Kabukicho Depot

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Kabukicho Depot
Owner
Hogosha
Location
C-5, New Tokyo

CLASS: Musashi

GRAVITY: Complete

DOCKING: Yes

AMENITIES: Yes

CREW: 250

Hogosha translates literally as "guardian" or "protector," reflecting the organization's rather romantic view held not only by its own members, but by a large portion of the Kusari population -- though by no means the majority. Far from protectors, the Hogosha are actually descendents of the organized crime syndicates that grow within the shadow of any sizable human society -- though the Hogosha have an oddly symbiotic relationship with both the government and Samura.

Their political connections would make any serious attempt to dismantle them an embarrassment to Kusari as any number of secrets and deals that had been kept out of the public eye came to light. However, neither do the Hogosha have a free license to operate. Arrests of low-level Hogosha operators who flaunt their activities are frequent and help keep up appearances - very important in Kusari. "Hard" crime, such as drug smuggling, is not tolerated, both by the Hogosha and the Kusari government.

Individual opinions vary, but most police consider the Hogosha a necessary evil required for the smooth functioning of Kusari society. The government simply treats the Hogosha like any other large keiretsu. The Kusari population as a whole has a similar attitude: It is pointless to like or dislike the Hogosha; they are simply a fact of life.

The Hogosha handle Artifact and gun smuggling and the fencing of stolen goods. They also do occasional dirty work for Samura. They view the Blood Dragons as a major threat to their existence and have engaged in turf wars with them, mostly in the asteroid fields of Tokyo. The Golden Chrysanthemums are a new problem, as they have few qualms about dealing in the drug trade or its consequences. Since they have no corruptible leaders or long associations with Samura or the Kusari government and police, The GC, like the Blood Dragons, are dangerous to the Hogosha way of life. They view the Junkers as their only real competitors within the Sirius Sector, and their only obstacle to expansion into the other Houses. They have approached the Corsairs to assist them in their expansion plans, which has resulted in a loose alliance between the two groups.

The Hogosha made a recent arrangement to purchase Artifacts directly from the Corsairs on the cruise ship Hawaii, a move that infuriated the GMG, who formerly served as the middleman between the two crime syndicates. It also raised the ire of the LSF, who applied pressure on Orbital Spa to deny landing privileges to the two factions.

Bribes & Missions Offered

Bribes
Missions


Commodities

Imports
Commodity Price
Medical Equipment 35$
Light Arms 82$
Counterfeit Computerware 53$
MOX 43$
Pharmaceuticals 33$
Black Market Munitions 58$
Azurite Gas 139$
Xeno Relics 225$
Munitions 66$
Xenobiotic Filters 56$
Passengers (Kusari) 215$
Exports
Commodity Price
Deployable Mining Container 50,000$
Propaganda 100$
Robotics 30$
Sake 26$
Crew 380$
Black Market Pharmaceuticals 34$
Gold 259$
Oxygen 19$
Water 19$
Food Rations 33$
H-Fuel 124$
Basic Alloy 28$
Consumer Goods 23$
Artifacts 198$
Black Market Augments 21$
Iridium 174$


Ships sold


Ship Class Price
Black Dragon Heavy Fighter 20,608$
Irezumi Very Heavy Fighter 27,529$
Yubitsume Light Fighter 13,034$


News

[834 AS] Kusari minister cancels ALG contract

NEW TOKYO -- 833 -- Shortly before the execution of the Roppongi cleanup contract between ALG and the Kusari government, the Minister of Industry and Development personally intervened to void his department’s negotiations. Citing "security concerns and political unreliability", the Minister disqualified ALG from further involvement. The contract was then awarded directly without tender to Samura Heavy Industries. ALG has condemned the move as “the lowest and most despicable of state corruption”, and threatened to take immediate legal action to protect their investments and reputation. Samura has pledged prompt action to make New Tokyo’s orbit safe -- despite the Keiretsu having no experience in this field of work.

[833 AS] ALG reports escalating attacks in New Tokyo

NARITA OUTPOST -- 833 -- In recent months, ALG employees have reported a sharp increase in intimidation attempts by suspected Hogosha agents. The Rheinland-originating corporation says its Kusari-based personnel have been subjected to stalking and harassment, with several managers forced to leave Narita Outpost after personal information about their families was leaked to Farmers' Alliance terrorists. The corporation says these threats are linked to the ongoing negotiations for the decontamination of Roppongi Station. State Police have advised they are investigating ALG’s allegations.

[833 AS] Kyushu Faces Rising Temperatures And Falling Profits

Kyushu, the key to Samura's monopoly on the organically-grown food industry, has faced rising ocean temperatures lately, owing to a vast temperature surge in the mantle plume underneath its largest ocean. This has been compounded by the resultant eruption of several underwater volcanoes, releasing enormous quantities of greenhouse gases into the planet's atmosphere.

