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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:31:27 GMT -5
FAIRBROOK ORBITAL DEFENSE CLUSTERALTITUDE: Low Orbit CONDITIONS: Open Space, Trade Lanes POPULATION:- Unaffiliated: Low - Loonies: None- Space Loonies: Elevated - Cult of Meat: None- Wildlife: NonePOINTS OF INTEREST:- Stations: Fairbrook Processing Center, Fairbrook Habitation Center, LGP Raymond Chandler, LGP Tatiana Nazkov, LGP Karl Strzelecki, LGP Zachary Hartmann, LGP Zadom'Oskasi, LGP Platinum Pick, LGP Shrikethrush, LGP-1270-1, LGP-1269-1, LGP-809-11, LGP-773-18, LGP-681-3 - Wreckage: None- Trade Routes: GSC-FIZ Quad-Lane Trade Route, FIZ-UTS Quad-Lane Trade Route, Cloneston East Overflight & Descent Lane 35-D - Other: Fairbrook Interdiction Zone, Kazzar Anomalous Zone, Six Points of Spite, Churn-Breaker  The official emblem of the Space Loonies of Fairbrook. Most ships and platforms sport a variation on this design.SUMMARYJust shy of the point of no return is the Fairbrook Orbital Defense Cluster, a Space Looney stronghold hovering deep in low orbit. No less than twelve orbiting defense guns lie in wait around a vast shipyard and habitation platform. Long in the past, the guns pointed up and out, scanning space for hostile targets and stray asteroids. Nowadays, Fairbrook's guns are angled out across the rest of orbit, waiting for other spacers to make a wrong move. All around, Space Looney patrols rule the region, shaking down traders and travellers for one thing; contraband. The Fairbrook Orbital Defense Cluster, or FOD, is split up into several major regions. At its heart is its population center; the Fairbrook Processing Center, an industrial facility with a habitation module swelling off one side. Surrounding the processing center is the slightly-askew Chandler Diamond, the wall of defense guns keeping watch on the region. Extending out some several thousand kilometers past the Diamond is the Fairbrook Interdiction Zone, an empty region where ships are stopped, searched, and sent along their way. The FOD holds steady in geostationary orbit over northeast Darimesa, where it watches over traffic coming up from or down to Cloneston. For the most part, Cloneston is a secondary priority - most patrols are looking for the kind of contraband that bleeds. Right in eyeshot of Fairbrook are the Southern Veinlands, where the meat is so thick it squiggles up into space. On most occasions, the foremost objective for Space Loonies in and around Fairbrook is to keep the Cult from gaining altitude. By sheer luck, Fairbrook commands a position along the primary trade lane between the Grosseman Commerce Sector and Unity Station. Spacers passing between the two stations are routinely compelled to pass through the Interdiction Zone, often just to take advantage of its security. For the Space Loonies, it's an awkward dilemma. On the one hand, it affords them better coverage to search for stolen hardware. On the other hand, it ramps up their workload, eats away at security, and jolts up the likelihood of ships being sprayed by the Veinlands.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:31:40 GMT -5
THE INTERDICTION ZONE
Most spacers know Fairbrook for the empty span of space where its guns are at their best; the Fairbrook Interdiction Zone. The zone, occasionally the FIZ, is a round-bottomed dome that extends about eight thousand kilometers up from the roof of the Comm Slice. A handful of communications buoys and sensor platforms mark off the boundaries, but the FIZ is mostly up to imagination. At the center is the Fairbrook Processing Center - a dot so tiny from the zone's outskirts that most sensors have trouble telling it even exists.
What best defines the FIZ is the sheer emptiness of it all. Inside is a null zone for stations and debris. If an asteroid looks like it's about to take up residence, the guns of the Diamond slap it away. If a derelict drifts inside, the Space Loonies carve it up for resources. If a station's orbit loiters just a little too long, it's towed off to a new position - or used for target practice if the owners aren't obliging. The only visitors are ships, and only if they're just passing through. Only other Space Loonies are welcome to stay.
