Quintus

C 858526 8 Agricultural, Garden, Non Industrial

A temperate world with a couple of large continents, Quintus is a bit off the beaten track being at least 3 parsecs from anywhere and was only colonised properly 50 years ago. It has not attracted too many people since due to the relative expense of getting there.

There are 170,000 people in two colonies, Quintus (3) and the larger Free Quintan Farming Co-op (6). Quintus has the nice starport, the largest town, Quintilla, and while it has a democratically(-ish) elected council, the local Serco Interstellar franchise, headed by Harold Quintus, pretty much calls the shots by running all the public services for a considerable profit. Harold is known as 'The Duke', and his extensive family, most holding large estates and management positions in SI PLC, as 'the Barons'. They extensively manage local media and manipulate local elections to keep themsleves in power, and while questions have been asked back In Serco's regional office in New Dorset in Aquila and even back home on Earth, on the whole the Quintus clan are left to get on with it.

The Free Quintan Farming Co-op was founded by a coalition of colonists who took exception to Quintus' blatant nepotism and abuse of democracy and set up their own independent public services in defiance of Qunitus' laws. After a lot of public disorder and riots they are now to all intents and purposes a separate state, and Harold Quintus dare not call in an expensive security force to sort them out as this would alert Serco HQ how bad the situation is, Quintus maintaining the fiction that he is still in control of the whole planet through the puppet assembly despite assessments from the University of Fargen Scout Service that he isn't. He has been hiring freelance agitators and saboteurs, creating a more hardline politics among his opponents and some counter attacks in the same vein.

As yet the insurrections have not spread to Serco's island 'secure colonies' - prison camps essentially where they transport offworld refugees and undesirables and treat them as second class citizens before they can earn their freedom. The Epsilonian contingent want to break them out, but others in the Co-op don;t want such alleged low-lifes on the world at all. A number of the camps hold deportees from Asgard on Orpheus.

Some of the members of the Coop are New Age types from Aquila, making it easy for Quintus to dismiss them as political cranks, but others are hard-core anarchists from Epsilon and professional agri-businessmen from the core worlds and Onika, New Dorset and Merovin on Aquila. HappiCorp have a marijuana plantation, and a cattle ranching operation here but so far they are siding with Serco. The Co-op are in the process of building a starport, and there is some conflict over getting corporate help.

In the meantime explorers have found sea-floor structures that look suspiciously like buildings of some kind, and rumours are growing that there are alien ruins down there, and in places on the surface too, most notably on the distant and largely unexplored second continent.

In addition the Merovin government are on the point of licensing the Compagnie de Quintus, an official colonisation effort granted a license and independent sovereignty by Serco Aquila. Again, only rumour, but Serco internal politics suggest that Quintus reign is up and the Merovinese are being allowed to make an example of him with what will no doubt be a well run rival administration.