Editing Stellar Hero

== Current & Deceased Heroes ==

=== Rufus Valentine, 1st-level Expert: Alive ===

'''Rufus Valentine'''
*Expert 1
*XP: 0/1510
*AC: 7 
*HP: 7
*Fray Die: D6

'''Attributes'''
*Str 18 (+2)
*Int 14 (+1)
*Wis 8 (-1)
*Dex 12 
*Con 16 (+1)
*Cha 14 (+1)

'''Languages'''
*English
*Hindi


'''Skills:''' 
*Athletics 0
*Combat/Primitive 0
*Combat/Gunnery 0
*Culture/Terran 0 
*Culture/Spacer 0
*Navigation 1
*Perception 0
*Survival 0
*Tech/Postech 0
*Vehicle/Grav 0
*Vehicle/Space 0

'''Equipment''' 

*Readied 6/9
**265 credits
**Laser Pistol (1): -1 to hit, 1d6 damage.
**Monosword (1): +2 to hit, 1d8+3 damage.
**Type A Power Cells 5/5 (1)
**Armored Undersuit
**Metatool (1)
**4 Glowbugs (0)
**Compad (0)
**TL4 Backpack (0)

*Stowed 5/18
**Survival Kit (1)
**1 day rations + water (2)
**Vacc Suit (2)
**Combat Field Uniform

*Owned
*???
*Finances
**First Bank of Terra: 14,300 credit savings account.
**37 shares of Terraform, Inc. stock. Purchased at 80 credits before word of Vespene gas got out, 18 January 3203.

'''Background:'''
*Rufus (who desperately wants a cool nickname) signed up for a spacer crew as soon as he was old enough to legally do so. He's spent the past few years working as a survey scout, technician, and eventually assistant navigator on a number of small exploration and free merchant craft. Having come into possession of a ship, he intends to go as far and as fast as he can. (It is possible that Rufus is running *from* something.)

'''Likes'''
*Uncharted worlds
*Being cool
*Spaceships
*Damsels in distress

'''Dislikes'''
*Stock components
*Bosses
*Bankers
*Being tied down

'''Goals:'''<br/>
1. Find an uncharted world.<br/>
2. Strike it big with a lost treasure.<br/>
3. Outrun somebody.<br/>
4. Upgrade his ship.<br/>

==Contacts==

'''Silverlight Clan – Gambling'''

Natsu Fujiwara (Japanese)

Female, Young, Very tall

You met Natsu when she was a passenger on a Free Merchant you were working.  She was headed to Sirius to assist in the licensing of a new casino.  She noted that the Clan was expanding their operations in the colonial worlds and could use a man like you for odd jobs.  She gave you her card.  You distinctly remember two things about Natsu: she's very attractive and she's missing the pinky finger on her right hand.

'''Colonial Alliance – Projectile Guns'''

Johar Chauhan (Indian)

Male, Young, Tall

Johar is a drinking buddy you met on Tau Ceti.  He's an arms dealer, for lack of a better term.  Mostly small arms but he always gave you the impression he could find bigger guns if he needed to.  You remember him always having a cold, always sniffling.  He would always bitch about the crappy atmo-scrubbers on the traders he'd take around the sector.

'''Frontier Group – Plastics'''

Bohai Cui (Chinese)

Male, Young, Average height

Bohai is the CEO of the Frontier Group, the company that owned the last Merchant you worked before you decided to go solo.  He was unhappy you were leaving his employ, as you had established a rep as a dependable worker.  He told you to feel free to look him up if you ever needed a job.  Bohai has distinctive features, specifically long hair and a long wispy beard. Despite his young age, he reminded you of a martial arts sensei.

'''Imani Outfit - Security'''

Adesegun Adeniyi (Nigerian)

Male, Old, Average height

Adesegun is the Captain of the ''Obula'', a Free Merchant you worked a year or two ago.  Adesegun has been around a long time, and has seen it all.  You could call him a friend.  You and he often drank while on leave, and you'd listen to his stories about his travels across the sector.  Working for a security outfit, he had some very interesting stories.

