=Pallas (2 Pallas)= 
**Allegiance:** Independent ([[Night Cartel]])
**Primary Languages:** English, Russian, Spanish
**Population:** 75,000
Pallas is the third most massive asteroid in the Main Belt. Though not completely round, it is partially differentiated like a planet, and is roughly 540 kilometers in diameter. It has a highly eccentric and inclined orbit. Settled by a number of national and corporate mining and research concerns before the Fall, a group of bureaucrats, scientists, and engineers took charge in the years afterwards and established an independent technocratic state.
Though Pallas is home to numerous [[Beehives|beehive]], [[Tin Can Habitats|tin can]], and [[Domes|dome]] settlements, the majority of the population resides in orbit. Two of Pallas’s moonlets were converted into a [[Cole bubbles|Cole Bubble]], Palladion, and a [[Toruses|torus]], Wits (short for “wheel in the sky”). Wits houses the main ofﬁces for the Pallas Authority, the local government, along with various scientific research labs, programming studios, and minifacturing facilities. Palladion is more proletarian in feel, home to a number of miners, vacworkers, and other residents. It boasts a large number of casinos, pod brothels, and similar entertainments. It is a favorite stopover point for craft traveling through the Belt.
==The Night Cartel== 
Pallas’s dirty secret is that it is the effective home base for the Night Cartel. Though the cartel pretends that their headquarters is an unknown habitat named New Sicily, hidden somewhere in the Belt, it is highly likely that this is simply a ruse meant to throw off their rivals. It seems just as likely that the Night Cartel keeps their operations decentralized; but if any place can be considered a primary stronghold for the syndicate, Pallas is it. The original colonists here brought a number of criminal entrepreneurs along in their ranks; this element was quick to establish black markets to cater to the working population’s vices and unsatisfied needs. Forming a local syndicate, the criminal leaders here played an integral role in uniting with other like-minded gangs around the system and establishing the Night Cartel. After also helping the local technocrats rise to power, it is an open secret that the Pallas Authority is thoroughly corrupt and in the cartel’s pocket. The Authority doesn’t make any serious decisions that the cartel has not vetted ﬁrst. Many of the labs and production facilities that Pallas takes pride in actually work to produce new product for the Night Cartel’s numerous markets, from designer drugs and narcoalgorithms to pleasure pod personalities and reverse-engineered nanofab schematics. The local population serves as a test market. No one knows whom the top cartel leaders on Pallas are—or at least they aren’t willing to say so—but their most visible operative, often seen making personal visits to the upper echelon of the Authority, is named Marcus Kroll, also known by his street name, Mutilato.
Not everyone is content to let this status quo continue. Some of the scientists and technologists in the Pallas Authority, while originally naïve to the cartel’s manipulations, are now acutely aware of how their vaulted intellectual leadership has been subverted by base criminal interests. It has rapidly become clear that even the best and brightest in their ranks do not get promoted if they are not on the cartel’s payroll. The police forces deployed by the Authority do nothing to impede cartel operations. It is possible that some of them are putting their heads together to ﬁgure out a scientific and rational way to reverse the situation, but sometimes being too smart is the quickest way to get killed.

[ [[eclipse-phase/Home|Home]] | [[eclipse-phase/Setting Information|Setting Information]] | [[eclipse-phase/Places of Interest|Places of Interest]] | [[eclipse-phase/Main Belt|Main Belt]] ]