlein >788,500,000
Himinbjorg >79,773,000
Huang Long 3B
Lux 3,134,292,000
Murphy >377,206,767
Penglai >31,157,000
Qin Shi Huang 846,681,000
Qing Long 18,000,000
Xuan Wu >311,008,000
Zhu Que 1,874,640,000

Population of all of 34 Tauri: ~37.9B (Bai Hu) + >10,461,257,767 (sum of all except Bai Hu) = >48,361,257,767 (though, again, many worlds’ populations were not specified in the soft-disclosure, and 50B is the best guess for total of humans spread across all the worlds in this multi-star system)

Since the 34 Tauri human pop. in the 2500s A.D. is ~50B, let’s try to visualize that;
49,998,717,504’s cube root is 3,684; you can picture that many humans shoulder to shoulder, head to toe, front to back.
That would be something like a ~1.4-miles-wide, ~.6-miles-deep, <4-miles-tall (3.8375) formation, so… like a mountain-height skyscraper; narrow relative to how tall it is.
(W:D:H ratio = 2.3 to 1 to ~6.4; this formation of them would be 6.4x taller than it is deep,
~2.8x wider than it is deep,
and ~2.7x taller than it is wide)

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2023 September/+ Notes

Every world here, when possible, gets terraformed this same way:

Planetary tilt and rotation are tweaked to give each world (in 34 Tauri) four seasons on a 365.25 day cycle (as close to Earth’s conditions/aspects as possible), and a 24-hour daily rotation.
gravity between 0.95G and 1.05G (via adjusting density, or at least using graviton machines in/under population centers)
Long-term atmospheric processing stations are established to monitor the world and to periodically adjust and maintain equilibrium after the shaping of a new Earth has been completed.
Soil is introduced, then plants and animals once fertile soil is self-sustaining.
EXTREMELY close watch is kept on all human populations, ecosystems, industry, pollution, etc., to ensure the species never has to make an emergency interstellar relocation again.

Although humanity has terraformed much of the ‘Verse, some areas remain un-terraformed. As technology has advanced and more resources have become available for terraforming, nearly every planet that could be terraformed has been, is currently being terraformed, or is scheduled for terraforming.

There is a point where a planet is too big (or too dense) or a moon is too small (or too sparse) for it to be properly terraformed.

Gas giants can not be terraformed due to their enormous masses, however, some are capable of being helioformed; they can be made into little/proto stars, providing better light, warmth, and plant-sustenance for adjacent moons and sometimes even neighboring worlds (though those worlds obviously are not orbiting them, but the central star of each sub-system out here, thus any light and warmth these man-made stars provide those worlds is intermittent).

The entire ‘Verse at its maximum extent is 338.75 AU across (Miranda to Salisbury when the two are completely polarized from each other).
White Sun is the largest system in the ‘Verse with a radius of 43 AU (and for reference, the Sol system (Earth’s solar system) is about the same size (as White Sun; the core sub-system of 34 Tauri) from the Sun out to Pluto (Sun-to-Pluto = avg. 38.5 AU, to be precise)).
Kalidasa is the smallest with a 14.35 AU radius (about halfway between Uranus and Neptune in our solar system).
(Imagine traveling ~10x the distance from Earth to Pluto if you needed to go from one edge of this multi-system all the way over to its opposite edge.)

Although some TV shows have faster than light travel, Firefly has no such technology. All space travel is at a speed less than light-speed. In fact, fast as it is, the average ship in Firefly goes much slower than light speed. There are no firm canon numbers, but for simplicity’s sake and with an eye toward good RP (i.e. slow enough so it takes time to get places but fast enough so it doesn’t take forever) the standard speed for an up-to-date, well maintained ship is 1 AU/hr (149,597,871 km/hr or 92,955,807 mph, alternatively 0.0000098254 LY/hr or about 2/15ths of light speed). You can always go slower than that and you can also go a little bit faster (for short distances at the cost of more wear on the engine and more fuel expended). Big heavy ships and tiny under equipped might go much slower while top-of-the-line experimental military vessels might go much faster but 1AU/hr is the standard and makes for easy math.

Remember the distance figures up above? That means it would take nearly four days to go from one end of White Sun to the other, a little over one day to go from one end of Kalidasa to the other, and about 14 days to go from one end of the ‘Verse to the other. Remember that all of this is assuming a straight line (i.e. not dodging any military patrols, Reaver or pirate hotspot areas, navigational anomalies, etc.) and no stops along the way.

