Freelance Traveller
This adventure was originally posted to the pre-magazine Freelance Traveller site in 1997, and reprinted in the January/February 2014 issue.
Outline: The PCs (presumed to be the crew of an exploration ship) make contact with the world of Gennare, an agricultural world at TL 3-4. The majority of the worlds population lives on the continent/nation of Rackmala, which is predominantly semitropical plains and forests comprising some 80% of the planets land area. Santerre is a smaller, more rugged island, home to less than 7% of the population. There are considerable, largely untapped mineral resources on Santerre and in subsea deposits.
Gennare D468637-3(4)
Gennare has one major starport, near the equator. It’s not much more than a large flat field and some warehouses, situated next to a large freshwater lake, suitable for unrefined fuel. There are also two gas giants in the system suitable for refueling.
Gennare is mostly ocean; only 17% of the surface is land. The climate is predominantly semi-tropical on Rackmala, with hot, humid summers and mild winters. Santerre is temperate to near arctic, and the coast nearest Rackmala is subject to severe gale force to hurricane force storms during two storm seasons, in late summer and late winter.
Gennare has ongoing trade with offworlders, and in the last fifty years, the Orinanthan Guild has had increasing influence over the rulers of Gennare.
Gennare is ruled as collection of feudal estates, although there is a small middle class restricted to the cities. The lords of Gennare are the owners of the large plantations; and in the centuries of the Long Night, the ruling class has become insular and exclusionary.
During the First Imperium, Gennare was a bureau agricultural world, run by Naasirka, with huge automated farms growing witchila, a thin, weedy plant that grows abundantly in Rackmala. Witchila is the source of extremely tough fibers incorporating boron and silicon into their cellulose-like structural molecules, which are used to reinforce polymers and composite materials. It can be grown elsewhere, but only with the addition of expensive synthetic micronutrients that occur naturally on Gennare. Since Gennare was incorporated into the Vilani empire late in its history, little research was ever done on the ecology or biology of witchila. Since the plant grew pretty much like a weed, it was also very cheap to produce, which made the witchila fibers competitive with synthetic alternatives, and it is stronger than many of them.
Unknown to anyone now, there is an introduced seaweed (lassilaissa) in the oceans that is now quite abundant, that produced an important series of complex synthetic intermediates for Vilani chemical industry. It was introduced as a pilot project near the end of Vilani occupation of this world, and abandoned during the Interstellar Wars. This could provide an important cash crop for anyone exploiting this planet. (If the PCs have the time to make a detailed orbital survey, spectral data will show that the seas seem to contain a lot of industrial chemicals. It will take a ground survey/analysis to show that the chemicals are in the seaweed rather than industrial pollution. This is a good opportunity to confuse the PCs since the rest of the survey will be inconsistent with the readings from the sea, i.e., you have industrial pollutants with no visible industry.)
After the fall of the Vilani empire, Gennare was resettled by Terrans, and the cultivation of witchila fell considerably, since the soils of Gennare were quite suitable for a number of Terran food plants, and the bonding agents used in typical Terran composite materials of the time slowly degraded the witchila fibers, weakening the material greatly. (Current Imperial composite technology uses different bonding materials and methods, and thus witchila will be of considerable value to the Imperium.) Gennare was settled and incorporated officially as a Terran colony of the Bodeanauer Sect, a pastoralist society that looked for salvation in a simple life with minimal technological influence.
The Bodeanauer Sect has evolved into the Bodean Church, which emphasizes a pantheist belief in Nature as God, with a strong anti-tech bent.
The ruling class of Gennare is composed of about 60 families, owners of the large plantations. They control over 90% of the arable land in Rackmala, ensuring a lock on the food supply, as well as having direct control of some 70% of the population, as their serfs.
There are several medium sized cities, where what technology that exists on Gennare is concentrated, and is home to the small middle class. The major industry is processing witchila into finished fiber such as thread and cloth for export, and crude composite materials for local consumption. Transport is predominantly on foot, by animals (descendants of Terran horses and oxen), and by oared galleys and sailing ships. Anything more advanced is officially banned by the Church.
