I'm kind of charmed by the Schizo Tech at play here. A naive person might think that asteroid mining would involve colossal, highly automated machines, whose massive drills pierce the heart of the asteroid and extract the ore and carbonaceous materials from within. You'd think that because of the enormous technical sophistication and industrial base required to get to an asteroid in the first place, they'd have similar sophistication for the mines themselves--after all, the process of getting to an asteroid at all is not exactly peanuts!

But this is entirely more charming. The combination of extreme high technology with old-fashioned manual labor evokes so much classic allegorical science fiction that I would nearly choke on the fumes of old flames fanned, were I not so intoxicated by them instead. To select an example at random, the starships of the 41st millennium, capable of traversing the whole of the galaxy, have their guns controlled by slaves lashed to the hardpoints of their charges.

Overall, quite well done. I'd like to see more of this sort of thing.