…communications can be sent via light beam through satellite relays on the cortex and thus can move at the speed of light (7.2 AU/hr) or damn close to it. That means that a message to a nearby planet might take a few minutes, a message to a nearby system might take a few hours, and a message across the ‘Verse would take nearly two full days. A message is always going to arrive faster than a ship, but this time lag is still something to consider from things as small as personal correspondence to something major like notification that the Unification War ended yesterday.

Why are they slower than Starfleet centuries ago? Starfleet was top-of-the-line, specifically engineered for exploration as far as humans could go, not hauling cargo from a producer on one world to a consumer on an adjacent one. Remember that everything is driven by efficiency; you build or send the simplest, cheapest thing to get each job done, thus normal cars and guns in most places, etc..

…fly super sonic within atmo and when reaching escape velocity they can reach upwards of Mach 50. However, keep in mind that the planetary drive burns fuel “like a mo’fo’ “. For those of you not following, that mean’s it’s expensive as hell. Space ships are typically not as aerodynamic as intra-atmosphere airplanes. They glide like a cinderblock, and thus they require constant thrust to merely stay aloft.

Interplanetary Drive AKA Pulse Engine:
Once a ship has broken atmo, it switches to this form of propulsion. A pulse engine gets its name because the engine very literally fires pulses out the rear to propel it. These pulses are actually thermonuclear explosions occurring within the ship. Rather than igniting hydrogen fuel as the planetary drives do, this drive is propelled by hydrogen fusion.

The secret to how this manages to super-propel ships through space rather than blowing them up is the gravity drive (more on this below). In simplest terms, the gravity drive creates a shield between the reaction and the ship while simultaneously directing the force of the pulse backward. This makes the ship jump forward at incredible speeds while dissipating heat and radiation away so it doesn’t kill everyone on board (unless you’re a Reaver and like a healthy bit of radiation leaking out into the ship). The interplanetary drive is MUCH faster than the planetary drive and uses less fuel; compare a constant high-spinning of conventional aircraft/atmosphere engines for thrust… to a split-second alignment and release of a pulse/burst. There is, however, very little maneuverability while traveling on such a pulse.

You also can’t fire a pulse while in atmo (going “full burn”). First of all it’s likely to be very bad for you and your ship. In a worst case scenario as the pulse is fired, it creates a “blow back” in atmo and the gravity drive doesn’t save you from blowing up. If you’re lucky enough that you don’t blow up, there will still be an incredible shockwave that will likely cripple your ship. You then may or may not blow up as a result (or you will vent atmo, die from the concussion, drift through space if you managed to break atmo from the failed pulse, or if you didn’t break atmo die when your ship crashes to the surface).
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Okay, so it’s bad for the people doing the pulse. It’s also bad for the planet/moon you do it over. Keep in mind that this is like detonating a nuclear weapon. That city you just took off from now got vented with the heat of the explosion, the incredible shockwave, and tons of radiation for good measure. Unsurprisingly, if you actually survive the ordeal, you’ll typically be executed by the authorities for doing it. Fortunately, all drives have safety measures so they will not function until at a safe distance. (These safeties can theoretically be tampered with but who in their right mind would do that?)

Gravity Generation:
The drive creates artificial gravity for the ship. People can walk around the ship as if they were on a planet, they can work with ease, they can shower, cook, etc. all without things floating away. It facilitates all the things you take for granted.
Equilibrium – On a long steady flight, artificial gravity is easy. However, when transitioning from weightless space to planetary atmosphere, when suddenly changing course or decelerating in deep space, or when performing any maneuvers in atmosphere (see “loop-de-loop”) that gravity is going to count for shit. With the aid of smaller gravity dampeners throughout the ship, the drive helps to manage these changes and keep people and items from flying all over the place.

The system is far from perfect. Often you might feel a slight jolt as the internal ship gravity conflicts with the external gravity. In extreme conditions, you might want to buckle yourself in because the dampeners are going to do jack shit. However, the key is that the gravity drive and dampeners err on the side of no gravity rather than conflicting gravity. That means that you might get tossed around a bit inside as the system cuts out briefly, but you are never going to have your head explode nor is the ship going to crack and buckle from the forces fighting each other.
Maneuvering – The gravity drive assists the imprecise ship engines in actually driving the ship and steering in the right direction. Without the gravity drive, space ships would be a lot more sluggish. They also ensure that the ships don’t tear themselves apart from their own engines. Many ships have external engines like the Firefly that if left alone without a gravity drive’s protection, would quite literally break off from their small anchoring wings when firing at maximum thrust. The gravity drive helps better distribute that force across the entire ship.
Containment/Propulsion – As mentioned above, the gravity drive also serves the important purpose of keeping the ship from blowing up. Without a gravity drive, the pulse drive would merely be a big suicide machine. The drive both shields the ships from the pulse and also focuses it into a usable burst of speed.

