High Law and Low Justice, Part 5

[doghead]

ic - HLLJ

Saanath straightens up in his stool. "Well actually ... " Saanath begins talking enthusiastically about his thoughts, plans and ideas. Its probably more than Gwydion wanted to know. Somewhere along the line, Saanath does agree that seeing who has come in from the area recently would be a good idea.

[sblock=ooc]Wilphe, quite happy to 'roll' play the trade stuff for this leg just to keep things moving.[/sblock]

 

[Wilphe]

ooc:

[sblock]http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=1196067

22 for Broker
23 for Gather Info

That's pretty good, but I need you and Dr Z to make a decision about the route you will take to your ultimate destination before I can flesh it out a bit. You have a J3 ship, with the potential to travel 5 parsecs without refuelling if you jump in ballast - that's a LOT of possible desinations, so I need you to narrow down the options a bit.

In sector terms you have two broad routes; and I'll explain these using Terran geographical terms. Overall you want to go SSE, however because of the distribution of the star systems you can't go direct.

You can:
Go South and then East a bit. This will take you through more established worlds with established trade routes and good starbases (there is even the opportunity to visit the Naval Depot)
Pros: You won't lack for cargo
Cons: You will be competing against long established shipping companies and traders with better local knowledge and contacts than you and whose ships are more efficient at moving boxes than yours.

Or you can:
Go East and then South a bit.
This will take you out to the frontier and then down until you get to where you are going. This will mostly involve less established worlds and will be off the main trade routes
Cons: You will have to work harder for your cargo
Pros: You aren't competing against so many established lines and traders so the emphasis will be more on the "highly skilled" and less on the "newcomers". This is also the natural environment of a long legged, well armed Scout Merchant
[/sblock]

 

[DrZombie]

OOC: To boldly go where no man has gone before. Go east.

 

[Wilphe]

In the Titanstorm Subsector you are headed too there is nothing that would be classed as an Industrial World, most are either non-Industrial or Non-Agricultural - several are poor. Mainly are sparsely populated and few possess impressive technology. As such industrial goods are in short supply.

Within J3 of Bleue Mer are:

Missarge (J2)
A dryish mid-tech Agricultural World, with a population of 2 million that is entirely owned by a consortia of agricultural corporations who have built an impressive Class A starport for processing exports to the rest of the subsector (which is mostly dependent on imports for anything other than basic sustenance)

960-604 (J3)
A large Ursa settled world with unpleasently corrosive seas, the 6 million inhabitants live on the peaks and arid high plateau and maintain TL4 (c1880)

Ashiizish (J2)
6 million sophonts inhabit this midtech non-industrial world. Laws are sparse and air sparser.

Mugdange (J3)
Another midtech non-industrial world, although this one has more atmosphere than it really needs and is tainted to boot. Only 30,000 people remain, but it has a nice (B) starport.


Missarge is by far the best bet, as it can be more or less guaranteed to have something that several other systems will want.

 

[DrZombie]

Do the corps on missage have a representation here in the system? Could be nice to negotiate directly with them.

 

[Wilphe]

The Missarge Development Corporation maintains an office in the Starport on Shirgegge - and it's parent corporations have their own installations on planet. Right now they are closed except for urgent business it is possible to book an appointment for the following morning. You will have time to go to that before your cargo and passangers for Bleue Mer arrive, which is scheduled for the afternoon.

Anything else for tonight, or shall we skip foward to the next morning?

 

[DrZombie]

"Let's go back to the ship to talk this over. I'll see if I can weasel some information from the ISS, then go sleep. I've had a long day." Gwydion says.

 

[Wilphe]

Brief ISS notes on the following:

Missarge
A544685-7 Ag Ni 213

Top quality starport, low gravity, thin atmosphere tainted with pollen, 40% Ocean Coverage, 2 million inhabitants, civil service bueraurcarcy, moderate law level. 1 planetoid belt, 3 gas giants.

It's not really any more interesting than the somewhat bare figures from the USP indicate. It's a quiet well run planet where the inhabitants are seemingly happy to work with the consortium. It's probably a great place to settle down away from the rat race, marry and raise children but the beating heart of intersteller commerce and intrgiue it is not.

The consortium is taking a very long view about the development of Missarge and happy to wait while the world grows organically rather than spend trillions on rapid development. At the current rate of growth it will be the best part of a millennia while this subsector is developed and integrated into the Imperium so they see no rush. They are however interested in developing trade within the immediate area as they see that as growing their future customer base.



Reading of the reports suggest that they will most likely want you to go to 960-604 and thence on. That is not a nice world as it has fairly corrosive seas with therefore often acidic rain. It's Ursa inhabitants live on the arid high plateaux and a few peaks and make their main living mining phosphate deposits laid down by the seas in earlier eras for export as fertilizer. Though they also think about exporting other raw resources derived from the planets exotic hydrography.
Living a mile up on a high gravity world where the rain can kill you and tech isn't that luxurious isn't much help is not for weaklings, so it is not suprising the place was colonised by Ursa. A few belters occassionally work the systems two planetoid belts, officially the Ursa own the whole system so this is illegal without permission. In practice they cannot do anything about it, so it is only enforced whenever an visiting Imperial patrol feels like doing something about it.

The poor starport does not supply even unrefined fuel as the Ursa are short of potable water as it is. So corrosive oceans and the lack of a gas giant will make refuelling interesting, the Vykris will certainly use it's wilderness capabilities.

 

[DrZombie]

The next morning, a bit more rested and less bruised, Gwydion works his way through the big champignon-cheese-andGryash-ham omelet, the breakfast of champions, feeding scraps to Tommy, his pet. He passes the data and a mug of koffee to Saanath, to see if he has any plans.

"We'd better see if there's something they'd like delivered on the agriculture planet. As for the belters, that's eazy : food, booze, spare equipment and loads of pron."

 

[Wilphe]

Ruzz'koff awakes, and drags himself into the common room, "Good morning everybody, where did you get to yesterday Gwydion anyway?," though he doesn't seem ready to wait for a reply, "Whole new lot of cargo being delivered today and two new passengers. Hopefully these two will be less interesting than the last lot."

On hearing Saanath and Gwydions plans for future destinations:

"We've no idea how much of the cargo bay these animals will take up, so we can't commit to a cargo for Missarge until we know. As for any belters at 960-604, we know they are there illegally - so I'd rather not deal with them. If they've any sense they'll hide from any ship they don't know, which will make finding them to do a deal rather problematic. So let's go with the Ursa, at least we know where to find them even if all they have to offer is fertiliser. It's not interesting but at least it will have a ready market"

"I'm almost tempted to offer to sweep the system for them and hunt down any unlicensed belters. What do you think?"


ooc:
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2802421&postcount=150