Prospectors
Prospectors are the folks who head to refound or uncolonized worlds to see what valuables they can find. They can work in small groups families, or as a contracted force for a larger company. Some land on new worlds with honest intentions, others come to find a place where laws don't apply.
Taking on jobs as a Prospector comes with a staggering mortality rate. Not only that, but as any experienced prospector will tell you, it takes a certain disregard for ones own wellbeing to really succeed in the career.
Prospectors comes in many shapes, sophonts, and sizes. Their morales vary as much as their appearances.
In many parts of the world, prospects are called Pillagers, Pirates, Scavengers, and Raiders. They should not be confused with main colonists who come after the Prospectors.
Prospectin's a job for the dumb, the desperate, or the dastardly.
Every new face is one or all of 'em. Which ones are you, huh?
The Countless Frontiers
In the Banner Era, planets both new and old are brought back into the grasp of civilization. Each of these worlds become a new frontier, as soon as ships can get close enough to drop prospectors and supplies to fuel them.
Depending on the scale and budget of the Prospectors, they may drop onto purchased 'claims' of land, or they may just drop onto whatever land is below them. Claim jumping is a common occurance on the frontiers, and with little oversight, contested claims are typically settled by combat.
Dozens if not hundreds of worlds, all clutching onto their own unique treasures. All for us!
Scouting Equipment
Prospectors need equipment to conduct their data and specimen gathering. Scanners of all tech clades, specimen containers, cartography tools, and travel kits are all commonplace in a prospectors rucksack.
A Prospector can make a lot of their Rukta gathering knowledge, and covering lots of ground so any properly funded prospector will have plenty of ways to record their findings.
Survival Equipment
Rifles, blades, explosives, and armor for the fights, Impact Gel, drugs, and medicine to recover after them. Ethnis is not a kind place, and it takes on a special kind of predatory hellishness when at the fringe of civilization and beyond.
The countless wilds of Ethnis have no mercy for the underequipped.
No amount of money will save you when your throat is in the jaws of a Tonagra.
Spend it now, and don't die wishing you did.
Drop Methods
Prospectors require a method for getting to the planet to find their gains, and a way off the planet to sell them. The methods can vary depending on the legitimacy and budget of the prospectors as well as what resources are available.
More popular planets will have entire space-stations moored to serve as a central point for prospectors. Some companies who fund ventures will have pick up organized as part of the Prospectors contract. Less scrupulious or frugal prospectors will organize their own methods of transportation both down and out from the planet.
No matter what the budget or backing, being a prospector comes with the risk of being completely stranded on an alien world or not making it to the surface at all.
The Habitat
Saved for the wealthiest of prospectors, Habitats are fully contained based of operations. A warm bed, a warm meal, a workbench, and running water.
These multistory complexes are dropped from orbit and cushioned by a combination of Meissner, reentry rockets, and Impact Gel Launchers. Habitats are designed to be fully self-sufficent, and can house up to forty individuals.
Habitats are most common for corporate or government endeavours, where a successful prospecter venture may just lead to an entire colonization effort.
Landing at a Habitat
"Now landing at the Prospectors Roost habitat! Please keep all muzzles up and weapons holstered."
The automatic announcement crackled and popped, mutilated by the rusty speaker system of the similarly rickety shuttle, maintained by the similarly rickety Aen.
The Aen's guttural growling voice only made more jarring by the wheeze of Meyfar-laden lungs. "Watch yer step, and don't look at the big guy with a missing eye. Guy has a non-zero chance of gutting you. Good luck."
You step out into the jungle-filtered light and into the shadow of a giant tin can with armored windows. The habitat had undergone a decade of use and customization at the hands of its keepers. Colorful and ragged tarps hung from the Habitat's windows, making the building stick out amidst the green hell surrounding it.
A dozen ragged strangers mill about, one sits at a counter in front of you, another large mess of a Kajh must be the missing-eye guy on the account of the missing eye.
And you just looked at him, and that knife is pulled in your direction. Crap.
At the end of a long day of scouting, a party of Federation prospectors returns to their Habitat to recover and relax.
Prospector's Hub
More traveled planets will find themselves playing host to a network of hubs and communal buildings, large enterprises that make a cut on selling equipment and buying finds.
These places are can be just as dangerous as the planets, for where there are riches to be gained, there are riches to be stolen.
These hubs will often float above a planet, and provide drop ship services at select spots. Others will land on a planet and serve as a hostel for Prospectors looking to make their fortunes.
Welcome to the Drop Zone
The Drop Zone felt less like an outpost and more like a ski lodge mixed with a dropship mixed with a hostel. The floating platform was a mix of pipes and rooms meant as temporary dropoff, but the lush promise of this planet saw a constant influx of adventurers pushing the pop cap of 40 to closer around 150. Every surface had a use as a bed, a market, a gear rack, or all three.
Bags, hammocks, and wares hung from overhead. The sweat of cramped bodies was so palpable it dripped from the walls.
Your arrival earned you a small berth, there were plenty of things as intimidating as you in the room; Drop Zone was a pageant for the dangerous and the intimidating, the sorts of types attracted to the Prospector career.
Over here was a Ka with hoses running under his skin and eyes that glowed in the dim. Over there was a squad of Venuan geared to the gills. Yonder a Luea was tuning his orgmech power armor, glowering at you with an array of compound eyes.
Through the throngs of strangers, the shuttle master waves you over. "You wanna drop, you best hurry. Last pod of the day's going out!" Their guttural voice beckons you over.
The largest Prospector's Hub on Fenu-Tri and several of it's sattelite platforms orbiting low atmosphere.
I love that quote from Schrodinger Supply. That's a heck of an advert if I ever saw one.
Necromancy is a Wholesome Science.
Schrodinger is a smart business man, that's for sure.