The idea with this passage is to provide a quick orientation to the vessel, written at the level of a smarter person on the street.

You have questions. And I, as the narrator, have answers. But at this point you don't now enough about the setting to even know what questions to ask. No worries, the author added this section to give you a quick introduction.

So let's begin with where are we? Well that's a complicated question. Your story begins in compartment A-170-314.I. But what does any of that mean?

Your first hint is that I said "Compartment." You are on a space vessel. That string is a compartment designator. But to really decipher the string requires an understanding about the vessel itself.

The vessel is called the SCV Arthur Charles Clarke. Some experts call the ship an Asimov class colony vessel. Others refer to it's design as an Iliad block III. None of that really matters, because people do their darnedest to forget they live in space at all.

Getting back to our compartment designator. A is the section of the ship. There are three main sections to be aware of: A, B, and C. These are the habitat areas. Each is a sphere that you can see from outside the vessel:

A-170-314.I

Because A, B, and C all connect, it's not really important to keep straight which order they are in. Signs will point you toward whichever section you are looking for. The sphere shape for habitats stems from how the vessel makes gravity.

A-170-314.I

The next number (170) is the floor level. On ships and stations floors are measured by absolute distance from the bottom of the section. The deck above level 170 is actually level 175. The deck below is level 155. Here is a handy diagram like you will see in the elevators with publicly accessible floors enhanced:

The Star on 260 indicates the level where this section connects with other sections.

A-170-314.I

The next part of the number, 314, tells you which cell on the level. The first digit is the distance from the center. The second two digits are an angle from an arbitrary "zero" point in the section. For this vessel, you can multiply those two digits by 10 for the angle in degrees.

A-170-314.I

Some cells are structurally divided. The numbering scheme can vary, but for your apartment block, there are 12 units A-L:

Where do I eat?

The management plan for the ship encourages communal dining. Partly to foster social interaction. Mostly because it saves on wasted food and cleanup. There are numerous cafeterias spread around the ship. Each residence level has two public cafeterias, but hours may vary.

Your closest dining facility is A-170-418.

Also note the first responders locker and the stairs. The locker only contains gear, but they are strategically placed to allow trained staff to quickly respond to any kind of emergency. The stairs are handy to reach the adjacent floors. The yellow outline is a "fire lane" which people have to keep clear to allow traffic through.

Where do I shop?

For grocery shopping, hygienic products, and alchohol, each level has two grocery stores. Your nearest store is A-170-412.

Also note the first responders locker and the stairs.

Major purchases (clothes, furniture, electronics, pets) are made in one of the Bazaars on board. Bazaars are located in the logistics areas (level 255, 260, and 265) at the equator of each section. Virtually all products are made to order.

What do I spend when I shop?

For most services: nothing. Food, medical care, haircuts, and basic education are free. You show up, you get served.

For commodities traded with the ship's stores, the system of Ephemeral Scrip (E-Script) is used. All persons on board are paid in E-Script. E-scrip is issued in blocks, and each block has an expiration date (Usually 2 years from issue). An app on your selfone can manage your E-scrip transactions, and most vendors can accept a simple swipe of a watch for payment.

The price of items in the ships store reflects basic supply and demand. For critical items, crew are issued coupons. For instance, every person leaving home for the first time gets a coupon book to help furnish their first apartment, purchase school books, and so on. Those coupons are redeemable for specific items (i.e. one bed) and no E-script changes hands.

What do I spend when I ... um need a little something extra?

Trade is also takes place through barter, with the principle medium of exchange being "the chip". A large, but finite, supply of defunct computer chips is distributed amongst the population. Chips have an individual serial number, are small in size, pretty to look at, and contain a minuscule amount or precious metal. Most of the chips on board were "scavenged" from a failed entertainment system. The principle failure was that the power demands were so extreme it physically damaged portions of the ships wiring.

While chips are a common medium of exchange, they are by no means the only ones. People trade in everything from psychoactive substances to sexual favors.

How does the vessel make gravity?

Iliad block III vessels utilize the same system originally designed for deep space hybrid stations and spacecraft.