Most of the rest of the planet has been explored, but since Rackmala comprises 85% of the land mass of the planet, there are few people living elsewhere. The one exception is Santerre, a very large island or very small continent to the north of Rackmala.
Santerre is colder and more rugged than Rackmala, mostly mountains and dense forest of mixed Terran and Gennaran vegetation. The arable land is concentrated near the coast, where it is subject to severe seasonal storms, both summer and winter. The inhabitants of Santerre aren’t organized into any true political structure, but they do maintain a cooperative that owns several sailing craft that trade with the mainland for materials they are unable to grow or mine, brining in return, forest and mining products unavailable on the mainland. Many of the people are officially outcast from the mainland by the Church, predominantly for their views on technology, and so Santerre enjoys a technological advantage over the mainland. It isn’t much, since they cannot easily afford to ‘waste time’ on research and development, but there have been significant advances in fields related to mining, and logging, and to a lesser extent, communications.
About 100 years before the present, Gennare was re-contacted by Orinanthan Guild traders. The Orinanthan Guild is a loose association of free traders and small states with starflight capacity; it operates as an informal trade council, mediating disputes between members, and most importantly, from the member states point of view, restricting interstellar trade to members only in its realm of operations. It will not look kindly on the Sylean explorers coming into these sectors.
The Orinanthans have carefully cultivated the Gennaran ruling class. Witchila fiber has become very important to the Guild, yet they wish to keep the Gennarans generally unaware of this, since that will keep prices low, and the Gennarans under their thumb. To that end they have played families against each other to prevent any single faction from gaining absolute power, with varying degrees of success. They have encouraged the Church to frown on trade with Santerre, while simultaneously introducing technological ‘toys’ to the nobles as status symbols; toys only the Guild can supply, at high cost. They have also worked to keep the power of the middle class and the cities from growing. Still, the price that the Gennarans have been able to command for witchila has grown over the years, and with it their economic clout.
The Guild’s power over the Gennarans increased greatly with their introduction of another trade: slaves. An epidemic swept through the plantations 20 years ago. Guild merchants were able to acquire medicines to treat the nobles, but the serf population was devastated. After the disease died out, the Guild was able to come up with a solution for the nobles’ pressing labor needs: indentured labor. Recruited on poor, high population worlds, the Guild is able to supply thousands of workers for the plantations of Gennare. Technically the workers aren’t slaves, but contract workers. The nobles buy their ‘contracts’ by paying the Guild for their passage to Gennare. The workers then owe their new Gennaran bosses for their passage, their room and board.
They pay from their wages for working in the fields. It is an old, old practice, sadly reproduced on thousands of worlds throughout inhabited space. The wages, of course, never quite add up to the costs charged for room and board, much less to the huge initial costs of the passage to Gennare, so the workers are trapped into working for life for their masters. Their children are born into the system, owing more than they can ever repay. Contracts are commonly sold between families, the cruelest breaking up families by selling the young children.
Working in the fields of witchila is harsh; since no mechanization exists, all the work is done by hand. Harvest time is particularly brutal…the witchila plants are tough and quite hard to cut down, and harvesting the plant releases quite a bit of the fiber in microscopic form. Breathed in these fibers can do considerable lung damage over time. The life expectancy of many of the slaves now working in the fields is less than 10 years of work in the field; because they’re from poor, high population worlds, often with tainted atmospheres, the contract workers start off malnourished and in poor health. Significant lung damage may occur in under 2 years. The thin weedy plants also readily erode skin and gloves during handling; most workers have very thick scars on their hands from handling the plants. Witchila cuts take a long time to heal.
Runaways are treated harshly, usually tortured publicly before their executions. The system has led to sporadic revolts, which the Guild factors have helped suppress with their superior firepower.
The owners have also established a lottery system, however, as a ‘carrot’ for the workers. Tickets are cheap and readily available, monthly winners have their indenture reduced or eliminated. An annual Grand Prize not only grants freedom to the worker, but enough money to buy freedom for his family, if there is one, and set up a small business, typically in the city. These winners are often paraded quite conspicuously around the plantations.
