Fossor Ortus "The Fool's Garden" Built by Estovar Foss The Foss family had already made a vast fortune as one of the primary investors backing the research that led to the Rephi Portals. Such vast wealth often does strange things to people, and when suddenly allowed to pursue any kind of interest or fancy humans have an amazing faculty for bizarre, creative, or meaningless ventures. Estovar Foss wasn't known as a dreamer, or an adventurer, or really for anything at all. In a family that was only outshone in their eccentricities by the descendants of Rephi Muiniche herself, he seemed so astonishingly normal he managed to escape everyone's notice. He quietly engaged in an unremarkable career in research, and while he was clearly capable, he didn't seem to have the drive to exceed the needs of a comfortable and productive life. In the early days Portals were being manufactured as rapidly as possible, but the expense and difficulty kept this a slow process. Still, it took many decades for the fastest probes to carry a portal all the way to even the nearby stars, while the solar system was within much easier reach, and promised many opportunities and resources for the taking. Thus Portals were soon linking Mars, Ceres, and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Settlements and outposts followed. And a Portal link was established in the Kuiper belt as well, initially to mine volatiles for the ever expanding human settlements in space. This quickly turned out to not be necessary, and while Portals were expensive and difficult to make, moving them was no easier, so it languished nearly forgotten. Enter Estovar Foss. In the post-war period there was a veritable explosion of ship-building and a rapid expansion to many stars. Estovar used a surprising portion of his share of the family fortune to build The "Fossor Ortus" from off-the-shelf components being mass-produced in the great ship-building assemblage at Ceres. His venture was seen by his peers as a Fool's Errand, and he seemed to take a perverse delight in this, peppering his ship with quotes like Noël Coward's "Mad Dogs and Englishmen". He obtained a digital reproduction of Hieronymus Bosch's painting "Ship of Fools," accompanied by Sebastian Brant's poem by the same title, which decorated the corridors in unexpected places. And in a sealed acrylic block he had an actual paper novel from the 20th century titled "Fool's Errand" by Robin Hobb. His family settled in, and they soon were establishing a unique re-fueling outpost in the Kuiper Belt, for ships that plied the interstellar jumps. Against all expectations, the venture turned profitable, and soon the Fossor Ortus was moving wider afield and transporting needed volatiles to stations and outposts across the solar system. His family still carries on with this, keeping a curious operation running and still known for their perverse and often obscure brand of humor. -From "The Travels of Martin Leftwick, Wanderer and Observer" a popular post-war biography ----------------------- This ship model was made using Bryce Primitives. Postworking and background all done in Photoshop. It seems I can't make a space ship without having an increasingly complex backstory for why it was built and what it does in my head. Probably my history degree coming to play, I suppose. Anyway, thanks for taking a look, comments and suggestions are definitely welcome, and enjoy what's left of the weekend everyone!