The largest rocky planet in the Tria system was OR-X3, a splotchy orb of caustic yellows and dead-rock gray which was mottled by a heavy haze of dusty clouds. It was not a pretty world by any stretch, though Crane had never been too worried about aesthetics in ventures like these. The planet was rich in the sort of material that shipbuilding was reliant on which in his opinion made for a very solid cover for why he was here and why Holden-Grey Ventures would be interested in a survey. He’d worked with worse.
“Scans’re showing one auxy habitat on the surface, a survey core for some system I’ve never heard before.” Heron said, giving her console a tap with the back of her knuckle.
“They near the site?” Finch asked.
“Close enough.” Heron said, sliding the screen with the survey map around. Finch grunted.
“Comms traffic?” Crane asked, leaning to look at Heron’s monitor. A small habitat with a connected auxiliary station. From orbit it certainly looked like a simple surveying crew.
“Spotty, plenty of atmospheric interference and the comms buoys are cheap. Looks like they’re getting monthly supply shipments from their home system, so that shouldn’t be due for another three weeks.” Finch said, though his brow took on a deep scrunch. “That said, ears picked up some chatter that was further out system, different guys and don’t know why they’re here.”
A complication to be sure, but not the worst kind. Different parties might not be keeping tabs on each other and even if they did it shouldn’t be too alarming if the planet went quiet for a time. Nothing they couldn’t make work.
“Alright. Lark, take us in, nice and quiet.” Crane said, receiving a short ‘aye’ in response. There was a whining hum as the engines flared and the orb began to expand.
———————
There were times when you took the job you had at hand, even if that job happened to be a rush delivery from backwater world in the outer reaches to some unclaimed corporate rim system that only managed to have a name because it had been part of a planned corporate colony before the home system went bankrupt. Credits were credits, and Wanderer’s Refuge certainly needed whatever it could add to its holdings. Still, it wasn’t a bad job and the system was paying generously for a job that involved moving a box and some extra foodstuffs from one system to another, and good grown foodstuffs at that.
Though, truth be told, one could acquire a taste for the fabricated mash when that’s all you had to eat for a couple of months. It’s better to never need to acquire that taste, but there’s some old Sol saying about beggars choosing horse teeth for that. It's just another delivery, so best not to spend much time worrying about it.
—————
Places Near and Very Far:
The Corporate Rim -
Following the end of the first Corporate Wars of 2093 a section of the Milky Way was set aside in the Concordat of Freer Enterprise to allow for corporate interests to lay claim to unsettled systems. The size of this holding has has expanded twice in the last two hundred years, once from a treaty following the Second Corporate War and again following a large buyout of unclaimed sectors by some of the largest corporations operating.
These systems have put a lot of effort into maintaining a positive reputation, which is important to keep drawing the guileless and desperate into exploitative contracts. If a profit can be made then someone in the Rim will try to make it. If you’re rich there’s no finer playground, so long as you keep from letting someone slip a knife into your back.
The Federated Systems; The Core Worlds -
Earth, her colonies and her allies. These include many of the first settled worlds and stations, and the most populated ones. The Federation is often a ponderous entity, slow to react due to bureaucratic bloat and other such miseries of democratic rule. Still, the people who live here have their rights defined without the loopholes used by the Corporate Rim to make slaves of people in every way but name, and even with the glitz and glamor of the Corporate Rim, most technological innovations come out of Federated Systems.
The Polaris Fleet -
Polaris had been built to be a colony ship in the early days of human expansion, built beneath the glittering skies of Venus with the optimism of a people reaching out to foreign stars. It isn’t known why Polaris never chose to land upon the world it had been built for, those of the Fleet are silent about it, though plenty of dramas on the media feed love to speculate. What is known is this, instead of landing, Polaris chose to become a nomad, picking through the galaxy and never lingering for too long. In time, through sale, commission or recruitment, the fleet grew in size, first came Groundsheer, an asteroid miner to gather what Polaris needed, then to a collection of cargo ships to sell the excess. How large the Fleet has become is another of Polaris’ great mysteries, though how common they are at ports or how often they respond to distress signals gives some clue, perhaps. It’s said for the crew of Polaris be it their merchants or their explorers, home is wherever two of them meet; though that might just be from a drama.
