Editing Stars Without Number: The High and the Mighty (section)

== Astaroth (06.06) ==
The star system which is the origin-point of both the Nobility and the Mecha, and the place where the campaign begins.

=== New Eden (Astaroth Tertius) ===
*Atmosphere: Breathable Mix
*Climate: Temperate
*Biosphere: Engineered
*Population: Two Billion Peasants. Two Hundred thousand Nobles. Two Hundred Thousand Psychics.
*Languages: English (common tongue), Mandarin, Hindustani, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, French
*Tech Level: Baseline 4 with some pretech capabilities (Mech Interfaces, Limited Psitech capabilities, Basic TL5 energy weapons, Bio-Engineering.)
*Tags: Warlords, Regional Hegemon. Large areas of territory are controlled by different Noble families, and the Planetary Senate is minimally effective at anything but preventing all-out war. 
*Trade: +2 Luxury, +1 Sapient, -1 Pretech, -2 Biotech
'''History''': Unlike many less-fortunate colonies, New Eden was already paradisiacal when the Scream hit. They lost their psychics and their Gates, but disruption to the planetary culture itself wasn't too severe. They have spent the last thousand years expanding across the globe and refining their own culture and biosphere. Individual Estates, no less than 150,000 square kilometers, number around 100. Armed conflicts are strictly limited to small-scale, refereed engagements between hand-chosen mecha and a few support units. Peasants and Nobles are ruled by different codes of law are not treated as equals, although the governments of individual Estates can have substantial differences between them. Psychics are also prized, and are given special privileges over Peasants. Psychic abilities are much more common among the Nobility, but do not give an rank exalted among their peers. All Nobles are expected to be extraordinary; psychic capability is merely one possible expression of their excellence. 

Recently, a spike-drive-equipped exploratory mission from another world visited New Eden and landed, in order to make contact. They eagerly shared the secrets of FTL technology with the people of New Eden, who had previously only made System craft for purposes of asteroid mining and the like. 

Their generosity may prove to have been ill-advised.

=== Ice Station Morituri ===
Station Morituri had 8 command positions (Captain, XO, Quartermaster, Chief Engineer, Medical, Life Support, Data, and Ops) and ten times that many staff. It ran 24 hours a day, with 20 man shifts. Pay was good, particularly since year-long stints meant you couldn't spend any of the money you were accumulating. Lots of people got sent out there as part of a criminal responsibility agreement*. The command positions are mostly professionals, former soldiers and the like who are used to running an operation along quasi-military lines. The crew, though, are largely an assorted mix of weird rabble and former criminals of the lesser sort. No murderers for the most part, but lots of people with a string of petty crimes, and a few with one serious offense that seemed to be out of character for them. No one with any background as a terrorist or mass murderer or the like.

Situation: It's considered fairly grim. Any survivor should have been able to activate the distress beacon from any one of several locations inside the base. Even if the comm tower was destroyed utterly, every one of the escape pods has its own distress beacon. None of them have been activated. It's half-suspected that when you get out there, there will be nothing but a mass of wreckage where a large meteor strike destroyed the base in one fell swoop. That sort of thing does happen sometimes. Alternately, they could have uncovered something dangerous within the ice, or been subject to a surprise attack by very well-organized pirates. That last is unlikely, weapon discharges in-system would normally be detected by someone.

[https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?785484-SWN-The-High-and-the-Mighty&p=20248528#post20248528 Rough Map of modular station]

[http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc177/WyzardWhately/Morituri_zpsi4s0pjau.png~original Schematic from data banks]

=== Planet ===