Circling around at various points in the FIZ are roughly three fleets of Fairbrook-native ships. Patrols run their laps from each fleet, along one of three major defensive rings around the processing center. Likewise, each fleet serves as a waystation for craft passing on to the Chandler Diamond. Non-Looney ships passing through the zone are required to stop by at least one fleet or link up with a patrol for a contraband check. Ships that don't usually end up as part of a gunnery training curriculum.
As much as spacers aren't fond of checking their privacy at the door, the FIZ is a respected place. The lack of debris and derelicts means safe, quick, and easy navigation. The concentrated Space Looney presence keeps pirates, harvester drones, and space monsters at bay. When a ship breaks down in the FIZ, it's an inconvenience instead of a tragedy - Fairbrook's Space Loonies are cold, but not heartless. The prime location between the Grosseman Commerce Sector and Unity Station means it's close to unavoidable - and not many spacers would want to dodge it either way.
Space Loonies from elsewhere make up a minority of traffic, but keep up regular appearances at most times. Lone ships and full fleets often use the FIZ as a stopover between Cloneston, Unity Station, or other destinations nearby. Special operations teams regularly make use of the FIZ as a convenient meeting place when they're hitching a ride with a non-Looney ship. On the few occasions that Space Looney fleets come together for a joint operation, the FIZ is one of their favorite staging grounds.
Weather around the FIZ is mostly limited to space blizzards and orbital thunderstorms. Crimson miasmas and other meat-related discharges crop up from time to time, but usually wear themselves out before they reach the zone. Garbage haulers avoid the region - too many Space Loonies yelling at them to go around. Monsters are completely absent. On the rare chance something wanders into the zone, it typically ends up drifting back out in pieces. Harvester drones send scouts along the outskirts on occasion, but most are smart enough to stay on the outside.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:31:59 GMT -5
THE PROCESSING CENTER
Offset to the north side of the Chandler Diamond is a refurbished garbage hauler facility with a tremendous tumor sticking off its east flank. The Fairbrook Processing Center, or simply the FPC, is the highest concentration of industry and manpower in the FOD. Part shipyard, part smelting plant, and part apartment complex, the FPC satisfies just about every need Fairbrook has. On the off chance that traders come knocking, the FPC is their service depot, gas station, and marketplace all in one.
The FPC is a mish-mash of conflicting architectural ideologies. On one half is its industrial side, built originally by the haulers and renovated by the Space Loonies. The half-circle top of the station is made up of a multitude of industrial facilities, ranging from fuel production on up to heavy equipment manufacturing. A shipyard dangles from the skeletal bottom, ready to service - or slap together - anything up to a destroyer in size. These days, the trashy haulers steer clear of the smooth lines and precise angles on Fairbrook. They can't stand the efficiency, the safety, or the lack of sludge and rust on the walls. The dozens of gun turrets and shield batteries lining the hull stand ready to enforce it as need be.
Officially, the industrial side of the station is the Fairbrook Processing Center. The crew section growing off its side is considered a separate structure; the Fairbrook Habitation Center. Residents and outsiders alike never make the distinction. The crew section bubbles off the hull in a mesh of tubular habitation modules, joined together at junctions by double-sided domes with a small gap between. For most, the gaps house environmental equipment, food production, or other support systems. In the three outermost domes, they're further apart, with docking spaces for merchant ships and shuttles. Residents inside live feet to feet, with gravity inverted between the two halves of any given module.
As successful as the FOD has been, life aboard the FPC isn't as idyllic as some of the wealthier places in orbit. Food, water, and other supplies are all strictly rationed. The interior of the industrial side is a naked, desolate place of exposed machinery and vacuum environments. The interior of the crew section is covered in the usual spacer's sprucing. Quilts, trophies, and community-sponsored graffiti, anything and everything to cover up lifeless wall panels and ugly vent covers.
