Welcome to Stellvia, the Gateway to the Solar System!
- from the Stellvia Corporation television advertising campaigns in North America, Great Britian, and Australia
Stellvia isn't the first Fen space station (that honour goes to
Starbase 1), or the largest (that's the Island), or the friendliest (this depends on your
definition of friendly, but Candy Apple Red's usually qualifies). However, it
is the closest open Fen space station to Earth; this makes it a natural transfer point for Mundane
tourists venturing into Fenspace, or Fen with business on Earth.
The station takes pains to maintain a family-friendly reputation on Earth, much like the Disney corporation does for its theme parks (with the same relative
level of effectiveness). Some Danes never get farther away from Earth than a stay in Stellvia's
small hotel complex - six floors of rooms, plus a three-star restaurant, a gift shop, and a zero-g weightless swimming pool. Because many Danes expect to see
biomodded Fen in space, the hotels desk clerks include attractive anthropomorphs (two catpeople and an albino bunnygirl, all on different shifts).
Very few Fen consider Stellvia to be a tourist destination; the vast majority of them are used to
living in artificial habitats, so they see this as just another space station. But it's the closest station to Earth, so there's a steady stream of
freight shipments between Earth and space through their docks. If a Fan absolutely must have an Xbox720 or a PS4 the day it's released, he's more
likely to find it for sale at Stellvia than at the Island or the
Gnarlycurl.
But people who look behind the public facade discover Stellvia isn't as pleasant as it pretends
to be. The station's owner, Noah Scott, is known in certain Fen circles as the richest SOB in space; the reputation isn't unwarranted. One of the
senior engineers (who may be a biomod, considering her name) caused millions of dollars of damages at Worldcon Floating Island by testing a single prototype
weapon, and got a promotion for her trouble. They hire Fen with distinctive biomods so that the Dane tourists have someone to gawk at. And
Stellvia doesn't allow Ninjaburger to deliver on-site (not that that stops the delivery-genin).
Also, Mr. Scott has surrounded himself with attractive young women - young women who know how to do their jobs, to be sure, but some Fen wonder whether they
were hired for reasons that have nothing to do with their day jobs. Some people say that one or two of them are actually robots, and a few claim that
Stellvia's entire senior staff is made up of robots. Some of those Fen remember the word fembot,
and worry about what Noah might be planning... When asked, Mr. Scott blames such theories on the jealousy of other Fen.
Stellvia boasts of being able to host anything from a large wedding to a military task force
headquarters; as of April 2012, this has yet to be put to the test.
-Rob Kelk
Edit: Replaced the punctuation that the Yuku migration removed.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
- from the Stellvia Corporation television advertising campaigns in North America, Great Britian, and Australia
Stellvia isn't the first Fen space station (that honour goes to
Starbase 1), or the largest (that's the Island), or the friendliest (this depends on your
definition of friendly, but Candy Apple Red's usually qualifies). However, it
is the closest open Fen space station to Earth; this makes it a natural transfer point for Mundane
tourists venturing into Fenspace, or Fen with business on Earth.
The station takes pains to maintain a family-friendly reputation on Earth, much like the Disney corporation does for its theme parks (with the same relative
level of effectiveness). Some Danes never get farther away from Earth than a stay in Stellvia's
small hotel complex - six floors of rooms, plus a three-star restaurant, a gift shop, and a zero-g weightless swimming pool. Because many Danes expect to see
biomodded Fen in space, the hotels desk clerks include attractive anthropomorphs (two catpeople and an albino bunnygirl, all on different shifts).
Very few Fen consider Stellvia to be a tourist destination; the vast majority of them are used to
living in artificial habitats, so they see this as just another space station. But it's the closest station to Earth, so there's a steady stream of
freight shipments between Earth and space through their docks. If a Fan absolutely must have an Xbox720 or a PS4 the day it's released, he's more
likely to find it for sale at Stellvia than at the Island or the
Gnarlycurl.
But people who look behind the public facade discover Stellvia isn't as pleasant as it pretends
to be. The station's owner, Noah Scott, is known in certain Fen circles as the richest SOB in space; the reputation isn't unwarranted. One of the
senior engineers (who may be a biomod, considering her name) caused millions of dollars of damages at Worldcon Floating Island by testing a single prototype
weapon, and got a promotion for her trouble. They hire Fen with distinctive biomods so that the Dane tourists have someone to gawk at. And
Stellvia doesn't allow Ninjaburger to deliver on-site (not that that stops the delivery-genin).
Also, Mr. Scott has surrounded himself with attractive young women - young women who know how to do their jobs, to be sure, but some Fen wonder whether they
were hired for reasons that have nothing to do with their day jobs. Some people say that one or two of them are actually robots, and a few claim that
Stellvia's entire senior staff is made up of robots. Some of those Fen remember the word fembot,
and worry about what Noah might be planning... When asked, Mr. Scott blames such theories on the jealousy of other Fen.
Stellvia boasts of being able to host anything from a large wedding to a military task force
headquarters; as of April 2012, this has yet to be put to the test.
-Rob Kelk
Edit: Replaced the punctuation that the Yuku migration removed.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012