I've noticed a lot of feralists and "feralists" have taken up residence inside the walls of the Compact's stations and ships. What measures are in place to ensure they don't get hurt in there? What's the intrawall infrastructure like? Is it cozy?
Sincerely, a curious outdoorlet.
Here in the Outer Wales Propagule orbiting "18 Taurus", this was a topic of careful strategizing before the community was ever introduced to Compact architecture. The population of terran rescues here is docile and well-behaved, for the most part, but had already suffered enough oppression from multiple internecine attempts at self-governance that trust in any centralized authority whatsoever was close to nil. When our neoxenoveterinary architects came to revitalize the central colony domes, the populace did not swarm to new, spacious hab construction; instead the independent population largely remained living in the maintenance layers of the outer walls, hiding from the 18-Tauran sun from outside, and their new owners from inside.
Which was no burden for us, not really. Once a protective phytotech coating was applied to the outer dome surface and the life support systems redundantly optimized, we were able to more effectively reassure our anxious little sweetpods that the expansion of the outer wall structure was for the purpose of making it easier for affini maintenance crews to reach problem areas. Terrans don't often understand that an affini can reasonably move in any space the size of their core, and they accepted our presence so long as we didn't encroach on their 'safe spaces,' and we allowed them to continue to live in the walls of the dome.
Six months into the revitalization project, we have been able to improve living space and lighting conditions for the little ones by 300%, while also eliminating many of the nutrition- and contagion-borne troubles that the Outer Wales domes suffered from prior to domestication. While densely packed, the terrans living here find their communal living space quite comforting, and the addition of our own crew of watchers-in-the-walls ensures that they receive healthy exposure to vitamin D, supplementary nutrients, and pacifying biorhythms.
The average "walldweller" Outer Welsh hab is now a warm, spacious hollow in between the infrastructure of the dome, fitted with easy compiler access, community gathering spaces, expansive bathing facilities, and everything a small clade of 200-300 terrans need. Each is carefully monitored by our watchers-in-the-walls to ensure that communities are healthy, safe, and happy.
We project that within four to five Outer Welsh years, the residents will think of their life inside the walls not as a harsh necessity in the face of authority, but a cozy choice of cultures to be compared with the colony "insiders" living inside the dome proper. We are already seeing regular "insider" visitors to the Perimeter Night Markets, which are now bright and noisy community get-togethers instead of the rushed, furtive bartering chaos that they once were.
Daravi Rhizophora, eighth bloom
