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Unity Station is a shining bubble on the pock-scarred hide of a planet as welcoming as any other giant lump of rock with no atmosphere to speak of. What it has going for it are the wormholes linking different territories.
Topside, Unity is a world of trading companies and diplomats, embassies and offices in two mostly separate contest to outshine their own kind.
The life, the heart and the veins and the blood, is below decks, utilitarian, the space for the people who carry out decisions made higher up, and those who keep the station running, who create the food, shift the wares and a bit of contraband.
Below their feet, in nooks and crannies, in abandoned sections sealed off officially and broken open secretly, are the forgotten ones. Those with no money to buy a ticket to a planet with its own air, not the right skills any more to be wanted higher up in the hierarchy. People who slipped. Whose skills became outdated. A tech who lost his hand in a power conductor accident. A greeter who grew too old and unattractive. People with bad luck, who came seeking opportunities and gambled too much. And those born to it.
They scrounge what they can, build what they can from what those higher up forget to dispose of properly, sometimes beg, sometimes steal from the crew. And they prey on each other. Cliques and clans might hold together, for a while, but when everything is scarce, ending a life to prolong yours may seem like the only option.
The crew is wary, but does not worry too much as long as those below only fight among themselves. Topside doesn’t care. Maybe they don’t know. Security is a below-decks matter.
The changes start soon after a new nation joins the sparkling circle of Unity. The team, surprisingly varied in built for claiming to be of one species, are curious and explore every level. There are some hints they like it below. Their embassy is not angled glass and steel and lights, lights, lights, but tight spaces with contrasting textures, rough and velvety, amber light and organic lines. Cozy, if you don’t mind the closeness.
And they observe. And they report back.
And one day, someone higher up their hierarchy visits the station. He arrives in a ship way too big for his small entourage, oozing authority and rotten temper. The first thing he does is cut the welcoming ceremonies short, and go below. Not the maintenance levels, but the deep, dark bog housing vermin and forgotten people.
His voice rolls through the nooks and crannies. “I can offer you order. I can take you from this place of savagery to civilisation. And I will, for anyone who follows me. For what makes civilisation is not in the technology and trappings. It is in not discarding people like trash.”
It won’t be that easy. But it is a start.