Ships passing through the FIZ usually stop at one of the FPC's ports for quick rest, refuelling, and light trading. A small service industry exists around the trader docks to squeeze a few more ounces of scrap from merchants on their way through. For the most part, though, Space Loonies onboard turn a wary eye to travellers. Visitors from passenger ships are treated like tourists and parasites. Geared-up security officers and marines stand watch over the paths deeper into the crew section. Sentry turrets hang from ceilings all over docking platforms. To say that things are tense for guests is an understatement.
Space Looney life aboard is a far cry from their performance as hosts. The station boasts a hefty population, but the compact nature of everything keeps the Loonies' small-town sense of community alive. People live in tiny spaces with tinier beds and paper-thin walls. They move through tiny halls with tiny doors, where everyone's bound to see everyone at least once in their lives. A loose take on military order keeps up a sense of duty in most people, but most know when to toss out the chain of command and live a little. A sizable civilian population makes it hard to apply even in the best of situations.
The FPC is home to around 4,300 people in total, nine in ten of them human. Far ahead of everyone else, redworlders hold onto the second place spot, mostly clustered together on the south side of the crew section. A tiny minority of boglanders and unionites are tucked into the margins, most as civilian personnel. Whiteworlders are almost completely non-existent; they work exclusively in the industrial side as laborers and few places else. AIs and other artificial life are nowhere to be found. Only Montgomery exists as the station's supervising AI, and only as a tool of the civilian administration.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:32:11 GMT -5
THE CHANDLER DIAMOND
A motley mix of twelve semi-stationary defense guns serves as the bulk of Space Looney firepower in the Fairbrook Interdiction Zone. Officially, the dozen guns are known as the Fairbrook Orbital Defense Battery, or FDB. Unofficially, and to most of its inhabitants, the guns are better known as the Chandler Diamond, named for their star gun platform. The Diamond represents something special in low orbit - a monumental level of firepower and armor plating big enough to threaten anything and everything that crosses into its territory. At the same time, it's home to about half of the cluster's Space Looney population.
The centerpiece of it all is the LGP Raymond Chandler, a station-sized pinch gun with an effective range of about thirty thousand kilometers. It's home to at least six hundred people, with roughly three hundred recognized as civilians or permanent non-combatants. It acts as a service station for Fairbrook fleets and a commerce platform for trusted traders. Whenever it's not sweeping the Interdiction Zone, it's keeping an eye on Cloneston and the Veinlands with its sensor arrays. The Chandler's partners aren't nearly as advanced, but they've all got the same story to tell.
The Chandler Diamond is mostly dependent on the Fairbrook Processing Center for food and other supplies. On most days, there's a steady stream of cargo shuttles meandering between the guns and the FPC. Regular flight schedules afford Space Loonies on the FPC the opportunity to work off-station in the Diamond. The inverse holds true all the same; civilians housed in the Diamond fly back with returning shuttles to work at the FPC. Patrol fleets and visiting Space Looney ships help keep the Diamond's doorstep busy with traffic of all kinds.
Life onboard the Diamond's gun platforms is more rigid and militarized than the rest of the FOD, as could be expected. Despite the major populations of civilians onboard, the defense guns are still the FOD's most prominent military assets. Security is tight, marines are at every corner, and the word of an officer is rule of law. The small split in culture leads a decent chunk of Diamond natives to look at staff on the FPC as nothing but civilians - even if their rank says otherwise. Even still, the Space Looney attitude prevails over all. One way or another, everyone's in it together - even if they could stand to be a little less whiny about it.
