DESCRIPTION:

Originally a massive housing complex built by the Human Verity Project to house the first Avnaut miners of Lau-Tem Pála, Metrium is now the largest residential area on the planet. Designed to require minimum excavation, the city is constructed inside a massive natural gas tube. Because of the hot-spring-like location, Metrium’s climate remains warm and temperate compared to the chilling cold of Lau-Tem Pála’s surface. While the temperature might be comfortable, a plethora of additional environmental hazards remain in Metrium — requiring Human visitors to use the same precautionary equipment they would on the planet’s surface.

Since gaining independence in the Nepzerk Revolution, Metrium has served as a symbol for resistance to Profiteerism, Hadiocracy, and Nouvieuxism rulership.

Metrium is home to the only starport on Lau-Tem Pála, used primarily to allow workers to commute to and from Stalbez. Though NTF-affiliated mining and refinement operations do exist on Lau-Tem Pála, they pay high premiums and export taxes to the Sovkós Union via Metrium. This uneasy relationship, a stark contrast to the arrangement pre-Nepzerk Revolution, has been a constant source of struggle between the opposed powers of the NTF and the Sovkós Union.