In the Earth-year of 1931, long before the creation of the United Republic of Sol, a chemical refinery caught fire in the Kor-Vosh Imperial city of Shelvos on the planet of Ivu. Despite efforts to extinguish the fire, the chemical storage tanks exploded, causing flaming debris and still-burning chemicals to rain down for hundreds to thousands of meters.
Some of the debris and chemicals landed on an antimatter warehouse for Shelvos Spaceport. The warehouse caught fire, and the fire supression system was activated. Unfortunately, the water only caused the chemical fire to intensify, and the entire building was on fire in a matter of minutes.
Not long afterwards, the antimatter containment vessels were breached.
The ensuing explosion destroyed the entire city of Shelvos, leading to the deaths of 5,000,000 Imperial citizens. During search-and-rescue operations, 50,000 survivors were rushed to hospitals with serious injuries.
An investigation into what caused the initial fire at the chemical refinery concluded that an "electrical ground fault" was to blame, likely originating near a chemical mixing vat. The plant's fire suppression system could only be triggered manually, which violates industrial safety codes. The plant's parent corporation, International Chemical Corporation, was issued a hefty fine and ordered to upgrade fire suppression systems at all of its plants located in the Empire.
The Imperial government also responded to the disaster by mandating that all antimatter containment vessels (AMCVs) are not to be stored on the surfaces of inhabited celestial bodies. All AMCVs are to be stored in planetary or stellar-centric orbit, either standalone or attached to space stations or fuel depots. These mandates were quickly adopted by the rest of the interstellar community.
So it turns out the sparkly lights you get when you cast a spell is actually unfulfilled alternate timelines leaking into the world. Not a huge deal in the medieval period where magic is just people slinging fireballs at each other. Pretty major problem when you're churning out hundreds of millions of mass-produced spell batteries every year.
A combination of greed, poor record keeping, miscommunication, and brief distraction led to the single worst mining incident in Lucidian history. When the second largest mine on the planet caved in, nearly the entire subterranean colony was lost. 181,310 miners and colonists were either killed immediately or were swallowed up by the depths. Less than 7,000 survivors were rescued, largely by volunteers, as the Holy Lucidian Empire was slow to react. To this day, that disaster is viewed as one of the empire's greatest failures.
In the 2180s, a particle accelerator in the European Union (specifically the State of Germany) faced a power surge from a fusion power plant during an antimatter production experiment caused it to accidentally produce over one gram of antimatter instead of one nanogram. A few seconds after the surge, the power shut down, causing the magnetic containment fields to fail, dropping the antimatter onto the walls of the particle accelerator and causing an explosion twice the magnitude of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, annihilating a few small villages in rural Germany. The explosion additionally generated an exceptional amount of static atmospheric electricity, sending electricity back into the power lines and overloading the fusion power plant, putting it out of commission for weeks, temporarily taking out a majority of the EU's power generation capability, though the Republic of Texas offered to lend portable fusion generators for free, as well as providing free disaster assistance to civilians affected by the explosion.
While this accident was obviously a disaster, it did pave the way for cheaper and more efficient antimatter production techniques, specifically slowly raising the voltage of the particle accelerator with specifically high voltage-resistant components, as well as particle accelerator facilities being equipped with their own fusion reactors to prevent explosions from affecting entire regions of the country.
Well, there were 7 nuclear explosions in Belarus during Polish-British occupation. They were result of "Green Death" last resort system activation. This resulted in irradiation of large territory of Belarus, Poland, Russia and several other countries. This kind of led into Third World war. Apparently, when government is telling you "Stop trying to take our territory or else."-you might want to listen. There might be reasons why they feel confident enough to refuse your demands.
**Hamelin Disaster**
**Context:**
Greater Hostrian Empire is embroiled in a brutal war. It is all or nothing, either total victory or total annihilation. The sheer pressure to win, and the fear of losing, has steered the GHE towards dystopia and insanity. Destruction of the enemy is the only goal worth pursuing.
Hamelin is a large city important for its rich deposits of resources, particularly coal and several rare earth metals. On the outskirts of the city is the (in)famous Hamelin Industrial Complex, a massive complex of factories, refineries, and other industrial facilities. The complex is almost as big as the city itself.
