Planet Malta

Planet Malta

Owner

Outcasts

Location

D/C-5, Omicron Alpha

Valletta Mooring Terminal serves as the central trading hub of Omicron Alpha. It is primarily used for loading and unloading cargo, refitting ships, and providing emergency servicing for Outcast military vessels too large to land on Malta.

With the Cardamine trade stabilizing after the Maltese slave revolt, the terminal has returned to being busy and active, bringing wealth to the Maltese people.

Epirus Mooring Terminal

Bribes & Missions Offered

Bribes

Outcasts

Missions

Outcasts

Commodities

Imports

Commodity Price Ablative Armor Plating 102$ Black Market Munitions 164$ Hessian Tears 214$ Cracking Catalysts 63$ Energy Field Equipment 40$ Gin 74$ Hydrogen 23$ Liberty Ale 70$ Medical Equipment 64$ Molybdenum 189$ Nanotubes 52$ Rheinbier 68$ Rum 56$ Sake 46$ Titanium 54$ Tungsten 42$ Vodka 73$ Whiskey 42$ Zinc 50$ Military Surplus 998$ Black Market Pharmaceuticals 193$ Slog 157$ Deuterium 253$ Counterfeit Computerware 220$ Boron 40$ Gold 242$ Wildcat Gold 245$ Cobalt 61$ Silver 214$ Niobium 101$ Copper 190$ Diamonds 208$ Luxury Food 73$ Fertilizers 37$ H-Fuel 62$ MOX 50$ Superconductors 115$ Optical Chips 41$ Pharmaceuticals 44$ Hull Panels 54$ Polymers 32$ Optronics 61$ Engine Components 89$ Terraforming Gases 37$ Artifacts 205$ Consumer Goods 214$ Black Market Blasters 130$ Bio-Neural Processors 108$ Black Market Light Arms 195$ Kemwer Technologies 236$ Xeno Relics 191$ Volgograd Ordinance 212$ Cryocubes 113$ Gaian Wildlife 361$ Holotainment Bands 124$ Black Market Augments 112$ Iridium 213$ Nanocapacitors 58$ Neon 66$ Pineal Amulets 96$ Platinum 237$ Prometheum 39$ Quantum Multiplexors 43$ Tobacco 61$ Wine 72$ Aluminium 156$ Cigars 137$ Hypnotainment Bands 176$ Industrial Materials 44$ Tea 47$ Xenobiotic Filters 71$ HazMat Canisters 57$ Nox 168$ Consumer Goods 176$ Fire Pearls 46$ Biodome Materials 164$

Exports

Commodity Price Deployable Mining Container 50,000$ Cardamine 115$ Robotics 35$ Agricultural Machinery 65$ Casualties 27,409$ Oxygen 21$ Water 12$ Alien Organisms 13$ Food Rations 31$ Basic Alloy 37$ Construction Machinery 49$ Consumer Goods 56$ Luxury Consumer Goods 106$

Ships sold

Ship	Class	Price
Dagger	Light Fighter	15,052$
Stiletto	Heavy Fighter	18,108$
Sabre	Very Heavy Fighter	23,679$
Cutlass	Bomber	72,726$

News

[834 AS] Dons applaud Crayter military

MALTA -- 834 -- Crayter and IMG efforts to extract the slave rabble from Freeport 10 have proven to be an amusing diversion. Acting on a plan devised by Dons Wenceslau and Ricci, our warriors allowed the slave transports to slip away while inflicting a devastating toll on their escorts. Tau-37 is now littered with Crayter corpses. Don Ricci applauded Crayter leadership from his Maltese villa. “It’s very impressive, the Republic managed to take a cheap publicity stunt and turn it into a diplomatic crisis,” he noted, referring to the destruction of the liner Nagapasa. “Of course, the best is yet to come.” Many of the slaves aboard Freeport 10 were Liberty Insurgency prisoners of war, trafficked by the LPI; the paraded slaves are living, breathing evidence of Liberty malfeasance.

[833 AS] Decisive Victory Over Stabiline Menace

SIGMA-17 -- 833 -- For decades Atka has been a thorn in the Outcasts’ side. Nuisance became an existential threat with the release of Stabiline - Cryer’s pale imitation of Cardamine. Four years ago we damaged production, but failed to finish the job due to intervention by both the GMG and the Corsairs, who we suspect Cryer had bribed as mercenaries. To ensure success in our current campaign, the Dons committed to a masterful strategy of deception. An attack on the Corsair-occupied Freeport 9 emboldened Zoner Militants to take up arms, prompting the Corsairs to draw in reinforcements from across the Sigmas. While the Zoners spent their lives as a sacrificial distraction, our own ships redeployed to the true objective, achieving Atka’s complete destruction.

