I have had an idea for a sci fi series that's based around "drifter colonies" from my favorite movie, Titan A.E. Though, notably, this universe will have no (known) aliens, and humanity, forced into a mass exodus from a dying earth, take all that they can carry into the stars, welding their aging hulls together into cities that orbit uninhabitable, but stable exoplanets.
The exodus took less than 1% of all humanity from the apocalypse, but all who escaped were in debt to the corporations who undertook the rushed flight from Earth, a debt so large that one's wealth is measured by how low one's inherrited debt is (it suspiciously never goes into the black for anyone but the most loyal of corpo servants). Debt is split (with interest) to all your children, so having 3 or 4 children is common, and colonies are overcrowded.
All wealth is held by corporations, each of which has its own star system(s) and cluster of colony cities. These systems are connected by a Gravity-Pulse-Conveyor network, which uses finely-aimed "grav cannons" that propel your vessel harmlessly through spacetime, the "wave" behind and in front of you being slowed by the machine at the other end. To the passenger, the journey takes months to years. To outsiders, dialation takes effect and generations might pass. The node from Sol to Alpha Centauri has been severed, and no one knows why, but there is a perfect mirror of unknown origin, many lightyears tall and wide right at the midway point between the AC/Sol conveyor. No corporate expidition probes can report back after passing through it.
Most goods are bartered, and the most valuable commodity is culture. Baseballs, silk scarves, CDs, barbie-dolls exchange hands for hydroponic produce, metal scrap, and tools. Corp work can lower your debt and get you paid in work coupons for corporate goods, but that's the minority of transactions.
I'd like it if you'd ask me questions about this world to help me flesh it out. I also welcome ideas!
This already sounds awesome. I would absolutely read this.
What would daily life look like for the average person here? How does a person buy, say, food? Is that bartered as well, or do you eat on corpo terms as well?
This seems like a universe that falls on the harder side of the sci-fi scale, so how is food produced? What do people eat in space? Is technology advanced enough to synthesize meat and complex proteins, or is it all textured soy and mushrooms?
Keep it up!
Colonies are very diverse, and largely corpo life only effects you when you either comit a crime or work for the corporation/pay into your debt. A simple day might be waking up in your sleeping pod, which is likely a modified locker or, if you're lucky, a broken hibernation pod. You float/pull yourself to the excercize room where you generate power on excercize equipment. Then you bathe with dry scrub, a sponge, or not at all, and head to the hydro-market, where bio-engineered produce, yeast-protein foods, and pastries are for sale. Most farmers will accept corp cash, but they certainly would prefer that shooter marble for a tin of beans or your empty perfume dispenser for 2lbs of rice. After going to the communal cafe to cook and eat your meal in what ammounts to half camping stove, half prison kettle built into the tables and talking to your neighbors, you head to the docking lattice to work at the corp-run asteroid cracking shift. After which, assuming you survived and didn't have to file a hazard/accident claim, you head back to your pod to sleep.