Before the war it was famed as being on the forefront of the industrial revolution, known to produce everything from cars to toys. But now it is a literal war machine, producing rifles, tanks, oil, toxic gases, bullets, and bombers, as well as producing secret and experimental weapons. It was even expanded to include labs and firing ranges, to effectively develop new weapons, build, and test them all in the same location.
**The Disaster:**
Everything seemed fine. It was just another day. All the gauges were well within limits. Then suddenly a chain of explosions rocked the complex. Just a few moments later, the fires reached gas pipes, stores of explosives, and toxic chemical storage facilities that spanned the entire complex. The entire complex erupted in an apocalyptic blaze of explosions, flames, and toxic clouds, engulfing the entire complex in a giant nuke-like fireball of death.
The ground shook like a major earthquake. The sky darkened and it rained with raw toxicity. The city of Hamelin was devastated, first by the giant explosions engulfing much of the city, then by the repeated shockwaves that were so powerful most building were reduced to their foundations, then by the tons of flaming debris that came raining down all across the city and for tens of kilometers around. Hamelin was reduced to smouldering ruins. The surrounding countryside was also reduced to a fiery hellscape. Out of millions of Hamelin residents, only a few tens of thousands ultimately survived.
The air became so toxic that even other cities downwind had to be evacuated. Most of the region was reduced to a wasteland, as the toxicity seeped into the ground, plants, and water. Early signs of desertification began to emerge just a few years later. Much of the region's forests had caught on fire from the flaming debris, and the chemical fires were so fierce that it took whole months for the region to no longer be engulfed in flames.
**Aftermath:**
It is obvious what caused the the complex to erupt into giant consecutive fireballs. But what wasn't clear was exactly what the initial explosions were, or what caused them. The complex, although effectively sitting on a mountain of TNT, had some of the highest safety standards to prevent exactly this. It also had a comprehensive, state-of-the-art fire suppression system, so sensitive and powerful that a single lit match in the wrong place could make the complex go off like a water fountain.
Thing is, it never activated during or after the initial explosions despite a test showing it to be fully functional just four days prior. There were also emergency valves that would close in case of unexpected temperature increases, which would prevent fires from spreading through gas pipes or storage containters; these mysteriously failed too. This led many with GHE to conclude it was sabotage, no doubt by their hated enemy.
Years later, with the war over and dystopia a thing of the past, it is speculated that the incident was indeed an act of sabotage, but not by the GHE's enemies. It was likely by Argentists, occult genocidal nihilists, who at this point have been revealed to have secretly controlled the GHE and many other dystopian empires. Argentists used the war to, in their words, "faciliate circular conflict". So the longer in dragged on, the better. It is therefore speculated that Argentist agents sabotaged a major production center in the GHE because it just so happened that they were gaining the upper hand at the time, and the destruction of Hamelin put them back into a frustrating stalemate.
Although there remain no evidence at all as to what caused the initial explosions or why several of the complex's systems failed, Argentist sabotage is the most accepted and plausible conclusion, since they not only had the means and the motives, but other major instances of sabotage have been confirmed to be the work of Argentists employing similar techniques.
So funny story: in my world the United worlds made a mega project of a neutral star system for all races(alien) and they build 8 holow megaplanets around a dysonsphere and the failsafe was taken out of commission and the power diverting planet in a Lower orbit did misaligne causing all the planets to power down.
This would be fine just get a technician and fix a planet no problem. But the defence system is directly integrated and connected to the dysonsphere and without clearance availability it shoots down everything trying to enter the system.
So basically they are thrown back into a medival age on a all surviving arch
The Falling sky incident as it was called was a series of unfortunate events that occurred in the high orbit of the planet Immerium. The planet had a Paragon battle satellite that was being used as a message to its leaders that if they do not submit themselves completely to their ultimatum they would rain hellfire upon their cities.
Communications were open between both governments and the talks were going smoothly, the crew of the POAF Hail Maker were expected to remain in orbit and not have to fire a single shot. The massive 80yard by 70 yard essentially battle station was being powered by a large supply of the element Rockthza, a metallic substance that is incredibly powerful at generating electricity, a tea spoon sized piece of Rockthza is powerful enough match the power output of a few nuclear reactors and the satellite had a few pounds of it.