The population of the Diamond is mostly human, as with the processing center it protects. Two platforms are mostly staffed by redworlders, which constitute roughly a third of the FOD's population of greys. Boglanders and unionites occupy the occasional position of note on most stations. Whiteworlders are on par with levels in other Space Looney fleets, as compared to the FPC's footnote population. Several platforms are administered or supported by locally-developed AIs. All others work Montgomery into their daily life where possible. All told, the gun platforms make up around 3,800 personnel across species.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:33:09 GMT -5
HISTORYHistory for Fairbrook starts off with the LIV Mercury Cross, a jack-of-all-trades industrial cruiser, christened on February 18th of 1238. It was hard to sum the ship up properly. It was a bit of a tanker, a bit of a shuttle factory, and a bit of a flying apartment building all at once. It was loaded down with so many guns that even dreadnoughts were nervous flying past its forward arc. It was an ungainly, ugly beast that had none of the Space Loonies' usual flair for the sleek. What mattered at the end of the day was that it worked, and it could do just about everything out of the box. CHAPTERS- 1. Fitting In- 2. Crash Pad- 3. Trouble Comes Calling- 4. Fairbrook- 5. Striking Out- 6. Try for Two- 7. In the Junk- 8. Fat Chance- 9. Spreading Out- 10. Pull Over- 11. Present Day
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:50:07 GMT -5
FITTING IN
It was made for just that purpose. The Mercury Cross was thrown together by the Steeple of the Waves battle group in a bid to vent its excess population. They piled as many people aboard, crammed the Cross from gut to nose with salvage, and sent the ship along its way with a light escort. The battle group went out across high orbit to go back to salvaging and shipbuilding. The Mercury Cross went the opposite direction; down to the easy territory in low orbit, to wrangle itself a flotilla.
Space Loonies down in low orbit were always happy to see their own kind bringing some of the big stuff down to play. The Mercury Cross wasn't any different. It was fat, ugly, and slow, but it had its own industry. It had the kind of firepower that pirates wouldn't come close to. Right away, the Cross found its home. A decently-sized flotilla scoped it out as it made its descent, a band of frigates and corvettes by the name of This Fresh Second. There wasn't much disagreement when they linked up with the Mercury Cross on March 9th. They fell in behind it, worked out an administration, and renamed themselves in honor of their new flagship. Things were looking up.
For the flotilla, at least. What the crew of the Mercury Cross didn't know was that they'd been sized up by a group of pirates looking to break down some Space Looney hardware. By then, they'd already knicked a dozen gunships after ransacking a disabled frigate. They went by Kleerson's Cavaliers, and they'd already gone on to make a name for themselves with their stolen hardware. When they laid eyes on the Mercury Cross, they were eager to outdo themselves. They wanted the ship. On May 28th, Kleerson's made their assault.
It didn't work out very well for anyone. The Cavaliers ended up dead and scattered. The Mercury Cross and its escorts came away bloodied and bruised. Six ships were disabled, two more were destroyed outright. Casualties amounted to at least 110, with 38 dead or lost to the void. The Mercury Cross came away with a dead gunship stuck to its face for at least a week. Grumbly all the way, they patched up their ship and their fleet. A few other Space Looney flotillas sniffed the scent of blood and drifted in to help.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:50:36 GMT -5
CRASH PAD
Things smoothed out for a time after. The fleet scraped by for six years, growing and gaining momentum. Those early years helped push them down the road they'd walk later in life; Space Loonies that'd lost cargo or ships asked for help in hunting down gear that'd turned up in spacer hands. The Mercury Cross earned a small reputation on the side by hunting down brigands with big ships. All the while, they were planning on settling down. They were eyeing real estate, taking stock of local politics, and stashing away resources.
1244 rolled in with a gambit and a gamble. The fleet had been watching a garbage hauler facility for some time, stuck like a wart to a growing trade route. The haulers had mostly abandoned the place; nearby pirates and junkers had taken to scrapping everything that moved. With nothing to do and no salvage to build new haulers with, the processing center had shut down. The plan for the Mercury Cross was to swoop in, sprinkle on some old Pioneer Network control codes, and seize control of the facility. With a new industrial base to work off of, the fleet - so it'd been hoped - could expand into bigger ships like the Cross itself.
