Artemis’s lunar colony draws its inspiration from the real-world Artemis program—a collaboration between NASA and various private spaceflight groups. In Weir’s book, the two are effectively fused: KSC, which established Artemis, is a “megacorporation” that operates like the monopolistic joint-stock ventures of the 17th and 18th centuries. The settlement’s name also gestures towards the Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt after which the real-world program is named. The choice of a female deity is significant, as part of the program’s mission is increased gender and racial diversity in space exploration. Artemis the city shows the potential fruits of such an effort, as it is an ethnically diverse settlement headed by a Kenyan woman. It thus embodies a future of greater gender and racial equality, but one in which The Persistence of Economic Inequality is evident.

The guild system functions as a system of control over the various industries in Artemis. They are the symbols of (often corrupt) authority and power in Jazz’s life. She resents them from a young age, as her father refuses to join the Welders’ Guild, which she tells Kelvin is “pretty much owned by Saudi organized crime” (48). The Guilds control prices and harass workers who refuse to join, though the EVA Guild is the only one that actually can keep anyone else from operating independently.