Earth is the homeworld of mankind and the political and economic capital of the Terran Republic. More than 10 billion people inhabit the blue planet, which houses the Terran Parliament (in Paris) and headquarters for the Terran Defense Force (in Washington-Baltimore).
The space near Earth is the busiest in the Sol System, with thousands of spacecraft traveling from the planet's surface to one of its many space stations or beyond. Liberty Station, in geosynchronous orbit over North America's Eastern Seaboard is the senior aerospace authority and controls space traffic for Europe, Africa and the Americas. Freedom Station, in geosynchronous orbit over the Indonesian Archipelago, serves as backup aerospace authority and controls the space over Australasia and the Pacific Ocean. A network of communications satellites also occupies the geosynchronous belt, connecting the two space stations with each other and with Earthside operations.
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Earth
The majority of travelers leaving the Sol System do so via Trans-D travel from Liberty or Freedom stations. The relatively few ships that have their own Trans-D drives must request permission from Liberty Station to open a threshold anywhere within 1.5 million kilometers of Earth to ensure the safety of space traffic.
Many of Earth's manufacturing jobs remain on the planet's surface, but microgravity manufacturing industries grew vigorously toward the end of the 21st century. Approximately 50 manufacturing plants sit in low-Earth orbit, with another 30 in mid-Earth orbit.
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An artist's rendering of a 10,000-person space habitat.
Credit: NASA
A number of privately owned large space stations at Earth's L4 and L5 points consist self-sustaining habitats chained together like large necklaces. Each habitat in the chain houses between 50,000 and 100,000 people; the total population of each station averages 1 million people. A mass-transit network connects the habitats through their axes of rotation. The stations also serve as waypoints for ships traveling to other parts of the Sol System, such as Mercury, Venus or Mars.
Luna is home to approximately 10 million people. Its primary industries are Helium-3 mining and processing plants, which are scattered across the lunar surface, and research facilities located on the moon's far side. Luna once housed concentration camps for the Altered -- now called the Al'Tari. The Al'Tari escaped the camps en masse in 2126 with help from the 13th Space Superiority Squadron, which acted against the orders of then-Terran Navy Adm. James Thomson, and several civilian vessels. The former camps are now a historic site and museum, attracting 300,000 visitors per year.