The fleet mobilized on January 23rd to circle around the processing facility. At first, other spacers in the region mistook them for garbage haulers trying to sneak back to the nest. They arrived to find a few dozen salvage and repair teams working furiously to get the processing facility back up and running. Right beside them were eighteen warships escorting the meanest cruiser to hit low orbit. A few of the more bold and daft made attempts to scare the Space Loonies off, but they fell flat on their faces. The fleet had learned. They weren't going to get slapped again.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:50:49 GMT -5
TROUBLE COMES CALLING
Not by the pirates, but certainly by the garbage haulers. Once the processing facility had been kickstarted, haulers flocked back to it in massed waves. They chased after its siren song, either hungry for the dead pirates drifting or bursting with trash. They swarmed in like a tide of drunken vultures, swallowing up debris and vomiting out detritus. Salvagers were smacked around as haulers set upon the pirate wrecks they'd been cutting apart. At least one Space Looney ship was dragged off in a hauler's guts and came back only a month later, covered in slime.
After all the chaos, it turned out that the processing center wasn't even operational. True to its heritage, it was all noise and no service. Its tools had ground down after a century of abuse. Its communications were as useless as a crab in an opera. Its power core had collapsed into itself just to break the monotony. It was nothing but emergency power on solar reserves. Only the doors worked right - sometimes. The only thing of use the Space Loonies had gotten out of the deal was the station's hull - and that was just as pitiable as the rest of it.
Still, they were nothing if not persistent. The Mercury Cross worked hard on refurbishing the platform for its own purposes. As useless as its guts were, it had them all in the right houses. To top it off, the processing facility was immense; three times as large as the Cross itself and five times as heavy. It was a frame for the future the Space Loonies weren't about to toss out. The only thing that kept them in check was their size. With just the Cross as their industrial base and a pittance of available engineers, work was hard and slow.
Matters were made worse by regular pirate attacks from vindictive junkers, still angry about their failed raids. Roaming mercenary giants took to extortion on the small Space Looney fleet. It hit its peak five years into the restoration process when the Mercury Cross bucked a protection payment. Mercenaries teamed up with raiders to knock down their front door, on April 22nd of 1249. Mercury Cross held on, stubborn and defiant, but it was another victory no one prospered from. The mercenaries came away with a black eye and a broken jaw, six ships less and a few dozen fighters poorer. The fleet lost all the work they'd expended into the processing facility - and about five of their own ships in the process.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:51:38 GMT -5
FAIRBROOK
The years to follow were painful, but they kept on an upward trend. With all the blood they'd lost, Mercury Cross moved along even slower in station repairs. They named the platform the Fairbrook Processing Center in honor of Michelle Fairbrook, one of the captains lost in the mercenary raid. That was the only news - fortunate as it was - for around nine years. Other Space Loonies trickled in, ship by ship, slowly smoothing over the fleet's wounds. A small wave of redworlder corvettes in 1256 heralded the first non-humans in the fleet. An odd boglander frigate found its way in just a year later.
The FPC grew and grew all the while. Its facilities started to come online, with its first shuttle produced on August 12th, 1253. The center moved on to corvettes in 1256, with the help and schematics provided by the greys. A little crew module ballooned off one side to handle on-site personnel and food production. In 1258, on June 23rd, the FPC's most ambitious project took its first steps into space; a frigate, christened lovingly as the LRV Shotgun Wedding. Production of the ship was a year behind schedule and nearly killed a dozen people in the process. Shipbuilding scaled back to corvettes and shuttles for half a decade after.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:51:54 GMT -5
STRIKING OUT
The history of the Chandler Diamond picks up around the time the Fairbrook Processing Center was ready to call itself an adult. On July 1st, the FPC declared itself self-sufficient, and the Mercury Cross fleet was finally able to go roaming again. Initially, operations were nothing out of the ordinary. Scuttler Slice runs for asteroids and raw salvage. Unity Station stopovers for advanced equipment. A meet-up with other Space Loonies to work out some of the lingering manpower shortages the FPC still had.
