Knaight
2016-06-10, 03:37 AM
Galactic Fruit
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/chainimage-nature-ocean-beaches-waves-sky-night-trees-tropical-jungle-wallpaper.jpg
The Concept
In the backwaters of the galaxy, there are a number of impoverished jungle heavy planets. Decades behind the time technologically, working with minuscule energy budgets, all too often run by planetary governments that range from unstable democracies always on the brink of a coup at best to a series of military juntas at worst. They're easy prey for the unscrupulous, and in the backwaters, as often as not that means Galactic Fruit. Even by the standards of rich worlds they have clout on a planetary scale, and in the backwaters they use it. Installing favorable leaders through military support, destabilizing local economies to establish their plantations, crushing attempts at strikes and unions with death squads, bribing public officials, and more than anything monopolizing trade routes and squeezing the local competition economically until they collapse are favorite techniques. Most of their workers tacitly accept the exploitation most of the time, grumbling but kept in line. Among the political classes, most keep their heads down and most of the rest are bought.
At both levels, some fight. Populist organizers struggle to inspire the workers to push for better treatment, some with clout try to get control away from collaborators. Deep within the jungles, armed groups overtly confront the death squads and try to deal out frontier justice. It's in these groups the PCs will be found. Can the movers and shakers of a planet root out the corruption of Galactic Fruit, or will they end up dead or exiled? Can a resistance group prevent a takeover on ground level, or will their planet fall while they all hang? Can a populist leader extract the concessions it takes to get the better deal against the multiplanetary corporation, or will they be cowed by the death squads that mysteriously disappear them? If any of these can be done, how, and at what cost? These are the questions asked for a Galactic Fruit campaign.
The Background
Getting into a planet's gravity well with a spaceship intact is hard enough. Getting back out with any amount of cargo is a feat involving extensive infrastructure at the best of times, and if individual launches need to be cheap, it just gets worse. For an interstellar society, once amidst the stars they still have to get from one to the other. So when the Age of Warp began in the 2600's, it was with an eye towards colonization, dropping off just enough on a planet for it to start building back up, with only preliminary surveys done for the planets in question. Some were settled with more to start with than others, some had better resources than others once settled, some have been around longer than others. The first few settled have begun a second wave of settling, and are collectively known as the home worlds. They're rich, they're powerful, and every one of them boasts multiple space elevators, orbital docks, sun orbiting refueling stations, and the other infrastructure needed to make travel away both intrinsically cheap and nigh impossible to monopolize. A notch below them are the trade worlds, which usually boast more limited infrastructure, but have the sort of expensive luxury goods for export that can justify an expensive launch. Here too maintaining planet side monopolies is difficult, and here too the planetary governments are too powerful to easily cow.
Then there's the backwaters. Some are just recently colonized, but most were colonized early and simply not found to have anything of enough value to the home worlds to justify further help. They get left alone to fend for themselves, and in the harsh conditions all too often fall apart. The home worlds could bootstrap them up to full colonies, but it's too expensive for them to justify. Until recently, they were the only ones to have that capability. Space travel has been progressively getting cheaper though, and along with that some groups have been making a lot of money. By 2840, the first real multiplanetary corporations got the money needed for infrastructure projects, albeit on a small scale. In 2899, Galactic Fruit was formed from several of these, and it has been growing ever since.
Setting Notables
WIP
The Equipment and Technology
WIP
The Assets of Galactic Fruit
WIP
The Opposition
WIP
New Mechanics
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/chainimage-nature-ocean-beaches-waves-sky-night-trees-tropical-jungle-wallpaper.jpg
The Concept
In the backwaters of the galaxy, there are a number of impoverished jungle heavy planets. Decades behind the time technologically, working with minuscule energy budgets, all too often run by planetary governments that range from unstable democracies always on the brink of a coup at best to a series of military juntas at worst. They're easy prey for the unscrupulous, and in the backwaters, as often as not that means Galactic Fruit. Even by the standards of rich worlds they have clout on a planetary scale, and in the backwaters they use it. Installing favorable leaders through military support, destabilizing local economies to establish their plantations, crushing attempts at strikes and unions with death squads, bribing public officials, and more than anything monopolizing trade routes and squeezing the local competition economically until they collapse are favorite techniques. Most of their workers tacitly accept the exploitation most of the time, grumbling but kept in line. Among the political classes, most keep their heads down and most of the rest are bought.
At both levels, some fight. Populist organizers struggle to inspire the workers to push for better treatment, some with clout try to get control away from collaborators. Deep within the jungles, armed groups overtly confront the death squads and try to deal out frontier justice. It's in these groups the PCs will be found. Can the movers and shakers of a planet root out the corruption of Galactic Fruit, or will they end up dead or exiled? Can a resistance group prevent a takeover on ground level, or will their planet fall while they all hang? Can a populist leader extract the concessions it takes to get the better deal against the multiplanetary corporation, or will they be cowed by the death squads that mysteriously disappear them? If any of these can be done, how, and at what cost? These are the questions asked for a Galactic Fruit campaign.
The Background
Getting into a planet's gravity well with a spaceship intact is hard enough. Getting back out with any amount of cargo is a feat involving extensive infrastructure at the best of times, and if individual launches need to be cheap, it just gets worse. For an interstellar society, once amidst the stars they still have to get from one to the other. So when the Age of Warp began in the 2600's, it was with an eye towards colonization, dropping off just enough on a planet for it to start building back up, with only preliminary surveys done for the planets in question. Some were settled with more to start with than others, some had better resources than others once settled, some have been around longer than others. The first few settled have begun a second wave of settling, and are collectively known as the home worlds. They're rich, they're powerful, and every one of them boasts multiple space elevators, orbital docks, sun orbiting refueling stations, and the other infrastructure needed to make travel away both intrinsically cheap and nigh impossible to monopolize. A notch below them are the trade worlds, which usually boast more limited infrastructure, but have the sort of expensive luxury goods for export that can justify an expensive launch. Here too maintaining planet side monopolies is difficult, and here too the planetary governments are too powerful to easily cow.
Then there's the backwaters. Some are just recently colonized, but most were colonized early and simply not found to have anything of enough value to the home worlds to justify further help. They get left alone to fend for themselves, and in the harsh conditions all too often fall apart. The home worlds could bootstrap them up to full colonies, but it's too expensive for them to justify. Until recently, they were the only ones to have that capability. Space travel has been progressively getting cheaper though, and along with that some groups have been making a lot of money. By 2840, the first real multiplanetary corporations got the money needed for infrastructure projects, albeit on a small scale. In 2899, Galactic Fruit was formed from several of these, and it has been growing ever since.
Setting Notables
WIP
The Equipment and Technology
WIP
The Assets of Galactic Fruit
WIP
The Opposition
WIP
New Mechanics