General Ashe says, "Before you head off to get food and catch up, let me tell you about Aurora. It is a space station where many scientific studies and researches are performed. As such, it has a military annex as well as the scientific and civilian annexes."
He pulls up a map on the screen in the center of the table.
"There is a military quarter. Because of the danger of the experiments and the security threat, the military presence is high there. In the wrong hands, many of those experiments could be very dangerous. The command quarter is where the scientists and military commanders meet, strategize, and negotiate what can and cannot be done. They also oversee all projects from that quarter. The science quarter is where the experiments are performed and is subject to high security. The residential quarter has shops, sleeping quarters, and other areas for civilians."
He laughs slightly. "As you can probably guess, a research company like ByChem had to lobby heavily, but it has the largest showing of scientists at Aurora. That's how they could immediately dispatch this flagship once the distress calls were finally heard. You see, the Aurora has special qualities about it that make it highly valuable to conduct research. But I'm sure you don't care about those details. Let's just say it's high value real estate for scientists."
He points to his wrist. "We still have 5 days' travel until we get there. One thing you should know is that we are a flagship permanently stationed at Aurora. Therefore, we have the honor of having many research projects performed here, particularly those that cannot be done on Aurora or for which there simply is not enough space there to perform. Whenever you're ready, I will have someone give you a tour of the ship so you can stretch your legs. Otherwise, just take the next five days to relax."
General Ashe adds that the map of Aurora shows just one level. There are actually about 20 such levels, so that it looks like a giant barrel. I say 'about' because each level can be detached and new ones added, so the number of levels varies...usually increasing because of the high demand for that area of space."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:13, Mon 28 Feb 2011.