Partially as a result of the geological activity, the equatorial monsoon season produced some of the strongest tropical storms ever recorded on Kyushu since its colonisation. These storms devastated the world's agricultural sector as they blew through the most fertile tropical lowlands, destroying as much as 20%% of the planet's annual crop yield, on top of damage to infrastructure and tragic loss of human life.

Many rural communities are reported to be struggling, with some farming communities still remaining flooded ghost towns even a month after the worst of the storms abated, though smaller-scale tempests still rage around the equator. A Samura spokesperson outlined the company's intent to restore the planet and its communities to full productivity by the middle of next year, despite the ongoing circumstance.

[832 AS] A Different Kind of Heat

HOUSTON -- 832 AS -- A horrifyingly large scale firefight broke out in one of Houston's major city centers - Marlton, hundreds upon hundreds of arrests have been made and dozens of brave officers lost their lives in the vicious attack. The attack itself seems to have specifically targeted the city's dedicated police station, resulting in significant amounts of private property damage. The attack appears to have been highly coordinated, reliant on insider information, and carried out by contractors or former professionals, with one LPI spokesperson going so far as to say that this must have been a bought and paid for terrorist attack. Many of the perpetrators of the attack were killed by officers on scene, or by the Naval Emergency Response Team that responded to scattered reports of small arms fire. The LPI has currently released no statement about the progress of the investigation.

[832 AS] Battleship Matsuda Meets Its Demise!

It had long been rumored that the grand Battleship Himeji had not been lost in the Tohoku system as previously thought; That it had been brought back and given a second life by the unlawful elements that are the antithesis of the Kusari state. This rumor had been proven true as the Kusari Office of Intelligence reported movements of a Meiji-class Battleship in the Kyushu system, deploying Golden Chrysanthemum fighter wings that seemed to deliberately target Kusari patrols in the northern part of the system.

Immediately upon learning of this, Battleship Matsumoto and its battlegroup were redeployed from Hokkaido, and within two days were poised and ready to face this new threat. Only a short few hours later, a patrol of fighters reported a warship with the transponder reading Battleship Matsuda operating in the relative open, heading for but not yet reaching the relative safety of the Seiran Dust Cloud.

Matsumoto itself departed with its escort to confront the Chrysanthemum battleship, close to the edge of the nebula. Within minutes of it coming into sensor range, bomber and fighter squadrons from both sides closed in and opening salvos were exchanged between the battleships. It didn't take long before the KNF's preparation was shown to be well worthwhile; their superior numbers whittled down or otherwise preoccupied the Chrysanthemum's fighter force leaving a variety of openings in the Matsuda's defensive cover for KNF bombers to exploit.

While the Matsumoto was withstanding a heavy beating from the guns of its older sister, it was plain that the Matsuda was slowly being whittled away as its shields began to fail and the very same engine design flaws that had rendered it immobile in KNF service were now exploited by bomber wings to once again cripple the warship.

After several more minutes, the Matsuda's escape pods began to eject from the ailing battleship, picked up by Chrysanthemum fighters as they fled deeper into the Seiran dust cloud. It didn't take long thereafter for the ship's powercore to falter and fail completely, culminating in a vast explosion that reportedly almost turned night to day on the dark side of Planet Kyushu, if only for a split second.

Matsumoto itself sustained moderate damage in the engagement, relatively untouched by Chrysanthemum bombers however still suffering the ill effects of Matsuda's anti-capital weaponry. Despite its damage, it remains deployed in the Kyushu system to continue the blockade of the cardamine trade and to serve as a show of force to any who would challenge the might of the Emperor.

[832 AS] Kusari's Plight

KAGOSHIMA -- 832 AS -- Synth Foods audacity knows no bounds. They use a time of tragedy as an opportunity to bloat their already bloated purses with more ill-gotten wealth. We cannot allow this. There can be no room for Synth in Kusari. They already control too great a share of the market and with Kyushu's food production on a downward spiral after the storm, our intervention is necessary now more than ever. We must commit ourselves fully to our mission for the greater interests of Kusari unless we wish to live under the jackboot of Liberty and its vile corporate interests!

[832 AS] Counting Doses

ROCHESTER -- 832 AS -- The catastrophic crash of the Cardamine market has been tough for all the associates involved in the chain of its distribution, and the substantial drop-off in the quantity of it available for use and resale has caused a new problem in this series of bad episodes. The Rogues and Hackers, former partners in feeding the needs of the underworld are now at each other's throats, unable to meet demands for the drug both by their own and by customers, it seems as if stealing it from each other at gunpoint is the new business model.