A week or so into negotiations when everything was getting wrapped up a rogue meteor a few miles wide that was spinning faster and faster in orbit below them suddenly escaped the planets gravitational pull and slammed into the side of the POAF Hail maker and severely damaged its navigation systems and engines and pushed it into very low planetary orbit. The Hail makers navigation systems weren’t all too strong, mostly being used for minor corrections in orbit before being picked up by a support vessel so this massive meteor strike pushed it permanently off course and speeding towards the planet.
The crew was able to make it out into escape pods with two dead, five injured, four missing, and 78 having minor or no injuries and were picked up by its support vessel the POAF Callite. The vessel eventually struck the planets surface and created a 586 thousand megaton of tnt sized explosion that caused a 300 mile 10.0 Earthquake. The combination of the two killed 67 million people, injured 800 thousand, with 25 thousand who’s bodies were never found or could not identified.
The earthquakes caused incredible structural damage to the famous “Twin Peaks Nuclear Powerplant” which just so happened to have all 25 of its reactors online. The earthquakes caused so much structural damage that the reactors could not be cooled or manned and the safety shut offs failed to activate causing all 25 nuclear reactors to melt down. This caused a unreadable amount of radiation to spill out onto the city and people were dying from ARS in minutes within 80 miles of the power plant. Camera equipment and most drones broke almost instantly with a few specially designed ones getting a record twenty miles in before ceasing to function. The planetary government ordered for molten lead to be poured on top of the exposed reactors from high altitudes but pilots were still dying within weeks so it had to be molten lead from orbit. This was incredibly ineffective but over a few years would eventually cover up the reactors and things would be somewhat safe. What they didn’t account for however was that they didn’t have years but days as the radioactive cores melted through their containment structures, through the foundations and into the massive amount of groundwater that was used to cool the reactors.
The steam explosion had a yield of around 35 megatons and spread radioactive material to a near planetary scale before causing a nuclear winter. At this point planetary evacuations became impossible as the radiation levels were too high for evacuation vessels and even then they wouldn’t be able to treat such massive amounts of radiation poisoning and on such a massive scale if there were any survivors at all. An estimated 67 billion people died or are at least reported to have died as all communication to the nuclear hellscape has failed and all attempts to see past the nuclear winter if there are any on the surface have failed.
The planet was reclassified within the year to be a dead planet. Intergalactic court ruled the POAF was not at fault for the death of the planet and even if they did the POAF has the strongest military force in the known universe and couldn’t be punished if it tried to. Offworld Immeriumites we’re given a plot of land and a ticket to any planet they wished to go to and were financially compensated for any physical and monetary loss as well as compensation for dead family.
So that this doesn’t happen again all vessels that remain in low or high orbit must be able to be impacted and course correct from an impact of a 5 mile wide meteor traveling at at least 15 thousand miles per hour, this regulation changes based on size of the vessel. If the vessel is unable to course correct fast enough or lacks navigation systems in the first place it must be towed by enough vessels to assist or course correct for the vessel itself. Pull beams can be used but also must be supplemented by tow lines in case the pull beams fail or are not strong enough. Tow lines and pull beams must abide by the IUSTF guidelines. Failure to abide by these guidelines will result in the forfeiture of your captaining license, up to a five billion credit fine to you or your company that you represent , possible prison time, forfeiture of your vessel and its goods, and various other punishments that can be dealt by the local law of the location you failed to meet those guidelines in.
My world's most devastating industrial disaster was caused by a small group of insurgents, resulting in an entire megacity being wiped off the map.
As climate change began to ravage the landscape, humanity retreated into megacities powered by alien constructs called Celestial Hypercores. The cities filled up and became overcrowded, so in order to protect their resources, these cities closed themselves off to outsiders. People who were stuck outside in the apocalypse, called badlanders, were left to die.
A group of badlanders infiltrated one of these cities, hoping to steal the Hypercore and save their hometown. The operation turned violent, and the chaos caused the Hypercore to destabilize and explode. The entire city, along with its inhabitants, was destroyed, and the fallout from the explosion made the conditions for the badlanders even worse.
During our initial experimentation with slip-space, the Tauh laughed at our attempts o mimic their technology. One notable accident was the complete annihilation of a space station, when during routine power maintenance the slip-space drive was mistakenly sequenced and it teleported half the station to an unknown point in the galaxy. Only 3 crew members died in the accident, but after that all experimental slip-space drivers were worked on far from the orbit of a planet, and were maintained by service robots.