Running engines provide thrust. Thrust imparts accelleration, and accelleration is basically gravity:

When the engine is not providing enough accelleration for normal levels of gravity, engineering will start imparting a spin on the vessel. This spin imparts centripetal accelleration on everything on board. But this form of gravity is in a different direction than the gravity produced by thrust. The sphere shape allows the entire habitat to rotate and ensure that "up" and "Down" align with where the actual forces are:

So, we've gotten past the first letter. Yeah. Achievement unlocked.

The next number (170) is the floor level. Unlike building floors, where they start at the base of a building and count sequentially, ships are a little stranger on the inside. The system they use is to name the level after the distance in meters this level is from the base of the section. Level 170 is 170 meters from the base of the sphere. The nice thing is that half floors, or if they decide that level 45 isn't really a "thing" they don't have to renumber the decks. Knowing the distance also helps people estimate effects like centripetal accelleration.

The levels of the habitat are broken into honeycomb-like cells. That shape was arrived at after some trial and error. The main takeway is that all cells in the habitat sections are the same shape and same size. Levels also stack such that the 314 on this level matches up with the 314 level on the floors above and below. Many cells have interior walls to break them up into rooms. Here is what an apartment building looks like, vs. a cafeteria:

The level you live on looks like the picture below.

Your unit (A-170-314) is highlighted in purple. The closest chow hall is 2 cells away in A-170-418. There is a grocery store 1 cell away at A-170-412. The elevators to take you to other levels in this sections are two cells away in A-170-000.

To give you a sense of scale, the image above shows a football pitch and a Musashi class Battleship. The length of the battleship at 206 meters long is about half the diameter of the level.

Nobody has come up with an official name for the settlement. Some people refer to the colony as Iliad-07, the mission name from ISTO. Some people call it "New (wherever they were from)". There are some who would call it "18 Scorpii". Others simply call the ship and settlement "Arty", or "Art". It doesn't come up in conversation a lot, unless someone is trying to start a drunken debate at the bar.

Ok, back on point.

The principle funding for the vessel originated from the Internation Space Treaty Organization (ISTO), with various patrons and corporate sponsors underwriting portions.

The story takes place on board a colony ship, which is on it's way to a star system about 45 light years from earth.

Where do I live?

You live in A-170-314.I:

What is the name of the Ship?

The SCV Arthur Charles Clarke. A science fiction author from the mid-20th century.

You are driving a cart through the streets of a residence level. Your worldly goods are (somewhat) neatly packed in the cargo bed. In this part of the ship, the vehicle limits itself to a walking pace for safety, but it sure beats lugging your stuff around by hand.

You've been waiting for this moment for months. You are just a few bends away from your new apartment. Your own place. Nobody telling you that you are up too early or out too late. You can walk over to the cafeteria to grab lunch any old time you want. You can have people over. Hell, you can have people over for the night. Independent living.

You arrive at where you think the housing block should be. An identical cart to yours parked out in front. You park yours behind it. You hop out and verify you are at the right address. A-170-314. Home sweet home:

You live in unit I. Judging by the boxes piled up outside, it looks like you have a new neighbor in H. Come to think of it, you should have new neighbors in every unit. But they may be filtering in over the space of a few weeks.

This entire housing cell, and several adjacent, have been recently renovated in preparation for your graduating class. The walls have a fresh coat of paint. The bamboo flooring is shiny and new. The fixtures in the bathroom have all been replaced. Vermin have been dealt with. As best as you understand, everything was taken down to bare steel and built it back up.

There is no really bad place to live on the colony, but you feel lucky to have gotten this unit. Section A, level 170, cell 314. 1 cell from the market. 2 cells from either the elevator or the cafeteria. Like all resident levels, there is a recreation deck above. But being on the lowest habitat level, the deck below is a forest.

Let's take a minute out for some exposition. Where is this colony? What the hell is a cell? What do all of these random numbers mean?

