Six-Sentence Scenarios: Aldrin (Lithus Sector)

Everything you need to kick off an adventure in six sentences.
No stats. No particular System. No guru, no method, no teacher, no hassle.
Just the raw six-sentence skeleton for you to hang whatever flesh upon it you like.

This time we're looking at the planet Aldrin from the Telajan System in Lithus Sector.
Future installments can and will take place just about anywhere...

Six-Sentence Mission Briefings for Adventuring on Aldrin

1. A group of xeno-paleontologists are outfitting a mission to the South Pole. Satellite surveys have indicated that there is a large artificial structure deep within the ring of volcanoes at the pole. A preliminary team sent back some incredible samples. Half of them believe it is a Precursor-site. Despite the carvings and markings on the fragments so far recovered not matching anything heretofore attributed to the Pylon-Builders. Could this be evidence of a second Precursor-species?
2. The Masqued Doge of Kalemtrine-Commune has decreed vendetta against all Corprist personnel who remain within his domain after sunset today. That gives Merellon agents and operatives roughly 42 hours to get everyone out. Not everyone wants to go. Armed Response Teams are being readied for a few quick extractions. The other Aerostat-Communes are watching everything. Your job is to make a thorough mess of this effort, as per orders from the chief of counter-corporate espionage.
3. Dome Five has gone offline. All communications are down. This undersea city-state was founded as a scientific utopia devoted to the exploration of the deep-water ecologies of Aldrin. They were fiercely independent and had a mutual-protection pact with two of the larger, more prominent nanoflagellate-fleets. Now the two fleets are scrambling to to find out what happened, but they cannot send in any of their own operatives without violating their respective agreements. Looks like a job for a team of independent contractors.
4. A huge cyst-like bulge of hyper-coral has formed in the Dog Leg Channel off the coast of Samarkis Isle, a major offworld tourist-spot. The object is growing rapidly. Already it is disrupting air traffic in the area and all Aerostat-Communes within a ten mile radius are evacuating. Evidence of a closed-loop nanological sub-system has been reliably confirmed. It is a self-directed starship of some unidentified type. It's leaving.
5. Each year, at either solstice, there is a great race of mat-skippers and similar vehicles on Aldrin. The race begins at Lower Uthrigon, per tradition, and proceeds along a different route each time. The competition is intense and carries a lot of offworld ratings. More than half of all competitors are offworlders. While enjoying lunch with some friends you witness a botched mugging. Only it wasn't really a mugging--the victim was a courier working for the Great Race and you are now in possession of a sealed packet that may or may not have the next race's course contained within it.
6. A small company of young, upstart Achernarians are looking to set-up an exotic bivalve ranching operation somewhere in the outback of Aldrin. There's no regulatory red-tape to stop them. But one of the local busy-bodies, a freelance blogger based out of Duriss-Kadricky Platform in the Sea of Giskay, has taken an interest in this project. A very unwelcome interest. The Achernarians would like for the blogger to go away. Quietly, if possible.

Intro to Lithus (Sector/System/Planet)  |  Guide to Lithus Sector  |  Map of Lithus Sector
Review of Lithus Sector Series at FATEsf

Lithus Sector: Telajan-D (Ju-Hai)

Telajan (Coord.: 06.01)
Part One: System Overview
Part Two: Inner Zone
Part Three: The Planets
     A) Aldrin
     B) Mattigar
     C) Shelg
     D1) Ju-Hai
     D2) Molat
     E) Saxo-Mara
Part Four: Outer Zone
Part Five: Past, Present, Future Imperfect (Telajan)

The planets within the Habitable Zone of the Telajan system have been modified and manipulated on a planetary scale, but to what end, what purpose?

Ju-Hai

Largest of the planets within the Telajan Habitable Zone, Ju-Hai is owned by the Merellon Corporation, at least legally. They hold all Title and Claim to this planet, despite continual challenges by various 'interested parties,' and those who would contest their right to this world in the courts, any courts. Merellon Corp employs an incredibly sophisticated and hierarchically regimented cadre of legal staff larger than some empire's standing armies, and better armed.

Merellon Corp maintains a massive collapsed-durinium-clad arcofort on Lithus Prime just to deal with the ongoing legal turmoil surrounding Ju-Hai and the rest of the Telajan system.

Gaining access to Ju-Hai requires passing through Merellon CorpSec protocols and an inspection that has been immortalized in Lpop music for its overly-diligent invasiveness. No matter how much the PR Teams attempt to soften the impression made by the In-Transit Inspectory (ITI), some fresh new vidiot comes out with a catchy new song lambasting yet another lapse or failure, blowing it all out of proportion and heaping scorn and ridicule upon Merellon Corp. The initial efforts to suppress or drown-out such agitpop efforts only made them all the more popular and successful. Current official policy is to just ignore it all in the hopes that it will just go away once people get bored or the next fad comes along. But it does not go away. If anything the agitpop songdramas, memejingles and rhymeries have proliferated.

Plenty of offworlders still manage to pass the entry protocols (bribery is notoriously unreliable, not recommended and quite steep if you can even locate someone useful who will accept a little well-intentioned graft). Imports are rigorously monitored, checked and re-checked and the list of prohibited substances and cargoes is constantly being upgraded and revised every ten minutes. Non-Corprist interests and businesses have a difficult time navigating the deliberately complicated and ever-changing regulations, mandates, special orders and so forth. Very few non-sponsored or non-subsidized traders can afford to attempt to deal with this planet. Those who do subscribe to the Merellon Trade Network or who mount Merellon Transponders on their ships find that much of the stifling red tape fades away with one click.

Life on Ju-Hai

Ju-Hai is slightly larger than Earth and covered by many seas broken-up by myriads of rocky, mountainous landmasses. Each major land mass is divided into a number of Independent Satrapies. Legally, technically each of these divisions are free to pursue their own agendas, but in reality they are all clients of Merellon Corp. The charters and constitutions of these 'Independent' Satrapies are cynical shams filled with double-talk and nested word-labyrinths of gibberish calculated to prevent anyone outside of the Merellon Legal Department from ever sorting any of it out, and even they require extensive AI-assistance to keep track of all the subtle, inter-textual boobytraps and dead-ends.

A few of the Satrapies have begun to pull away from the Council of Founders, which is the direct management unit under the Atmosphereic Control Authority (ACA) and the Orbital Defense Mandate (ODM) both of which are directly beneath the Ju-Hai committee of the Telajan Project that reports directly to the Lithus Sector Oversight Committee of the Merellon Corp's Sub-Board. Of course, none of the Satrapies currently have the means to really ever break away from Merellon control. They carry far too much debt and are burdened with incredibly onerous penalty clauses, specified transition procedures and a host of sub-clauses and riders to their Charters that make such efforts all but doomed.