Ominously, however, an increasing number of the ‘contract’ workers are arriving involuntarily. The Guild leadership has been maneuvering towards greater power, with aspirations of becoming true lords over the Guild territory. The slave trade has been a good place to ‘lose’ dissidents and opponents to their plans.
The Gennarans are upset over this development: these new workers aren’t the docile, easily cowed slaves of old, but intelligent, articulate, and very angry. Two of them organized a revolt that was able to take over a plantation for several weeks, until the Guild factors’ savage counterattack. In the ensuing chaos, the plantation ‘Big House’ was burned to the ground, the plantation owner escaped with her life, but without her left leg, and her husband, and eldest daughter, heir apparent, and the rest of her immediate family were killed.
The ringleaders of the revolt were presumed dead, along with their followers and hostages when the house was burned. All surviving slaves were summarily executed. In reality, a small band escaped, including the ringleaders, and arranged passage aboard a Santerrean ship. They are now on Santerre, working their small farm to survive, and in the case of the ringleaders and some 10-15 of the other escaped slaves who have filtered to Santerre, hoping to get back to their homes offworld.
Factions on Gennare
Owners: The aforementioned 60 families who own the greatest extent of the land on Gennare. The families intermarry heavily, and intermarriage with the serfs is banned. There is, however, a long tradition of taking in the illegitimate sons and daughters of liaisons between owners and serfs, so that the genetic diversity of the families is maintained, and there are as yet few problems of inbreeding. They are loosely allied; disputes are settled by a ruling Council of Owners; essentially the heads of the families. The council is comprised of 60 people, headed by ‘the Seven’, the Autarch of the Church and the heads of the six families with the largest holdings.
The Church: The Bodean Church has great influence over many parts of Gennaran life. The very religious have small rituals covering virtually every part of life. The Church itself has large land holdings, and is economically independent from the Owners, hence its position on the Seven. The vast majority of Gennarans are members of the Church. The Church’s main tenets are that all humankind are mere stewards of their planet; salvation is reached by harmonious coexistence with the land using your own hands and the living earth (meaning water power, draft animals, and lately, human slaves). Technology greater than about TL 3, is frowned upon. There are radical sects that eschew all technology above TL 0, living a truly stone-age existence, but most of the Church accepts some technology. The coming of the Guild troubled the Church greatly; their clearly high tech level violates all the tenets of the Church, which regards such technology as corrupting, distancing the user from the purity of the natural world.
Objections from the Church forced the Guild to adopt a low profile in public on Gennare. The starport is located in a remote area; the Guild factors have only small offices in the major cities.
The Church also maintains pressure to suspend trade with Santerre, where it has excommunicated and exiled many people for dabbling with technology, or advocating doctrine against the Church. This is the source of the true power of the Church. Along with its power to excommunicate, comes the power to seize the excommunicated person’s land and holdings. There have been corrupt Autarchs in the past who have used this power to gain wealth or as a weapon of personal vengeance.
The Church’s stance on technology varies with time, and the current Autarch has issued several edicts lightening it somewhat, to restrict the bans to machines that perform useful work, rather than all devices. This loophole stems from Guild influence over the current Autarch, who harbors a secret, guilty fascination with technology, and allows the Guild’s current profitable trade in high tech ‘toys’: clockwork singing birds, mobile stuffed animals, wind-up ornithopters that fly towards you when you clap your hands, train sets that carry wine bottles around the table, things like that, all done in precious gems, and fine hand craftsmanship.
The Guild: The Orinanthan Guild is 163 years old, making it one of the oldest human institutions in the sector. Originally, it was a loose coalition of traders, banding together to discourage piracy, and later, to aid in starship maintenance in an era when parts and skilled workers were few and very far between. It has grown to be a large and influential organization. Within its realm of operations, it maintains a stranglehold on interstellar trade; everything must pass on a Guild ship. It is essentially impossible to own a ship without registering it as a Guild vessel and paying the dues. The few worlds that have tried have found their ships mysteriously vanish, or crash; their starports bombed, and trade with their world restricted or cut off entirely. Any individual owning a starship, of course, either willingly or was forced to join the Guild, or left Guild space.
