Consortium Home Guard Orbital Port. This image exists because of a very good suggestion made by Bambam131 -- thanks man. On May 26 I uploaded Docking Maneuvers, which depicted the first of the newly revised Consortium war ships from my Orions Arm Future History: the Armored Cruiser. Bambam131 inspired me to create this image when he commented that it would be nice to see what that ship was docked to. I could not resist the challenge. After a protracted series of attempts at capturing what only existed in my imagination (a number of which ended with Bryce in face-plant Crash-Mode) I finally succeeded in balancing the amount of detail I envisioned with a manageable file size -- this is the result. This particular image is intended as a wide-angle view. This orbital platform will be featured again in close-up shots which will do better justice to the amount of detail included. In the image, to left of center, the observant will notice that I recreated the position (relative to the platform) of space craft in two previous posts [Docking Maneuvers and In Flight] see my gallery for close-up renders of these scenes. Unfortunately, at this scale, the two astronauts I included for purposes of scale in the first post in this series (Docking Maneuvers) would be invisible. In true relative scale (to the depicted Armored Cruisers and Destroyers) the station is just under a mile across (rim to rim across the upper [the smaller of the two rings depicted] hazardous ordnance storage rings.) These rings accommodate the need to store nuclear and conventional weapons materials the bunkers are completely self-contained, separated by vacuum, and are eject-able if all else fails. The docking arms are not under spin and are just under two thousand feet tip to axial connection -- each can accommodate 15 space craft at main and auxiliary locks. The axial super-structure is just over six-thousand feet long and is tipped by the power plant and radiating fins. There are four habitat modules (each the size of a twenty-story building) to accommodate station personnel.Workshops are housed in the docking arms and include drive maintenance, weapons and ordnance, life-support, and electronics systems services. While the Orbitals are marshaling points for crews rotating on and off Consortium war ships those crews transfer directly to in-system shuttles bound for the moons and space colonies of Consortium Space ... no Navy Gal worth her salt would hang around the Dockyard with three-months pay burning a hole in that gear-bag! Welcome to the Space Corps Citizen! In four years we will make a spacer out of you ... or you will be dead. Any occupation requiring a commercial space-craft operators license, or employment in the technical trades involved in commercial transport, or even employment as a mine worker -- all require a tour of duty -- this is how Systems States society places trust in those civilians who operate and work with nuclear drive-systems -- in the Corps you learn there is only one way to treat such systems, with care and respect. Thanks for all your comments, suggestions, and interest. For those interested, a brief introduction to the Orions Arm Future History is posted on my Homepage. Thanks William