Fortunately, gravity-drive failure is not a death sentence (although it can be). If the drive fails in between pulses then the ship is merely “dead in the water” until it can be fixed. If it fails during a pulse then a failing drive will “go out a hero” by using its last hurrah to focus on shielding the ship. In most cases this is enough protection to allow a crew to abandon ship and reach a necessary safe distance. And of course, not every issue is a total failure. Sometimes the drive simply doesn’t function properly and might leak small amounts of radiation or something of that sort. Bad as that is, there have been no recorded incidents of such leaks seriously irradiating anyone before being detected. If ignored it can cause serious issues but again, there is always the chance to abandon ship in the event of a horrible leak or for lesser leaks one can always attempt (and often succeed) in repairing it.

The goal was to move as many people as possible to as many habitable worlds as possible, not to mass-produce the most high-tech’ everything for everyone. Since 34 Tauri has many/most terraform-able worlds, it made sense to move most people there –and only give them what they needed to shift around within that multi-system.

Inertial dampeners developed centuries ago for Starfleet are common these days, making pulse-flight survivable.
Warp flight and portals would be safer for humans, but they remain expensive and rare.

Reference

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The avg. distance between stars in the MWG is ~5 LY (316,205 AU), thus it takes an avg. ship from 34 Tauri… 13,175.20833d; 36.09646118 years at a common speed.

ETW/Sol from 34 Tauri is ~175 LY; 11,070,000 AU; travel-time for a normal/common ship of 34 Tauri = 461,250d; 1,263.698630yrs.
Technically, but ships in 34 Tauri are often pulse-based, requiring fuel, and don’t have enough room for the fuel for the number of pulses needed to travel that far.
Most also believe Earth was ruined and abandoned, so why dare that far, anyway?

400,000mph (Mach 521.329446) claimed for Mal’s ship;
338.75au = 31,488,780,000 miles
÷ 400k mph = 78,721.95 hrs (3,280.08125 days; 8.986523972 yrs)
Obviously, the ship goes faster during pulse –125,000 Mach, to be precise, according to 1 claim; 95,908,643.5 mph, thus able to traverse 338.75au in 328.3205647 hrs; 13.68002353 days.

175 LY = 5,879,000,000,000 miles
÷ 95,908,643.5 mph =
61,297.91628 hrs; 2,554.079845 days; 6.997479027 years
That is assuming constant pulse speed, which that ship is not capable of, and not running out of supplies, which it certainly would (designed to only support life for days, not years), and not encountering unnavigable or hostile areas, etc.; no human leaves 34 Tauri unless in a Starfleet-level ship.

When traveling on pulse, the graviton-based shield/s CAN bump things out of the way, and colliding ships would both have a decent inertia-dampening “bubble”, but it could also still be catastrophic for one or both ships in such a collision, thus there are Space lanes not unlike highway and shipping lanes, and lots of overlapping safety devices/systems, and the Space-equivalent of highway patrolmen –and EMS. Collisions are rare, as there is far less traffic in Space than there is planet-side, and far more room to maneuver / choose routes, but they are still possible. Any ships that appear to be setting conflicting/colliding courses will be gently gravity-pulled/-tugged into safer routes by powerful Space tugboat-equivalent ships/devices/buoys –and if that sounds farfetched, keep in mind that the people out here have even mastered tilting entire planets and converting gas-giants into little stars; managing their own Space traffic is “like nothing” to them.

2313 was when the vast majority of humans had to leave Earth; ~7x as many as were killed during The Rapture.
Starfleet was ~182 Earth-years old at that point, but it was using what ships it had to deal with a galactic quadrant’s worth of issues, and three centuries had passed since the Inisfreeans purged 99% of mankind from the Earth; few believed the 2312 ultimatum, and there weren’t enough warp-capable ships to get everyone in time. That is why some of the ships used to evacuate as many humans from Earth as possible were not warp-capable or Starfleet, but slower ships known as “generation ships”; they took decades, if not centuries, to reach some star systems.

It takes a lot of power to warp Space for a ship the size of a Starfleet vessel such as the Enterprise. The first Enterprise had a crew of 430, and the D variant had a crew of 1,100 plus the capacity for 5,000. Generation ships carried tens of thousands or more, sometimes hundreds of millions, and were often too big to bend Space around in a warp-bubble/tunnel like those Starfleet used –too big for human tech’/power at the time.

