Lancer: In Golden Flame

Lancer: In Golden Flame

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OOC

The Setting

The Outer Rim is a section of space on the border of Union, primarily notable for a complete lack of inhabitable planets. It's a blank spot on the map. But... on the other side of the Long Rim is the Dawnline Shore, a region of space with an intense quantity of Earthlike planets which is of heavy interest to the various major players in galactic politics, especially the Karakin Trade Baronies and Harrison Armory.

The Dawnline shore does not have a functional blinkgate at this time. As a result, the only way there is via sub-light travel, turning the Long Rim into a transit corridor, scattered with space junk, mined out rocks and the remnants of old battles. The primary thoroughfare for ships travelling between Rào Cỏ Station, the furthest blink gate from the Galactic Core, and the Dawnline Shore; filled with habitats and space stations established by early colonists and prospectors centuries ago. The Long Rim is beyond the Union's borders, a place of hardship and loose regulations.

In Golden Flame takes place in one of these systems, Calliope.

Calliope was colonized by mistake. During the initial exploration of the region, a nameless junior astronomer accidentally gave Calliope a designation of C4L-P313/GW2, indicating that two Gaia or near Gaia class worlds had been detected in orbit. Calliope’s historians often say this set the tone for everything that followed: a careless mistake leading to bad decisions.

Calliope had, of course, no inhabitable planets, with the system ranging from ice balls, to gas giants to furnace worlds. For the initial colonization wave looking to take advantage othe two Gaia worlds, it was a disaster. Those who had the fuel, turned around and left. The rest had to set up stations and habitats the best they could. They lied to their sponsors to get more equipment, they jury rigged gear and they did whatever it took; establishing the Calliopean knack for building something out of spare parts and duct tape.

And they survived! And even, for a time, thrived; when it seemed like Calliope would become a significant player in the Long Rim and on the route to the Dawnline shore. Money and resources flowed into the system.

But, like all good things, it came to an end. The grandiose plans of the Calliope Project backers came to nothing. The big deals never materialized. The economy collapsed. Quality of life began to drop. Those who could left, leaving behind tens of millions of less fortunate people. The Pyrite Age ended and the Void Age began.

Life's been hard in the two centuries since. Pirates prowl the spacelanes, conditions get a tiny bit worse every year, Impact Dynamics jacks up the price of food and water each year. A few times every decade, Trade Barony and Harrison Armory warships use the system as a battleground as they try to stop each others convoys from getting to t he Dawnline Shore.

Everything in Calliope is falling apart, or close to it. These stations were built centuries ago, mostly by companies that no longer exist, using components that are no longer sold. Techs have to spend weeks or months reinventing the proverbial wheel just to print replacement parts. Half the system’s computers are reliant on a legacy codebase GMS stopped supporting twelve decades ago. There are no “permanent solutions” to technical issues out here, just patches on patches on patches.

You are all members of one of the major stations in Calliope. Stygia Mining Platform is the official name, but it didn't stick. Hell's Gate did. The second largest of the Big Four settlements in Calliope, a centuries old station that's been built, rebuilt and modified countless times over the years, in order to maintain a viable platform. Built when it was thought Calliope could sell its mineral wealth to the galaxy, the heady days of optimism that accompanied its founding are long gone in the face of the reality of galactic economics. Nobody's going to travel ten light years to buy metal. The only market is the other habitats in the system.

Still, there’s a sense of communal responsibility to the Gate: if nobody works the mines, if nobody runs the smelters, the whole system will grind to a halt. There are two million people living on the station, and they all need somewhere to live. People don’t have much, but they share it freely, and they pull together. There's one guarantee on Hell's Gate: That no matter what, everybody who lives there will get food, water, and a place to sleep. And even in the leanest of times, the station's been able to keep that promise.