But in the face of such entrenched regulatory cynicism there has arisen a host of creative reactions and responses. Those who would call for violent revolution have been remanded to corporate jurisdiction long ago. Extreme rendition truly means something dire and in most cases quite irreversible when you're dealing with a Sector-spanning Megacorp. But such things have only strengthened the resolve, the ingenuity and the determination of a growing caste of increasingly legally-adept practitioners of contra-corporate activity. Engaging, highly netcast episodes of incredibly elaborate forms of civil disobedience have rapidly become not only a populist artform imitated elsewhere (especially within the Aerostat Communes of Aldrin), but have quickly become the number two export and a major part of Ju-Hai's economy.

Merellon Corp now faces something of an existential crisis as they must manage the on-going anti-Corprist activities of the various cells and covies of insurrectional artists, politimpressionists, spontaneos, vote-mobs, and other such things even as all manner of new, feral political movements appear, make their mark and fade or explode into obscurity until revived or remodeled by successors and others.

The political ecology of Ju-Hai has transcended everything else. Subversion has become the norm. Flouting the rules and regs is the established way of doing things. And this is troubling to the CorpSec Overseers who fear that this might eventually lead to a total crash of the rigid structures imposed upon the Satrapies.

Outsiders, especially the more idealistic and radicalized fan-bases of the various Ju-Hai based movements, have been flooding into the pre-fab cities along the coasts and high up in the mountains. Every CorpRetreat and SpaPlex has been overrun by deliberately dirty students, creed-chanters, illicit dance-troupes, mocking clowns, and worse. Squatters, Freegetters, DropOuts, DropIns, and a host of other even more obscure, weird and marginalized sects, parties, non-govs and the like have made Ju-Hai their preferred target destination. Tourist agencies make pilgrimages and even immigration incredibly affordable and accessible. Several competing Missions have taken to sponsoring Fellow Travelers, in some cases going so far as to smuggle in a few of their brethren officially classified as undesirable, at least according to the tabloids and newsfeeds.

The one thing that sets Ju-Hai apart from every other revolution is the deeply ingrained non-violent ethic at the heart of it all. Any schlub can lob a bomb, but who can write a one act play that brings a totalitarian regime sixty-two lightyears away to come crashing to its knees? On Ju-Hai this is not a rhetorical question.

Six Scenarios for Adventuring on Ju-Hai

1. Appleseed Blue is a fresh young start-up that focuses on providing reliable and untraceable immigration to Ju-Hai for any self-styled revolutionist, impressario of social change, or whatever. They charge a steep price due to all the trouble it takes to circumvent the local protocols and counter-measures. A lot of their clientele finance their excursions through FreeBanks, but an increasing number of them use the FinServ Bureau of various private lenders who are offering extremely generous rates, often interest free. Nine out of ten of these operations are part of a holding company under the control of the Merellon Corp. A recent expose revealed some of these sorts of connections, but since the program was sponsored by a Merellon-subsidiary PR firm, no one takes it seriously. What didn't make it into the expose is that Appleseed Blue is also a deep subsidiary of Merellon Corp. That's how they have managed to build-up such an impeccable record in so short a time. A smaller, tramp carrier service that only leases a few de-listed or discontinued small-craft has lodged a complaint. Unfortunately for them, someone within the byzantine hierarchy of Merellon has noted their objections and panicked. A contract for disposable mercenaries was rushed through, ostensibly to 'teach these upstarts a lesson in manners.' The casual trashing of the carrier's offices got out of hand. Two mercs were liquidated and one of the work orders did not self-dissolve properly. Now the small carrier is looking to hire-on some protection for their ships. Your team could be hired as the initial muscleheads, the follow-ups, or maybe you'd prefer to take up arms on behalf of the scrappy little carrier facing down the corporate behemoth. There might even be a dramacast possible, or some sort of realitycast if you jump on the opportunity before someone else does.
2. A group of red-tagged Aerostatists from Aldrin have slipped past the PolDroids in one Satrapy to take temporary refuge in another one. They came here to make recordings and to soak up the unique atmosphere of the on-going struggle here on Ju-Hai with the plan to take it all back to lend verisimilitude and an extravagant, fresh new energy to their own Mardi Gras-esque celebrations. They managed to get more than they counted on and are now on the infamous Dump/Detain/Deport list of enemies of the Ju-Hai state...even though technically there is no overall Ju-Hai state (a mere technicality). These excitable students and their instructors are desperately looking for some way to get word out or to find asylum or passage offworld. Whatever they saw--and recorded--seems to be extremely inflammatory. Are you up to the task of getting them offworld with their data intact?
3. Jack came to Ju-Hai to stir things up once and for all. The very notion of a non-violent protest makes him sick. Physically ill. It's the illicit dolphin-hacked wetware he implemented back at that unlisted clinic on Mattagar. The wetware is malfunctioning, possibly. Or maybe Jack is the pawn of some sinister cabal of malcontents who wish to see Ju-Hai enveloped in flames and madness and war. Whichever might be the case, Jack has begun to make an example of the disgusting peaceniks. They've found three bodies so far. Forensic Psychometrists predict there are at least five more to be uncovered and that the kill-spree is far from over. Local Authorities have gotten too used to petty squabbles and word-fights. They have decided to call in outside experts on violent crime. That'd be you. They want this miscreant found and stopped immediately. Especially as a major holiday is coming up and this psychokiller is upping the ante with each victim.
4. An ambitious young clone from Tregio (00.03) has hired your team as personal Security. She has brought you all to Ju-Hai to help facilitate a project that so far only three people know about. At first you didn't much mind the whole 'Need-To-Know' crap, that kind of thing is just SOP when working with Corprist clients and contracts. But that was before a hit-squad of Parthenogens tried to take you all out with a rather messy IED at the Tregio Sub Port. Then a suicide bomb-clone took out a substantial section of the hull in your part of the transport enroute to Ju-Hai. Maybe it's time you knew what was going on. Yeah. Right. Knowing isn't all it's cracked up to be. Especially when you find out that you're expected to run interference and physical security for a mad woman who is planning to found a New City in the middle of nowhere where there is a glitch in the boundary-marker sub-routines and a small patch of Ju-Hai is legally outside the purview of Merellon Corp. It's a technicality. Pretty damned thin. But someone somewhere is willing to go to extreme measures to stop her. You can walk away, as per the standard clause in your contract...but will you?
5. A virulent and hyper-addictive morphogenic drug has just started popping-up along the more fashionable Happenings and other impromptu events in six widely separated Satrapies at the same time. Merellon CorpSec cannot move against what they suspect as a foreign investor trying to poison the well due to internal conflicts and considerations. They require a discrete, professional Solution to the matter in the next 15 hours. You'll get LuxClass travel arranged both ways, a catering robot and a direct holoLink Rep to help facilitate communications with some very high-level Merellon Execs who wish to remain unverified. The chain of evidence available, such as was provided to you from the CorpSec team, points to the Dolphin Ghettoes under Lascalla, the Southern-most Satrapy and a hot-bed for chemo-separtists. Of course the time-stamps are all smudged, demoted or missing. Everything you've been told is suspect. Potentially untrue or worse, at least according to the dolphin who is Nmailing you. They claim that you're being set-up. Something about provoking an incident. Who do you trust? What do you want to do now that you're on site, on planet?
6. Three hundred years of isolation and info-suppression just ended last Tuesday. The CorpSec firewalls breached. There has been a blacked-out xeno-archaeological dig on Ju-Hai with one of the richest arrays of Precursor relics ever found. All hell is breaking loose as all the academics are filing complaints, and quite a few tomb-poachers have dropped everything to jump all over this site while there is some measure of chaos and jurisdictional indeterminancy. The Xeno-Arc Department of the University of Kaaldu has acted precipitously in sending out a 'Neutral Intervention Team' to take stock of the files, records, and site disposition immediately. Merellon Corp PR is trying to smooth things over, but they've been deeply hacked, possibly by a clandestine team operating from within the blacked-out site itself. Private Collectors are hiring unscrupulous Retrievers to go in and grab what is easily made away with, while every institution with even a modest pretension to xenological interest is calling for sanctions, urging a total repeal of Merellon's ownership of Ju-Hai and all manner of even more drastic measures. Forty-three families through-out the Lithus Sector have declared Vendetta upon Merellon Corp and its Board and Subsidiaries in the name of each one of their members who they believe had their careers ruined or lives cut short by Merellon's duplicity and illegal/unethical restriction on this site. Letters of Marque targeting Merellon Corp holdings or properties are being issued by several small opportunistic principalities. Matters are spinning wildly out of control. Violence has broken out on-site. You can guarantee that you are not the only ones running around with guns and lots of unanswered questions. 

