=The Shack= 
**Allegiance:** [[Morningstar Constellation]]
**Primary Languages:** Hindi, Portuguese, Wu
The largest of [[Venus|Venus’s]] [[aerostats]] also has the smallest population. It is known only as the Shack. With a population of 130,000, it exists solely to build other aerostats. Aerial construction is a relatively tricky proposition; until an aerostat is filled with breathable air and sealed, it can easily plummet down into Venus’s fiery depths. To facilitate construction, the Shack uses a series of large construction platforms supported by huge air-filled balloons. These platforms are constructed with the balloons being domes on top of the platforms, so that the workers have a breathable atmosphere. In form, the Shack is a relatively small city from which extends six spars that are each 400 meters long and end in these domed construction platforms. As long as the population of Venus continues to grow, new aerostats need to be constructed and the Shack will have work to do. Currently, the Shack is working on two new aerostats and has an order for a third. The mayor of the Shack is an old and fiery radical named Colin Sandric. The locals joke that he’s the oldest socialist in the solar system. He cares passionately about the inhabitants of the Shack, but isn't terribly concerned with politics or diplomacy, and so he is respected, but not particularly well liked, by most of the Star Council. All Shack citizens are members of a single corporation and each citizen has one share. These shares cannot be traded and guarantee the citizen a precisely equal portion of all economic surplus generated on this habitat.
Including the Shack in the formation of the Morningstar Constellation was a crucial victory for the Venusian separatists, as it means the Star Council now has control over who constructs new aerostats and for what purpose. There has been some discussion in [[Planetary Consortium]] circles about constructing a new aerostat-building platform under their jurisdiction, but the Constellation has made it clear that they would consider such an endeavor as a challenge to their sovereignty.
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