=Xiphos= 
**Station Type:** Hamilton Cylinder
**Allegiance:** [[Ultimates]]
**Primary Languages:** English, German, Hindi
**Population:** 10,000
Originally commissioned as an [[O'Neill Cylinders|O’Neill cylinder]] nearly twenty years before the Fall, Xiphos’s technology was considered groundbreaking and well ahead of the curve at the time of its creation. It was also unique in that the superstructure was built in orbit around [[Mars]] and then towed, over a period of years, to its location in the rings of [[Uranus]]. Not content with this old tech, the leader of the ultimates, Manu Bhattacharya invested heavily with personal wealth garnered before, during, and after the Fall to expand Xiphos, turning the old station into the core of a newer Hamilton cylinder—the ﬁrst built outside of the [[Saturn]] system. Observers believe this upgrade has been completed, making Xiphos one of the largest and best-appointed habitats outside the [[Main Belt]]. Some also suspect that Xiphos may be capable of moving under its own power. Running almost 5.5 kilometers long and just over 1 kilometer in diameter, the station takes its name from an ancient Greek double-bladed shortsword used as a close-quarters weapon, and the habitat itself is similarly purpose driven. Orbiting just inside the R2 ring, it beneﬁts from this natural defense, making it hard for attackers to approach and ensuring that anything that does is exposed to the station’s signiﬁcant long-range weaponry. If an attacker actually managed to make it inside the reach of the wide defensive net, the station itself bristles with an array of surface defenses and is guarded by short-range killsats and dozens of wings of high-performance ﬁghter drones.
Unlike other cylinders that devote the majority of their space to accommodations and the associated support infrastructure, Xiphos is predominantly an industrial and scientiﬁc facility that houses extensive research and development capabilities. The ultimates have spent the past decade gearing up to take the creation, testing, and manufacture of the morphs and military equipment their survivalist ideology calls for in-house so they won’t be beholden to corps or lose control of their designs. Ultimates new to the philosophy might be surprised to learn that Xiphos also houses a number of museums, civic monuments, and meditation spaces devoted to the growth of an unique culture and tradition for the faction. Notable among these are a set of genuine Chinese “scholar stones” in a contemplation garden, the parade grounds used for training exercises, and the Armory, a cavernous hall displaying a collection of arms and armor from pre-Fall Earth, including an authentic ancient Greek xiphos. By far, the most important and frequently used location is the colosseum, an extravagant, fully-enclosed dome that is supposedly capable of producing any environmental effect up to and including lethal atmospheres and radiation. Though officially meant to allow observation of combat testing of morphs and gear, it’s an open secret that Xiphans regularly hold events that can’t be called anything other than bloodsport.
The three-day annual Olympics are the closest the ultimates have to a holiday and the heart of their budding civic culture. Some of the games are broadcast publicly via the mesh, displaying the martial prowess of the faction for potential clients. The activities surrounding the games themselves are unknown, as non-ultimates are never allowed on Xiphos, but are equally, if not more, important to those within the faction. The colosseum routinely overﬂows as any ultimate who can makes the trip to compete or watch the games, participate in debate, and strive for recognition of new levels of personal achievement. Respected members perform and teach master classes, showing and sharing the fullest extent of their skills. Heavy betting and other, more debauched, physical activities are allegedly common during the games, as the ascetic strictures most ultimates observe are abandoned for a few days of celebration among those they deem equals and comrades. Appearances and speeches by the autarchs and Manu, the Demiurge himself, to open and close the games are always highlights for the attendees. Their words and actions are eagerly discussed and dissected in the days immediately afterwards.
Xiphos is also noteworthy due to growing rumors about the dramatic increase in the ultimates’ purchase of infomorph indentures since the opening of the station. Although transaction records are publicly available on IndEx, the Planetary Consortium-managed indenture exchange and registry, all of the contract terms are sealed until after the indenture has completed service. A comfortable explanation is that the ultimates are using the indentures as cheap, semi-skilled labor to run the vast and complex systems for Xiphos or to conduct the construction of the Hamilton cylinder. This seems unlikely, however, given that the contractees are almost all Fall infugees and would have little or no skill running state-of-the-art hab systems, and long range scans show most of the work on the new habitat areas are being conducted by automated drones. Given the ultimates’ belief that Fall victims were unﬁt for survival, more disturbing possibilities are raised about use as slaves or test subjects for morph designs, psychosurgical techniques to perform and resist mental and VR torture, or experiments with exhuman or TITAN remnant tech. Noting that the purchase of tens of thousands of indentures seems almost indiscriminate, others suggest the ultimates may recreating some pre-Fall scenario or wargaming parts of the Fall itself.

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