Guide to Lithus Sector (Links)  |  Intro to Lithus Sector  |   Map of Lithus Sector

Rogue Space Resources

Telajan C: Shelg

Telajan (Coord.: 06.01)
Part One: System Overview
Part Two: Inner Zone
Part Three: The Planets
     A) Aldrin
     B) Mattigar
     C) Shelg
     D1) Ju-Hai
     D2) Molat
     E) Saxo-Mara
Part Four: Outer Zone
Part Five: Past, Present, Future Imperfect (Telajan)

 The planets within the Habitable Zone of the Telajan system have been deliberately arranged as part of someone's solar-system-scale garden, but who reshaped these worlds and why?

Shelg

The smallest planet in the Telajan system, Shelg occupies an uneasy position between the placid, gentle inner planets Aldrin and Mattigar, and the more active, dynamic outer planets Ju-Hai and Saxo-Mara.

Shelg has no moon. The algae-rich seas are nearly gelatinous, the only tides are those generated by sub-sea volcanism and tectonic shifting. The atmosphere is breathable, but extremely humid and packed with carbon dioxide to the very threshold of human-acceptable limits.

There are no plants growing above the sloppy, muddy surface of this world. All the plants on Shelg are rhizomatically-linked into a massively parallel network of inter-connected and intertwined roots. The overlapping layers of root-tendrils go down to the very bedrock and in some cases they extend into fissures within the bedrock to continue downwards even farther. So far no one has been able to reliably trace just how deep the roots do in fact extend. Three different expeditions to Shelg have attempted to map-out the pseudo-synapses of the root-network or to trace the extent of the roots, but none have survived past one day on this world (rotational day=36 standard hours).

Most forms of AI, especially the math-based/oriented machine intelligences common to interplanetary vessels and other such mechanisms experience a severe form of feed-back effect upon reaching a point roughly three planetary diameters out from Shelg. Even hardened military-industrial grade AI have been known to crash. There are no clues as to what is behind this effect at this time. all forms of augment Wetware also experience this nullification effect. Whatever is doing this warrants study. Perhaps someone will finance a primitively-equipped mission to Shelg one of these days...if only anyone could identify a likely looking spot to drop-off such a team...

Life on Shelg

There is no above-ground plant-life on Shelg. Everything is below the level of dense, nutrient-rich mud. In place of herbivores, there are quite a number of mudskippers, lungfish and other such animals, as well as vast mycological and bacteriological colony-forms that live out their lives entirely within the thin muddy layer that provides a sort of protective sheathe over the vast root-networks. The average depth of the mud is approximately 10 to 60 feet, with a few areas, mostly along the coastlines, being as shallow as 1-10' deep in spots, but these areas are almost always also somewhat covered by a secondary layer of murky water that tends to make them exceptionally treacherous to normal modes of ground travel.

It is not wise to try to walk about on Shelg without personal flotation systems, stilts or a mech-walker frame. Indeed, with the discovery of the pirahna-like swarmers and the mudgators reported by the last mission to Shelg from Kaaldu's College of BioDiversity, it is a good idea to make use of armored rafts, armored airboats, or grav-skiffs and avoid contact with the mud altogether.

When it is not raining, it is drizzling or sleeting when a cold front moves in. Visibility on Shelg is extremely hampered by all the mist, fog and near-perpetual rains. Weather on Shelg is driven by upwelling hot-spots in the seas where sub-sea volcanoes produce fluctuating columns of warm water. The average period without rainfall tends to be less than ten minutes once every day in the equatorial zones, twice that in the polar regions. Climatology on Shelg is considered to be artificially modulated according to prevailing theories, but no one has found the means by which it is being manipulated or regulated. Again, no one knows where to send an expedition in order to find out.

Automated aerial recon-drones were released into the upper atmosphere of Shelg on four different occasions. All of those systems flatlined upon deployment. To this day the drones float above the thunderclouds, inert and useless.

Six Scenarios for Adventuring on Shelg

1. The Melinda-Maru crashed along the 24th parallel on Shelg. The owners-of-record want to salvage the contents of the ship. They have written-off the crew and already disbursed death benefits. There's no ticket home for any survivors; they're effectively non-persons now, thanks to standard corporate policy. Your team has been contracted to assist with the salvage operation. There are Corprist PR types as well as some hazed-out R&D types included in the mission-crew. There is no fraternization allowed, officially. Unofficially, you've gotten to meet a few of the PR types. They're lousy at gambling. They're also all clones. Disposable Mission-Objective Clone Employees, by the RFIDcodes. The Salvage rig is about to be dropped into place. Three Diameters out. Do you really want to go down to Shelg?
2. A Dumbcam was retrieved from Shelg by a team of students from one of the socialized secondary schools on Kaaldu as part of an otherwise innocuous class competition. They posted the images recovered from Shelg. There were hominids of some sort spotted in three of the photostills. They were engaged in what could only be some sort of hunting ritual. They were in the process of surrounding a human that has since been identified as Georgina J. Randolph, a grad-student at the College of Biodiversity at Kaaldu. She was a member of the Third Expedition to Shelg. that team was reported lost six years ago.
3. Ruben Aniard of Tregio (00.03) has invented a 'Closed-Loop Data-Shield' that he wants to test-out by sending a group of volunteers to Shelg. If the new systems work properly, then there might be a way to get past the barrier that crashes AIs. Of course, if the systems fail...you'll have to bring back whatever telemetry or other data you can salvage with you, assuming the recovery pod works as well. It is a refurbished and stripped-down chassis gutted from an ancient Belter-pod, given a flexform aeroshell and completely manual controls. If it doesn't blow up, it ought to make it back out. This job does offer hazard pay up front.
4. A group of Achernarian investors have begun to offer special weekend getaway tour packages to certain very isolated islands in the Southern Hemisphere of Shelg. This offer is only ever extended to a highly select clientele and comes at an exorbitant price. One of the potential clients contacted by the Achernarians is an undercover operative for a team of interstellar crime-fighters recently deported from Lithus Prime. This person has contacted your team for assistance in investigating just how the Achernarians are getting down onto the surface of Shelg and back again with no apparent difficulties. The agent has accepted the offer and registered for a group-hunting expedition. If you accept the offer, your team is expected to accompany the agent disguised as exotic game hunters.
5. A Fourth Expedition to Shelg is currently being organized by an Exploratory Committee on Kaaldu (03.04). The Committee is accepting applications and try-outs. Do you have what it takes? Can you convince the Committee?
6. Captain Reynaldo of the Topaz Rogue comes up to your table at Humphrey's Cafe Algerian at Port White House on Layer Seven in orbit around Donthir (07.02) and drops dead from seventeen expertly grouped microburns through his midsection, obviously the work of Imperial Calmers. He also drops a bundled package. Inside is a weird tuber. It's a node taken from the root-networks on Shelg. The file attached refers to the thing as a 'mandrake,' and there are three diagnostic and analysis reports on the flimsidrive. This is the real thing. What would you like to do now?

