The metal-rich asteroids of the system's inner ring were the Holy Grail of the initial expansion from Earth. The factories and habitats in the Halo predate the system government in many places, and their output of metals, minerals and water fuel the industries of most of the other planets and stations short of the Kuiper belt. The Halo facilities were instrumental in providing the ice asteroids used to terraform Mars, and many of the dynasties ruling swathes of the belt owe their fortunes to the mad scramble for farmland that came with human expansion from Earth.

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