Gennare is at the far coreward reaches of Guild space, at the end of a long, unproductive journey of about 6 jumps, but since witchila is a vital raw product in Guild space, Gennare is a very important world to them. Only the apparent lack of any competition from further coreward has kept the Guild from doing more to take over the planet. Besides, they make a decent profit on both legs of the trip, bringing slaves and toys in, and hauling witchila fiber out. The average TL of the Guild is about 7-8, the highest is B at Loweir, about 20 parsecs away to the rimward of Gennare. The Guild now encompasses about 4-5 subsectors worth of space, mostly rimward and antispinward of the Imperium.
Serfs: These are the survivors and descendants of the survivors of the plague of 20 years ago. They hold themselves distinct from the contract workers who have largely displaced them, and they feel themselves more tightly bound to the land. Many are very devout Bodeans. Under Plantation law, they do have rights and privileges guaranteed them by the owners; the owners are responsible for seeing that they have their plot of land to tend for their own food, and the time to tend it, and the owners may not arbitrarily punish, dispossess or kill them. They have become the overseer class on the plantations since the advent of contract labor.
Contract laborers: These people are at the bottom of the pile on Gennare. Recruited by the Guild from their crowded, poor homeworlds by offers of independence and wealth, they soon realized they were just as trapped in grinding poverty in their new position. Some have been forcibly moved here, either by their own governments or by the guild. Many of these latter slaves try to run away, a very few actually escape, mostly to the cities, but some make it all the way to Santerre. There is an ‘Underground Railroad’ of sorts, but it is small, and often infiltrated by Church or Owner agents.
Cities: The cities are a relatively new phenomonon on Gennare; none are much over 150 years old. Most of their commerce is centered around witchila processing, and the service industry for the traders and inhabitants. There is a small artisan class, and a growing middle class. These people are less likely to be devout church members, and there are tiny groups of a more radical pro-technology persuasion here, which the Church tries to regularly root out.
Santerre: This, rugged, mountainous island is largely unexplored. The coastal areas to the south have fertile valleys that are quite suitable for cultivation, but the severe seasonal storms of the area kept the original terran settlers on the Rackmalan mainland. There has been little need for the mineral and timber wealth of the island, so trade is somewhat sporadic. The majority of Santerreans are subsistence farmers, miners and lumberers, either exiles from the mainland or their descendants. There are, however, a number of foods that grow well in Santerre that don’t grow well or at all in Rackmala, so there is some luxury trade in that, and in fish from the northern seas, with the mainland. There is also increasing demand for timber and metals, especially with the northern cities.
There is, thanks to the Church, a thriving pro-technology feeling here. In fact, there are several small groups who are performing the rudiments of research and development, mostly oriented towards improving the efficiency and safety of the mining operations. There are a number of steam engines in use, and a few faltering steps toward the use of electricity have taken place. This has accelerated with the arrival of Ras Modovar and Sulian Gransenth, two escaped slaves from the mainland.
Gennaran Social Attitudes
The majority of Gennarans are more or less devout Bodeans, and this influences their attitude towards offworlders considerably. The most devout will have nothing to do with them and their corrupting technology; they tend to view the mere presence of offworlders on the planet as a dangerous and perverting influence on all of Gennare, an influence that should be purged, with fire if necessary. The majority will treat offworlders with an attitude varying from lofty disdain to pity, ‘poor lost souls’. The most tolerant, simply think that offworlders are spiritually lost, but it is none of their business to convince the offworlders to change.
Major NPCs
Beldoin Logique III: Logique is the acknowledged leader of the Seven. His families holdings are vast, and he is easily the wealthiest person on the planet. He can trace his ancestry directly to Aliane Majeurreste, who was the leader of the original Bodeanauer Sect settling the planet. He is almost always accompanied by his daughter Aliane IV, his heir apparent and closest advisor. Beldoin is a tough businessman and ruthless owner; his holdings have prospered mightily since the coming of the Guild and especially since the introduction of contract laborers.