Guide to Lithus Sector (Links)  |  Intro to Lithus Sector  |   Map of Lithus Sector

Rogue Space Resources

Telajan B: Mattigar

Telajan (Coord.: 06.01)
Part One: System Overview
Part Two: Inner Zone
Part Three: The Planets
     A) Aldrin
     B) Mattigar
     C) Shelg
     D1) Ju-Hai
     D2) Molat
     E) Saxo-Mara
Part Four: Outer Zone
Part Five: Past, Present, Future Imperfect (Telajan)

The Telajan system has five planets and one moon. No debris belts, no asteroids, no dust, ice or gas intrudes upon the Habitable Zone (HZ) more than a few hundred miles past the Pylons. The Pylons are mysterious, Precursor-built structures that manage and maintain the hyperactive and volatile regions of the Inner and Outer Zones. The Habitable Zone is a deliberate construct, an arranged garden, but is it still under conscious control or just running on automatic?

Mattigar

Slightly larger than Aldrin, Mattigar is cooler, calmer, and much less populated than its neighbors. The turquoise seas of this world are far shallower than they at first appear, with only four known vents extending deeper than the smoothly undulating sea-bed that is rarely more than 3,000 feet deep. The majority of the land-masses of Mattigar fit into one complexly-braided archipelago noteworthy for being built-up upon the fractured and heavily eroded and overgrown basaltic remains of now extinct volcanoes. This is a tectonically stable world. The lingering heat locked away in its core is regulated by the four vents, elaborate labyrinth-like passages the extend down through the crust to the hot, magma-rich regions deep within the planet. The vents curl, wind and wrap themselves into complex knot-like formations, giving them something of an almost organic aspect, yet for all intents and purposes they were most likely formed through some sort of controlled erosion process unlike anything seen before on any other world.

Mattigar has no moon, only a thin ring of icy particles and dust. The composition of elements within the ring of Mattigar corresponds almost exactly with the proportions of elements to be found within a normative (Pre-Transition) human body. A number of wild theories have been put forth regarding this peculiar anomaly. So far no one has come up with any hard data to back-up or confirm any particular theory. Of course, that also means no one has effectively dis-proven much of anything either. While many theorists, pundits, cranks and would-be demagogues spout all manner of gibberish and crapulous creeds inspired by the Mysteries of Mattigar, few ever go there. The Dolphins have a tendency to not take them seriously and often take great pleasure in mocking them publicly. Several notorious cult-leaders ended their careers in flames, bloodshed and class-action litigation while attempting to stake out a claim to Mattigar. While it is not off-limits by any means, it remains a dusky, unplucked jewel seemingly forever out of the reach of the more cautiously unscrupulous members of the spiritual community. Missionaries have a way of not lasting more than a week on Mattigar.

Life on Mattigar

Interestingly, there are no coral reefs within the milky-blue seas of Mattigar. No ice at the poles. Temperatures rarely budge beyond a cool 60 degrees Fahrenheit. And the weather is exceptionally gentle, with a short rainy season every three months that lasts for one or two nights. The rains of Mattigar are soft, never windy, and any lightning tends to remain at a high altitude, often producing pastel aurora in the upper atmosphere that give the rains a colorful, fairy-tale aspect that has captivated poets and children alike for centuries.

The predominant native life-forms on Mattigar tend to be mosses, ferns and lichens. The carboniferous mosses are most numerous, having developed hundreds of aquatic varieties unique to this world. Any structure that has been erected upon Mattigar has quickly been encrusted with dozens of colorful lichens. And yes, there are aquatic lichens as well.

Ferns fill the niches usually dominated by grasses and trees. Wonderfully diverse clusters of ferns form stands, copses and groves, and in some cases have formed densely-packed old growth 'forests' of sorts. Other types of ferns have developed a form of pseudo-mangrove swamps along the low-lying regions of some of the more equatorial islands. These fern-sloughs are home to hundreds of gaudily-frilled slugs, snails and dozens of wildly varying Pseudo-Meganeura; iridescent dragonfly-like insects that are the apex predators of Mattigar. It should be noted that almost all of the slugs and similar species are nearly always caught-up within a complex symbiosis with one or another species of lichen, moss or fern. These creatures are not completely animals, nor are they exactly plants, but occupy a place in-between. Xeno-biologists have been studying these species for decades and so far no one has completely unlocked the puzzle of how these animal/plant hybrids developed. The more this matter is investigated, the more it appears to have multiple, simultaneous, often contradictory answers. More than one xeno-biologist has succumbed to a professional  obsession with life on Mattigar.

Mattigar hosts hundreds of small scientific enclaves, lab-camps and the like. Most are confined to the islands of the Mega-Archipelago. They are overseen by the Peer Review Authority based in New Galapagos. Corprist-backed expeditions and missions to Mattigar are allowed, however they operate under much more strict rules and regulation than academically-aligned efforts. The Corprist-sponsors often balk at having all their communications monitored, all their findings re-evaluated by independent third-parties, and other such requirements, making any such effort on Mattigar more of a PR-stunt or goodwill gesture than anything serious. All Corprik-types, 'employees,' 'investors,' or other so-called 'stake-holders,' must register before entering the airspace of Mattigar or be subject to immediate termination by disassemblers. Those that do register properly are restricted to those islands noted in red on the public access atlas. Straying outside the prescribed zones results in immediate disassembly. Merellon Corp has tried to re-gain some measure of public trust on Mattigar, but their efforts have been continually undermined and sabotaged by out-system do-goodniks and other idealists, agitators and 'freedom fighters.' It is a costly on-going effort. Many wonder why the Corprists bother. Perhaps they are caught-up in the Mysteries of Mattigar just like everyone else?

