← Lore
Humanity is not well adapted to space life. One underappreciated aspect of this is the need for open spaces - being cramped in an outpost with 2000 other people might seem expansive at first, but soon you begin to realise the unbearable, suffocating sameness and claustrophobia of the world. Most make do with willpower, pills or otherwise, but some simply cannot endure it. It is these people precisely that join the Greater Cirkus of Saturn.
The Cirkus is a movement of aggressive gene-editing and body modification. New techniques and ideas spread like wildfire through the Saturn synchnet, and Klovns (the movement’s members) set to work in creating often genuinely impressive works. Most seasoned Klovns can breathe on Saturn and don’t need a space suit, but the particularly gifted construct large, open floating platforms with genetically modified greenery - de-facto gardens of Eden in the clouds of an alien and hostile world.
Nobody knows where the association with circuses came from, but the members of the movement are solely responsible for the mimes and clowns on board various outposts. Klovns are a good natured, though secretive people. They speak in various esoteric ideas and some who have gone deep enough are alien to most people. That being said, Klovn platforms are a welcome, regent-sponsored holiday destination and there are even pressurised variants where normal humans can frolick around in scenery once thought lost.