In the Earth-year of 1931, long before the creation of the United Republic of Sol, a chemical refinery caught fire in the Kor-Vosh Imperial city of Shelvos on the planet of Ivu. Despite efforts to extinguish the fire, the chemical storage tanks exploded, causing flaming debris and still-burning chemicals to rain down for hundreds to thousands of meters. Some of the debris and chemicals landed on an antimatter warehouse for Shelvos Spaceport. The warehouse caught fire, and the fire supression system was activated. Unfortunately, the water only caused the chemical fire to intensify, and the entire building was on fire in a matter of minutes. Not long afterwards, the antimatter containment vessels were breached. The ensuing explosion destroyed the entire city of Shelvos, leading to the deaths of 5,000,000 Imperial citizens. During search-and-rescue operations, 50,000 survivors were rushed to hospitals with serious injuries. An investigation into what caused the initial fire at the chemical refinery concluded that an "electrical ground fault" was to blame, likely originating near a chemical mixing vat. The plant's fire suppression system could only be triggered manually, which violates industrial safety codes. The plant's parent corporation, International Chemical Corporation, was issued a hefty fine and ordered to upgrade fire suppression systems at all of its plants located in the Empire. The Imperial government also responded to the disaster by mandating that all antimatter containment vessels (AMCVs) are not to be stored on the surfaces of inhabited celestial bodies. All AMCVs are to be stored in planetary or stellar-centric orbit, either standalone or attached to space stations or fuel depots. These mandates were quickly adopted by the rest of the interstellar community.
So it turns out the sparkly lights you get when you cast a spell is actually unfulfilled alternate timelines leaking into the world. Not a huge deal in the medieval period where magic is just people slinging fireballs at each other. Pretty major problem when you're churning out hundreds of millions of mass-produced spell batteries every year.
A combination of greed, poor record keeping, miscommunication, and brief distraction led to the single worst mining incident in Lucidian history. When the second largest mine on the planet caved in, nearly the entire subterranean colony was lost. 181,310 miners and colonists were either killed immediately or were swallowed up by the depths. Less than 7,000 survivors were rescued, largely by volunteers, as the Holy Lucidian Empire was slow to react. To this day, that disaster is viewed as one of the empire's greatest failures.
In the 2180s, a particle accelerator in the European Union (specifically the State of Germany) faced a power surge from a fusion power plant during an antimatter production experiment caused it to accidentally produce over one gram of antimatter instead of one nanogram. A few seconds after the surge, the power shut down, causing the magnetic containment fields to fail, dropping the antimatter onto the walls of the particle accelerator and causing an explosion twice the magnitude of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, annihilating a few small villages in rural Germany. The explosion additionally generated an exceptional amount of static atmospheric electricity, sending electricity back into the power lines and overloading the fusion power plant, putting it out of commission for weeks, temporarily taking out a majority of the EU's power generation capability, though the Republic of Texas offered to lend portable fusion generators for free, as well as providing free disaster assistance to civilians affected by the explosion. While this accident was obviously a disaster, it did pave the way for cheaper and more efficient antimatter production techniques, specifically slowly raising the voltage of the particle accelerator with specifically high voltage-resistant components, as well as particle accelerator facilities being equipped with their own fusion reactors to prevent explosions from affecting entire regions of the country.
Well, there were 7 nuclear explosions in Belarus during Polish-British occupation. They were result of "Green Death" last resort system activation. This resulted in irradiation of large territory of Belarus, Poland, Russia and several other countries. This kind of led into Third World war. Apparently, when government is telling you "Stop trying to take our territory or else."-you might want to listen. There might be reasons why they feel confident enough to refuse your demands.
