Batavia IYTU?

[jawillroy]

I've been kicking around the idea of merchant's "Factories" IMTU recently on my blog: Any of you done anything with the idea?

At its simplest, think 17th century Dutch. You sail to the Java, and establish a fort: there, the company's factor administers the acquisition of spices etcetera by purchase, cultivation and outright force. So, a few houses, a warehouse, and a stockade around it. The next ship that arrives with supplies for the factor and his supporting staff goes out packed with the cloves and nutmeg that the factor's been accumulating since the last ship left.

(That is, unless the English, Portuguese, or natives have burned your factory down and slaughtered the factor and his men, as sometimes happened...)

So IYTU, supposing you've got a shipowner, or a small cartel, wanting to develop a factory on a frontier world, it seems to me that you could go really bare bones to start out: A trader with good people skills and three or four well-trained and equipped security types, kitted out in an ATV with cargo space might be a good spearhead... Your thoughts? What's the bare minimum you'd start with?

(I'm thinking that this might be the good starting point for an adventure: the players are hired by a small shipping line administer and protect their factory/warehouse on a low/mid-tech frontier world, procuring and stockpiling cargo for the company ship when it arrives in a few month's time, facing opposition from competing merchants, marauding offworld raiders, and locals fed up with profiteering spacers. Will they strike it rich for the company and themselves? Will they be ridden out of town on a rail? Will they steal the company and goods and split offworld, with fat wallets but prices on their heads? Etc. )

 

[jatay3]

Gungnir is a good planet for this. The mishmash of warlords make it interesting, as do the unusually high mountains.

 

[leo knight]

Some years ago, James Burke did a documentary (I think it was "The Day the Universe Changed", but I could be wrong) about European colonialism. The general game plan was, first, find a resource inland to exploit, second, establish a port, third, set up a railway between them, fourth, set up plantations with cheap native labor for extra revenue, fifth, export to your heart's content, sixth, have lots of guns on hand to keep the whole thing orderly. Burke linked the whole thing to mass production and standardized parts. As he talked, he tinkered with some device. When he got to the end he held up the device: an automatic pistol. He the pointed it at the camera with a smile. Think of that in Traveller, and think of how much damage your PCs could do, or have done to them!

IMTU, I had a world called Guaguin. It had a few hundred people, and a tainted atmosphere, which I decided was caused by the nectar of a plant with narcotic properties. A small official port was established to harvest the plant for medicinal purposes. Of course poachers and smugglers were eager to get their hands on the stuff too.

As to the bare minimum, I think you're on the right track. Imagine a modular cutter dropping off a module set up as a habitat. The trader, some mercs, maybe a scout to help with 'native issues'. Or some old gut bucket of a ship on its last legs landed as a base. I keep seeing the campsite around the Jupiter 2 from "Lost in Space" in my head. As to the potential for adventure, heck yeah!

p.s. Sorry if this is rambly, but I have a fever.

 

[rancke]

I've been kicking around the idea of merchant's "Factories" IMTU recently on my blog: Any of you done anything with the idea?

I assume most interstellar shipping companies use it. The factors assemble cargo and/or line up passengers in advance so that the company's ships can start loading/embarking as soon as they've finished unloading/disembarking. This allows the ships to leave port much sooner than the canonical five days, letting them make about 35 jumps per year instead of 25. Obviously this improves the economics considerably.

One of the adventures I wrote for JTAS Online revolves around an attempt by Oberlindes to set up such a facility on Forboldn.


Hans

 

[jawillroy]

Ramble away! It's fun.

So, Captain Employer hires PC trader, mercs and support staff; they have either a cutter module, or maybe a cargo ATV and an advanced base to start things off and set up a factory on BARREN WASTELAND Z. They get dropped off with a brief to start accumulating the best cargos the world can offer, for the cheapest they can get.

The PCs may futz around a week or two just trying the spec tables, with varying levels of success. Then they get smart, and start hunting around for sources - talking to the locals in detail. And they find out that there's a lot of PRODUCT X, which the locals haven't the tech or knowledge to use, but the trader knows is valuable for the production of SEXY HIGH TECH THINGS Y. Trader makes a deal: I'll pay you (peanuts) for all the PRODUCT X you can deliver prior to the return of the company ship. Locals dicker, to peanuts + kickbacks, and everyone's happy.

Until:

A) Inevitable friction between spacers and groundhogs. Brawls! PCs waylaid and mugged! Pilferage! PC reprisals! Burned villages! Besieged! Didn't someone check to see if this planet had guns? Or an army? Oh No!

B) Merchant Captain Sharpdealer shows up, and starts a bidding war. PCs nearly lose contract; PCs buy off local bosses to stay exclusive, Sharpdealer escalates from bidding war to trade war. PCs waylaid and mugged! PC reprisals! Factory lasered from low orbit! PRODUCT X stockpile taken by force! Oh No!

C) Merchant Captain Sharpdealer shows up, and offers PCs a substantial cut if they deal with him, instead of their employers. Why, sure, Captain, because as anyone knows by looking at 76 Patrons, Traveller Patrons and PCs alike have the moral sensibilities of Rats! As soon as the cargo's loaded, PCs forced off ship at gunpoint and left onworld in their socks. Won't Captain Employer be surprised next month! He's in system now? Oh No!

D) Location chosen for Factory turns out to be in the middle of the floodplain of the local trickle of a stream, which every season becomes a raging destructive torrent. Here comes the water! Hope you put your PRODUCT X up on stilts. You didn't? Oh No!

AND THE FUN GOES ON AND ON AND ON.

 

[jatay3]

One can do a Boxer Rebellion type of scenario. Suppose someone on the planet decides that foreign influences are a pollutant. They raise a war to exterminate all foreigners and all who have cooperated with them.

The foreign enclave is under siege until help arrives. This would be a great way to have several groups cooperating that would not normally cooperate. There could be Zhos, Swordies, Impies, Aslan, Vargr, and assorted others all fighting to survive until they are rescued.

 

[BlackBat242]

One can do a Boxer Rebellion type of scenario. Suppose someone on the planet decides that foreign influences are a pollutant. They raise a war to exterminate all foreigners and all who have cooperated with them.

The foreign enclave is under siege until help arrives. This would be a great way to have several groups cooperating that would not normally cooperate. There could be Zhos, Swordies, Impies, Aslan, Vargr, and assorted others all fighting to survive until they are rescued.

And the PCs get the parts of Lt. Smedley Butler and Pvt. Dan Daly?

 

[jatay3]

And the PCs get the parts of Lt. Smedley Butler and Pvt. Dan Daly?

Sure; why not?

 

[BlackBat242]

SEH... need I say more?

 

[Black Vulmea]

Marischal Adventures' Storm, Periastron, The Newcomers, and Trading Team, written by the Keiths, center on the activities of a first-contact merchant crew; they are very similar to Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League stories.

This was always pretty common in my Traveller games, even in more settled regions; either post an adventurer on a world or hire a reliable, trustworthy factor to buy and warehouse high-value cargo, particularly on an Industrial planet. It's the only way to compete with the big boys. It's also covered in a couple of JTAS articles, one on trading without a starship and another on incorporating your trading business.