Serendip Belt: History

4903-4981AD C-Jammer and the Honeycomb.

The whole Belt was awake a decade before C-Jammer arrived. A ghost town reawakened to welcome their distant cousins. The Belters swiftly set to work on the ship; refitting, improving and polishing; while the crew set about improving their hosts’ facilities.

Whilst the refit work continued, the Crew also turned their attention to the continued exploration of the Belt system. Fay Energybanks was a typical seeker. She was captain of a small exploration ship, the Dragon’s Tooth; one of hundreds that scoured the system during this period. In 4919AD Energybanks stumbled upon the “Honeycomb”.

The Honeycomb is a medium-sized asteroid, 90km across, honeycombed with ancient chambers and passageways. The site provides clear evidence for intelligent beings who inhabited the Belt system millennia before humans had developed beyond primitive hunter-gatherers. This was the first evidence for alien civilization ever discovered by humankind.

This discovery set the Belt community alight. It was considered so important that the C-Jammer’s departure was postponed indefinitely. For decades the whole Belt system was scoured for more evidence of the aliens.

What they found disturbed the Crew. Throughout the system the Crew discovered the relics of an ancient and devastating war. Far from being a space habitat, the Honeycomb was eventually proved to have been an installation on the surface of a planet. A well defended buried city, armed with mysterious, titanic weapons. A city buried on a planet that had literally been smashed to pieces by a weapon of unimaginable power; the Outer Belt had once been a planet.

The Crew named the aliens “Destroyers”, for their foremost concerns seemed to have been warfare and destruction. The Destroyers’ technology had been far in advance of anything humanity had ever conceived.

4981AD Voyageur.

By the time Voyageur arrived the Belt’s population had reached 250,000 (including 100,000 C-Jammer crew). No one now imagined that the Belt would ever be abandoned. Voyageur stayed for nearly 70 years. It was a period of fantastic growth in the Belt. Everyone worked on the Voyageur refit, and on the construction of more miniworlds in the Inner Belt.

5054AD The Iron Angels.

In 4992-5AD seekers from Voyageur discovered the “Iron Angels” in the Outer Belt. These three nickel-iron asteroids were suitable for moulding into bubbleworlds; huge metal spheres that could be spun for artificial gravity. The earth-like inner surface of a bubbleworld could accommodate millions of Crew. The asteroids were named after angels from ancient Christian myth; Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer.

Once Voyageur had left for New Home in 5054AD, the Belters turned their attention towards terraforming the Iron Angel asteroids. This great task took many decades and was to cause a great deal of strife. It would not be until 5120AD that all three asteroids had successfully been made habitable.