Midgard: A world unto itself



Midgard is often welcomed in lightly populated fringe territories as they
are willing to trade advanced technologies for local products
at a much better price than most corporate interests.



During the chaotic, warring-states period prior to the formation of the Federation, one man had an idea. He proposed to design and create a mobile space station capable of travelling interstellar distances while housing the population of a fair-sized city in style and comfort. He believed that the root cause of all war was population pressure, and the competetion for scarce, easily accessible resources. He theorized that his idea would alleviate issues of population pressure. If one of the stations became too crowded it would simply construct a new habitat and divide, much like cellular reproduction. Likewise he thought that mobilizing the population would eliminate resource competition because there would no longer be any permanent territorial claims. If there was a dispute about resources, it would always be easier to move to another nearby source then to fight over one.

This idea seemed to resonate with some fraction of the population and enough investors and volunteers came forward to actually begin construction on the first of these tremendous mobile habitats. Christened Midgard by its predominantly human inhabitants, it was the first and, ths far, only one of its kind as several years before its construction was completed the Federation came in to being and the problem that the project was started to combat faded away.

At over 25km in length, the Midgard is still the largest mobile artificial structure ever created. With a permanent population numbering over twenty million, it is more populous than many frontier worlds. It spends its time leisurely travelling from star system to star system, some inhabitated, some not.

Midgard collects most of its raw materials from the millions of uninhabited systems, when calling on settled worlds they generally refrain from everything except trade. Midgard has its own manufacturing facilities and is essentially self-sufficient. It engages in interstellar commerce to acquire luxury or specialty goods and to supplement its own resources.

Because of the permissive legal environment, and sovereign status, Midgard is also something of a smugglers haven. There is little in the way of commerce tax and Midgard only prohibits the sale of slaves and dangerous biological material.