Though most of Snope’s World’s mineral resources were exhausted long ago, the planet’s downtrodden multitudes continue to toil day and night within the surviving manufactorums, which provide the bulk of the income for the various noble houses that cling desperately to their precarious positions of power. The most powerful of these houses maintain scattered ties with the rest of the Askellon Sector, their ancient merchant pacts and mandatory trade accords supplying the majority of the ores and other raw materials needed to continue production. Most hives specialise in various luxury spaceship components, including magnificent fractal viewing blisters and ornate void-shielded observation bays, in addition to any necessary industrial and military manufacturing.
However, there are still a few houses among Snope’s World’s nobility that continue to claw futilely at the remains of their hereditary holdings, in order to extract the last dregs of mineral wealth. The most common of these efforts involve the collection of industrial runoff from the vacant mineshafts below for reprocessing, or the employment of vast hordes of conscripts to seek out any remaining deposits beneath the scarred and toxic surface. However, this steady proliferation of increasingly desperate mining tactics has had a profound impact on the structural integrity of many hives in recent decades, and instances of collapse among the outlying districts are now appallingly frequent occurrences. Yet such matters are of little importance to the members of the Saturnal Court, even as their ruthless exploitation threatens to destroy the very foundations of their ill-gotten power.
By contrast, life outside these decrepit hives is an incredibly desperate affair, with far-flung communes struggling to scratch out a living amidst exhausted claims, and huge worker caravans migrating across the poisoned landscape in search of work within the isolated labour hives that still stand. Employment within these rickety, corroded structures is far from ideal, however, and countless battles and massacres frequently erupt over jobs so hazardous that a constant stream of workers is required just to maintain the estimated production quotas.