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Sender: Hanako Takemura
Affiliation: Kirin Consortium
Location: Liner Kintsugi, Galileo System

Good day. I am Hanako Takemura, and I represent the Kirin Consortium. We are a band of free traders forced out of our former home by our rivals, the Hogosha. Today, we trade in a variety of commodities, legal and illicit. We specialize in medical goods, weapons, and entertainment.

I have heard rumors that your organization is interested in the black markets of Liberty. Though the Hogosha forced us from Kusari, we are no friends to the Junkers either; their willingness to peddle slaves and cardamine is unacceptable to us. That slavery is abhorrent should need no further explanation, and as for cardamine... it's important to us that our customers are voluntary, and are not beholden to a third party for survival.

To get to the point, we have made contact with an organization willing to sell Nox through us. Perhaps you've heard of it, perhaps not - it's a Gallic drug, very popular there and taking off in Kusari as well. A hallucinogenic narcotic that, importantly, lacks the physical dependence cardamine inflicts on its victims. There are claims of a psychological addiction, but perhaps that's simply the excuses of the weak-willed.

We would like to sell through you, or through your approved distributors. Your organization receives more funding for your activities, and we undermine the Junkers - a mutual benefit, I believe. We have also secured a source of human organs, which I understand tend to be in short supply and high demand for organizations like yours.

Are you interested in business?

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Mr Takemura;

My name is Henry Stracke, or if you want my Alliance codename, Milk. I'm responsible for the finances of the Alliance, and I usually deal with economic contracts.
Given our reputation, we don't often receive messages from outsiders, and yours is an interesting one. You're not giving out a lot of details, but I do have sympathy with independent traders, doubly so if they want to compete with the Junkers and Hogosha in their markets. That takes some determination and resilience, and I commend you for it.

I can see you're being clever about this: You're appealing to our dislike of the Junkers and their black market control, and the Outcasts and their inhuman ways. You know that it won't be easy as an outsider to make a deal with the Xenos, so you're making a point about disliking our enemies.
Fair enough, you're putting in effort.

As for the topic at hand, your offers of Nox and organs, we're going to have to clarify a few things before we can approach deal-brokering.
I'm not principally opposed to opening up a black market drug trade under our control. Philosophically, I take the libertarian approach of live and let do to drugs, as do most of us in the Alliance. So I am in principle open to the suggestion.
For the actual process, we'd have to know a little more about how you expect the distribution to work. Our general principle is that we oppose imports from outsiders into Liberty, so if we hypothetically did reach an agreement about the product, it would mean transfer to a central location under our control, whereupon we handle the further distribution.
I have some doubts as to our abilities to organize that distribution, but I'll leave those for a later point if we can work out the basics.
Much of the same goes for the organ trade, there's certainly a demand for replacement organs among our own ranks and a solid market in the house, but we want to know a little more about how you intend to handle this.

I'd also like to know a little more about your organization itself, your history and motivations. Disliking our enemies is well and good, but you could stand to tell us a little more about yourselves. So far, I'm interested, I certainly can't make any guarantees, but you have the ears of the Alliance.

~ Milk

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Sender: Hanako Takemura
Affiliation: Kirin Consortium
Location: Liner Kintsugi, Galileo System

More about Kirin? That's fair. We had been a persistent, if minor, competitor of the Hogosha in the Kusari underworld, predominantly on Honshu. Kishiro's control over much of the planet had hindered Hogosha efforts to forcibly dislodge us. In addition to the trade of legal and unlicensed goods, including firearms and medicine, we operated a number of gambling halls and other locations of entertainment and pleasure.

That changed a few years ago. As Kusari stabilized after the civil war, Samura were able to push us out through legislation claiming to be about stamping out crime, but of course truly about preserving the monopoly of their hired Hogosha thugs. Our holdings on Honshu were targeted for police raids and direct assault by Hogosha, forcing our withdrawal from Kusari. We plied our trade locally in the Sigmas for a time, especially aboard Niigata Star City, but between the Hispanic raiders and supply difficulties, it was unsustainable.

At this point we maintain a migrant fleet. Liners and refitted transports provide living quarters and long-term storage, and serve as marketplaces when we settle in a region. Some of our pilots have expressed an interest in settling down somewhere outside of Kusari, while others want to continue our travels. In all likelihood, going forward we'll do some blend of both, detaching a local group to maintain connections and honor our business deals while moving a portion of the fleet onward to make new contacts. But that's still well into the future.

We are not closed to new members; though we're from Kusari originally, we would welcome Libertonian pilots, merchants, and support staff.

As for our motivations, we're traders. We want freedom and money - which I suppose is redundant. You cannot be free in Sirius without money.

Regarding distribution, we expected that it would have to go through your people. This is acceptable. While we do maintain markets aboard Kintsugi, our experience with the Hogosha has taught us what happens when you lack a local business partner. We will deliver to a dropoff of your choosing, whether one of your own bases or some other handoff location, and your people will handle distribution from there. Then we will buy local products in high demand elsewhere, if this is acceptable - there is always a market for Libertonian firearms.

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to: <"kirin">
reg: ""<consorting>""

Hanako.

There was a lot of consideration and debate that had to be done before getting back to you. And given the fact that I'm talking to you, it should be evident that there was also an escalation of the matter to my office for the express purpose of handling this with Alliance authority.

In the time since this matter was brought to us for consideration, there seem to have been regional developments that you and I both can take advantage of. Namely the surfacing of in-house Freeports. A recent foray into Shikoku after rumors were heard on Ames revealed one such installation. Noshima, is what I'm told it's called. Base yourselves off of it and I'll have the occasional patrol swing by to deter your competitors.

From this Freeport you may collect and then accordingly ship Nox to us in Liberty for further distribution, the drop-off point for this arrangement can be one of two venues, either Ames or one of our own establishments in Kepler. Whichever suits you better. If you're interested in further business, visit Fontana Freeport in California, some of my associates can prove quite helpful there and aren't so concerned with a person's origins.

I very much want you to maintain a presence in Shikoku to offset whatever local advantages the Hogosha have. They can't touch you anywhere near the Freeport, and if they choose to do so in space then I'm sure a few convenient eagles on an intercept course is just a coincidence people are going to have to live, or more appropriately, die with.

I want to stress just how tentative the process has been to provide you with this level of commitment. So if it all possible, consider not immediately betraying the goodwill rendered upon you and most importantly don't deal with any direct rivals. Do that and I'm sure we'll get along quite well. After all, you're an independent and unaffiliated entity much like the Zoners.

""are we in agreement?""

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Sender: Hanako Takemura
Affiliation: Kirin Consortium
Location: Liner Kintsugi, Galileo System

Yes, I had heard about the Peddler's plans, though I didn't expect them to come to fruition so quickly. He must have more support than I thought. Your terms are agreeable; the Freeport's location makes a safe retreat, and a good way to... monitor Hogosha movement.

We are enroute to the Shiun Cloud now to get ourselves situated, and to finally give our ships some proper maintenance. Deliveries will follow.

Please call if you have any special requests.

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