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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8662723" data-attributes="member: 6670763">My current idea is for a frontier star sector in which all the planets with easily accessible high value resources have already been mined and the industrial fleets of the great mining clans migrated on to new systems. On several of the planets that the mining clans have considered depleted, there are still substential amounts of resources to be found, but extraction is hard and not worth their time when they can just move their whole fleet to mine somewhere else. These depleted planets still have hundreds of thousands of people living on them whose contracts didn't get renewed or who used to sell services to miners after their shifts, who now make a meager living scraping away at the leftovers.There's only a single mining fleet still in the sector, strip mining their last planet before moving on as well. [Dresat Mining Clan]There are two planets in the sector with quite pleasant environments, which two merchant houses have set up shop on. The provide goods from the core worlds or their own local factory to the colonists and miners of the sector in exchange for the resources they mine, and of course are demanding outragous prices since they have a monopoly on these trades. Their planets are effectively giant company towns. [Ordos Merchant Cartel and Lupai Merchant Cartel]The independent mines in the sector are fed up with the lousy exchange rates of the cartels and many of them are trying to unite to have their own fleet of freighters taking their resources to markets in the core worlds. [Tornesh Miners Cooperative]For added confusion, a military task force from a neighboring interstellar state has recently arrived in the independent sector, claiming that they are "fighting piracy and protecting interstellar commerce". Which is odd for a sector whose only major industry has already left. [Directory Fleet]It's a start, but still somewhat lightweight.The two cartels are obviously trying to get a full monopoly on what trade remains in the sector, since there's not enough profit to be made to be slip between them as before. And both of them want to keep the Miners Cooperative from gaining economic autonomy. Endless opportunity. Help the miners from defending against sabotage and blackmail from the cartels, and help the cartels harming each other. Or help the cartels sabotaging the miners. But that's really only a two-sided conflict with clear good guys and bad guys, even if some miner leaders may be ruthless backstabbing bastards.Unfortunatly, I still have no idea what the Mining Clan could want other than depleting their last planet. They are the largest entity in the sector, but with no motivations they aren't a relevant faction yet. Also no clue what the Directory Fleet really is trying to accomplish while it's loitering in the area inspecting freighters and settlements for suspected pirate activity.Do you have any ideas what kinds of questions to ask to expand on those rought outlines and develop them further?</blockquote>

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