Ceres Colony (Ceres Colony Corporation (German: Ceres Kolonie Gesellschaft)) is a network of subterranean cities and bases within the planetoid Ceres that is habitated and administered by the "Deutsche" breakaway German civilization. These caverns are interconnected by a planet-wide, ring-shaped subterranean network of at least two train systems. Inside most cities are rows of old, European-styled brick buildings bisected by a small road for personal and municipal vehicles. There are commercial areas within Ceres, and even red light districts. Ceres serves as both a civilian colony for a large number of German individuals and families, though it is also an extremely fortified and militarized location central to German "High Command". Most German-speaking personnel live in modest to very opulent accommodation somewhere within Ceres.[1]
Slave labor is widespread in Ceres Colony. As of 2001, its population is 225,000, 40,000 of which are slaves. Their living quarters are prisons which hold 5,000 men each. Each resembles the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, except the cells do not close. The slaves are responsible for manual labor on Ceres and aboard ships. One of their duties is mining. The slaves cleared debris as a high-powered laser drills through the rock. Although the Germans make use of everything that was mined, the main objective of mining is to find water-filled caverns. They make favorable places to build a city or a base once the water, valuable in its own right, has been emptied out.[1]
Technician race
Commerce is the lifeblood of Ceres Colony. Many nonterrestrial races visit Ceres Colony for trade, though some ET races work there on a more permanent basis. Most businesses and shops within Ceres Colony are reportedly managed by a 9-ft. tall, grey-skinned race, possibly a sub-species of Pre-Adamites. This race, also with elongated skulls and slanted foreheads, is often consulted to repair vehicles and equipment, as they are supposedly "natural technicians".[2]
There are several hanger doors around Ceres. One of the largest is located within a perpetually-shadowed crater near Ahuna Mons, and leads to "Pyramid Base".[2] This location goes by a radio handle of the same name.
Ceres Colony has its own military which forms a component of what has been called the Dark Fleet. Ships assigned port-of-call to Ceres carry the name prefix CCCSS.
The head of Ceres Colony ranks under a beige royal Draco, who he reports to within a temporal anomaly around Jupiter.
History[]
Shortly before the terrestrial conclusion of WWII, German space exploration missions discovered that an extensive series of underground caverns beneath Ceres had been colonized and later mothballed by extraterrestrials at some point in our solar system's past. The Germans, in cooperation with nonterrestrials from the Orion Group, re-settled and expanded this network. Ceres' governorship was soon established under Ceres Kolonie Gesellschaft (English: Ceres Colony Corporation). Many new caverns were hollowed-out and occupied. Judging by the rust and dilapidation in some areas, construction appears to have begun in the 1940’s.[1]
One of the areas the Germans discovered were hundreds of habitation dwellings miles underground, each with moving trapezoidal slab doors with neural-interfacing technology. Each was retrofitted with metal into a comfortable apartment. Some of the crew of the CCCSS Max von Laue, (the ship on which Tony Rodigues was impressed into service) lived in this area, among hundreds more. A very long elevator connected these rooms to Ceres Colony above.
In the 1980's, when many SSP assets were consolidated under the Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate, Ceres Colony Corp. chose to maintain its independence, and thus its heavy German influence. Ceres Colony and the ICC maintain a trading and political relationship. Historical disputes have occurred over nearby asteroid mining.[2]