Source

However these ships did not all leave Earth around 2100 A.D.; they kept being built in Space, slowly filled, and launched, decade by decade, exhausting not Earth’s resources, but those of mined asteroids.

all types of ships added to the Firefly game

Since 34 Tauri is ~175 LY from Sol, warp6 would get a ship there in 175/392; 0.446428571 of a year (162.9464285 days), while warp9 would only take 0.115435356 of a year (42.13390501 days).

Ever since the Unification War, the UAP has invested more in not just pulse-drives, but the warp drives Starfleet developed; a warp6 drive would allow the UAP to traverse its domain in not weeks like most ships there require, but 7.1820648792 minutes.
(338.75 AU diameter = 0.00535648689 LY)
At the same time, the UAP is proactive in preventing anyone else in 34 Tauri from figuring out how warp tech’ works –or that it even exists at all.

Why give most common interplanetary travelers pulse-drives instead of warp-drives? Humans colonizing 34 Tauri decided that made the most sense economically, and they thought the ability to propel one’s own craft via a little explosion was safer than giving everyone the ability to bend Space; a pulse-drive cannot bend a crater or tunnel into a moon, planet, or star by mistake, only negligibly irradiate a pinpoint on it if the fail-safes fail. In short, pulse-drives, when they malfunction, only have the potential to irradiate the crew or crash their ship, not stretch entire cities into oblivion before causing a far-worse explosion and effects (stretching) that do not fade away like fallout.

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The air quality is perfect on nearly all terraformed worlds here, as so few live on them, and tech’/filtering is centuries better.

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The Chinese Zodiac:

12 animals (similar to how the horoscope / Western zodiac had 12 for a time) and 5 elements = 60 yrs before same animal-element combo to recur
(similar system: The Atlantean system the Mayans represented via their stone calendar wheel and step-pyramids; overlapping cycles that eventually reset/restarted)

Reference: 2013 A.D. was a snake year, and had the element of water (which makes wood grow, thus the following element)
2014: horse, wood
2015 goat/sheep, wood (burns to allow fire)
2016 monkey, fire
2017 rooster, fire (forms earth; fusing things)
2018 dog, earth
2019 pig, earth (bears metal)
2020 rat, metal
2021 ox/bull, metal (runs/guides water)
2022 tiger, water
2023 rabbit, water
2024 dragon, wood
…
2516 is another Year of the Dragon
2517 snake
2518 horse
2519 goat
2520 monkey
2521 rooster
2522 dog
2523 pig
2524 rat
2525 ox
2526 tiger
2527 rabbit
2528 dragon
2529 snake
2530, the year I (Auz) concluded my weekday Persephone missions out in this system (34 Tauri), was the latest Year of the Horse

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Things hotties tell/message me (Auz):

“I heard you’re in orbit. My husband’s at work all day. I love you. …And even if you can’t come today, I hope you will whenever you can. I will always be available for you.”

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2023 December:

Which worlds require approaching spacecraft to have onboard at least 1 Registered Companion before they are allowed to dock/land?
All planets (except Rubicon; terraforming scheduled) and moons (except Hades; terraforming on hold) in Bai Hu, Qin Shi Huang, and Lux subsystems.
..
Rubicon is the last Core world to need terraforming, and its terraforming is expected to go smoothly due to all other terraforming of Core worlds successfully completed, thus the vast majority of experts and tech’ in 34 Tauri now focused on this world. With all those elites who are accustomed to the best pay and finest things, Companions will frequent at least the Space stations of this world until its surface is stable enough for luxurious buildings where they can stay a while.
..
Hades crust is too brittle and thin for current terraforming techniques. There are mining operations on it, and its crews enjoy Companions, but there is no requirement for incoming ships to have Companions, as there are no comfortable places planet-side for Companions to stay.
..
Because of that Companions requirement for docking/landing, Companions are often offered free transport/taxiing by ships which might otherwise not be allowed close to those richest worlds, though heavy cargo beyond personal luggage must still be paid for.
Still, Companions tend to be so beautiful and charming that they can easily negotiate “free” hauling, as well; they just offer to fuck all interested crew members at a discounted rate.