Antoine Hunstatter: Hunstatter is the current Autarch of the Bodean Church. He came to this position as a relatively young man as a compromise when the subtarches could not agree on their first choices. The fourth son of a minor landowner, Antoine was groomed for the church early, and is a relatively weak individual both physically and personally. His deeply held secret is a fascination with technology, which has opened him up to Guild manipulation.
Theresa Rachminov: Rachminov is the Chief Guild Factor on Gennare. She is a cunning political infighter. Surviving the byzantine intrigues of the Guild have made the Gennaran Council easy prey for her. She has great influence over the Autarch, and since Beldoin Logique owes much of his fortune to her and the Guild, she exerts considerable influence on the planet. But she is accustomed to backroom politics and bedroom intrigue, and leaves a great deal of the day to day operations to her subordinates.
Lt. Col. Erik Garcia-Krueger: Garcia-Krueger, nicknamed the ‘Stoltar’, by his hand-picked mercenaries, is the Guild military attache on Gennare. A stoltar is a fierce carnivore on his home planet, renowned for its fierce attack and stubborn tenacity. He is in charge of security operations for the Guild as well as putting down slave rebellions, which he does with abandoned ferocity. Guild military assets on the planet consist of 20 veteran troops, armed with 9 mm autorifles, and one squad laser rifle, a grav APC armed with 4 20 mm autocannon and a grav tank armed with a plasma gun.
Garcia-Krueger thinks that the Guild should dispense with the ‘charade’ as he terms it, of dealing with the Gennaran nobles, and simply take over the planet themselves.
He recieved an official reprimand for the assault on and subsequent destruction of the Hackover plantation, which left the owner’s family dead, and the owner herself nearly dead.
Donata Hackover: Hackover was the owner of a medium sized plantation, until a slave revolt lead by Sulian Gransenth, a political dissident sent into slavery by the Guild, took over the plantation. Her entire family, being held hostage by the slaves demanding offworld passage, was killed when Baron Garcia-Krueger lead an assault on the main house that ended in its destruction. She herself lost most of her left leg in the assault when Garcia-Krueger pumped round after round from the grav-tanks plasma cannon into the main house. She is alive but faces staggering reconstruction costs to rebuild her plantation. Her plight has galvanized considerable anti-Guild feeling in the Council of Families.
Sulian Gransenth: Gransenth was a opposition leader on a planet heavily committed to the Guild. She advocated seceding from the Guild with a number of other worlds and forming their own confederation. She was arrested on trumped up treason charges, and officially deported to a prison world. Then, as Theresa Rachminov puts it, “…some brain-dead Guild accounting deet decided to make a few bucks…” and had her sold on Gennare under another name. Gransenth, a talented and charismatic politician, organized the revolt among the slaves on the Hackover plantation. This was crushed by the Guild security forces, and in the chaos ensuing afterwards, Gransenth escaped, eventually making her way to Santerre.
Ras Modovar: Modovar is another political ‘volunteer’. He was Chief Engineer of a class A shipyard in the same cluster of worlds Sulian Gransenth is from. His crime was opposing the increased Guild influence at the shipyard, and the Guild’s subsequent orders to use substandard parts and materials, supplied by the Guild, of course, at inflated prices. His ending up on Gennare was almost accidental: he had to be gotten rid of in a hurry, so he was beaten unconscious, and tossed into the nearest Guild ship, which happened to be a slave transport headed to Gennare. The captain of the transport never got any orders regarding this unconscious man dumped on his ship, so he just tossed him in with the rest of the slaves. Modovar was a crucial part of the Hackover revolt, making explosives and crude cannon and firearms for the slaves, essentially from scratch. His hatred for the Guild is pathological at this point; he would risk anything to kill Guild personnel on the planet, especially Garcia-Krueger.
