Io

 Io 

Location: ~4.2 AU from Earth

Population: 2500

Gravity: 0.18g

Io is one of the volcanic moons of Jupiter, with the colony being established to provide support for the construction of the Neo-Berlin space station nearby. It was supplied by both ships and mass driver-launched cargo packets until it could attain basic self-sufficiency, though it still requires regular water deliveries and takes in food and other resources to supplement its subsistence farms and mycoprotein vats.

Io is predominately a mining and industrial colony, utilizing the low gravity for easier or more unique manufacturing processes to form homogeneous alloys. The thin, sulfurous atmosphere is inhospitable and covered in over 400 active volcanoes, which are constantly monitored by a volcanology station to prepare for any impending eruptions. The magnetosphere of Jupiter also constantly bombards the moon's surface with radiation and creates sweeping clouds of gas and dust from the atmosphere, forcing the colony to be mostly underground with no windows on the plain gray metal blocks visible on the surface.

Life on Io tends to be dull and hard. The small size means strict population control until the colony can be expanded and the surface of the moon is only seen on video in order to keep the colony sealed. Most colonists are employed in dirty and difficult mining and industrial work with little chance of advancement beyond leaving the colony for one of the rare openings elsewhere. Drug abuse is rampant as a way to try and escape the difficult life.