The Outer Worlds -
A collection of colonized worlds that are unaffiliated with the Federated or Corporate systems. These are smaller settlements, though they often have more chartered rights for citizens than even than most Federated worlds. The Corporate Rim has spent a lot of money making these worlds out to be lawless desperate places.
——————
Shortcuts Through Nothing -
Jump Gates are not a human creation, though since the first one was discovered in the Kuiper Belt humans have managed to unlock the secrets of their construction. Gates allow for FLT travel by linking two points in space and allowing passage between them. Any two gates can be connected allowing passage so long as the two ports remain open.
Navagators and Navagation -
There’s a second way to cut through nothing, though it requires both a specialized drive as well as a Navigator, the drive to slice through space and the Navigator to pilot the ship through the not underneath. The first was an innovation of the larger Jump Drives, and the latter a mistake. A Navigator is born when a person makes contact with the unfiltered Not and survives, and this changes them. Physics in a way becomes like breathing, thoughtless, and when noticed something that can be felt and directed. Held or pushed. When in the unspace, the not space a Navigator and feel for their destination and pull their ship to the point that they wish it to be at. It’s simple really, at least any Navigator will tell you so.
Navigators themselves happened due to an accident, an exit gate was damaged during the First Corporate War causing the ship in transit to exit out into not between the here and there. When the ship was eventually found, a miracle in itself, between two different gates most of the crew had died leaving behind only a few who were changed. Most Navigators come from the Corporate Rim and exist under highly restrictive contracts, for it is the Rim that has limited rights charters and for what rights do exist they can always be signed away in a contract. For some people their need to better their lives is desperate enough they are willing to take that contract for a chance at a better life.
Life, the Universe, and Those Who Came Before -
Humans aren’t the only life out there, nor are they the only intelligent life. Though they are the most populous and the furthest spread of the known species, the basis of their expansion off Earth required already existing alien jump gates from a species and star empire believed to now be long gone. Other artifacts of this gone civilization have been found, from ancient cities still tumbling forward to structures so different than anything humans have made it is impossible to fully understand why it exists or what they were even built for. There are times even that the technology is simply incompatible with life, technology that infects humans or their machines, tools so far past what it was they were created for there is nothing they can be other than dangerous to those who try to use them or those they attempt to use themselves upon. Relic words like this are quarantined, entrance only allowed to credited scholars and archaeologists.
There is, of course, a thriving black market for ancient alien technology.
There are other species alive and well today, often better integrated within the outer worlds than other parts of the human diaspora.
“Scans’re showing one auxy habitat on the surface, a survey core for some system I’ve never heard before.” Heron said, giving her console a tap with the back of her knuckle.
“They near the site?” Finch asked.
“Close enough.” Heron said, sliding the screen with the survey map around. Finch grunted.
“Comms traffic?” Crane asked, leaning to look at Heron’s monitor. A small habitat with a connected auxiliary station. From orbit it certainly looked like a simple surveying crew.
“Spotty, plenty of atmospheric interference and the comms buoys are cheap. Looks like they’re getting monthly supply shipments from their home system, so that shouldn’t be due for another three weeks.” Finch said, though his brow took on a deep scrunch. “That said, ears picked up some chatter that was further out system, different guys and don’t know why they’re here.”
A complication to be sure, but not the worst kind. Different parties might not be keeping tabs on each other and even if they did it shouldn’t be too alarming if the planet went quiet for a time. Nothing they couldn’t make work.
“Alright. Lark, take us in, nice and quiet.” Crane said, receiving a short ‘aye’ in response. There was a whining hum as the engines flared and the orb began to expand.
———————
There were times when you took the job you had at hand, even if that job happened to be a rush delivery from backwater world in the outer reaches to some unclaimed corporate rim system that only managed to have a name because it had been part of a planned corporate colony before the home system went bankrupt. Credits were credits, and Wanderer’s Refuge certainly needed whatever it could add to its holdings. Still, it wasn’t a bad job and the system was paying generously for a job that involved moving a box and some extra foodstuffs from one system to another, and good grown foodstuffs at that.
Though, truth be told, one could acquire a taste for the fabricated mash when that’s all you had to eat for a couple of months. It’s better to never need to acquire that taste, but there’s some old Sol saying about beggars choosing horse teeth for that. It's just another delivery, so best not to spend much time worrying about it.
