=Starwell= 
**Station Type:** [[Clusters|Cluster]] and [[Toruses|Torus]]
**Allegiance:** Hypercorp ([[ExoTech]])
**Primary Languages:** English, Mandarin, Serbian
**Population:** 50,000
Located in the middle of the [[Main Belt|Belt]], Starwell is the headquarters of ExoTech, one of the most common and well-known names among high-end electronics, mind emulation software, and mesh presence systems. If you’ve ever uploaded, you probably entrusted your ego to the ExoTech ego bridge gear managing the copying process. If you’ve ever run as an infomorph, your digital substrate was likely based on ExoTech code. Your muse’s personality? A good chance it was programmed by ExoTech engineers. If you’re an AGI, ExoTech might even be your virtual creator (especially if you actually grok abstract humor, the ExoTech mindtechs really nailed that one). Their mental interface systems are known for their elegant, attractive designs; they make being a digital person a pleasant experience. There’s a reason the “ExoCult” exists; some people will only use ExoTech wares, even if they’re more expensive. The corp is also really good at sucking their customers into walled gardens and locking them into iterative software ecosystems. Given that it often looks and performs better than open source options, you’re at least getting something for their money.
ExoTech is one of the largest and most inﬂuential non-[[Planetary Consortium|Consortium]] (and non-[[Extropians|Extropian]]) hypercorps. A large factor in this may be their continued research and development of AI and AGI systems. ExoTech is certainly no stranger to controversy, as they are pressured by bioconservatives, anti-AI factions, mercurials, and open source advocates alike, and founder Morgan Sterling is well known for his egotistical and grandstanding antics. Starwell is sometimes described as an armed fortress; ExoTech claims that its expanded defense systems are necessary to protect the invaluable research contained within, and the station has been targeted by terrorists many times in the past. Others speculate that ExoTech’s paranoia is proof that this hypercorp is aggressively developing and testing experimental AI or even TITAN-derived research.
Starwell’s primary component is a large torus habitat. Most of the bureaucratic ofﬁces and residential quarters are located here, in the more pleasant gravitational environment, along with any research facilities that require simulated gravity. Close to 40,000 permanent residents call Starwell home, though a significant percentage of these are infomorphs and AGIs.
The second section of Starwell is a large, microgravity cluster habitat, composed of modules of varying shapes, sizes, and purposes. This is where most of the station’s R&D takes place, carefully guarded with safety protocols that include virtual sandboxes, air-gapped systems, and offensive ﬁrewalls. Despite the speculation, it is likely that the research conducted here represents only a small fraction of the corp’s ongoing initiatives; most of their projects are carefully secreted away in hidden and well guarded stations throughout the solar system.
Though Morgan Sterling resides elsewhere and is often egocasting around the system for various functions, he is known to keep an alpha fork of himself on Starwell at all times to keep an eye on the company’s progress.

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