Wide swaths of the Mega-Archipelago are open to investigation. Everything else is under the aegis of the Dolphins. The Dolphins will gladly receive delegates, embassies, tribute, even sycophants or fans, so much so that they have had a huge underwater globe-city built at the base of a majestic seven-sided tower of polybonded basalt that rises above the sluggish wavelets of the Colo-Cyprian Sea over three miles high. Few supplicants or petitioners ever make it past the intricate, ever-shifting maze-like interior of this structure. The Dolphins seem to like it that way.

Six Scenario Seeds for Adventuring on Mattigar

1. Miranda has come to Mattigar on a mission. She has uncovered a disturbing bit of information while digging through the recently unsealed stacks of the Archive of Public Welfare. She just dodged a gene-stinger (autonomous gene-locked kill-drone). Someone must be concerned about what the young girl thinks she knows. She found your pricetag on the localnet. She wants to option your team for some protection.
2. For the last two years rumors of a 'Lost Pod-ship' have been circulating around the seedy underbelly of New Galapagos. For the most part it has been so much loose gossip or the game of bored mercenaries, or so pretty much everyone thought. The coordinates to a site well outside the Red Zone just downloaded to all your team's accounts. A Merellon Rep wants to discuss a few murky dronecam images. This is a high discretion operation they are offering your team. Refusal will result in summary deportation; that's how these Corprik-types like to operate. Who knows, maybe they have discovered a missing Pod Ship from the old Cetacean Wars. You were getting bored anyhow...
3. A Corprik-PR cruise has gone astray, veering out dangerously close to the limits of the Red Zone. The Agent that has contacted your team claims it is deliberate sabotage. Some outworld wackjob has hijacked the slowfoil cruise-ship and intends to liquidate some fairly high-level V.I.P.s by forcibly taking them over the line to be disassembled, scrambling their personal nodes past recovery, setting them back considerably, especially since some of those V.I.P.s are old enough that they still distrust the now ubiquitous back-up tech. She will provide your team with cutting edge quick-skitter airfoils, so you can reach the cruise-ship before it goes across the line. You're to eliminate the wrong-doers if necessary, redirect the ship if possible, but above all rescue the Corprik V.I.P.s trapped on the ship. If you are unsuccessful, you'll most likely get disassembled. If you escape without saving the V.I.P.s, you can rest assured that you will become the PR-agent's full-time personal project...
4. A bathysphere module compiled from schematics and plans for similar vessels used to explore the upper atmospheric layers of Gas Giants has been suspended over the Vent, across from the Dolphin's Spike in the Colo-Cyprian Sea. It took several years of intense negotiations, but finally, an expedition is about to be allowed to descend into the Vent. Merellon Corp has invested heavily in this effort. It might not have even been possible without their backing. Now, on the eve of the Great Descent, agitators have abducted some of the scientific crew slated for this mission. They were taken from within a high security compound. The Chief of CorpSec is missing, presumed detained. The Oversight Committee has opted to bring in some outside talent to get things sorted out. There is evidence that this might have been an inside job. There is also evidence that it might be corporate espionage on the part of a rival Corp. Your team could be hired-on as the outside talent, work for the rival corp as agents provocateurs, be among the anti-Corprist abductors, or maybe you've been contacted deniably/discretely by the Chief who is now in disrepute in order to salvage his reputation or just deliver him from his abductors...and then there is the option that your team might be the back-up crew for the Bathysphere...
5. A Dolphin, K'tik-tik-Ba, has hired your team to escort it to a special function in New Galapagos. High level negotiations with ZanderLal GMBH. Your brief is to keep things as far off the radar of Merellon Corp as possible. The Dophin's Sec-Team did a very good background check on your team, however the Sec-Team opted to use your team despite your previous associations with Merellon Corp. Perhaps you are not the only ones with conflicted loyalties. There is a leak in the info-stream, and the Sec-Team is blaming your team. Who is on what side? What is this Dolphin Agent up to, really? Why did you get picked? Where is this all going?
6. A small group of scientifically-minded utopists from Aldrin are in New Galapagos petitioning the Dolphins to establish an aerostat-commune here on Mattigar. Who'd have a problem with that? Apparently someone vicious. Someone who likes to use Conversion Protocol Wetware to slowly torture their victims to death by incrementally altering their blood into an exotic fluorine-based compound. Two petitioners have died so far. Will you help them?

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Telajan-A: Aldrin (Lithus Sector)

Telajan (Coord.: 06.01)
Part One: System Overview
Part Two: Inner Zone
Part Three: The Planets
     A) Aldrin
     B) Mattigar
     C) Shelg
     D1) Ju-Hai
     D2) Molat
     E) Saxo-Mara
Part Four: Outer Zone
Part Five: Past, Present, Future Imperfect (Telajan)

The Telajan system has five planets and one moon. No debris belts, no asteroids, no dust, ice or gas intrudes upon the Habitable Zone (HZ) more than a few hundred miles past the Pylons. The Pylons are mysterious, Precursor-built structures that manage and maintain the hyperactive and volatile regions of the Inner and Outer Zones.

Aldrin

Aldrin, is the inner-most planetary body of the system. It is a rocky, warm and wet planet roughly two-thirds the size of Old Earth. The atmosphere and much of the planet's intrinsic ecology was radically altered to conform to a more human-friendly environment approximately 50,000 years ago, according to geological and other evidence.

Aldrin has a day-span of 72 standard hours and an orbital-year that runs to 1,094.8 days. It has no moon, but the night skies are famous for aurora and high altitude electrical storms.

Two-thirds of the surface area of Aldrin is dominated by numerous seas and vast lagoons. Coral atolls and similar submerged substrates account for the majority of all the dry land protruding above Sea Level, with the rest being the product of gigantic undersea volcanoes and in one region the displacement of a continental shelf by what appears to have been a drastic impact more than 75,000 years ago. This massive impact was very likely an extinction level event and shifted Aldrin three degrees off of its original axis or rotation. The Precursors apparently did not re-adjust this deviation for whatever reasons.

The atmosphere of Aldrin is rich with oxygen. So much so that metals tend to oxidize very rapidly. Open flames are extremely difficult to control, often exploding or erupting into shimmering sheets of fast-burning plasma that can spread for hundreds of feet before stalling-out as they consume the available oxygen more  rapidly than it can be drawn in from the surrounding air. A simple spark can cause a terrible explosion. Sealed-systems are standard protocol and most energy weapons or those employing any form of combustion (such as most non-electric slug-throwers) are discouraged. Not banned. Just discouraged. those who insist on using such things here tend to eliminate themselves soon enough so no law or regulation is deemed necessary by the local authorities.

