Teta Ordas
Teta Ordas is a large gas giant, a world composed of swirling layers of chemical soup. There is no hard surface on which to stand, or at least not at pressures that current technologies can withstand. Gas giant habitation is not especially common, even on worlds with breathable biospheres at a standard pressure. Habitation on Teta Ordas has no pleasant biosphere within the tolerable pressure range.

The dominant industry on Teta Ordas is deep atmospheric filter mining and cracking to separate the useful gasses from the truly valuable gasses. The depth at which these chemicals are located within the atmosphere means that specialist bathyspheres and anti-gravity fields are required to prevent the deep atmosphere facilities from the crushed and pulverised by pressure and cyclonic winds.

Starships are capable of entering the high atmosphere of Teta Ordas and docking with the habitation and exchange rings, a typical example of which is the Torma Port. Most merchants and travellers never progress any deeper into treacherous atmosphere of Teta Ordas, only they crews who work aboard the filter mines need risk their lives in the deep atmosphere. On occasion the deep atmosphere cyclones will cast a gas pocket up through the atmospheric layers giving those with out high pressure protection the opportunity harvest the precious material. This leads to a general scramble to be first as ‘spice fever’ takes a hold.

Torma Port
Torma Port is an aging corroding hulk that was once an orbital facility but was refitted to become largest of the habitation and exchange rings on Teta Ordas. The superstructure is based on an outer ring structure that forms a triple story docking ring. This outer ring is linked by six transit spokes, only five of which are still useable, to an inner fluted habitation module. The wide end of the fluted inner structure is top most with the thin end extending almost a kilometre below the lower reaches of the docking ring.

The general feel of the Torma Port is one of disrepair, the air typically smells bad and the toxic external atmosphere has a tendency to seam in though tiny hull fractures caused by all means of abuse. In general the worst air settles into the lower reaches, in some paced making breathers a survival requirement.

The only law here is the law of the blaster, everyone has at least one, and clean if not fresh air is one of the most valued of commodities, second only to the refined spice gases. Muggers, thieves and desperados all make a living from the unwary and most will try to extort money or valuables from new comers.

The Docking Ring: The outer ring of the Torma Port is a triple layered arrangement of large docking bays, twenty seven bays to a ring, giving a total of eighty one bays easily capable of holding several space transport class starships. The individual docking bays lack many of the modern features spaces expect to find in port facility, each bay is effectively a large airlock and as such a heavy duty bay door (designed to prevent ships blasting their way out). Once a ship enters the bay the doors are sealed and the atmosphere is cycled, this incurs both a landing fee and an atmosphere tax, failure to pay result in impounding of a ship ant its cargo, with a heavy fine. Failure to pay the fine and the outstanding fees results in the auction of the ship, cargo and crew members.

The bays on the lowest level are generally reserved for deep atmosphere transports that bring the refined gases up from the filter mines. These areas are therefore the best guarded, by various cartels looking to hold on to their investments. There is an uneasy truce between the various criminal groups, who realised quickly that damage to the port damaged all their profits not just those of their enemies. Most inter-cartel hits or warfare are conducted through mercenaries and other third parties in a bid to pass blame to another.

The docking ring incorporates a good deal more than just docking bays. Most services that transient spaces may require can also be found here, from bars and tech workshops through to the market exchange system and any vice you can imagine.

Transit Spokes: Six transit spokes connect the docking ring to the habitation flute, though only five remain operable after the last inter-cartel-war that saw a desperate hit on Morda the Rhodian, then leader of the Glem Cartel, killed by a massive explosion that destroyed most of the spoke. Each of the spokes have sealed airlocks at either end and incorporate a number of transit tubes and walkways. Many of the homeless and dispossessed find their way in here in an attempt to make it to the rumoured wealth of the habitation flute. A sub-culture of small market vendors has grown up along the transit ways, offering small trinkets or services to those who pass-by. This is also the best place to pick up gossip and information.

Habitation Flute: The habitation flute extends over a thousand levels, only one hundred and fifty of which are above the level of the docking ring. These upper layers are known locally as ‘Rich Town’, while those levels lower than the docking ring is called ‘Poor Town’. The habitation flute is for people with cash, even in poor town the residents are comparatively wealthy to those in the rest of the Torma Port, and their just not as wealthy has those in rich town, which is where they all aspire to be. This is a place where the mid range merchants and mercenaries make their homes.

Rich town by comparison is a place of the wealthy and powerful, the individual cartels all have their own ‘estates’ here. There is an enforced treaty of no violence in rich town. If some one steps out of line everybody else steps in. None of the cartels want their estates to become a place of gang war and so the truce as shakily endured since the last time things got out of hand.

Del Resser
Del Resser is a typical example of deep atmosphere mining facilities, the structure is built to withstand the incredible external pressure, the lightest of walls are six meters thick and constructed on ultra-dense blastcrete, reinforced with structural fields. The actual shape of the facility is fluted a wide administration and docking area for bathysphere transports that carry the various refined gases up to the Torma Port. The vast extent of the long slender stem extends over seven kilometres through the atmosphere and functions as a vast industrial catalytic cracker that separates out the different gases from the mixture. Below this is the intake head a sphere-like attachment that connects to twenty flexible hoses that can be extended up to thirty kilometres in all directions to tap into the gas reservoirs as the winds move them. The placement of these hoses requires a manned mine-head that is piloted by a crew of miners.