Resource Pirates OOC, An Eclipse Phase adventure by OTP Options

[OneTrikPony]

Introduction:
At the opening of the adventure the ship and crew have just docked at Kronos Cluster after "liberating" part of a cargo of metals (gold, irridium, tungsten) from a COMEX [p. 70] ship that was just about to enter a slingshot orbit around saturn. Wether you Scuttled the COMEX ship is up to you but you've come to Kronos because it's something of a 'Freeport' or "Port Royal"** where you can sell your cargo.

You all ready have a Broker for your Tungsten--the reason you targeted the COMEX ship in the first place--and you're expected to meet him soon here on Kronos. So the good news is that you're about to get paid. The bad news is that you barely have enough He3 reaction mass to make an orbit transfer to Titan. And during the (two?) weeks you've been out the Jovans have interdicted or outright destroyed several sunward bound helium blimps. The actions by the Jovans have caused a rush on the fuel futures market system wide and now it's gonna cost you about 20% more to refuel your ship than you expected. To make matters worse the KPA (Kronos Port Authority [p.105]) was acting hinkey while you were negotiating port access and docking fees. Once you were finally cleared to use the port, fees where about twice what you had expected. The
of the KPA are edgy for some reason.

* Scuttled: Scuttling a ship was common practice in pre industrial Terran piracy in which you steal the cargo of the ship then sink it to hide the crime. In Post Fall piracy this still happens in some cases but usually takes the form of boosting the ship to an orbit to nowhere rather than destroying the ship. The reasons for Scuttling are many but most often involve subterfuge-- it's harder to track parts of a cargo that have disbursed than it is to track an intact cargo--or just sheer bloody mindedness of a pirate bastard.
COMEX is currently under alot of pressure from the Jovans who have once again extended their claim on Jupiter's gravity-well past the extent of the planet's magnetosphere. They're also having difficulties in three-way negotiations with Extropian enterprises and Lunar insurance and banking concerns who threaten direct competition in the logistics market. If the Extropan talks breakdown it's probable that COMEX will apply for membership with the Planetary Consortium. They may also start arming their slingshot launched cargo barges on a regular basis. Their market share is dropping enough that it may be worth the expense and reduced payload to make the claim that cargo on these disposable ships is protected.

** Port Royal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Royal
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"Primer on Interplanetary Piracy", Some thoughts on the mechanics of space travel in the EP system,some rough maps and more random thoughts will all be coming soon.

Until that time if you'd like more information for character planning purposes, the adventure will begin at the Kronos Cluster habitat (EP p.105)
The whole section on Saturn beginning on page 102 is a good read if you'd like to start getting ideas on the neighborhood you'll be pillaging.

I'll be ready when ever you all are but there's no hurry, I'm taking along time to decide weather your deaths will be heroic or simply tragic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Links to game resources:
sketch of small freighter/pirate ship
Solarsystem map half fiinished
Short range freighter http://s565.photobucket.com/albums/ss100/O...ent=orbiter.jpg
Large interplanetary freighter http://s565.photobucket.com/albums/ss100/O...ent=clarke4.jpg
Some examples of shuttles, atmospheric fighters, and drop ships (Thanks Dr. Funk) http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/marsden_/...Ships2Scale.gif