'''Striker Organization – Xenotech'''

Irina Litvak (Russian)

Female, Middle aged, Short

Irina is a tough, smart-mouthed buyer of artifacts and technology from Armada races.  She's very vocal about her dislike of offworlders, having never left the Holy Roman Union on Terra.  You struck up a friendship after helping her fight off an unwanted suitor in a bar (though it was unclear whether she needed the help).  Her firm, the Striker Organization, is very active on the edges of Terran Sector space.

== Sector Map ==

[[File:Sol Sector.png]]

== System Details ==
Many planets are generated with the [http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/system/ Donjon Star System Generator.]  These systems will list a system seed, and whether or not you should check the box for "force this system to include a terrestrial world."  While I am including a picture of the system to let you make sure you get the right one, additional information is available if you actually go to the site and click on a given world.


===Sol System===

Eight planets and a substantial asteroid belt.  Original home of the Terran race.

*'''Mercury''' - Rumor has it that the Mandate had a couple of bases on Mercury, deep in the bottom of craters at the poles so as not to be exposed to direct sunlight.  The research was supposedly into fusion-based weaponry, harnessing the power of Sol.  No one knows if the bases are still operational, post-Scream.
*'''Venus''' - Home to a couple thousand scientists and atmo-miners in orbital bases, Venus' atmosphere is too hostile for colonization.  Note: Atmo-miners collect rare chemicals from the upper atmosphere of the planet.
*'''Terra''' - Earth is a shadow of her former self.  Global warming, due both to the effects of 19th-22nd Century industry and a series of nuclear exchanges right after the discovery of the spike drive, has caused the complete meltdown of the polar ice caps.  Flooding, subsequent loss of arable land, warfare, and a mass exodus of colonists off-planet has left the global population at about one billion.  Once you leave Terra, the Mandate rules, but on Terra, there are five major political entities.
**Pan-African Confederacy - Main language is Bantu, multiple political parties dominated by Nigerians and Egyptians, control all of Africa.
**America, Inc. - Main language is Spanglish (formal combination of English and Spanish), corporations ''are'' the government, control all of North, Central, and South America
**Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere - Main language is Mandarin Chinese, government is a bureaucracy with Emperor at its head, control all of China and eastern Russia, plus the remnants of Japan and Asian island chains.
**Holy Roman Union - Main language is German, government is a theocracy with the Pope at its head, controls eastern and western Europe, including European Russia.
**United Council of India - Main language is Hindi, government is a democratic republic, controls south Asia from Thailand to the Middle East, and north to Kazakhstan.
**'''Luna (aka the Moon)''' - Home to roughly 20 million colonists.  Most of the civilian cities are at the poles, where lunar ice deposits make permanent colonies possible.  The Mandate has a number of military bases on the dark side of Luna.
*'''Mars''' - Home to about 50 million colonists.  Pre-Scream terraforming (and before that, atmosphere-forming) enabled Martian colonists to live on the surface of Mars without vacc suits and actually grow food in Martian soil.  The massive engines, powered by heat captured from rising magma, are mostly self-healing, which is good since they are of a pre-Scream tech level and no one really understands how they work or how to build more.  Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos
**Phobos has a couple hundred miners.  
**Deimos has a Mandate military base and is off-limits to civilians.
*'''Jupiter''' - Being a gas giant, there are no colonists on the planet itself.  
**Each of its Galilean moons, however, have small settlements with populations numbering in the low thousands.  
**Europa, in particular, seems the most promising due to its extensive ice layer.
*'''Saturn''' - Like Jupiter, there are no colonists on Saturn itself.  
**There is a sizable atmo-miner community on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and rumor has it that the Mandate is conducting experiments on creating life in Titan's methane lakes.
*'''Uranus''' - The coldest planet in the system, there are no known settlements on Uranus, although it's suspected that the Mandate has some sort of early warning system installed on one or more of its 27 moons.
*'''Neptune''' - An ice giant like Uranus, Neptune is also barren of human colonization. 
**Triton, Neptune's largest moon, has a Mandate military base where civilians are forbidden. 