Life on Aldrin

The vast majority of life-forms on Aldrin are of the Protist variety. Aldrin boasts thousands of diverse communities of eukaryotic microorganisms. In fact there have been no non-Protist life-forms in evidence within the established ecology of Aldrin for nearly 50,000 years. The dominant life-form on Aldrin are Plankton, Algae and Cyanobacteria. Vast mats of algae are so commonplace floating upon the seas of Aldrin that it is possible for certain surface-dwelling diatomoids to migrate all the way around the world without ever falling into the water below the mats. 

The densely-packed mats also make traditional forms of aquatic travel incredibly difficult if not impossible, necessitating the development of a number of alternatives, one of the most popular being ultralight Buzzers and a wide array of elegantly decorated aerostats, many of which have gathered together to form linked and tethered composite-communities floating peacefully above the placid green seas of Aldrin. Each community strives to make their respective cluster ever more baroque, stylish or whimsical than their rivals or neighbors. For some of these communities this competition replaces warfare, for others it has sparked wars driven by aesthetic or artistic claims. Originality is much prized within the aerostat communes of Aldrin, but gaudiness will do, especially if it is properly over-gilded, encrusted, layered and or adorned enough...and it is never quite enough...


Beneath the algal mats the seas tend to be mostly shallow, except for a band of steep-walled trenches and underwater canyons running along the planet's original equator. The most active undersea volcanoes tend to be clustered at the poles, and there are indications (unconfirmed as yet) that Precursor mechanisms may be involved in this peculiar distribution. There are several undersea communities consisting of six major domed city-states (most perched on the lip of the deepest trenches or at the peak of extreme undersea mountains), hundreds of small-scale bubble-homes caught-up in the dangling forests underneath the largest mats, and uncountable clouds of nomadic nanoflagellate fleets that tend to be crewed by anarchistic tribes and clans who refuse to cooperate with outsiders on general principles.

Three of the major Domed City-States have extended their dominions deep into the crust of Aldrin by use of hyper-atomic drilling rigs that have established thousands of galleries that extend for miles well beyond the recognized political boundaries of these states, which has led to some political turmoil, tensions and a lot of finger-waving and tongue-wagging, along with the usual calls to action, threats of war, etc. So far this remains at the level of heated discussions, press releases or auto-statements, and drama, which is great for politicians and publishers alike.

There is no central authority on Aldrin, though the Merellon Corporation has a strong presence within the three Domed City-States that claim to not be engaged in extensive crustal excavation efforts. There is evidence that the Corprik PR Teams from Merellon are hard at work covering-up any such efforts within these three domains, but no one has any idea what they might have to gain by such a thing. Merellon Reps and agents have set-up offices and cubicle-farms within two-thirds of the registered communities of Aldrin, but they remain banned from entering the nanoflagellate fleets and their numbers are severely restricted by the aerostat-communes, who require all Corporate agents to register as such and to openly wear appropriate identification as a Corprist. sometimes this is a simple badge or hologlyph, other times it is a ridiculous costume or some other get-up calculated to be both uncomfortable and humiliating. Corprists do not have the usual protections as real citizens within the aerostat-communes. Usually such a situation would lead to a robust market for mercenaries, however due to a quirk of local law, anyone receiving any compensation from a Corporation is considered to have relinquished their independence, and thus forfeiting their rights as a free citizen or guest. The court are clogged with a constant barrage of test-cases, claims and counter-claims both by Corprist shills and Contra-Corprist ideologues.

Six Scenario Seeds for Adventures on Aldrin

1. Off-planet interests have been pumping credit and resources into the tourist economy of the few Aerostat-Communes that have accepted this infusion of outside-wealth and recognition. A local blogger has uncovered what appears to be a trail leading back to holding companies and other fictive entities that might be a cover for Merellon operatives engaged in consciously, maliciously compromising the integrity of these Aerostat-Communes by making them fail their culture's predominant tenet of remaining independent of all Corprist ties. If this is true...it could lead to all sorts of wide-spread hostilities, repercussions and worse, which is why there are those who would do anything to keep this quiet, suppress the truth, eliminate the evidence, as well as other parties who would be inclined to break the story as wide as possible, get the truth out there, regardless of what it might do to those caught up in this tangled web of intrigue. 
2. The Ruthenium Throne of the Clonal Dynasty of LomidastraIII was brought to Aldrin more than a thousand years ago, where it was either sealed away in a deep vault or lost at sea in the course of a terrible battle. rumors and tales regarding the Throne still circulate among the gullible and the greedy across the Sector. It is a notorious, infamous treasure that has cost hundreds of would-be treasure-seekers their fortunes, and sometimes their lives. Professor-Prelate Dulinda Glarra of the Third Datatorial Emirate Enclave of Kaaldu (03.04) is regarded as one of the pre-eminent authorities and experts on the Clonastic Dynasties of LonidastraIII. Her chief rival, and the one other scholar who may have known just a little more about the subject has gone missing. Suddenly. Suspiciously. Professor-Prelate Glarra has been provisionally cleared of wrong-doing in the matter, for now, pending any results of the ongoing investigation. But she's not the sort to just sit back and wait to see what will happen. Professor-Prelate Garra has arrived at Duriss-Kadricky Platform in the Sea of Giskay on Aldrin and she's looking for clues, answers and justice...and she doesn't intend to let anyone get in her way. Not even the team of ex-CorpSec hired-assassins someone has sent after her...
3. A colony of nanoceutically augmented Phocids have taken advantage of the lack of jurisdiction that leaves more than a third of Aldrin's seas and islands unclaimed and outside the direct control of the Domes or any one else. They have established a colony well outside the buoy-marked borders of all the registered states and polities currently recognized as operative, functional and having authority on Aldrin. The Phocids have begun the tedious work of adapting their collective vitaculture and subsidiary systems to the local environment, including the frustratingly slow-going effort to cultivate a salable strain of their usual aquacultural herds and kelp-derived dangle-forests. The recent spate of Red Blooms has cost them a great deal of time and credit. Most think it is sabotage by the Corprists. But a lone technician has uncovered evidence that it may in fact be some sort of response on the part of the local algae itself. The overly ambitious leader of a warmongering sub-faction among the Phocids has seized upon this situation as a route to power. He has already threatened the technician with violence. The technician has in turn approached your group for assistance. It would be disastrous to allow the aqua-fascists to start a brush war with Merellon Corp. Especially since it won't do anything to address the very real threat of what is actually happening deep within the algal mats surrounding the new colony...and what is happening here might very well have implications for everyone else...
4. Why has the leading expert in Coccolithophore systems from the Deep Academy at Lithus Prime (03.05) come to Aldrin? Why are they surrounded by bodyguards and getting chauffeured around by a select group of corporate and other big wigs all on the hush-hush? Is this proof of a Sector-wide Cabal, a glimpse into the operations of a terrible conspiracy, or something even more troubling? Whatever is going on, details are scarce and information at a premium. All your usual sources are quiet. The kind of quiet that speaks volumes about the depth of the reach of whomever is shepherding this operation. With that kind of an invitation, how could you resist?
5. One of your crew has been summoned to a set of coordinates out in the middle of the Cat's Pajama Sea. An old school mate (or were they something...more?) is about to get married to a high-level member of a nanoflagellate craft-clan. She's having second thoughts and jumps ship before you can get properly moored. She claims asylum. If you can get off-planet, you'd best do so. Quickly. Her intended is not a reasonable, nor a forgiving sort. This debacle has landed your team right in the thick of some nasty, inter-clan politics. If you do stay, be prepared for some vicious interpersonal interactions on every level. If you leave...there will be consequences that follow along shortly. The kind that tend to strike in the night, when a suitable opportunity presents itself.
6. An Orəq has arrived at Delmjurrim Dome. They are pleading for the Ensconced Council (a group of Brainiard plutocratic cronies) to cease and desist from further excavatory explorations beneath their Dome. Wild rumors regarding something old and best left alone that sleeps down there have only inflamed the imaginations of the Council and made them all the more determined to keep digging. But it was never about what might be sleeping down there. That was not why the Orəq came here at all. They came here in order to stake a claim on what remains of the galleries after whatever it is down there wakes and leaves. They believe that this is the one Dome that will have the best chances of surviving the coming cataclysm. They're betting their own life on it.

