Hotel Florida

DATE: Year 487-A, Sol 2

LOCATION: Hotel Florida (Europa)

The Hotel Florida was the largest man-made structure on any of the moons of Jupiter.

It was one of the last things the Saganites built before their exodus from Jupiter to the brown dwarf Nemesis in the Oort Cloud to work on the Zipline to Alpha Centauri.

The Saganites had been trying to get further from the Earth ever since they first departed it in the 22nd century. In that way they were different from the other lineages of humans living across the Solar System. When the Rip happened and humans off world lost contact with Earth, it didn't mean much to the Saganites. They'd already gone no contact for generations by then.

In fact, the Jupiter Sagan Cities were largely the stuff of neo-myth in the early post-Rip days. The Saganites finally revealed themselves to humans in the late 200s. Just a few years years later they departed for Nemesis, leaving behind just one of the Jupiter Sagan Cities, massive ships built in low Earth orbit that were flown to the atmosphere of Jupiter. And the Hotel Florida.

Constructed in the Year 300-A, it served several purposes. The Saganites trumpeted it as a symbol of their feelings of friendship toward all humanity. It also served as a place to funnel all the people who had been making their way to the Sagan Cities since the Saganites first revealed themselves. It seemed like a paradise compared to the rust devouring most human settlements three hundred years after the Rip.

The Hotel Florida stood under an atmospheric dome. It had short term stays, long term stays and a cryogenic unit.

Most of its services and amenities were automated. The 25 floor structure only had five full time staffers. The Saganites made a deal with the Jupiter Lunar Federation for security. The JLF had never been permitted on Europa before. A small war broke out after the Saganites departed when the MTC tried to take over. The JLF deployed as many forces as they could muster, and it took some negotiation to get them to withdraw back to the Hotel Florida dome. The Saganites agreed to fund construction of two new settlements on Ganymede.

Eventually the NEC stepped in and made the Hotel Florida a Commons Zone, a then-novel mechanism the New Earth Consortium had been using to try to expand its power independent of the Charter Associations, like the MTC and even the Jupiter Sagan Cities, that were its constituent members.

In recent years NEC budget cuts had hurt the Hotel Florida. What little interest the remaining Saganites on Jupiter had was completely gone. A lot of people assumed the last of the Saganites were waiting for an opportunity to head for Nemesis themselves. Armed groups started taking over portions of the hotel, charging for access to pay amenities, collecting tolls in hallways and regularly blockading the exits.

So it seemed almost like an inevitability when the top floor of the hotel blew up.

Nobody expected the dragons.