He has single-handedly advanced the tech level of Santerre, introducing the concept and practical use of electricity and steam power, and even crude radio, but his true goal is to build weapons, and a force that can sail into port, assault the Guild compound, and steal the APC and/or the grav tank. He would then use that transport to get to the landing zone, and steal a ship to get off world. He has Pilot 1 and Navigator 1, as well as Engineer 4 skills. There are a number of other slaves that he knows of who have some skills with starships. Once off planet they’ll make a run for it; either back to sympathetic planets in their own space, or towards unknown space—in this case towards the Sylean Federation.
So where do the PCs come into this?
Well, there are a number of interesting situations here: this may be the Guild’s first contact with the nacent Imperium, already too large for the Guild to challenge directly. Theresa Rachminov will, upon interviewing the PCs, probably grasp this immediately unless the PCs are very close mouthed.
The problem is what, if anything, the PCs learn about the planet. If they figure out the value of the witchila fiber to the Guild, and potentially, the Imperium, they will be in a very dangerous position. The ship’s library will have some reference to witchila, enough to let them know it’s worth something.
A thorough orbital survey of the planet will give the the spectrophotograpic signature of the seaweed, as well, although they could misinterpret the data as evidence of industrial pollution, as mentioned above.
Rachminov could easily have them killed, which will get her two birds with one stone. First, the PCs’ death will delay Imperial investigation into this planet, at least until they are missed, and a search effort, if any, is raised. Second, the Guild gets an intact TL-12 ship to tear apart and figure out how to build. This will raise her fortunes in the Guild considerably. Krueger-Garcia will almost certainly see things this way. At the least, if he is the first to contact the PCs he’ll attempt to seize and imprison them, if not kill them outright.
On the other hand, she could see the advantages of changing sides, if the PCs tell her enough of how the Imperium works. She could easily become the reigning Imperial noble on this planet…what, after all, does she owe the Guild? All they ever really gave her was headaches and orders.
Finally, on the gripping hand, a conflict between the Guild and the Imperium will be a short, one sided war…any hint in Guild space that there was a new, separate power among the stars, the tenuous bonds holding the Guild together would evaporate, whether or not they had a TL-12 ship.
If the PCs make any contact with the Gennaran nobility, Rachminov may be rendered irrelevant. As soon as Hackover’s faction learns of the existence of the Imperium, they’ll quickly figure out that they don’t necessarily have to sell to the Guild…
If the PCs don’t land on Rackmala, but on Santerre instead (based on the signs of higher TL there (EM transmissions, etc.)) they will be contacted by Modovar and Gransenth, and apprised of the situation in Rackmala. If the PCs don’t, at least, promise some hope of off-world passage, Modovar will attempt to steal the PCs’ ship. If the PCs do offer to to take them offworld, Modovar will attempt to get into the missile bay on the PCs ship and launch missiles against Guild targets on Rackmala.
If the PCs arrive at the same time there is a guild ship (or two) on the planet or in orbit, things could get sticky, and lead to combat.
If you really want to get nasty, have the Guild ships damage the PCs’ ship to the point of crashing. Putting the PCs to ground on a world like this could be fun…for the GM.
If there is a Guild ship on the ground, or in orbit, the PCs may offer to help Modovar steal the Guild ship; once in control, he will try to attack Guild targets on the planet. Any attack on Rackmala is surely going to cause considerable collateral damage, with lots of civilian deaths.
This could get strange, too, if the ship is a Grognard, loaded with slaves. Since they’re uncomfortable from having lived, essentially, in large cargo containers for the last two months, and they have been promised good jobs on Gennare, they will definitely not want to go back. Loaded with witchila, it’s a valulable cargo, and Guild ships may be leery of destroying it, and the PCs could well ask that the cargo be their price for getting them offworld.
Sulian Gransenth, however, has managed to retain some objectivity. She will see the PCs as an opportunity to free several tech 8 through A systems from the Guild. She, too might well see the great political advantages of being the first official contact with the Imperium. As an elected official of a representative democracy, she may balk at the noble-oriented structure of the Imperium at first, but if the PCs convince her that the Imperium isn’t just a bigger Guild, she’ll be enthusiastic. She will definitely want to see the Imperium ban the kind of exploitation that the Guild was perpetrating.
