=Mushroom= 
**Station Type:** [[Aerostats|Aerostat]]
**Allegiance:** Independent ([[Brinkers|Brinker]])
**Primary Languages:** Cantonese, English, Russian
**Population:** 1,200
I recently visited Mushroom, which is one of at least two aerostats in [[Neptune|Neptune’s]] atmosphere. It was quite a trip to get there; the inhabitants lend new meaning to the word paranoid. To leave Mushroom, I needed to agree to have the details of its location and how to contact it deleted from my memory. All I know now is that it’s deep in the clouds of ammonia and hydrogen sulﬁde, where outside pressure is around three atmospheres. This is not a tourist hab or really a place that anyone sane wants to spend any time. The local gravity is 15% higher than Earth, the outside environment is ludicrously cold, and the pressure in the interior of the habitat is also three atmospheres. That’s narcotic to biomorphs without mods. However, it’s also not the worst Neptune has to offer.
From orbit, Mushroom takes a lot of careful work and no shortage of luck to ﬁnd. Taking a ship to the station, even if you knew where it was, would be a challenge. I’m told it is well armed and the residents are more than happy to blow any trespassers out of the sky. The only way to visit is to egocast in from someplace run by people they trust. Stations that are in good with Mushroom are [[Phelan's Recourse|Phelan’s Recourse]], [[Lot 49]], and at least two [[scum]] swarms that mostly spend time out beyond the orbit of [[Jupiter]]. You need to know the right people to make contact. Everyone who egocasts into Mushroom is run through psychosurgery; if your reasons for coming don’t look good enough or there’s anything off about you, you’re immediately bounced back to where you came from. Mushroom is fairly small, holding only around 1,200 or so inhabitants. Keep in mind, I’m taking the word of some very strange and not very forthcoming people for this data. Mushroom is a very odd hab, and exactly as paranoid as you’d expect. There is no radio or mesh trafﬁc out—zero. Attempting to is grounds for immediate exile. They have several repeater antennas in the upper atmosphere so they can receive radio broadcasts, but can’t transmit. Instead, the only communication is via quantum farcasters linked to one of the habs from which they are willing to accept egocasts. From there, messages can be broadcast to the internal mesh normally.
In my limited time there, I never got a good grasp on what Mushroom was for or who was backing it. The residents had a hard-bitten [[Anarchists|anarchist]] vibe, they were very cognizant of x-risks posed to transhumanity, and they clearly have connections with the scum, but what they hope to gain by hiding in Neptune’s atmosphere remains a mystery.

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