In that time, a handful of old Pioneer Network derelicts were charted and slated for salvaging. The first was an old defense platform built around a long-range gravity manipulator array, impassionately designated LGP-780-13. Other Space Loonies had known about it for some time. Most were doing their best just to keep the junkers at bay. The problem was the location; deep in the Scuttler Slice, nearby to a few harvester drone hives and ongoing radiation storms. Smaller flotillas couldn't handle the task of stripping the whole thing. Someone big needed to step up to the plate.
After a few years of stocking up and planning ahead, Mercury Cross took on the task. On October 8th of 1261, they threw themselves at the platform and started up the process of cutting it apart. Before the year was out, the engineers overseeing the task got cocky. Their fleet had managed to clear a path to the station that, with a little help, was big enough to fly it back out. Dragging it home meant less risk in salvage ops and less salvage lost to the Slice. On December 2nd, with a little political savvy, their plan was given the green light. The old hulk was headed for the FPC.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:52:27 GMT -5
TRY FOR TWO
Even with a full fleet at the ready, towing a gun platform out of the Scuttler Slice was an undertaking. Two ships were lost in the process through a combined assault of space rocks and harvester attacks. Casualties amounted up to around 130 total, with 10 missing or dead. It took at least a month just to get it to the halfway point. Slowly, painfully, the platform made it clear of the debris fields and out into high orbit trade lanes. The project leads wiped the cold sweat off and went to work prepping the wreck. That was, of course, until they realized it wasn't a wreck.
As it turned out, LGP-780-13 was still kicking. Its power facilities, gravity module, and most of its fire control systems were all still in working condition. With a few days of repair work, even its orbital maneuvering thrusters came back online. Luck struck twice on the occasion. Not only was the station working and ready to move, there was an opening coming up in orbit. With a punt in the right direction, it could slip in beside the FPC and go in for a full renovation. The scheme changed hands. The military minds of the Mercury Cross had a new plan.
The fleet split up in a handful of directions to start covering more ground. A token flotilla of small ships went along with the platform to keep it from being a very expensive derelict bomb. The rest went off on the hunt for convenient wrecks in convenient places. The plan was an expansion of the original operation; the fleet was going to haul back more platforms, with an emphasis on working equipment, to set up a chain of stations around the FPC. Initially, the end result was meant to be a station cluster for other Space Loonies - a trade hub for their own kind. Once again, opportunity had other ideas.
Word got around in the middle of 1262 about what the Mercury Cross fleet was up to. Other Space Loonies were intrigued. Plenty of smaller flotillas had seen derelicts packed with old Pioneer Network technology that they didn't have the equipment to strip. Plenty of fleets were sizing up empty stations for de-orbiting operations into the Veinlands or Crimson Expanse. They put the pieces together. They saw a new home for all those lost, lorn beasts. Before 1263 arrived, they got in touch with the Mercury Cross. They started pushing old hulks their way.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:52:38 GMT -5
IN THE JUNK
Things got out of hand in a hurry. The sheer volume of incoming wrecks was too much for Mercury Cross or the FPC to handle. On March 3rd of 1263, an old refuelling station ricocheted off the side of the FPC. On May 20th, two stations slipped past the fleet's curtain and splashed down into the Cloneston Wasteland. At the beginning of August, a station collided with a garbage hauler processing center in the way. It shattered and sent a shotgun blast of space shrapnel at the fleet that knocked out three small ships in the process. Dozens more were damaged or lost trying to reel in passing hulks. Trash and scrap polluted the space around Fairbrook for years to come.
Just as it'd done before, Mercury Cross survived, and the FPC scrabbled back to its feet. By the time the rain of wrecks ended in around 1265, they woke up to a small problem. Of the twenty-two wrecks slung into the FPC's orbital trail, only three could house anything bigger than a shuttle. Not one could handle shipyard duties. A total of eighteen were gun platforms, in spirit or in form, just like the debris-battered LGP-780-13. Most of them were operational in one way or another. They just needed a makeover.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:52:50 GMT -5
FAT CHANCE
As always, the Space Loonies adapted. They went to work doing just as fate had suggested. They pulled together all the junk and garbage around them, smoothed out the dents in the platforms, and drafted plans for a nest of guns. Initial ideas on committing to banditry were slapped out of the officers behind them. Instead, the first foundations of the modern-day Fairbrook Interdiction Zone were laid. Patrol routes were established, other fleets were tapped for information on the Grosseman Commerce Sector. A strict no-littering policy went into effect.