[833 AS] Cardamine Shortages

MALTA -- 833 AS -- While the slave rebellion has been crushed after more than a year of fighting, many plantations and their warehouses were burned or severely damaged. Fortunately, the Dons had prepared for this eventuality - the cartels were required to pool supplies to service the distribution network in "maintenance mode". This means maximum emphasis is placed on supplying fully dependent pawns, with Cardamine stocks distributed on a key-by-key basis to ration out supply. Despite these measures, demand for Cardamine skyrocketed, triggering armed conflicts between the various network participants and driving prices to dizzying heights. While we have slowly suppressed these prices as supply recovers, they remain an impediment to orderly market function. The Dons expect production to return to pre-rebellion levels over the next four years as destroyed infrastructure is rebuilt.

[832 AS] Righting Past Wrongs

AUGUSTA -- 832 AS -- The fires of revolt still smolder on Malta, but we have no time to count our losses and mourn our dead. We are forced to steel our hearts and once more rise to defend ourselves from outsiders who would see the Outcasts destroyed. We of course speak of the Corsairs, who exploited our people's moment of tragedy to seize Freeport 9 as a forward base. The Corsair occupation of the Freeport represents an existential threat to the Maltese people, and their raids upon our very home cannot and will not be tolerated. The Battlecruiser Augusta has led a force into Omicron Theta with orders to destroy the station and its biodomes, disrupt the Corsairs, and annihilate the Artifact trade that funds them. Already we have won a great victory by striking down the Battleship Fes, with the Battleship Delos surely soon to join it in the grave. The Dons have promised a handsome payment to the cartel of each pilot that kills a Corsair in Omicron Theta.

[831 AS] Corsair Threat Looms over Theta Aggression

IBIZA -- 831 AS -- The barbaric Corsairs have made their move in the Omicron Theta system, seizing control of Freeport 9. While this does remove another Bounty Hunter hive from our borders, it provides the Corsairs with an unacceptable forward staging ground for their own raids. Ibiza Station has been reinforced with additional guard squadrons and placed on high alert, in case this is the precursor to a larger Corsair fleet movement. Once the current disarray on Malta is resolved, the Cartels will turn their attention to matters of security, and the fleets will be free to strike terror into the hearts of our foes once more. The Corsairs may feel they have won themselves a great prize in Omicron Theta, but the Freeport is no fortress and a biodome is a fragile thing. The Corsairs say they were forced to act to secure their territory. Soon enough they shall learn that men in glass houses should not cast stones.

[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] Malta Ablaze!

MALTA -- 831 AS -- A slave rebellion has raged for months on the planet Malta as increasingly-organized rebel slaves have managed to take over some of the more sparsely populated and difficult-to-traverse areas. Our operations have been further complicated by the slaves' acquisition of sensitive planetary defense installations; our own defensive installations have been turned against us! While it remains unclear how the rebels learned of the orbital installation locations, it is possible that some of the more benevolent masters did not consider their slaves to be a serious security threat and allowed them access to portions of critical infrastructure. The Dons do not know how they will approach this pressing fact, but it is clear that the laxity of their brothers and sisters has allowed the rebellion to put up unexpectedly strong resistance. Despite this, the slaves themselves seem to realize the futility of their struggle as Outcast forces in Omicron Alpha have managed to disable most of the IMG and CR ships that attempted to smuggle aid and reinforcements to the besieged rebels. As the Outcasts succeed in gaining tactical and strategic superiority and their forces regain lost territory, the end of this rebellion is only a matter of time, blood and sweat. As a final act of revenge, the slaves aimed their weapons not only against the Outcasts themselves, but also against the reason they were brought here: Cardamine. As such, plantation fires stretch from horizon to horizon across the rural regions of planet Malta.

[831 AS] Slave Uprising on Malta I

MALTA -- 831 AS -- Across the planet Malta, widespread fighting rages as more and more slaves join the rebellion against their Outcast owners. Armed slaves have found it easier to conquer rural solitudes and vast swaths of plantations while the major cities have managed to quell the rebellion in its infancy. The slave rebellion itself began in the mines of the planet Albegna when the Benitez Cartel executed 200 slaves for sabotaging a mining facility. This cruelty resonated throughout the mining colony, even among the usually trouble-free slaves, and they quickly gained control of the mining facility, including Don Juan Benitez himself, who was to oversee the execution. When the Benitez Cartel learned that their Don had been executed by the slaves instead, they ordered the liquidation of the mining colony. Although the Albegna mining colony revolt was resolved in less than two weeks, promises by other Dons of 'precautionary measures' across the board, which most slaves interpreted as more mass executions, sparked a widespread slave uprising across Malta. Although the slaves themselves would hardly have been able to resist the well-armed Outcasts, the rebels had the element of surprise in the form of caches of smuggled weapons and other military equipment. As war rages on planet Malta between desperate slaves and their surprised masters, all Outcast forces from Sirius are recalled to planet Malta to quell the rebellion as quickly as possible. With the IMG and CR taking advantage of weakened Outcast influence in the Tau Region, the question arises as to whether this was all planned by their neighboring foes.

