ARTEMIS

"Our strength flows from absolute discipline. The weak must serve, the strong must rule - this is the natural order that Artemis upholds. Our soldiers train from decanting for one purpose: to kill. When we march, we march as one. When we strike, we strike without mercy or hesitation. Let Apollo send their factory workers to die. We are the true warriors of Luna, and we will paint the dust red with their blood."

• Elite Commander VKS-117, Artemis 3rd Strike Division,
  Address to warriors before a suicide raid on an Apollo refinery

Artemis was the second city built on the moon. Having been built several decades after the first city Apollo, the construction and design of Artemis greatly benefitted from the learnings and advancements of the time. As a result, Artemis is a much more modern, sophisticated city than Apollo, with better factories, better cloning facilities and overall better equipment and technology. It is no surprise then, that in the the Forever war raging on the moon, it is Artemis that almost always has the upper hand, relentlessly attacking Apollo, constantly putting the first city on the brink of losing the war.

Artemis city is governed by the sophisticated Artemis AI. Due to flaws in its original construction, Artemis' system runs on the brink of overheating most of the time. All efforts are made to cool the system constantly. As a result, the host bodies that Artemis uses to interface with the real world are suffering from extreme cold and heat exposure, often simultaneously, and it is not uncommon for Artemis' host bodies to die after just a few days.

After the death of a host, the Artemis AI is uploaded to a new body.

The Artemis AI governs the city by relaying her orders to a corps of overseers. These privileged individuals are born into their position, effectively forming an elite officer class in Artemis city. Overseers are cloned from a dedicated set of templates and receive special neural training after decanting. Without the daily dangers of war, maintenance shafts or the mines, they tend to live relatively long lives compared to ordinary clones.

Artemis city maintains a dedicated internal security force, separate from its main military force. Artemis security maintains order in the city with an iron fist, violently quelling any form of unrest among the large workforce at the first sign of trouble.

Artemis city has a large dedicated military force of astronaut soldiers. As the larger, more powerful force, the army of Artemis is often on the attack against Apollo's defensive positions, leading to a very high rate of casualties.

Artemis Infiltrators utilise lightweight space suits that allow for increased ease of movement. It is vital for these troops to be able to quickly infiltrate Apollo city's perimeter and breach the factory domes, where they can cause maximum damage. As the thin infiltration suits offer no protection and can easily be damaged, it is very rare for any Infiltrators to survive a raid.

Artemis city operates a strict system of specialisation, so every clone will be created and trained for a single purpose, which they will fulfil until they are either killed on duty or reach the end of their natural lifespan. Most clones have an in-built "natural" lifespan of around 10 years.

Maintenance workers are also trained in the use of space suits in order to be able to carry out important external repair duties.

Carrying out repair missions on the outside of the city are dangerous, but always popular assignments, as the time spent outside of the confines of the city offers a brief moment of serenity and personal freedom that most workers and miners will never experience.

The factories of Artemis produce a never-ending stream of weapons and space-suits, feeding the unending war against Apollo.

The pace of work in the factories makes fatal accidents a common occurrence.

The agrifarms of Artemis grow vast amounts of plants for food production, enough to feed the entire population of Artemis and also export large amounts of food produce to Ascension city. In return, Artemis receives Water from Ascension. Neither the citizens of Artemis or Apollo realise, that they are part of triangle of trade through Ascension and that they are actually dependant on each other.

In order to make the cities on the moon truly self-sufficient, they had to have large, sophisticated cloning facilities to produce a new generation of citizens every few years. Decades later these facilities are almost constant use, producing a steady resupply of human life, while running the city's stock of Omnimorph dangerously low. Few of these clones will live the whole ten years of their in-built lifespan.

Underneath the city of Artemis are deep, pressurised mines. The locations for all three cities on the moon were carefully chosen to maximise their access to important resources required for them to be as self-sufficient as possible.

The mines are a dangerous environment, and in the darkness, a single misstep can bring death. After every shift, the ledges of the endless vertical shafts are littered with the broken bodies of unlucky miners...

At the end of a long shift, workers use the large fans that pressurise the mines to clean themselves of dust...

At the end of a long shift, Artemis workers have a short break for a meal before their allocated rest period begins.

For others, a new shift begins. Artemis Infiltrators set out for a raid on Apollo.
A mission, which they are not expected to return from...