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Lithus Sector: Telajan (Part Two)

Telajan (Coord. 06.01)
Part Two: Inner Zone Overview
Part One is Here.

Quick Recap: Telajan itself is a Type A White Giant Star, significantly brighter, hotter and more active than most similar stars in its category. But unlike most of its contemporaries, this star is surrounded by a massive cloud of dust and debris that abruptly stops right at the very threshold of the Habitable Zone. The Inner Zone of the Telajan System is a tempestuous, dense circumstellar-morass of dust, which would be more likely around an Asymptotic Giant Star, or around a star still caught-up in the process of developing its protoplanetary nebula. 

The Inner Zone

The Inner Zone is a region of hot dust that ends abruptly at the periphery of the star's Habitable Zone, where a loose belt of orbital pylons built by an unknown civilization contain and control the dust. At least that is if the findings from the three open source probes sent out to examine these Pylons are to be accepted.

Many leading authorities and Academic AIs reject the preliminary findings out of hand as unlikely and contrary to the known laws of physics, leading to an academic free-for-all as every crackpot theorist has come out of the woodwork to fling yet another half-baked argument into the swirling maelstrom of increasingly degraded and bowdlerized data. 

Anti-Corprists have a major source of spurious objections and rapid-fire legal challenges to any and every open effort or attempt to analyze and identify who actually built those Pylons and just what their role might be in this system. The leadership of the Anti-Corprists consider the exploration of the Pylons to be something they can use politically, one way or another, to further their questionable objectives. So far all they have managed to do is to drive all research into the mysteries of this solar system out of the public domain and into the closed labs and private projects of Merellon Corporation. A situation that has made many ask just what is going on. 

Merellon Corporation is engaged in a long term effort to study this system in detail, despite the constant sabotage and interference from outside agitators, anarchists and cultists who make increasingly bizarre, unverifiable claims regarding the Pylons, a supposed Precursor Species, and other such nonsense. What little information is publicly available regarding the Telajan System derives entirely from Merellon Corp.


Which makes sense, really.

Merellon Corporation holds a 93% interest in the Inner Zone of the Telajan system, as well as a 20% share of the Habitable Zone and a full 98% stake in the Outer Zone. They are the single largest vested entity within this solar system. What they do not own, they have tremendous influence over. A fact that the Corprik PR Teams do their best to downplay and dismiss as nothing to concern yourself over. But at the end of the day, this one Corporation remains the sole executive body overseeing the majority of this system's resources...and there are rumors that Merellon subsidiaries are diligently engaged in buying up any and every claim within this system, no matter how trivial, small or inconsequential it might be. This one rumor has set off something of a 'Claims Rush' within the margins of the Inner and Outer Zones where tramp prospectors and other vagabonds have sought to establish themselves in hopes of securing a corporate buy-out.

The effect upon the Habitable Zone has been horrendous and will be detailed in Part Three.

The Pylons

The Pylons are the single most commented upon aspect of this solar system. Very little is actually confirmed or known about them. No one knows for certain who built them, or how, or even really why...though there are a lot of theories regarding that, most of which are pure speculation, hogwash or just plain silly.

One fact that is known keenly is that the Pylons maintain the massive network of overlapping gravitational fields that keeps the hot dust and debris of the Inner Zone out of the Habitable Zone, just as the second ring of Pylons keeps the ice, dust and so forth in the Outer Zone from penetrating the life-bearing region of the system.

Just as nearly every other aspect of this system is hotly debated, questioned and challenged, it is abundantly clear that whomever built the Pylons did so in order to foster and protect the so-called Goldilocks Zone where liquid water forms easily and life has made itself at home.

In light of the ongoing efforts of the Anti-Corprists factions, The Board of Directors of Merellon Corp has authorized several covert, blacked-out missions to both the Inner and Outer Zones of the Telajan System. Despite the stringent safety protocols and usual corporate background screenings, agents from three different extremist factions have infiltrated some of these missions, compromising at least one of them. (See: White Out)

A Few Random Scenario Seeds for the Pylons

• The Pylons exhibit distinct self-repair capabilities. A clandestine researcher working for some undisclosed wholly-owned (and thus disposable) subsidiary of Merellon Corp is quietly recruiting for the sorts of adventurous types who won't be missed very much. His project is completely off the record. He wants to see if he can damage a Pylon using some prototype weapons systems in the hopes of evoking some sort of response. A basic background check will reveal that this is the fifth clone of the researcher to attempt something like this...a fact that certain Anti-Corprist agitators very much want to alert him to, before it is too late. Of course Merellon CorpSec is watching over this asset. They consider it a total win-win scenario: either they get good data on the so far untested weapons, or they capture infiltrators.
• The gravitational fields anchored and curated by the Pylons appear to be a sort of sponge-like structure somewhere between a sponge and a curled fractal. Curiously enough, intricate spiral patterns have been etched deep into nearly every xeno-archaeological site found within the Telajan System. Similar markings have been documented in several other systems including deep within the ruins recently found on Balajang (02.00) and at Kazix (02.01). Where else have these patterns been found? What is the connection? Could there really be some sort of star map or diagram for a type of 'psychic receiver' buried in all of these intricate swirlings, just as some of the less violent cultists and other Believers who are coming to Telajan on pilgrimages or at the behest of dream mentors. Could these symbols really unlock some sort of immaterial alien technology? If it is all just some fabulist fraud, then why have certain of the less flaky proponents of the 'dream machine hypothesis' gone missing or been found dead under suspicious circumstances?
• There are thousands of Pylons just in the belt circling the Inner Zone. So far no one has been able to come up with a definitive census. This may be because the things keep moving, or perhaps there is something to the wild stories of a broken-down dust-skimmer who claims to be the only survivor of a team that was sent out to survey one of the Pylons as part of a Blacked-Out mission that has since been scrubbed from public record. He lost his arm back there, only, he claims, he didn't lose it; it's still attached, it just isn't in the same time/space as the rest of him any more.
• MacReynolds claims to have a holographic map imprinted on his brain by squishy-looking aliens who abducted him nigh onto twenty seven years ago. At least he makes that claim whenever he's seriously drunk. Which is often. Everyone pretty much ignored him or humored him with a little bit of charity once in a while. Then one night he coughed loose a slick, blue dongle that really had been lodged in his sinuses. What other parts of his story are likewise true? Where is he now? What happened to the blue dongle? Where will all this lead?