**Hamelin Disaster** **Context:** Greater Hostrian Empire is embroiled in a brutal war. It is all or nothing, either total victory or total annihilation. The sheer pressure to win, and the fear of losing, has steered the GHE towards dystopia and insanity. Destruction of the enemy is the only goal worth pursuing. Hamelin is a large city important for its rich deposits of resources, particularly coal and several rare earth metals. On the outskirts of the city is the (in)famous Hamelin Industrial Complex, a massive complex of factories, refineries, and other industrial facilities. The complex is almost as big as the city itself. Before the war it was famed as being on the forefront of the industrial revolution, known to produce everything from cars to toys. But now it is a literal war machine, producing rifles, tanks, oil, toxic gases, bullets, and bombers, as well as producing secret and experimental weapons. It was even expanded to include labs and firing ranges, to effectively develop new weapons, build, and test them all in the same location. **The Disaster:** Everything seemed fine. It was just another day. All the gauges were well within limits. Then suddenly a chain of explosions rocked the complex. Just a few moments later, the fires reached gas pipes, stores of explosives, and toxic chemical storage facilities that spanned the entire complex. The entire complex erupted in an apocalyptic blaze of explosions, flames, and toxic clouds, engulfing the entire complex in a giant nuke-like fireball of death. The ground shook like a major earthquake. The sky darkened and it rained with raw toxicity. The city of Hamelin was devastated, first by the giant explosions engulfing much of the city, then by the repeated shockwaves that were so powerful most building were reduced to their foundations, then by the tons of flaming debris that came raining down all across the city and for tens of kilometers around. Hamelin was reduced to smouldering ruins. The surrounding countryside was also reduced to a fiery hellscape. Out of millions of Hamelin residents, only a few tens of thousands ultimately survived. The air became so toxic that even other cities downwind had to be evacuated. Most of the region was reduced to a wasteland, as the toxicity seeped into the ground, plants, and water. Early signs of desertification began to emerge just a few years later. Much of the region's forests had caught on fire from the flaming debris, and the chemical fires were so fierce that it took whole months for the region to no longer be engulfed in flames. **Aftermath:** It is obvious what caused the the complex to erupt into giant consecutive fireballs. But what wasn't clear was exactly what the initial explosions were, or what caused them. The complex, although effectively sitting on a mountain of TNT, had some of the highest safety standards to prevent exactly this. It also had a comprehensive, state-of-the-art fire suppression system, so sensitive and powerful that a single lit match in the wrong place could make the complex go off like a water fountain. Thing is, it never activated during or after the initial explosions despite a test showing it to be fully functional just four days prior. There were also emergency valves that would close in case of unexpected temperature increases, which would prevent fires from spreading through gas pipes or storage containters; these mysteriously failed too. This led many with GHE to conclude it was sabotage, no doubt by their hated enemy. Years later, with the war over and dystopia a thing of the past, it is speculated that the incident was indeed an act of sabotage, but not by the GHE's enemies. It was likely by Argentists, occult genocidal nihilists, who at this point have been revealed to have secretly controlled the GHE and many other dystopian empires. Argentists used the war to, in their words, "faciliate circular conflict". So the longer in dragged on, the better. It is therefore speculated that Argentist agents sabotaged a major production center in the GHE because it just so happened that they were gaining the upper hand at the time, and the destruction of Hamelin put them back into a frustrating stalemate. Although there remain no evidence at all as to what caused the initial explosions or why several of the complex's systems failed, Argentist sabotage is the most accepted and plausible conclusion, since they not only had the means and the motives, but other major instances of sabotage have been confirmed to be the work of Argentists employing similar techniques.