Pirates and nomads laughed at it. The idea was asinine. A giant mess of has-been defense guns was supposed to protect a monumental pile of fresh salvage. They launched raids into the area to steal away junk or knock out salvager shuttles. For about three years, from 1265 to 1268, Fairbrook was a mess of dogfighting patrols and drifting engineers. Space Loonies were hard to find in all the noise; pirates outnumbered them two-to-one, junkers and nomads five-to-one. It was a salvage opportunity like nothing before for everyone else. When 1268 finally rolled in, the FPC bit back hard.
It was on the dot in that year that LGP-780-13 came online in full. The station had been bodged together with from a thousand different sources and downgraded to a pinch gun, but that didn't change much. On January 10th, it took its first target; a pirate frigate by the name of Atarracada. It went into Space Looney custody in the same week as a tragic little garbage can. It took until Fairbrook had gotten two more guns online, in 1269 and 1270, for the other spacers to take the hint. By then, the newly-christened Raymond Chandler had a kill count close to a hundred.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:53:11 GMT -5
SPREADING OUT
The second statement of self-sufficiency drew eyes back to the Mercury Cross - which was gradually losing out in notoriety compared to the FPC. Other Space Loonies were impressed with the feat Fairbrook had managed. Interested parties started to close in on the station cluster. Trash still clung around to muddy things up, but the garbage in itself was an opportunity. The FPC and the soon-to-be Chandler Diamond needed manpower. Everyone else needed scrap. Whenever a fleet had people it could part with, they swapped out for raw resources. The wealth of whiteworlders gave way as brainier creatures started taking their place.
All that trash meant the FPC could expand. All the new crew meant they finally had the manpower to do it. The trash that didn't swap hands for personnel ended up welded and riveted to the processing center. The electronics and finer things that didn't end up inside one of the defense guns went right into making the FPC more comfortable. What started out as a small staff module the size of a shuttle eventually ballooned off the side of the station to something nearly as large as its industrial section. By 1281, the FPC had finally edged the Mercury Cross fleet out in total population.
In 1290, when commerce from Grosseman hit its high point, Fairbrook took it as a sign. Over the following two years, it formalized itself as the Fairbrook Orbital Defense Cluster. It laid out a charter on its intent to police the freshly-named Fairbrook Interdiction Zone for lost or stolen Space Looney hardware. It emphasized the Space Looney creed in hunting down the Cult wherever it could be found. It advertised its intent, warned passing traders of the changes to come, and passed on the new state of affairs to other Space Loonies. In 1292, patrols started stop-and-frisk actions on wandering ships.
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Post by Insano-Man on Sept 28, 2018 9:53:38 GMT -5
PULL OVER
Not much to anyone's surprise, the policy didn't win over hearts and minds when it first started off. Traders used to roaming free suddenly found themselves being boarded by grumpy marines. Passenger ships were stopped and checked for meaty mutants at every turn. Some even went as far as saying grounded Loonies were making raids on ships. Teething issues popped up at every corner for Fairbrook; overly-aggressive searches, sticky-fingered officers, and the usual Looney animosity towards regular spacers.
Over time, both sides adjusted to the new status quo. The trade route was too convenient to abandon and Space Looney checks were usually harmless. Fairbrook took a closer look at its staff for corruption and went to work retraining its marines for the job. Their breakthrough moment was in 1294, on September 7th. A passenger ship was boarded and found to be ferrying cultists to Unity Station, identified by scripture kept with them. Just as soon as marines had confirmed them as Cult followers, a mob of meat monsters erupted from the ship's hold. Only 2 of the ship's 160 passengers died in the ensuing brawl. Not one Space Looney left with anything more than a messy visor.
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