===Alpha Centauri System===

First system colonized by Terrans, contains four planets, all naturally capable of supporting human life.

*'''Tiberius''' - The first planet settled by Terrans outside of Sol system, Tiberius is home to about 1 billion Terrans. It is the breadbasket of the system, supplying the vast majority of the foodstuffs for all Terran settlements.  Domestic issues are handled by a democratic republic system of government, while the Terran Mandate supersedes any local authority when it comes to issues of security and space travel.  The official language is English, which is not coincidentally the official language of the Mandate.  
*'''Crohn''' - The second planet settled by Terrans outside of Sol system, Crohn is the industrial backbone of the Mandate and the ex-Sol colonies.  Here you will find the only shipbuilders capable of making military-class warships, as well as the Mandate's central HQ.  You'll also find a number of "company towns" dedicated to this manufacturing enclave or that mining company.  On Crohn, the Mandate runs the domestic gov't, which can be somewhat accurately described as a enlightened dictatorship.  Fleet Admiral Viktor Kurnikov is the current Director of the Terran Oversight Board, making him the most powerful man in the galaxy.  Hindi is a popular second language on Crohn, due to the number of original colonists having arrived on ships launched from Indian base stations.
*'''AC Gamma''' - The third planet discovered in the system, AC Gamma (or just 'Gamma') is currently unoccupied.  The atmosphere is notoriously unpredictable, with the land constantly ravaged by storm systems hundreds of kilometers wide.  There are rumors of ruined alien cities planet-side that pre-date even the Armada races but few have risked the trip and even fewer have returned.  The Mandate strongly discourages civilians from making landfall but it's not actually prohibited.
*'''AC Delta''' - The fourth planet discovered in the system, AC Delta (aka 'Delta' or 'D-Train') is officially unpopulated but there are a number of small settlements led by Terrans who wanted to avoid the control of a central government.  They are a mix of cultists, religious extremists, mad scientists, and adventurers (think 'extreme outdoorsmen').  The Mandate also uses the planet for training some of its more elite troops.  While no exhaustive guidebook has been written on the planet, its native flora and fauna are notoriously unfriendly, if not outright lethal, to the unprepared visitor.

== Salvage ==

Anyone with Culture/Spacer 0 or higher knows that the law is:

*Mandate Navy ships can never be salvaged without prior Navy permission unless A. title has been relinquished by the Navy or B. there's imminent danger to Mandate lives and/or property if the ship is not salvaged (e.g. a reactor core about to melt down, or a hulk that's on a collision course with a station in orbit).

*The Navy maintains a Salvage List of private ships reported lost. If a ship on this List is salvaged, there are legal details to be ironed out but generally the salvage is split 50/50 between original owner and salvager.

*Any private ship not on the List is abandoned and can be freely salvaged for 100% recovered value. There is no "waiting period" for lost or missing ships to be declared on the List so most owners tend to put their ships on there as soon as they leave the system (Sol or Alpha Centauri), just to be covered.

*The salvager must report any attempt at salvage as soon as they dock at any Navy port or encounter any Navy ship.  Otherwise, they run the risk of being accused of piracy.


If this ship turns out to have "intelligence" value, as is most likely if it's an Armada ship, the Navy will confiscate it under existing law. There's a reasonable chance you may receive a finder's fee if this occurs but there are no guarantees.

The Navy will attempt to identify the ship to see if A. it's on the List and B. if it has "intelligence" value.

The salvage law extends to all Terran Mandate systems. The law hasn't yet evolved to cover Armada systems.

==Communication between Systems==

There's no stand-alone FTL communication between systems.  Messages have to be carried by ship.  

In most Mandate systems, there is a system-wide comm network that holds a database with every message.  When mailships enter the system, their copy of the database is compared to the one existing in the system.  New messages are uploaded and messages known to be delivered are deleted.  The mailship's copy of the database is similarly updated.

When end users enter any system, they can check the local copy of the database, download new mail meant for them, and upload new messages for delivery.

Mailships run every day, and a message can be delivered from one end of the sector to the other, as well as every system in between, in less than a week.