Characters

The current cast and their currently printed mechs:

Brooks "Gremlin" Yao Mei (Mech: GMS Everest On Tour)
Dr. Janvier "Scalpel" Trossaldi-Metruda (Mech: GMS Everest Lateral Incision)
Patch (Mech: GMS Everest Burner)
Lost "Student" (Mech: GMS Everest Bigger) played by Timon
Telemachus "Lifer" Van Helsing (Mech: GMS Everest M.U.L.E) played by Bira
Sir "Paladin" Galachad-sama Van Helsing (Mech: GMS Everest Steedicus) played by EnigmaticOne

Clocks

Current clocks in play:
Station Stability

Militia Readiness

Downtime Actions

Downtime Actions

Exotic Gear

Unique pieces of equipment that have been acquired

Notable NPCs

Key figures in Calliope

Hell's Gate

Jerry Masters, Acting Station Director (he/him)
Formally the head of the militia, Jerry Masters stepped into the role of station director when the previous director vanished three years ago. Though it's more accurate to say everyone else stepped away. A Venn Diagram of everyone capable of doing the job and everyone who wants to do the job on Hell's Gate would essentially be two separate circles.

A pale, short, thin man with an untidy mop of brown hair and a twitchy disposition; Jerry is continually plagued by anxiety, insomnia and his collection of atrocious novelty ties. He's about thirty seconds away from a nervous breakdown, and that's on a good day.

Despite all this, he's one of the better managers the station has had in living memory; constantly throwing everything he has into the job, despite what it costs him on a personal level. He's got a good head for logistics, and under the three years of his tenure, Hell's Gate has held true to its founding principle: Everybone gets the basic requirements for life.

Jerry is also a top shelf mech pilot, though he hasn't driven his old Sherman Mk 1 in years. He never talks about his past, but when drinks start flowing, militia members started talking about an old callsign; Daybreak. And when the empty mugs really start to stack up, rumors fly about a team of DoJ/HR liberators and a doomed mission, once upon a time...

Shelly (she/her)
An ASURA-class NHP, Shelly is Jerry's former copilot and now works as his assistant in the gargantuan task of keeping Hell's Gate from falling apart.

She's efficient and pragmatic, but tends to be detached from all but a few resident of the Gate. People shew views as causing stress in Jerry's life earn her ire. Of course, there's a lot of stress these days...

She typically only converses via text or audio. On the occasion she does present a visual avatar, she favors an image of a smart young woman with multiple sets of arms and a pair of glasses.

Chief McArthur (she/her)
The chief engineer of Hell's Gate, Chief McArthur is responsible for the day to day business of keeping the machines that keep everyone alive working. She was considered a candidate for station director after Director Bai disappeared, but the simple fact is that the Gate can't afford to lose her hands on expertise at maintaining the station.

Zinfandel DeJean (they/them)
The head of the militia, Zinfandel cuts an imposing figure, but breaks the ice with her sense of humor and whimsical outlook on life. They took over the militia after Jerry became the Acting Director.

Technically, they're your boss; but in practice, missions important enough for the SRT to handle are handed out by Jerry.

Siren (she/her)
An ALKONOST class NHP, Siren used to be a SecComm pilot, but through in with ThirdComm during the revolution. When her ship was scrapped, she spent four centuries drifting in space before being found and rescued.

She eventually made her way out to Calliope, and found a job working on Hell's Gate as a pilot of the Dragon's Tooth, the clipper ship assigned to the SRT.

There's eleven tally marks on her casket, but she doesn't know what they mind. She's currently halfway through the process of being cycled, after which she should be good for another six years.

Ipswich DeLacy (they/them)
Ipswich 'Switch' DeLacey is a relatively new arrival on Hell's Gate, and is a lifestyle Omninet streamer. Switch and their fleet of camera drones are a common site around the Gate, and their constantly filming for their show, Live from the Long Rim.

Technically, this is a minor security issue; but Switch donates half the profits from their stream to the station, providing a much needed external cash flow; so Jerry gives them a pass.

Switch is a member and a contact point for the Horizon Collective.

Striga Von Aldenberg (she/her)
Striga Von Aldenberg is the eccentric and paranoid leader of "The Truth", a group of equally eccentric sigdivers, who are mildly aligned with Horizon.

She's tall, thin and notable for her tendecny to appear without warning from place she shouldn't have been able to get into.

Despite various quirks, she's a top deck hacker, and a reliable source for esoteric software and unusual data. But only if she trusts you.

Calamity Havok (she/her)
Havok is one of two Hell Hound pirates ever given the benefit of the doubt and allowed back on the station.

