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The Kuiper Belt Special Economic Zone, more commonly just referred to as Pluto, is a member state of the Sol Central Government centered around the dwarf-planet of the same name. It is infamous for its reputation as a hub for criminal activity, mainly deriving from the economic downturn it's taken in the last century. This downturn has led to a large amount of derelict habitats and a (relatively) booming salvage industry.
History
Due to its distance from Earth and Mars, as well as the lack of valuable resources present, the Kuiper belt was not one of humanity's priorities in the early days of colonization. This would rapidly change after the invention of FTL Travel in the Terran Commonwealth and the founding of the Transplutonian Sling – an ambitious joint project by several governmental agencies and corporations. Fuel refineries, crew housing, and communication and flight control infrastructure were built on Pluto, the largest and most well-known object in the belt. Slower-than-light ships would top off their tanks here, and perform gravitational slingshot maneuvers using other Kuiper belt objects for free acceleration out of the Oort cloud to engage their early model FTL drives.
The Sling going operational marked the beginning of a Golden Age for Pluto. Nearly every ship going on an extrasolar mission passed through the belt at this point – all manner of commercial and leisure infrastructure popped up on Pluto and its surrounding objects, and the Kuiper belt's economy flourished. This boom lasted until the creation of the first gateways. Fewer and fewer ships had to pass through the Oort cloud to get to their destinations, and corporations started shutting down their facilities as profits dried up, scrapping them for any salvageable materials to make up for the losses. Few gas mining facilities remained, subsidized heavily by the government. Without the money and clientele, most luxury commodities moved back towards core worlds or to larger colonial projects like Ceti or Copernicus.
Current State
After the collapse of the Terran Commonwealth, the fledgling SCG organized the Kuiper Belt Special Economic Zone – both to ensure that the zone's decaying infrastructure is kept up-to-date and to make sure that all humans living in the disparate belt are able to vote and communicate with the SCG at large. This has had varying degrees of success in the decades since the SCG's founding.
Crime rates are significantly higher in the Kuiper belt than in other member states within the Sol system, largely owing to the zone's steep economic downturn, but this doesn’t stop plenty of honest citizens and legitimate organizations from calling the belt their home.
Culture
The Kuiper belt has garnered a reputation of being crude, crass, and low-brow, but most of their grim attitude towards the universe comes as a response to their harsh economic reality. Vulgarity and profanity is commonplace amongst the Kuiper belt, even among those who traditionally eschew it. In the more remote parts of the belt, this crass manner of speech has evolved into it’s own dialect in the last century. The Plutino-Zurich dialect has gained infamy in the rest of the Sol system as the "Gutterball language", or Gutter for short.
Demographically speaking, people in the Kuiper belt fall into two primary categories. "Insiders" are people who have had family on the belt since the days of the Sling, some even predating the invention of human FTL. "Outsiders" are people whose families immigrated to the belt post-shutdown of the Sling, and are a much more diverse group, coming from all over the galaxy to take part in the growing businesses of the belt – both the legitimate and the illegitimate.
Life in the Kuiper belt is considered undesirable, and populations on most of its objects have either stagnated or declined. Governmental organizations like the Fleet and Expeditionary Corps are considered by many an easy ticket off-world, so recruiters for these organizations focus their efforts here more so than other places.
Regions
Pluto
Pluto itself remains a dusty icy ball covered in dry, cracked flats and several deep craters and ravines. Craters cover some parts of the world, but it is mostly a desolate plain. Pluto's most prominent plain is "The Heart", a heart-shaped ice flat which remains a tourist attraction for people and aliens visiting the Sol system. Since the planetoid was developed for ships stopping in orbit, the vast majority of Plutonian infrastructure is orbital. The largest station is Port Lagrange; it consists of several habitation rings, with government offices (including the Kuiper Belt Administration) and central docks located in the inner rings, and cheap domiciles in the outer rings.
As Pluto and its orbital space were envisioned to function as a facility rather than a settlement, most habitats still have names like Orbital-24C, though inhabitants of those lesser known stations all have personal nicknames for their locales. Ground installations are, generally, domes built to house technicians who maintained Pluto's mining rigs and refineries. Most of these sites are abandoned as the demand for gas has long since dried up, and defunct industrial developments are home to everything from teenage delinquents to recycling cooperatives. A handful of industrial facilities remain active, most notably the WaffleCo water-ice extraction center.
Charon
Pluto's largest moon – only slightly smaller than the dwarf planet itself – Charon filled a similar role to its counterpart in the days of the Transplutonian Sling but lacked the status as an administrative and economic hub. Consequently, the economic downturn that rippled through the Kuiper belt affected Charon much more harshly than its neighbor. Once Charon's western hemisphere was dotted with active and visible gas refineries, but now its labyrinthine network of pump houses, underground causeways, and residential domes are decaying at best and crime-ridden at worst. Though Pluto carries the brunt of the reputation, Charon is the birthplace of most of the Kuiper belt stereotypes.
The Interdust
The Kuiper Belt Special Economic Zone is incredibly vast as far as the Sol Central Government is typically concerned. Trans-Neptunian objects extending well into the Oort cloud are part of its jurisdiction, which is one of many reasons why the zone is so difficult to police. The vast amount of space between the larger, more noteworthy objects in the belt is full of small asteroid settlements, which consist of everything from small mining operations and isolated research stations to off-grid settlements and criminal hideouts. The proverbial "sticks" of the Kuiper Belt have become known over the years as the Interdust, and while the Home Guard has been working to root out piracy and crime, travel through the Interdust is considered dangerous for those unfamiliar with their routes, or lacking corporate exports. The asteroids of the Interdust, specifically closer to the Oort cloud, are rich in rare minerals and precious metals – they are often traversed by both corporate prospectors and idealistic criminals.
Haumea SFB
Established just after the founding of the SCG as a base for Fleet vessels rooting out Ares Confederation holdouts, Haumea Sol Fleet Base is a fueling and listening station that for many years has considered itself a "first line of defense" for the Sol system. Built onto the planetary surface of one of the largest Kuiper belt objects, Haumea often sees First and Second Fleet vessels assigned to patrol the Kuiper belt on anti-piracy missions. While work on the base itself isn’t considered glamorous, it plays a vital role in the logistics and security of the outer Sol system, and in keeping the Interdust from collapsing into anarchy.
Varda Station
Varda Station is considered a diamond in the rough amongst Kuiper belt objects. The ornate, alabaster station was constructed during the days of the Sling, and thanks to the hard work of its community the station remains a fully functional center for the cultural arts of the Kuiper belt. Containing a large theater and library, the mission statement of Varda Station is to prove to the galaxy at large that the Kuiper belt is more than just a crime-ridden asteroid belt, but an area rich in history and culture. Even the classics here are sometimes performed in the local Gutter dialect. Varda Station has been the target of attempted theft in the past, but has been under the watchful eye of Proxima Centauri Risk Control since the 2280s.
Greater Ixion
The myriad of asteroids and other natural satellites surrounding the planetoid Ixion make up the Kuiper belt's largest source of titanium, and as such the rock has developed into a regional mineral exporter. With an equatorial diameter of over 600 kilometers, Ixion was an ideal candidate for housing corporate workers and their families on the far side of the Kuiper belt – since development began in the 2240s, Ixion has developed into a moderately-sized residential, commercial, and logistical hub to facilitate corporate mining operations. Life on Ixion is considered relatively peaceful compared to it’s Kuiper belt contemporaries, and the rock is home to several successful schools, hospitals, and office complexes.