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2024 January: The Verse in Numbers

While it is claimed that this saga/story is just another work of fanciful fiction, there is a curious amount of extreme/total detail in this work (i.e. suggestive of not just lots of creative thinking/writing, but soft-disclosure –or, at least, what was destined to get minds manifesting all this).
The timeline (in that document) has some made-up stuff that is pointless and does not fit in our omni-timeline, such as claiming that by 2100 A.D. the human population on Earth had dropped to ~1B (whereas our timeline includes the Judge Dredd megacities era; 1B people in each of the larger megacities).
Just use that document to get details about planet sizes, terraforming years, populations, etc., not overall-timeline milestones.

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Official Languages:

“Chinglish” (a mix of Chinese with English, heavy on the Chinese, common on Sihnon) a.k.a. “Englese” (a mix of English with Chinese, heavy on the English, common on Londinium) is the lingua franca for most of 34 Tauri.
Lesser lingua francas naturally are mixes of the languages of the largest demographics at any spaceport, Space station, or other nexus of trade/travel.
If you speak fluent English, Chinese, Englese, or Chinglish, most people anywhere out here will at least understand some of what you are saying, even on worlds with completely different official languages, such as Russian or Sanskrit.

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Mail, Mining, & Interplanetary Vacations:

Asteroid mining is as common here now as overfishing the oceans was on ETW.
~1% of the humans here go to Space; they are the asteroid miners, interplanetary shipping sailors, Space military personnel, etc..
Think about how difficult it allegedly was to mail a letter or ship an item around the world centuries ago, and compare that to how practically effortless it is to overnight a package anywhere via multiple mail carriers today. Now fast-forward another 500 years, and that should explain to you why it is affordable in 34 Tauri in the 2500s A.D. to ship things between neighboring worlds.
Most people out here have a normal car, a normal apartment, a 9-to-5, etc., but can often afford to order products made on, and shipped from, neighboring worlds, and these people can often afford an interplanetary vacation once a year, and to send a child to secondary school on such a world.
Some people out here are financially comfortable enough to be able to afford those things all the time.

The inner asteroid belt of Sol had ~2M asteroids wider than 1km, and millions more smaller ones.
There are far more asteroids in 34 Tauri, as it is a far larger solar system.
Even with millions of mining drones, hundreds of thousands of ships, and hundreds of Space stations, it will take generations to deplete them all.

…

Astronauts (Space Workers) of 34 Tauri:

1% of 50B are in Space regularly out here = ~500M in Space in 34 Tauri, on and off (very few actually living in Space; most who go to Space just work there).
500M/223 worlds = averaged out, ~2,242,152 people from/between each world out here, though obviously far more are hauling/working between/near the Core worlds.
Most are miners on ships carrying hundreds of people at a time.
~Several million are military, some in capital ships such as cruisers; able to carry thousands of people at a time.
The middle class sometimes enjoy Space cruise ships.
The elite few are in luxury ships of their own; this era’s equivalent of private jets.
If we divide 2,242,152 by 200 (“hundreds” per midsized mining ship/station), we get ~11,211 such ships per world (averaged out; realistically there are hundreds of thousands of ships from Core worlds, and maybe only hundreds for far-flung/fringe worlds).

Jobs in Space out here:

administrative; assistants, etc.: estimate of the 500M who are in this line of work TBA
agriculture: TBA
analysis: _
appraisals:
architecture:
banking/finance:
botany/floral:
colonization/settlement:
communications:
construction:
convenience/retail/shopping:
corrections:
cruise/sightseeing:
customs:
data:
demolitions:
dentistry/orthodontics:
detectives:
diplomatic:
education/teaching:
electrical:
engineering:
entertainment:
entrepreneurs:
executive/management:
firefighting:
fitness; personal trainers:
food service; grocery, restaurants:
fuel; gas stations:
geology:
hauling:
helioforming:
highway (Space lanes) patrol:
hospitality/lodging:
H.R.:
I.T.:
inspections:
insurance:
intelligence:
janitorial/sanitation:
journalism/reporting:
legal:
logistics:
luxury goods:
mail:
manufacturing/assembly:
mapping:
marketing:
medical:
mercenaries:
MIBs:
military: ~7M?
mining: ~tens of millions?
mortuary:
optometry/ophthalmology:
outposts:
pest control:
plumbing:
police:
prospecting:
recycling:
refineries:
R+D:
religious:
repair/mechanics:
restoration:
sales:
salvage:
S&R:
security, regular:
security, special; diplomatic/private:
social services:
soil science:
Space traffic controllers:
storage:
students/apprentices:
surveying:
tailoring:
taxi/Space-liner (cruise ship):
technical support:
terraforming:
textiles:
therapy:
towing:
translation:
waste management:
weather:
welding: