Far Frontiers Gateway sector

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Got some good gaming in this last weekend, and so the next newsletter will have some of the result of that in it. Also Teslapunk has some good events as well. Had a marathon gaming session, and need to do it again soon. It was worth fighting the traffic in Houston...

 

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257-2510 Gateway News Service- Xanadu

John Smallberries here with the Gateway News Service. The hammer has fallen on many of the powerful on Xanadu. The Guillotine files have shown up on the nets. The files detail many of the illegal and unethical business dealings, and the web of relationships between politicians, lawyers, Judges, corporate CEOs, and the rich.

Many personal dealings have been exposed. The Chief Executive of Xanadu has also been named as a person involved in all these patronage and dirty deals, he is declining to issue any statement other than the allegations are patently untrue. However, the documents showing the payments, hush money, and connections have been released, so his denial is a bit hollow. Lo Pan Industries and Investments name keeps coming up time and time again in the documents. However Mr. Lo Pan is off world at this particular moment, and his spokesmen have denied his participation in any illegal acts.

Right now, the power brokers on Xanadu are in shock at the revelations, and at this time are hiding behind their lawyers declining to speak on the matters that are being revealed, which have shaken the pillars of heaven. We are told that behind the scenes there are many vid calls being made in an attempt to mitigate the damage that is seen being done to the status quo. Two High Court justices have resigned and have taken ship off planet. The CEO of Ng Optronics and Laser Systems has also gone on extended walkabout off planet, reports are that he has gone to Nuevo Sol which does not have an extradition treaty with Xanadu.

GNS has been told that Anna Kim has been very quietly spirited off planet, to an undisclosed location. One rumor has her going to Sutekh, another to Hades Station, and yet another to New Texas. As we get more information we, at GNS, will be bringing you the latest information on this metaphysical bomb which went off on Xanadu. Questions are being asked as to what part Anna Kim had to play in this whole “disagreeable” episode as it is being called, or was she just a pawn in a far larger game.

Our reporter John Smallberries will have more as he develops the situation, since it appears that Xanadu is going through rough times as the political-economic masters of the planet seem to have some explaining to do.

 

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264-2510 Gateway News Service- New Paris

We are told that repairs on the Gabrielle 3 Mining station are well underway, with repairs estimated to be completed by mid next year, which will also include a number of long overdue upgrades to the station. Station Manager Louis Tenant is telling reporters that with the upgrades will be an increase in ore handling capacity, new smelters, ingot makers, and two new mass drivers to launch the cargo to the main processing node for the station.

The ore catch system is being upgraded to the latest standards by Xanadu Space Mining Corporation which will allow for a higher margin of safety in case of accidents. Plus the conveyors are being upgraded for faster and safer operation. We are told that Emperor Napoleon IV has directed that the Gabrielle 3 station become the model for the upgrades of the other stations in the system. The new Xanadu Mining system XI will boost productivity by an estimated 31% over the previous equipment.

Also extra security precautions are being put in place to prevent as repeat of the incident which caused so much damage to the station. Imperial security troops will be stationed at the much expanded and improved Gabrielle station. The economy of New Paris has suffered with the station being out of commission since a full 17% of the space mining operations moved through this station before the bomb caused so much damage. The economic benefits of the rapid restoration of this station cannot be understated Mr. Tennant told GNS.

 

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265-2510 Gateway New Service- New Caledonia

Highland Shipping has entered into an agreement with Caledon Ventures to handle shipping into and out of Coffeeville, Dustball, and New Texas. Highland Shipping is a small corporation, but has long standing ties with those three worlds since until recently Caledon Ventures was more focused on the subsector and the trade with New Canberra.

This agreement seems to indicate that Caledon Ventures, which is partially owned by the Hereditary Prince and his family are looking to move into other subsectors, and potentially become in the future a competitor to the Royal Sutekh Merchant Marine and Cheval Enterprises.

If this is true, then we can expect that the Cheval family companies to react the way they normally do towards any threat to their bottom line; full on attack and attempts to undercut the competition. Caledon Ventures is one of the companies who jumped on the New Silk Road route to the Aslan Hierate early on, and has been purchasing jump 3 ships from New Texas, Xanadu and Gateway to increase their trade with the Aslans.

They managed to freeze out the RSMM early on, but the Cheval family is starting to “surge” their famous Tradewind class 1,999 ton ships onto the New Silk Route. Caledon Ventures along with Highland Shipping has developed two classes of ships for the trade, the 1,000 ton liner, and the 2,000 ton cargo ship. At this time they have 8 liners, and 11 cargo ships in service, compared to the 88 total ships of the RSMM.

The RSMM and Cheval factors on Asgard have lodged complaints that the Silk Road stations are “slow rolling” services and refueling to their ships, and accelerating the service and turn around of Caledon Ventures vessels. An investigation has found no validity to this complaint, although there were episodes where investigators did find that work was lagging behind due to union issues on the station which seemed to disproportionately affect RSMM vessels. The union members deny any intent to slow down the RSMM ships.

 

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266-2510 Gateway News Service- Asgard

A small disturbance broke out on docking arm #4 between the crew of an RSMM Tradewind, and the crew of the CCS (Caledonian Commercial Ship) Tara over the Tara getting preference for cargo unloading, despite the RSMM ship claiming to have been docked first. But dock supervisors said that the RSMM Ship the Blazing Eye was still in customs hands, and so the Tara actually finished first with customs, so they got to go first.

The captain of the RSMM ship said that was a false and fabricated story since Customs was dragging their feet in inspecting his ship, which always seems to happen to ships belonging to the RSMM and he was bloody tired of it happening! The customs supervisor, and dock supervisor said that was not the case, but they know that the RSMM have a reputation of creative book-keeping when it comes to cargoes so they get inspected a bit more thoroughly to ensure that they are not bringing in or taking out cargo items they have not declared. The captain of the Blazing Eye called this a blatant lie, since everyone knows that the RSMM is as pure as the driven snow!

Three crewmen of the Blazing Eye were arrested for brawling, and have been ordered confined to the station brig for 48 hours. The Captain of the Blazing Eye said that he was going to complain to the Sutekh Ambassador over this vile treatment of a respectable crew and ship.

Asgard is still the main jump off point for the New Silk Road since the chaos on New Africa has prevented the opening of their station for the Aslans. The Asgard government is telling us at the Gateway News Service that trade with the Aslan Hierate has picked up, and despite the vast distance to cover, it appears that very nice profits are being made by those ships who can make the trip.