[832 AS] Roppongi cleanup negotiations enter final stages

WICHTER STATION -- 832 -- After a demanding pre-tender selection and contract negotiation process, ALG are on the verge of finalizing a new deal for the deconstruction of the Roppongi Wreck in the New Tokyo’s orbit. The station was destroyed early last year when a dirty bomb was detonated aboard by the Farmer’s Alliance. The new contract would be a significant milestone for ALG, providing both high profile, valuable work, but also a significant expansion of the corporation’s relationship with the otherwise conservative Kusari market. ALG already handles much of Kusari’s Toxic Waste disposal from civilian corporate shipyards.

[831 AS/747 AGS] Gate Corps Clash Over 'Blackout'!

ABBEVILLE -- 831 AS/747 AGS -- EFL's 'Resilience Taskforce' today reported its findings on The Blackout, claiming to have gathered forensic evidence that proved the cause as Ageira negligence. A spokesperson claimed that the destruction of the Dublin jump gate by Molly separatists had created a hyperspace feedback loop that was propagated and amplified through the Ageira gate network.

Ageira disputed this finding in their own press release, calling EFL 'fantasists' and countering that their own scientists had narrowed the cause to a rare 'hypernova' stellar event that originated outside the Sirius sector. Both corporations claim that network-wide hardware safeguards have been implemented that would prevent a similar occurrence in the future. Independent researchers have sharply criticized the corporate announcements, accusing both of self-interested misdirection.

Professor Sophia Nagel from Heisenberg Research Station called EFL's accusation 'incoherent' and the hypernova explanation 'nonsense' that did not explain the characteristics of the 'Blackout Pulse'. Despite multiple different Pulse recordings being widely disseminated across the neural net, public efforts have so far failed to triangulate its source.

[831 AS] Jump Hole Upheaval Causes Chaos

HEISENBERG -- 831 AS -- Jump holes across Sirius have become increasingly volatile and chaotic over the last year, with Professor Sophia Nagel from the Heisenberg Research Station linking the unusual phenomena to the Pulse. The Pulse was an unprecedented blast of hyperspace energy that was detected immediately prior to last year's jump gate Blackout.

Professor Nagel and her team are certain the Pulse originated from outside Sirius, but are otherwise no closer to identifying its source or mitigating a future Blackout event. "Following the Blackout, we began to see immediate signs of jump hole destabilization in multiple different regions, with many ultimately falling out of phase alignment altogether", she commented. The dramatic upending of Sirius' jump hole network has already prompted many groups to abandon stations and withdraw from systems that appear to risk being cut off.

While months-long trips between the stars are possible thanks to the Liberty Engine and many centuries of innovation, few ships are designed or provisioned to make such arduous journeys. Those who were displaced by Sirius' redrawn map hope that system connections will return, while adventurers and explorers rush to discover new routes.

[831 AS/747 AGS] 'Blackout' Causes Jump Network Fail

MANHATTAN -- 831 AS/747 AGS -- Two days ago Jump Gates failed simultaneously across Sirius, freezing commerce and neural net access across the sector. When the network resumed 31 hours later, restored communications broke the news of Bretonia's loss of the Dublin system. This twin shock has plunged the market into chaos, prompting fears of sector-wide economic recessions. Interspace estimates indicate that the stoppage alone caused billions of credits in losses. Gallia immediately accused Liberty of culpability for the outage, claiming the destruction of Dublin's jump gate instigated a cascading failure in faulty Ageira infrastructure. Ageira has sharply refuted the allegation, claiming such a systemic effect would be physically impossible. Independent researchers in Cologne and the Edge Worlds have also announced that a hyperspace pulse of unprecedented strength was detected moments before The Blackout, with data about 'The Pulse' being widely shared across the neural net in recent days. House authorities have remained tight lipped, refusing to comment on their own observatories' data.

[828 AS] Birds of a Feather

STUTTGART -- 828 AS -- Many of the LWB’s remnants took up the Imperial cause during the Civil War, hoping for an isolationist government that would expel Synth Foods from Rheinland. These pilots were left feeling betrayed and enraged when this failed to happen. Lacking funding and resources, they looked abroad to find support. An unexpected benefactor was found in Kusari’s Farmer’s Alliance, who fight a near identical battle against the Liberty corporation. The Alliance has provided leadership, funding and resources to relaunch anti-Synth operations in Rheinland as a wing of their own organization. It remains to be seen how this united Farmers Alliance will impact affairs on the wider stage, with the security forces of both Rheinland and Kusari already strained by internal conflict and crime.

[825 AS] Ibusuki station massacred - Kusari enters war!