—————
Places Near and Very Far:
The Corporate Rim -
Following the end of the first Corporate Wars of 2093 a section of the Milky Way was set aside in the Concordat of Freer Enterprise to allow for corporate interests to lay claim to unsettled systems. The size of this holding has has expanded twice in the last two hundred years, once from a treaty following the Second Corporate War and again following a large buyout of unclaimed sectors by some of the largest corporations operating.
These systems have put a lot of effort into maintaining a positive reputation, which is important to keep drawing the guileless and desperate into exploitative contracts. If a profit can be made then someone in the Rim will try to make it. If you’re rich there’s no finer playground, so long as you keep from letting someone slip a knife into your back.
The Federated Systems; The Core Worlds -
Earth, her colonies and her allies. These include many of the first settled worlds and stations, and the most populated ones. The Federation is often a ponderous entity, slow to react due to bureaucratic bloat and other such miseries of democratic rule. Still, the people who live here have their rights defined without the loopholes used by the Corporate Rim to make slaves of people in every way but name, and even with the glitz and glamor of the Corporate Rim, most technological innovations come out of Federated Systems.
The Polaris Fleet -
Polaris had been built to be a colony ship in the early days of human expansion, built beneath the glittering skies of Venus with the optimism of a people reaching out to foreign stars. It isn’t known why Polaris never chose to land upon the world it had been built for, those of the Fleet are silent about it, though plenty of dramas on the media feed love to speculate. What is known is this, instead of landing, Polaris chose to become a nomad, picking through the galaxy and never lingering for too long. In time, through sale, commission or recruitment, the fleet grew in size, first came Groundsheer, an asteroid miner to gather what Polaris needed, then to a collection of cargo ships to sell the excess. How large the Fleet has become is another of Polaris’ great mysteries, though how common they are at ports or how often they respond to distress signals gives some clue, perhaps. It’s said for the crew of Polaris be it their merchants or their explorers, home is wherever two of them meet; though that might just be from a drama.
The Outer Worlds -
A collection of colonized worlds that are unaffiliated with the Federated or Corporate systems. These are smaller settlements, though they often have more chartered rights for citizens than even than most Federated worlds. The Corporate Rim has spent a lot of money making these worlds out to be lawless desperate places.
——————
Shortcuts Through Nothing -
Jump Gates are not a human creation, though since the first one was discovered in the Kuiper Belt humans have managed to unlock the secrets of their construction. Gates allow for FLT travel by linking two points in space and allowing passage between them. Any two gates can be connected allowing passage so long as the two ports remain open.
Navagators and Navagation -
There’s a second way to cut through nothing, though it requires both a specialized drive as well as a Navigator, the drive to slice through space and the Navigator to pilot the ship through the not underneath. The first was an innovation of the larger Jump Drives, and the latter a mistake. A Navigator is born when a person makes contact with the unfiltered Not and survives, and this changes them. Physics in a way becomes like breathing, thoughtless, and when noticed something that can be felt and directed. Held or pushed. When in the unspace, the not space a Navigator and feel for their destination and pull their ship to the point that they wish it to be at. It’s simple really, at least any Navigator will tell you so.
Navigators themselves happened due to an accident, an exit gate was damaged during the First Corporate War causing the ship in transit to exit out into not between the here and there. When the ship was eventually found, a miracle in itself, between two different gates most of the crew had died leaving behind only a few who were changed. Most Navigators come from the Corporate Rim and exist under highly restrictive contracts, for it is the Rim that has limited rights charters and for what rights do exist they can always be signed away in a contract. For some people their need to better their lives is desperate enough they are willing to take that contract for a chance at a better life.
Life, the Universe, and Those Who Came Before -
Humans aren’t the only life out there, nor are they the only intelligent life. Though they are the most populous and the furthest spread of the known species, the basis of their expansion off Earth required already existing alien jump gates from a species and star empire believed to now be long gone. Other artifacts of this gone civilization have been found, from ancient cities still tumbling forward to structures so different than anything humans have made it is impossible to fully understand why it exists or what they were even built for. There are times even that the technology is simply incompatible with life, technology that infects humans or their machines, tools so far past what it was they were created for there is nothing they can be other than dangerous to those who try to use them or those they attempt to use themselves upon. Relic words like this are quarantined, entrance only allowed to credited scholars and archaeologists.
There is, of course, a thriving black market for ancient alien technology.
There are other species alive and well today, often better integrated within the outer worlds than other parts of the human diaspora.