Shipboard Encounters in Proximity to the Pylons

1. Tramp prospector in a barely serviceable ship is in serious trouble. They tried to drag a sizable chunk of iridium-rich debris into the Habitable Zone from the Inner Zone. They've been experiencing a great deal more drag than they originally calculated or planned on. The drag is increasingly. Slowly. Inexorably. Soon the prospector's ship will be dead in space, and if any of the onboard AI's projections are accurate, they'll start going backwards, even against full thrust. They refuse to release the rock. One of the crew has triggered a distress call. Tensions are high among the six contractors and three vested owner-employees aboard the ship. Systems are failing. Morale is crashing. And someone has decided to make use of this momentary lapse in leadership to settle a few old scores. The first body was just discovered five minutes after the distress call was sent.
2. Sixteen Kliks wide and rapidly expanding, a cloud of metalfoil seedlings stream past as they accelerate to escape velocity. It may be possible to capture one of the things as it passes by your ship. People claim to have done it after all. There are several hundred clips uploaded to the local Net showing how various crews have attempted to do this, but most of these clips look fake. You'll only get one shot at this, so you can't afford to waste too much time scrounging through bad video footage trying to figure out how best to catch a seedling. But if you do succeed...you'll be famous for a few minutes as the proud owners of a larval-stage solar sail that you can either auction off or outfit however you like (or can afford) as a living starship.
3. A cloaked mine just erased a section of your ship's hull. The good news is that your ship's auxiliary systems have the situation under control. The bad news is that there might be 1d6 more of these mines in the immediate area. Who the hell uses such things any more? And why would anyone string a set of these obsolete weapons way out here? Could it have anything to do with the reports of an unregistered slivership prowling about in this region?
4. Crash Alert claxons blare. Some idiot just dumped a CraShell out of Intraspace and it is headed right for your ship. It is blacked-out, unlisted, no transponders, scrubbed of any identification. It appears occupied. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, it fires thrusters and reorients itself on a trajectory your systems project will take it directly on a crash-course for the nearest Pylon. If you do decide to follow it, all your Comms will be jammed by the ECM package that will go live as the CraShell reaches the point of no return. Who is in that thing? What are they doing? How will the Pylon respond?
5. Your transponders are being pinged by the Main Node at the center of a missile-cloud. It doesn't like your current course. You have been warned. Either change your course or it will begin to launch missiles at your ship. Your sensors confirm the presence of antimatter...
6. The Socratic Sodality of Silan has placed a data-relay buoy out here to stake their claim to...oh...never mind. It would appear that the buoy has drifted off-course drastically over the last three hundred sixty seven years. But now that you've stirred its autorepair systems back online it'll soon be on its way to re-stake the (possibly) defunct group's claim on a chunk of rock deep within the Inner Zone.

Six Encounters At/On the Pylons

1. That black bulge over by the far Pylon is moving. It seems to have spotted you, as it is moving in closer quite fast. It is heavily shielded. Your scans begin to crash even as they report military-grade ECM going into effect. Whatever this thing is, it is big, fast and armed for bear and looking for a fight. Right now, you are its target.
2. Less than a thousand Kliks out from the base of the Pylons is a freshly-made crater. Initial indications are that the wreckage billowing out from the impact-point are the shattered remains of a disposable bulk ore scow. It might have been empty when it struck. Or it might have been carrying something looking to use the impact to obscure their tracks. Investigating the wreckage turns up evidence of robotics. Proscribed alien robotics that are not supposed to even exist any more, according to official records. But how did this sort of contraband get here? And why?
3. Six heavily armed mercs from the D-List outfit Ma Turner's Turncoats have just stepped out from under a signal-skipping umbrella. Now that they register on your systems...what do you want to do about it? They don't appear to be immediately hostile.
4. Three Achernarians are huddled together in a small EmergiSphere. Their ship was hijacked while they investigated the Pylon. They claim to have no idea who took their vessel. They also don't have a lot to say about what they might have discovered. They do want to rent time on your CommSystem to contact a 'friend' and request them to come rescue, or rather recover them. The address they use is a hardened blackwared military site. The 'friend' they've signaled is a warship on station just North of the Ecliptic. They'll be here in five minutes.
5. Twelve Anti-Corprist radicals have pooled their resources in order to rent an Orbital Skipper. Usually these things aren't brought this close to the Inner Zone, as they are relatively fragile, civilian vehicles intended for use in-between orbital installations, habitats and cylinders. These radicals have stolen some off-schedule weapons from an unscrupulous but sympathetic alien merchant. They are hunting down a pair of Merellon Corp agents whom they believe are on their way to this Pylon on a mission they have not been briefed about. The radicals feel that they are on a need-to-know-basis, so the less they know, the better they can carry out their missions. There is a base 1 in 6 chance of these gun-happy would-be killers mistakenly identifying someone in your crew as one of the Merellon Agents. There is also a chance that you really do have a Merellon sleeper agent in your midst. Or you might have a member from some rival outfit who is working as an infiltrator, using your crew as a cover, while they work their way into position as part of some long-term plan. Or...
6. Originally there had been twenty contestants. Now, a week later, there are four. Five, if you count the girl in a coma. These people are all unarmed civilians. They're under intense steady-state surveillance as part of a game show being broadcast live across the Net. Smile; you're the newest members of the cast...

Six Encounters Within the Inner Zone

1. Hot dust sleets through the immediate area, stirring up all manner of electromagnetic mayhem in its wake.
2. Gravitaitonal Anomaly: your ship has been displaced 1d6x1,000 miles clockwise around the Inner Zone. Apparently there is no damage, and your ship's systems will compensate for the sudden shift...but how's your fuel or energy reserves?
3. 3d6 boulder-sized bits of random debris tumble by. One of them might contain some potentially useful ore, but the other boulders are seething with highly unstable radioactive isotopes, making any effort to extract tricky and dangerous.
4. Immature metalfoil seedlets have a base chance of 1 in 6 of striking your ship as they roughhouse and jockey for the best place from which to unfurl their reflective surfaces and shoot out across the system to the rich reserves of ice and other such things in the Outer Zone.
5. A huge wavefront of hot dust moves in, scrambling all comms and sensors. 
6. Waves of intense hard radiation boil across your ship as a direct consequence of the birthing of another pod of metalfoil seedlets. You may have just glimpsed an aspect of their life-cycle no one has ever even suspected. But what do you intend to do with the data your systems have collected? Who'd want it? What would they do with it? Do you care?

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