Vesta Processing
Overview
Vesta Processing is the belt’s primary refinery complex, where raw ore from extraction platforms becomes usable materials. Built on and around the asteroid 4 Vesta, it hosts approximately 8,000 workers in conditions markedly worse than Ceres Station. Vesta is industrial – dirty, dangerous, and essential. Nothing leaves the belt without passing through its processing facilities.
To workers, Vesta is honest. Nobody pretends it’s anything but work.
Physical Structure
- Surface installations: Smelting facilities, mass drivers, and ore storage
- Subsurface: Worker habitation and limited storage, with restricted tunneling due to Vesta’s mineral wealth
- Gravity: No spin gravity – workers adapt or suffer
- Processing capacity: Approximately 50 million metric tons annually
The complex houses six primary smelting facilities and electromagnetic mass drivers for shipping processed materials. Worker habitation blocks are overcrowded with minimal privacy. The clinic handles stabilization and routine care only – serious injuries require transport to Ceres.
Population
The roughly 8,000 people at Vesta Processing break down into processing workers (about 5,500), maintenance and technical staff (1,500), administration (400), security (300), medical personnel (200), and a rotating population of extraction crews passing through (averaging 500 at any given time).
History
Vesta operations began in 2125, originally as a secondary processing site. It grew through the 2140s-2150s as extraction volumes increased, eventually surpassing Ceres in industrial output. The complex has been continuously expanded, with safety and worker comfort consistently deprioritized in favor of processing capacity.
Vesta is where belt-born culture crystallized. The concentrated worker population, limited corporate oversight, and shared harsh conditions created the first genuine belt community.
Atmosphere
Sound is constant: machinery grinding, pressure changes, the bass rumble of smelting operations. The air smells metallic and hot – processed atmosphere that never quite tastes clean. Everything is warm from the processing heat; metal surfaces are often hot to touch. Red warning lights, yellow caution stripes, and the glow of molten material through observation ports define the visual landscape. Dust gets into everything, including food – there’s always a faint grit between your teeth.
The contrast tells the story: gleaming industrial equipment beside deteriorating habitation blocks. The company maintains what makes money. Everything else is left to the workers.