Arcturus and Space Station Sumerian
Space Station Sumerian, a Human-built orbital trade ring surrounding the icy world of Arcturus, was originally intended to supply Sol colony ships. Historically a neutral ground for trade in the southeastern quadrant of the galaxy, it has also become a haven for mercenaries, smugglers, and outlaws. The enigmatic “Nomad” has recently ascended to control the station and has united the station’s disparate factions under their mysterious vision.
Station Command
Station command encompasses more than seventy-two thousand square kilometers of the station’s most secure and private hangars, shipyards, barracks, and support facilities under the watchful eye of the station master, currently Artuno, the Nomad’s trusted supporter. Supporting the hangars, command staff, and station master’s personal guests are an array of taverns, restaurants, and other forms of entertainment.
While most think of station command as the station master’s private fiefdom, it is much more. The command center can monitor and run almost any system connected to the station—including station rapid transit, life support, and station defenses—and can override local control rooms. Once considered a backup bridge, it has become the primary hub for station activity since the Nomad assumed control.
Cargo Bay 1P21G
Typical of the station’s thousands of bulk hauler bays, 1P21G can accommodate the largest bulk transports. It uses arrays of grav-field turrets to rapidly shift cargo onto the staging ground, into adjacent vessels, or to the rapid transit system. The Maahgol Emirate of Kamdorn has leased Bay 1P21G for centuries, and it is always packed with containers of luxury fabrics and trade goods.
Station Rapid Transit
The entire station employs a rapid transit system that uses a magnetic guide field in vacuum-exposed tubes to move passengers and cargo at nearly 1,500 kilometers per hour on the high speed lines (smaller local lines being a ‘mere’ 400 kph). The entire system is automated, and it is managed by the Station Rapid Transit Authority. The Authority has a seat on the Merchant Guild Coalition, albeit it doesn’t have much actual power.
Arcturus
Below Space Station Sumerian is Arcturus, a mostly barren hunk of ice. While no official settlements or research stations exist on the surface, unofficially, the ice caverns are littered with smuggling bolt-holes and outlaw hideouts, such as the palace of Ama Amani, a Winnu, and the hideout of Elder Arfgrr’s Hercalor Freetraders. The tunnels are lousy with arctic sharaks thanks to a long-dead smuggling kingpin who tried domesticating them.
Ama Amani's Palace
Out of the southern polar region of Arcturus, the infamous Winnu smuggler Ama Amani runs a smuggling ring so large that she has her own proxy in the station’s Merchant Magnate Coalition. Known to her smugglers as the minister of covert trade, Amani is first and foremost a bureaucrat, and she has mastered the logistics side of smuggling for profit.
Hercalor Freetraders
Hidden within a crevasse beneath what appears to be a permanent storm system, a group of smugglers from Hercalor live in a makeshift community of courier ships and small freighters. Leadership changes from week to week, but the most frequent crime lord is Elder Arfgrr, a talented Saar smuggler.
Merchant Magnate Coalition
While the Merchant Magnate Coalition attends to the day-to-day needs of Sumerian Station, its power has been much reduced since the Nomad seized station operations. Still, hundreds of major corporate concerns make up the coalition, including the following:
✦ Durastead Transports: A vehicle manufacturer from nearby Gral that makes affordable, reliable groundcars, rovers, and shuttles.
✦ Jord Lunar Trade: An ancient Human trading company that buys and sells a variety of consumer goods. One of the first companies to reestablish trade lanes with ancestral Human colonies after the Twilight Wars.
✦ Maahgol Emirate of Kamdorn: One of the great Hacan trading clans that deals in starflower-spun textiles.
✦ Nobleon: A New Albion–based mining concern that deals largely in rare atmospheric gases and minerals. One of its farming subsidies deals in spores and airborne microalgae.
✦ Vegan Mining Collective: A trade collective working on behalf of asteroid miners extracting precious metals from Vega Minor’s rings. Leadership of the VMC changed hands just days after the Nomad’s ascension to station master.
Star Name and Type
Arcturus and Arcturus Minor, red giant star with brown dwarf companion
Population Status
independent system: 167 million (48% Human, 16% Hacan, 9% Saar, 27% other)
Government
Station Master Artuno with Merchant Magnate Coalition
Major Imports
foodstuffs, water, technology, luxury goods
Major Exports
none
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