Community Event / Creation Castor and Pollux Day Three: giants in the playground

[Andrew Sayers]

Hey all,

This week we're playing through an event based on Elite: Dangerous' publicly archived designs. You can start from chapter one or jump straight in to day three...

Federal, Imperial and Alliances insignias - choose your allegiance​

News reports proclaimed yesterday the busiest day of trading in the history of the Pollux stock market. Castor's market floor was also busier than usual, but the curiously low price of robots kept many traders off the market floor. That didn't stop the gridlock as traffic controllers couldn't clear the single landing bay fast enough during peak times.

After a nervous day on Monday, yesterday the dark system Helen was a miner's paradise. The asteroid belt of Helen-3 was even richer than predicted, and by the afternoon frustrated traders were flying straight to the belt to buy direct from trustworthy miners. Perhaps sensing the heat about to descend on them for destroying those antique police ships, most of the pirates left for greener pastures, and those who remained spent most of their time dodging bounty hunters and trying to make them turn on each other.

Having sold domestic slaves in the region for years, some commanders tried selling brute slaves on the Pollux market yesterday. They were surprised to hear of a recent "clarification" to the law - unlicensed slavery had apparently always been very much illegal, and the men tending the hydroponic garden were there by choice (but weren't to be told of the fact). Commanders with contacts on the station were able to offload their slave cargo slightly above cost price, but were told in no uncertain terms that things were changing quickly as the big boys moved in.

A look at the mission board showed what exactly that meant...

MISSIONS OFFERED​

Insurance offered: will pay one third of all damages to any Federal commander that can prove interdiction of ships containing slaves (including Imperial slaves) or ships with a Federal criminal record. Participating commanders may apply for a warrant granting them law enforcement powers in the region.

In the name of His Most Gracious Emperor Duval; Noble Commanders are hereby requested to display their loyalty by flying the Imperial Flag aboard ship. In exchange, He offers one third the costs of damage done to the ships of citizens accosted by enemies of the Empire. In addition, Patron Olcanze will smile upon petitions for Letters of Marque from commanders able to show evidence of attacks against enemies of the Empire.

Tantalum wanted at Liaveen! For every ton you sell under this offer, we will give you a ton of robots HALF PRICE!

Note: only eligible to unallied pilots with a clean Alliance record.

 

[Philip Coutts]

All hail the Eagle.....

 

[Minti2]

My third time of posting on this one lol

Bring on the Feds!

PS really enjoying doing this everyday

 

[Bingo Brewster]

All hail the Eagle.....

Is it an Eagle? Really? It is very reminiscent of the Federal Chicken of the Ancient German States of the 21st century.

The Emperor wears a gown hahaahh....... Thussly shall all lackeys of the Empire receive a roasting

 

[RobFisher]

Castor's market floor was also busier than usual, but the curiously low price of robots kept many traders off the market floor.

Aha, I thought as much. Looks like my approach yesterday worked out:

I'll take one load of tantalum from Castor and bring robots back to Pollux and see what their attitude to slavery is.

I'll take the Alliance deal. Since I was trading Tantalum and Robots yesterday, I see it as continuing what I want to do anyway, but with better than usual terms. It definitely pays to keep an eye on the station boards and look for ways to make a bit extra while maintaining independence.

 

[Cathy]

A solid reason to smack a Fed? I'd take that from just about anyone ('cept a Thargoid). Where is my letter of marque, good sir?

 

[Rollo]

What? None, so far, willing to work for the greater good of the Universe! The Federation calls, I oblige.
Mining turned out to be a good deal though.

 

[Zarkon]

I voted to keep on bounty hunting, but if the pirates start running away then I will likely hang around protecting Rollo and the other miners/traders until the system is safe.

 

[Cathy]

Curse you, Zarkon. I almost had Rollo there, 'til you interefered. That repair is going to eat right into my profit margin

 

[Andrew Sayers]

Time's up!

Day four is upon us! Now I'll go back and compile some links, giving more background about topics covered in previous days.

 

[Perseus]

Is it an Eagle? Really? It is very reminiscent of the Federal Chicken of the Ancient German States of the 21st century.

The Emperor wears a gown hahaahh....... Thussly shall all lackeys of the Empire receive a roasting

You've managed to insult both the Empire and Federation in one sentence - well done!
Your dangly bits are going to removed, fried and served back to you. I reckon they'll taste just like chicken!

 

[Andrew Sayers]

For those that are interested in the background, here's a detailed collection of references for day three...

Reading between the lines of newsletter #10, it seems likely players won't be able to see black market trading directly, but will get enough market data to see their side-effects. I speculated that legal robots and illegal slaves would occupy the same market niche (the trading and slavery proposals are silent on the matter) to show how traders might see robots being cheaper at Castor, but not directly see the black market slave trading that caused it.

Queues in space have been a recurring joke amongst the community - this is Britain, after all. Frontier haven't said anything about them, but it would be easy enough to create new instances so players don't have to wait. Having said that, players can trade directly with each other, and this thread floats the idea that allowing small space stations to become overloaded would encourage player interaction.

Different types of slave exist - brute and domestic slaves are mentioned explicitly in this chapter, but there are many others. The chapter also brushes past a question that fascinated me during the slavery discussion - is slavery legal by default or illegal by default? In real life, eight hundred years of British court cases created a hodge-podge of law, but the trend seemed to be that broad classes of rights (such as the right to own slaves) could only be outlawed by parliament, while narrow individual freedoms (such as the freedom to walk away from a man holding you against your will) could be decided by judges - and were often upheld with great vigour.

Newsletter #11 shows farm modules and beautiful gardens, and this chapter speculates they might be hydroponic gardens tended by slaves. However, I have deviated a little from established fiction here - in FFE, Stuart Town was a starport on the planet Cambridge (a small barren sphere of rock with 0.01 Earth masses) and there were no starports in Castor at all. Elite: Dangerous is set 45 years after the end of FFE's main storyline, so it's not absurd to suggest space stations might have been built in the area during that time.

Although nothing has been said explicitly, it's generally assumed there will be some kind of in-game mission board, similar to the bulletin boards in FFE. This chapter sticks with that assumption because it's an overwhelmingly practical solution to the problem of displaying information.

I needed to call the faction insignias something, so used the nicknames "Golden Eagle" and "Stars and Planets" based on the Insignia descriptions in Newsletter #8. I'm not aware of an official name for any of the faction insignias.

Commodore Taylor has a fairly high rank in FFE's Federal military structure - I'm not aware of any Elite: Dangerous Federal ranks having been made public. He offers insurance as a reward, which is a topic that's been discussed occasionally by the dev team (for example, it was touched on by the the original death proposal but not present in the final proposal) - once again its use as a reward is speculation on my part. However, we do know that there are normal slaves and Imperial slaves, both of which are illegal in the Federation and Alliance, and that players can petition for warrants from the Federation.

According to Fiction Diary #1, Patrons are similar to mayors or leaders of a settlement. The Empire is an honour-driven culture, so I speculated a Patron might be named after the Imperial system of Olcanze [1,-3] from FFE (or maybe the system is named after him). Letters of Marque are the Imperial equivalent of Federal Warrants.

Liaveen [5,1] is an independent anarchy in FFE - I needed a nearby Alliance world with a recognisable name, but the Alliance has expanded significantly since FFE, so once again it's not absurd to speculate the system could have joined the Alliance since then. The Alliance are the third power in the galaxy, but I'm not aware of much official information about them. They don't seem to have much ability to project force, so for the purposes of this story I've speculated they use money and guile instead.