Second link in the references doesn't works

Fixed and updated =)

Thank you for notifying me.
It's a spacestation build by tigers for tigers, you know that?

Then it is mine! :p

And the link you put does not seem to have a video in it, just music with a fixed picture...

Aye, m'ladytigress, that is so. Think of it being the wakeupcall the station sends out to all it's mechanical and biological inhabitants, minions and helpers throughout the gas giants ring system, announcing it'll be out of the icerings soon and thus call them to return to their work , to attend to the stations needs, help it clean it, bandage it's lacerations.
And in particular it sings to the biological inhabitants: It announces the opening of the armored shutters that protected the habitatrings windows agrainst stellar debris to serve again as mirrors to let natural sunlight into the station,

Very cool!

Thank you!
The congratulations should likewise be addressed to Alejandro. He did the work, after all.

Good to see this finished.

Yes, it took quite some time.
But Alejandro did it wonderfully, and thus the wait was well worth it.
It is one of the pictures I'll print in A3 size and take framed to my new home when I move to southern Germany.
Alternatively I'm already thinking about etching it to a PCB or copper plate as a doorsign in my new living space.

And, obviously, I am glad you like it.

What? No avoidance ring from the station's shields? Anyway, it's a great image and I like it. Word is from JPL that the Cassini space probe is going to "Commit spectacular suicide" by flying through the ring plain three times during it's final orbits.

Thor, as the space station is nicknamed, is part of the Tau Ceti Tiger's ancient civilization. These stations were planned 10000 years ago, and manufactured fully automatically long after the original designers nuked themselves back to the stone age for the greater part. The station does have shields and an avoidance ring, so to speak - but that is a multi-layered or laminated hull armor which the station's subsytems found the ring was creeping up too close to the station, and nobody pressed the manual buttons to allow the station's thrusters to correct it's course.

As sufficient heavy armor can protect the station, and as it's orbital station drives can keep the orbital velocity correct, the station is nowadays more like a massively armored factory than a lithe and graceful habitat with a gas refinery and water purification systems.

The logic behind the situation is as follows:
The station is permitted to take any action that prevents the station from destruction.
The station has to repair itself.
The stations systems have to protect the habitat ( This rules becomes paramount when there is a population on board, which never was the case ).

Flying through the ring damages the station, but it's factories - permitted to adjust and reconfigure to the stations demands - can easily repair the damage the station takes each time.

Passing through the ring is not a risk destructing the station.
Loosing it's orbital velocity is.
Passing the rings does reduce orbital velocity, but the station can easily use it's station drives to pick up speed, so that risk can be managed.
Passing through the rings and takign damage implies just readiness to manage the damage and , if possible, protect the habitat.
The factories are allowed to adapt, so building armor panels to protect the station is okay, firing the station drives to change the orbit however is an action of the station, which is not permisseble unless a sapient crew orders to execute the maneuver - or a direct risk of destruction exists.

Due to the heavy armor the station collected by now, larger asteroids are no longer a reason to use the station drives, as the stations armor and uprated meteor defenses handle blocks the size of a human aircraft-carrier with ease by now.


The stations computersystems run massively parallel.
Repair takes priority when they become actively neccessary.

Fascinating. I also like that the artist has lights showing through the main spindle and along the torus ring. An indication that everything is still running "Normal" and life aboard is at least safe as the system allows.

*coughs* partly that might be actually ice crystals, maybe drones already repairing the shields to enable them to flap open as soon as their area is out of the rings.

The fun thing in a way is that the stations systems themselves are only instinct-level intelligence, or, like dreamers / sleepwalkers. Their mobile robots , however, are fully intelligent. The Stations systems dream and desire to feel "complete" for which, in their insticts, harborign life, especially sapient life, is absolutely neccssary.
Attacks on the station "hurt" it, and it tries to avoid future hurt. Reacting sometimes by ordering its robots to secure the local point where the hurt is, the robots, even when they see it are, for example, humans, would at the very worst kill the individuum which damaged the station, but only when the person threatens to do it again, for else, the robots just repair the damage ASAP and that's that. The station itself is incapable of holding grudges, and the robots, thought they might be able to understand potential future developments ( like, two groups of humans battling inside the station ) will obey the orders of the station, which is their "mother".
This separation of leadign instict and serving intelligence has a lot of fun potential, yet is a very tough shield agaisnt a singularity or similar things.