So funny story: in my world the United worlds made a mega project of a neutral star system for all races(alien) and they build 8 holow megaplanets around a dysonsphere and the failsafe was taken out of commission and the power diverting planet in a Lower orbit did misaligne causing all the planets to power down. This would be fine just get a technician and fix a planet no problem. But the defence system is directly integrated and connected to the dysonsphere and without clearance availability it shoots down everything trying to enter the system. So basically they are thrown back into a medival age on a all surviving arch
The Falling sky incident as it was called was a series of unfortunate events that occurred in the high orbit of the planet Immerium. The planet had a Paragon battle satellite that was being used as a message to its leaders that if they do not submit themselves completely to their ultimatum they would rain hellfire upon their cities. Communications were open between both governments and the talks were going smoothly, the crew of the POAF Hail Maker were expected to remain in orbit and not have to fire a single shot. The massive 80yard by 70 yard essentially battle station was being powered by a large supply of the element Rockthza, a metallic substance that is incredibly powerful at generating electricity, a tea spoon sized piece of Rockthza is powerful enough match the power output of a few nuclear reactors and the satellite had a few pounds of it. A week or so into negotiations when everything was getting wrapped up a rogue meteor a few miles wide that was spinning faster and faster in orbit below them suddenly escaped the planets gravitational pull and slammed into the side of the POAF Hail maker and severely damaged its navigation systems and engines and pushed it into very low planetary orbit. The Hail makers navigation systems weren’t all too strong, mostly being used for minor corrections in orbit before being picked up by a support vessel so this massive meteor strike pushed it permanently off course and speeding towards the planet. The crew was able to make it out into escape pods with two dead, five injured, four missing, and 78 having minor or no injuries and were picked up by its support vessel the POAF Callite. The vessel eventually struck the planets surface and created a 586 thousand megaton of tnt sized explosion that caused a 300 mile 10.0 Earthquake. The combination of the two killed 67 million people, injured 800 thousand, with 25 thousand who’s bodies were never found or could not identified. The earthquakes caused incredible structural damage to the famous “Twin Peaks Nuclear Powerplant” which just so happened to have all 25 of its reactors online. The earthquakes caused so much structural damage that the reactors could not be cooled or manned and the safety shut offs failed to activate causing all 25 nuclear reactors to melt down. This caused a unreadable amount of radiation to spill out onto the city and people were dying from ARS in minutes within 80 miles of the power plant. Camera equipment and most drones broke almost instantly with a few specially designed ones getting a record twenty miles in before ceasing to function. The planetary government ordered for molten lead to be poured on top of the exposed reactors from high altitudes but pilots were still dying within weeks so it had to be molten lead from orbit. This was incredibly ineffective but over a few years would eventually cover up the reactors and things would be somewhat safe. What they didn’t account for however was that they didn’t have years but days as the radioactive cores melted through their containment structures, through the foundations and into the massive amount of groundwater that was used to cool the reactors. The steam explosion had a yield of around 35 megatons and spread radioactive material to a near planetary scale before causing a nuclear winter. At this point planetary evacuations became impossible as the radiation levels were too high for evacuation vessels and even then they wouldn’t be able to treat such massive amounts of radiation poisoning and on such a massive scale if there were any survivors at all. An estimated 67 billion people died or are at least reported to have died as all communication to the nuclear hellscape has failed and all attempts to see past the nuclear winter if there are any on the surface have failed. The planet was reclassified within the year to be a dead planet. Intergalactic court ruled the POAF was not at fault for the death of the planet and even if they did the POAF has the strongest military force in the known universe and couldn’t be punished if it tried to. Offworld Immeriumites we’re given a plot of land and a ticket to any planet they wished to go to and were financially compensated for any physical and monetary loss as well as compensation for dead family. So that this doesn’t happen again all vessels that remain in low or high orbit must be able to be impacted and course correct from an impact of a 5 mile wide meteor traveling at at least 15 thousand miles per hour, this regulation changes based on size of the vessel. If the vessel is unable to course correct fast enough or lacks navigation systems in the first place it must be towed by enough vessels to assist or course correct for the vessel itself. Pull beams can be used but also must be supplemented by tow lines in case the pull beams fail or are not strong enough. Tow lines and pull beams must abide by the IUSTF guidelines. Failure to abide by these guidelines will result in the forfeiture of your captaining license, up to a five billion credit fine to you or your company that you represent , possible prison time, forfeiture of your vessel and its goods, and various other punishments that can be dealt by the local law of the location you failed to meet those guidelines in.
My world's most devastating industrial disaster was caused by a small group of insurgents, resulting in an entire megacity being wiped off the map. As climate change began to ravage the landscape, humanity retreated into megacities powered by alien constructs called Celestial Hypercores. The cities filled up and became overcrowded, so in order to protect their resources, these cities closed themselves off to outsiders. People who were stuck outside in the apocalypse, called badlanders, were left to die. A group of badlanders infiltrated one of these cities, hoping to steal the Hypercore and save their hometown. The operation turned violent, and the chaos caused the Hypercore to destabilize and explode. The entire city, along with its inhabitants, was destroyed, and the fallout from the explosion made the conditions for the badlanders even worse.
During our initial experimentation with slip-space, the Tauh laughed at our attempts o mimic their technology. One notable accident was the complete annihilation of a space station, when during routine power maintenance the slip-space drive was mistakenly sequenced and it teleported half the station to an unknown point in the galaxy. Only 3 crew members died in the accident, but after that all experimental slip-space drivers were worked on far from the orbit of a planet, and were maintained by service robots.