Weywot
"You don’t come here to do science—you come here to survive science. If the Quarine don’t fine you, the Conclave won’t blackball you, or a rival doesn’t poison your breakfast, then maybe you’ll get a paper published. Maybe."
The Scientific Embassy of Quaoar
Weywot is less a city and more an experiment in controlled chaos. The fifty-eight square mile dome complex sprawls across the satellite’s surface like a concrete hive, a brutalist thicket of apartments, laboratories, warehouses, and conference centers, all sealed beneath a titanic pressure dome. It is officially considered an “embassy” of the Scientific Conclave, though it has little of the order or dignity that term implies. Every faction, from corporate research arms to eccentric freelance academicians, rents space here, bound only by the thin veneer of guild etiquette and the iron rules of the Quarine overseers.
Tens of thousands of support staff keep the logistics flowing, while a few hundred thousand Quarine serve as guides, enforcers of local regulations, and a buffer between the colony and the chaos of the scientific tenants. Their job is not to referee disputes—that would be impossible—but to report infractions to Quaoar’s planetary governors. Punishments are typically fines or revoked privileges, but in the cutthroat culture of Weywot, losing your lab space can be tantamount to professional execution.
Alien Ruins and Resonant Mysteries
The true draw of Weywot lies beyond the dome, scattered across its pitted and frozen surface: alien ruins. Low corridors taper into cul-de-sacs, chambers resonate with inaudible notes, and doors of impossibly compressed tritium still respond to frequencies beyond human hearing. The architecture is alien in every sense—ramped hallways for limbless bodies, consoles scaled for tall beings with weak but flexible digits, and chambers too vast for human ergonomics.
Equally fascinating is the battle damage. Walls that cannot be breached by orbital bombardment are etched with slices so fine they split the alien material like silk. The weapons that made such wounds remain undiscovered, but the scars are everywhere—a reminder that these builders fought an enemy at least as strange as themselves.
The artifacts that have been recovered—tools, or perhaps weapons—defy classification. To the Quarine, they are relics of cultural tourism. To the Conclave, they are the keys to a future of untold power.
A Cold War in Microcosm
Officially, Weywot is a cooperative project, a shining example of scientific diplomacy. In reality, it is a battlefield of cold war rivalries played out under fluorescent lights. Teams plant moles in each other’s labs, falsify data to sabotage competitors, and “disappear” rivals who edge too close to dangerous discoveries. The Academy Tyros thrive here, exploiting procedural loopholes and wielding peer review like a weapon, while Corporate Agents treat assassination, bribery, and sabotage as just another line item in their budgets.
Everyone knows the rules: sabotage is expected, open warfare is not. The Quarine hosts turn a blind eye so long as the fighting doesn’t spill too far into the streets. But rumors persist that some of the Conclave’s experiments have crossed lines into human testing, and not always with consent.
The Shadow of Terran Homestar Intelligence
Into this crucible of paranoia and innovation, Terran Homestar Intelligence (THI) is a specter blamed for everything. Every unexplained blackout, every vanished data slate, every suspicious accident—it all gets pinned on THI. Their official response, the same one repeated for centuries, only fuels the paranoia:
“We didn’t do it. If we did do it, it was necessary. If it wasn’t necessary, then you don’t understand the full context. Thank you, and you’re welcome.”
Whether they are truly meddling in Weywot or simply enjoying the free smokescreen of its conspiratorial culture is unknown. But the environment suits them: endless funding, brilliant minds, bleeding-edge prototypes, and a culture that accepts skullduggery as the price of progress.
Culture of False Smiles
Weywot’s daily life is one of eerie normalcy overlaying constant tension. Cafés and bars fill with scholars debating proofs and pet theories, while armed guards wait at the door in case a rival decides the argument is worth silencing with bullets. Laboratories bustle with legitimate experiments, while beneath the surface, black labs test forbidden theories on desperate volunteers.
It is a place where every handshake hides a knife, every smile conceals suspicion, and every breakthrough may be stolen before it is published. To the Quarine, it is a source of income and prestige. To the Conclave, it is a proving ground. To the rest of the system, it is a madhouse where science is dragged forward one secret murder at a time.
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