Eu procurei o texto do Abaddon's Gate (o livro no qual o Ring Station foi encontrado), mas não consigo encontrar nada que responda diretamente à sua pergunta. A melhor descrição da zona lenta vem dos humanos logo depois que eles a encontram pela primeira vez:
"The slow zone, based on the sensor data we’re able to get, is approximately one million kilometers across."
...
We’re calling this Ring Station, for lack of a better term. It appears to be a solid sphere of a metallic substance, measuring about five kilometers in diameter. Around it is a slow-moving ring of other objects, including all of the probes we’ve fired into the slow zone, and the Belter ship Y Que. The torpedo that chased us through the Ring is headed toward the station in a trajectory that seems to indicate it will become part of the garbage ring too.
But the most intriguing factor of the slow zone, and the one that gives it its name, is the absolute speed limit of six hundred meters per second. Any object above the quantum level traveling faster than that is locked down by what seems to be an inertial dampening field, and then dragged off to join the garbage circling the central station. At a guess, this is some sort of defensive system that protects the Ring Station and the gates themselves. Light and radar still work normally, but radiation made up of larger particles like alpha and beta radiation does not exist inside the slow zone. At least outside the ship, that is. Whatever controls the speeds here only seems concerned by the exterior of the objects, not the interior. We’ve done radiation and object speed tests inside the ship, and so far everything works as normal. But the last probe we fired was immediately grabbed by the field and is now making its way down to the garbage ring. The lack of alpha and beta radiation leads me to believe that there’s a thin cloud of loose electrons and helium nuclei orbiting that station as part of the garbage ring.
p. 208
Embora o livro não responda diretamente à sua pergunta, podemos fazer algumas suposições sobre o motivo pelo qual o Ring Station se comporta da maneira que ele faz.
Primeiro, levaria muito tempo para que qualquer objeto na zona lenta realmente alcançasse a Ring Station quando você considera o grande diâmetro da zona lenta (aproximadamente um milhão de quilômetros) comparado com o "limite de velocidade" (600 metros por segundo). O Ring Station teria tempo suficiente para reagir se os humanos tentassem atacá-lo de dentro da zona lenta.
Segundo, a ativação da zona lenta do Ring Station é de fato um mecanismo defensivo, mas não é o único mecanismo defensivo que possui. O Ring Station é realmente muito poderoso:O Ring Station não é realmente ameaçado por nenhum dos navios humanos na zona lenta porque pode ativar defesas muito mais poderosas. Ele não precisa ejetá-los ou mantê-los congelados a distância - pode simplesmente destruir qualquer navio que tente atacá-lo ainda mais (por exemplo, com um laser, que não estaria sujeito ao "limite de velocidade" da zona lenta)."I’ve seen what this station does to threats," Holden said. "Miller showed me, when I was there. All this slow zone stuff is non-lethal deterrent as far as it’s concerned. If that big blue ball out there decides us monkeys are an actual threat, it will autoclave our solar system...Something was attacking them, the protomolecule masters or whatever they were. Their defense was causing the star in any...infected solar system to go supernova. That station has the power to blow up stars, Naomi."
p. 413
Em terceiro lugar, capturando em vez de ejetar objetos próximos, a Estação Ring pode continuar monitorando as potenciais ameaças representadas pelos navios, mísseis, etc.