The Colony is a population of people, embarked upon the jolly vessel SCV Arthur Charles Clarke. The mission for which the Clarke was built is called Iliad-07. And the people who put the mission together were the International Space Treaty Organization (ISTO). Iliad-07 is a mission to set up a colony in the 18 Scorpii system, which is centered around a Sun-Like star that is 45 light years from Sol.

Don't feel like you have to remember and of that, because for all intents and purposes residents will talk about the “ship”, the “colony”, and the “mission”. Most couldn't even tell you name of any of them. In point of fact, most people call the ship “Art” or “Arty”. People think the Scorpius mission symbol:

is an M with a naughty side to it. 18 Scorpii isn't actually in the Scorpius Constellation. It's just in that general part of the sky. And with a magnitude of 5.6, you really couldn't see it with a naked eye from Earth. Thus why it doesn't have a cool name yet. But, like I said, all of this is basically bar trivia grade information.

Artie left the Solar system 17 years ago. Colonists help build the ship, and the builders trials took years. Thus where your parents met. The ship will arrive in the 18 Scorpii system about a year from now. For Artie this is is a one-way trip. She'll find a nice orbit with a concentration of minor planets, and then serve as the core infrastructure for a permanent colony. After the colony has grown to the point that it can support a shipbuilding industry, a mission called Odyssey 07 will carry a delegation back to Earth. Or what is left of Earth. We'll leave Solar politics for another time.

The propulsion system gets to nearly the speed of light. And science fans know that this translates to time on board slowing down a bit. Am I going to fast? I can really slow down if you need. Still with me? Ok.

At the end of an 18 year trip, 95 years will have passed back on Earth. When and if Odyssey returns to Earth at least 190 years will have passed. Thus why Iliad-97 mission planning was structured around a permanent colony.

How large is the Arty? Huge. Between fuel, systems, structure, dirt for crops, water, and so on the ship's mass is the equivilent to 140 fully loaded battleships. (Assuming a 72,000 ton, post-war Musashi class.) If we are using Musashi as our yardstick, two placed end-to-end (at 260 meters each) would be the diameter of one of Arty's habitat sections. Arty has 3 habitat sections: A, B, and C. If you need a picture, I have a ship recognition chart over on the right, with some handy scale references.

Habitat sections are sliced into about 100 floors of various heights. Rather than label floors like in a building, the designers felt it was more important to name the levels after something more meaningful. Each level tells you how many meters the lowest part of the deck is above the lowest point in the section. Thus, level 170 is 170 meters above the bottom of the sphere.

The area of those level are broken into a honeycomb structure. Each floor area is identical in size, and we call those “Cells”. Cells are numbered in such a way that you can tell how far from the center, and in which direction they are.

Cell A-170-314 (your residence) is highlighted in purple on the map to your right. 3 indicates that the cell is three cells from the center. 14 is actually short for 140 degrees. Zero is the direction in which the ship spins to impart gravity. And for grins, I've added a football pitch and a Musashi class battleship so you can understand the scale.

The structure that holds up the habitat section is actually the walls of each cell. In between cells is an empty area that we called “streets.” Streets have no names. Though, if you need to refer to a street you usually describe it in terms of the two cells on either side. Intersections are named for the three cells that surround them.

And hey, since we are down in the weeds, each cell also sits directly above the equivilent cell on the deck below. So a staircase from A-170-412 will take you to down to A-155-412 and up to A-175-412.

It's a lot to take in, but hey, you are finally a grown up on your own.

You, of course, have lived here your entire life. You don't really have to think about how to get from A to B. You only have to tell me roughly where you want to go. Now, time will pass, but if there is something that people have in abundance around here, it's time.

Travel between sections is through connectors on the 260 level of each section. Cells 260-600 and 260-618 on each level are actually transit hubs to take you to other areas of the ship. Also, cell 000 on every level has an elevator system that will take you to any other floor. Though many floors are locked off to unauthorized personnel. Too much heavy equipment moving around, chance for people to get lost, etc.

I'm telling you all of this because it's what you would already know as an otherwise functional adult on board. And no worries this handy guide will be available for you to read at any point in the future. Because you will forget.