Delivering her to her planet alive, with her in good shape will certainly topple the present government and sweep her into power. She will certainly be able to negotiate on an official basis with the Imperium, then, and the PCs will have gained a very valulable contact. She will also have a great deal of influence with the other political leaders she was trying to convince the secede from the Guild. If they are allowed to join the Imperium as a sub-confederation, they will, and place significant technological, and potentially military assets on the side of the Emperor.
This will make great friends for the PCs back home, too.
Back in the Imperium, the news of Gennare could spark serious debate about the role of the Imperium vis-a-vis member planets, especially if Rachminov and the Gennarans apply for membership… does the Imperium allow slavery within its borders? As the Imperium is originally constituted, yes—except for outright chattel slavery. Other forms of the slave trade may be outlawed on individual worlds, but since technically, the slaves being imported to Gennare are ‘contract workers’ there are a number of legal loopholes. This leads to other possible scenarios for the PCs… when they get back, an investigative (or sensationalist) media operation hires them to go back to Gennare to investigate.
Guild Ships
There are three main Guild shiptypes that the PCs could encounter: the Mirreken-class merchant escort, displacing 400 tons (TL A), the Grognard-class bulk carrier at 1000 tons (TL 9), and the Chi'ilithin-class merchanter at 300 tons (also TL 9).
Trade drives the Guild, so even what passes for military vessels have significant cargo space.
The Mirriken merchant escort is a TL A 400 ton armed escort ship. It comes in two main versions, one has fuel tankage for two jumps, and is designated the Long Mirriken. Converting jump to maneuver fuel gives it some long legs in combat situations, too.
Some space for the additional fuel tankage was gained by substituting bunks for the small staterooms for the crew, giving the captain a small rather than large stateroom, and eliminating one emergency low berth.
Not surprisingly, the Long Mirriken is known by other, unprintable names by the crew.
Since the Guild doesn’t really have a Navy, per se (yet), Mirrikens are either owned by larger mercantile combines, or are private ‘escorts for hire’.
Mirriken Merchant Escort
Tons: 400 Vol: 5600 Cost: 347 MCr TL A Crew: 10 Passengers: 0 Low: 8 (ELB) Cargo: 110 Controls: Milspec Std. 8 Size Rating 1 Jump Rating 3 Fire Control Rating 3 G Rating / HEPLar L Batt 1 - 2 0 0 0 5 Powerplant M Batt 2 - Turret 2 82 SR Fuel M Batt 3 - Turret 2 4A 4P 0J Sensor M Batt 4 - Turret 2 10 Armor 12 Struct 6 Missiles Ready 3 Missiles Controlled
Long Mirriken (extended jump) Merchant Escort
Tons: 400 Vol: 5600 Cost: 346 MCr TL A Crew: 10 Passengers: 0 Low: 4 (ELB) Cargo: 91 Controls: Milspec Std. 8 Size Rating 1 Jump Rating (2J range) 3 Fire Control Rating 3 G Rating / HEPLar L Batt 1 - 2 0 0 0 5 Powerplant M Batt 2 - Turret 2 112 SR Fuel M Batt 3 - Turret 2 4A 4P 0J Sensor M Batt 4 - Turret 2 10 Armor 12 Struct 6 Missiles Ready 3 Missiles Controlled
Chi'ilithin Merchant Freighter
Tons: 300 Vol: 4200 Cost: 297 MCr TL 9
Crew: 11 Passengers: 0 Low: 0
Cargo: 140 Controls: Basic Civilian
8 Size Rating 1 Jump Rating
0 Fire Control Rating 2 G Rating / Fusion-CG
M Batt 1 - Turret 2 0.5 Powerplant
34 SR Fuel
1 Sandcaster (18)
1A 2P 0J Sensor
10 Armor 10 Struct
The Chi'ilithin-class merchanter is one of the commoner merchant designs in the Guild, and the model here is the basic cargo version. It is an old design, and most of the extant examples have been modified in some fashion by their owners; there are passenger versions, mixed passenger and cargo versions and everything in between.
Specifications for the Grognard bulk carrier are not available.