She's got a natural talent at modifying mechs, and an even more natural talent at violence; which helped her rise through the ranks of the Hell Hounds. Right up until she became a threat to Andros Capella's position, at which point she suffered a 'tragic accident'. However, she survived long enough to get picked up by a Gate Salvage crew.

Jerry eventually allowed her to stay, given that exiling her again would be a death sentence. She currently provides her expertise in mech modification for the militia's armory.

Hell Hounds

Andros Capella (he/him)
Andros Capella is one of the most hated and feared man in Calliope.

The leader of the Hell Hounds for twenty-four years, Andros has sworn bloody vengeance on Hell's Gate for the exile of his group. He's personally killed more members of the militia than anyone else in the system.

He's mean, sadistic and short tempered, and takes every emotion he has out on other people.

His preferred mech is a Genghis, he finds the HA flamethrower mech speaks to his brutality and lets him express it in horrifying ways.

Locations

Important places in Calliope

Hell's Gate

A seven kilometer long hybrid barbell station, The Sygia Mining Platform is home to two million souls on any given day.

Directions are typically referred to fore and aft, in reference to the forward and rear docking bays and hab drums. The station was suppoed to be adjusted to face whatever it was mining, but nobody's sure if the station would survive a readjustment like that these days

Mag-trains run the lenght of the station, allowing for quick transport from fore to aft. It takes about twenty minutes for a regular train to make the trip, but militia can override that in emergencies, being able to get from either side of the station to the other in under five minutes. Per Jerry's last memo, hunger for noodles does not constitute an emergency

The hab drums are 1400 meters in diameter and rotate at 1.1 rotations per minute, providing almost a perfect 1G of artificial gravity. Direction in a drum are spin and antipsin; with down pointing outwards from and up pointing inwards to the axis of spin. The drums are divided into three tiers. The upper tier is the smallest, being dedicated mostly to housing, leisure and habitation. The middle tier is dedicated mostly to life support, maintenance and operations, as well as each drum’s internal mass transit network. The lower tier, the largest, is for agriculture

Forward Docking Bay
Once meant to be facing whatever particular astral body the station was mining at the time, the days of Hell's Gate travelling to places to mine them has long since passed. Connected to the industrial sector, mining vessels arrive, drop off ore, refuel and then leave for another run while the ore is processed and refined.

Forward Hab Ring
The least well maintained of the two hab rings, this area is where most of the miner's live, to the displeasure of the Miner's Union. There's a number of mateiral shortages and leaks that are hitting the sector. Jerry's not blind to the problems, though, he lives here too.

Industrial Sector
A long tangle of refineries, smelters, foundries and chemical plants. In the glory days, they could process twnty thousand tons of hour every hour. Now, it's operating at eight percent of capacity, due to staff shortages and lack of maintenance. If Jerry hadn't given himself a stomach ulcer negotiating with IPS-N for replacement parts, it'd be four percent.

Ops
The station's bridge, omninode, mainframes and priamry reactor control array are located here; in the aft midstation.

Central Fabrication
Hell's gate's Schedule Two printer (last certified 126 years ago) is located here. There's a backlog of over a week on medium priority print requests, and a month for low priority ones. High priority requests (such as the SRT's mechs), get put to the top of the queue; generally irritating whoever gets bumped.

Jerry's old Sherman Mk.1, the Severance Pay, is located in this area, with its coldcore being used as an auxiliary power source for the printer.

Mech bay
Just off the aft docking bay, and directly connected to Central Fabrication, is a large hanger dedicated to the storage and maintenance of the militia's mechanized chassis, including the SRT's. Except in emergencies, combat rated mechs aren't permitted anywhere else on thes ation.
Aft Hab Ring
Nicer than the forward hab ring, the aft hab ring plays most to most of the station's operational staff and acts as the guest room when there's visitors and tourists. All militia pilots, including the SRT, live here (unless they desire otherwise). Janvier's clinic is located in the aft as well.

Aft Docking Bay
The aft docking bay (there's a nickname for it, not said in polite company), handles the bulk of the traffic and was designed as such. But like everything else on the station, the current usage of the aft docking bay is a pale shadow of what was envisioned. The team's personal ship, the Dargon's Tooth, is stationed here; alongside an ancient interstellar vessel called the Voidrunner; which is owned by Zinfandel DeJean.

Maps