SAIGON -- 825 -- In a furious speech, Prime Minister Yukihara Reijiro of Kusari has declared a state of war against Rheinland. This follows the destruction of Ibusuki Survey Platform in Sigma-21, 12 hours before Rheinland's eviction ultimatum expired. Despite Rheinland's protests that it was not responsible for the act, Kusari has accused the Battleship Bayern of the murders, releasing the station's final distress calls that begged Rheinland forces to cease fire. As a result, Kusari has mobilized the Kusari Naval Forces to begin joint military operations alongside the Gas Miner's Guild. The Prime Minister has ordered Rheinland to withdraw all of its forces from the Sigmas immediately or face Kusari's fury.

[825 AS] Rheinland demands Ibusuki destruction

IBUSUKI SURVEY PLATFORM -- 825 -- Rheinland has issued an ultimatum for Ibusuki Survey Platform in Sigma-21 to be abandoned. The 48 hour warning has been provided to allow Kusari citizens time to evacuate from the jointly Kishiro and GMG operated station before the Battleship Bayern enforces the order. Kishiro Technologies has announced that it has assumed full administration of the platform to avoid being dragged into Rheinland's conflict with the Guild. Rheinland has reiterated that the platform must be abandoned, while the Bayern continues to advance towards Planet Saigon. Kusari has reacted with outrage to the development, threatening immediate repercussions if neutral Kusari citizens or property are harmed.


Rumors

Farmers Alliance
  • We seem to have lots of weapons and supplies. We also have very accurate information on targets that need to be hit, and they aren't always Synth Foods. I don't know where our leadership gets the information -- it is not my place to know too much.


  • I'm on supply duty. We're to pick up our basic needs for Kagoshima, just across the Jump Hole in Kyushu. I was an unemployed farmer in Kyushu before I joined up. Samura was good to us through all the tough times -- until Synth Foods came along. Then, everything changed. Now I'm here with these criminal thugs.


  • The Kanto Field gives us a good position from which to launch attacks against incoming Synth Food convoys from Shikoku. We will be victorious and force them back to Liberty. I've heard, though, that some Alliance members are also attacking Kishiro ships, which doesn't surprise me now they have a hold over the government.


Hogosha
  • We help the Farmers Alliance by selling supplies and weapons for their base across the jump hole in Kyushu. They are a lot more inspired these days since the new government came to power. In the old days they were just spouting the company line, if you know what I mean.


  • The Kobe Maru was making its weekly Artifact run across the Shikoku system when it was ambushed by the Blood Dragons. The ship is presumed destroyed, and its whereabouts are unknown, although it's been rumored to be drifting somewhere in the Shiun Cloud.


  • We have a little deal with the police -- no drugs, no problems. Some of the young Bosozoku object to that. They usually get a one-way ticket out of a garbage airlock in short order. The Golden Cs are a different thing. We can't control those zealots. Misguided feminists, that's what they are.


  • Our main business is Alien Artifacts. For some reason, the rich elites of Tokyo and Manhattan have always had a fondness for these toys. We used to get them from the GMG, who were the middlemen between us and the Corsairs. They got greedy, like they all do -- started charging too much. So when the Hawaii opened, we bypassed them and went directly to the source.


  • We will never let the Junkers into Kusari space. For one thing, there is no junk. It was too precious for Kusari industry to ever throw away. The Junkers harbor many criminals that create problems for the other Houses.


  • We know the holes pretty well in Kusari space. The Hole in this field goes to Kyushu, and then a quick jaunt gets you to Shikoku. In the other direction, it's pretty much a straight shot to Honshu through the Chiba Field. Watch out for those Blood Dragons, though. They can be nasty, especially if you're running Artifacts for us.


  • The Blood Dragons want to restore the ways of the past. And now the Farmer's Alliance wants to as well. Some of the Farmer's propaganda I read on Kyushu sounds a lot like the Dragons, with talk of restoring the monarchy. I don't blame them - life was better for us with Samura pulling the strings.


  • We are Samura's hired muscle. When something unpleasant needs to be done, we're the ones to do it. In exchange, they keep the police off our backs and make sure that Artifact smuggling is not taken too seriously in Kusari. We've had a long and profitable relationship and see no reason to change our ways.


  • We Hogosha are legitimate businessmen. Don't believe any of those rumors about us stealing supplies from bases and all. As a matter of fact, I just came up from Tokyo with basic necessities. There's nothing evil in that, is there?


  • They're sending me on the Artifact run to Leiden tomorrow. I don't like going there. Those Lane Hackers are drug addicts, and the Liberty Rogues smell badly. The GC will also show up sometimes, which can be dangerous for us. There have been Hogosha "accidents" in the cloud near the base.


NOTE: Page generated on the 07/06/2024 at 15:55:47 UTC