Heroninine (0505, C7A9877-5)
Impossibly cold in all seasons, with rain and oceans of pure liquid nitrogen. The nitrogen serves as the main export and source of income for Heroninine. What paltry land exists is craggy rock amounting to two small continents. Some 300 years ago, the Heroninate submitted their surrender to the Governance Forum of Poronor (0603). A necessary move to preserve the continued existence of the Eternal Empire, if not its unsullied honor. As payment for peace, the Heroninate promised a tithe of 60% of all liquid nitrogen production into perpetuity. Only the emperor and his closest advisors know about this.
On the main continent, containing 80% of the population, most people live in relative comfort. Sprawling cities dug into the rocky surface effectively hold heat and regulate temperatures. Most folks work the dewars: huge underground pipelines that feed liquid nitrogen directly from the ocean, through complex filtration, and into long tuns ready for space transport. The Empire has seen a long-term baby boom on the back of their economic success, due to new business contacts gained through association with Poronor (despite giving away a majority of their production).
The smaller, southerly continent contains the 20% of the population descended from those that rebelled after the peace agreement with the Poronor government. They live in exile and squalor, in one cavern city, scraping together just enough power and food to stay alive. Most of their meager wealth goes into futile guerilla warfare against the Empire.
Patrons
- Jillian Malcolm, journalist.
A fervent advocate for Imperial reunification, Malcolm has recently come into possession of credible financial documents proving that the state-in-exile is actually exporting huge amounts of nitrogen, estimated at some two or three times their official GDP. She suspects that high-level government and industry officials are embezzling the unreported money. Her hope is that getting this information to the populace-in-exile would incite a groundswell of support for reunification with the Empire, but due to wartime sanctions, all travel and communication between the continents is strictly controlled on both sides. She offers her life savings—20,000 credits—to anyone able to smuggle the information to her long-time contact among the government-in-exile, a man named Warfield Fleming. She warns against letting the data fall into the wrong hands. Many people on both sides would do anything to quell the reunification movement.
Fleming is dead, a casualty of local political machinations. His successor, Ashley Bernoulli, is markedly unclever and not at all sympathetic to reunification.
- Solomon Cartwright, "Chief CEO" NightRoGen Exports
A lifelong longshoreman, Cartwright recently acquired a big rig of his very own. He named her Kattereena. He's been hauling nitro and sundries between Herominine and Poronor for the last six months, but he's had trouble keeping a reliable crew. He's willing to take you on in exchange for working passage to Poronor, and he'll even arrange for one of his buddies to take you to any system within jump-2 from there.
Cartwright is an excellent laborer, a serviceable navigator, and a truly terrible pilot. Nonetheless, he refuses to let anyone else at Kattereena's helm. At the mid-point of the journey post-jump into Poronor, he attempts a standard about-face in preparation for deceleration toward the planet, and completely botches the maneuver. The sixth payload tether snaps, sending the majority of his cargo hurtling loose into space. He begs you to take the ship's boat out, attempt to "catch the tether" with the crane arm, and bring his cargo back. He's the most skilled person with a crane arm by far, but he's reluctant to leave Kattereena in a stranger's hands.
Even if you don't manage to retrieve the cargo, he'll fulfill his promise to you. The loss of the cargo ruins him financially—he'll have to sell Kattereena and go back to his longshoreman job to pay off the balance on his mortgage. If the cargo makes it to Poronor, he'll offer you each a 2,000 credit bonus in thanks. It's the best he can do. He insists you don't forget to look him up next time you're in the system so he can treat you to a steak dinner. He knows just the place.