Starship pen

A starship pen is a type of large habitat intended for use as a naval base. Their purpose is to construct and shelter warships during wartime, where their heavy weapons, thick armor, and substantial civilian populations make them difficult to attack directly.

The Frieden constructed dozens of starship pens around Jupiter, Saturn, and the Sol Belt prior to the Interplanetary Wars, who invested huge amounts of resources into their construction and placed them into erratic orbits. Roughly twenty of these stations survived the conflict, and they became regional centers for politics, economics, and military operations. However, most were pulled into a recession at the turn of the 2300s, as humanity's first extra-solar colonization attempts had drawn away their best and wealthiest inhabitants, and they required refits to keep up with new technologies. Although some eventually found success by manufacturing colony ships and equipment, many were decommissioned and scrapped.

Because of their sturdy construction, some ex-Frieden starship pens were converted into large colony ships whose size was only eclipsed by the later. At least four of these were used to colonize the Yayatsa system, and eventually they too were recycled into habitats and arcologies.