[830 AS] Cardamine Operations Expand In Response To Falling Profits

MALTA -- 830 AS -- The Maltese Cartels are scrambling to increase Cardamine production after a meeting between heads of influential families that revealed a general downturn in their profits, caused by a cascade of issues in our distribution network. Our smuggling routes have come under increased scrutiny from law enforcement throughout the Sirius Sector, causing an increase rate of failure for our smugglers. The independent smuggling contacts are also increasingly reluctant to continue their work as the risks begin to outweigh the rewards. That in turn, has a secondary effect of making people turn to the filthy Cryer for their Stabiline, a fake remedy for Cardamine withdrawal that we can only describe as snake oil, filling up pockets with false promises. Dissenting voices painfully point out that this is the first time in a century where we have seen three consecutive quarters of falling profits, with several minor Cartels allegedly facing bankruptcy amid the disaster. The Dons have quickly silenced such assertions, reassuring the public that the Orange Dream will continue to grow. To address the situation, the Dons demand ever-greater Cardamine yields, launching unprecedented expansion efforts. Steps will be taken to secure the product's shipping. In addition, they plan to import a large labor force from the colonies to bolster the Maltese plantations. This undertaking will require a coordinated effort from Maltese Navy captains, independent smugglers and subverted Sirian assets to acquire and ship slaves en masse to Malta.

Rumors

Outcasts

After several centuries when we began to venture back out into space, some of our ships did not return. Eventually we realized the cause: the Cardamine we were exposed to on Malta had slowly altered our genetic code and made us dependent on the drug. The breather masks give us enough Cardamine to survive outside of Malta. Malta imports most of its vital Commodities from Yanagi and Ruiz. The Junkers have made our lives on this planet much easier. We have used the riches that Cardamine has made us to build a paradise in place of what was once a prison. Entire plantations have been burned, family lines ended, and for what? Some misguided notion of freedom? It's naive, but perhaps I shouldn't expect better from slaves with more ambition than sense. They might not be able to bring themselves to admit it, but even now they need us, they need what only we can provide. The first several years after we arrived were touch and go. Many people starved; others simply gave up and died strung out on Cardamine. They would stare out into the distance -- all hope gone from their faces, and purple juice dribbling from their mouths. There are other survivors of the Hispania: the Corsairs. Once long ago we were brethren, the scourge of southern Sirius. The Cardamine and time have changed us. We share very little in common with Corsairs now; they have become more our competitors than anything else. My master, Don Lucio is dead, his kin joined him. The other families now circle what remains of his holdings like vultures, posturing and litigating against one another for sole right over his possessions. I suspect many other families have suffered this fate, and that the old order of things has also been a casualty in this war. When the Hispania was badly damaged while traveling to the Sirius Sector, the crew had to determine the best way to survive. Half of the crew wanted to abandon ship and make the rest of the journey using Hispania's shuttles; the other half believed they could reach Sirius in the Hispania. Those who chose to stay behind held the ship together until planetfall here on Malta. We are the ones who were left behind. We were not meant to survive, but we did, and in doing so we have become much more. The Cardamine has tied us to this planet, but it has changed us into something greater than you can understand. We are destined to rule Sirius one day. It will be our revenge upon those who wished to destroy us. When we arrived on this planet there was nothing but sprawling fields of tall orange grasses. Our first foraging parties often didn't return. When we sent others after them, we found out why. One becomes severely lacerated after just a few minutes walking through the razor-sharp grasses. If you continue much longer, you eventually bleed to death. Why have we flourished? Why are our ships so well crafted and designed? We operate on a higher order of being. Many wonder why we take life so easily. It is because this life is just a dream of what truly is. What human beings cherish is an illusion; there is no such thing as death, only change. The Outcasts consider the Siniestre Nube a sacred place for several reasons. Early explorers discovered a Jump Hole within the depths of the cloud that led to a strange world of ringed stars and strange craft. All ships in the burial ground are placed facing that Hole to honor the alien spirits. Many of the components we require to manufacture our ships come from Freeport 10, including Ship Hull Panels, Polymers, and Construction Machinery. More is always needed. An ancient race of beings developed the orange grasses on our planet. The codes within the genetic structure of the grass transform the user slowly. We are not human because we have been given a gift and can see further into truth than any man. Human beings are infants dabbling in the loam of an expansive ocean that stretches beyond the horizon. The Cardamine has let us see this. I was in Liberty overseeing the cardamine trade there when the revolt began. The distance meant that it took time before I received my summons to return as urgently as I could. Malta's orbit was locked down by then, and I spent several more months trying but failing to make landfall. When I began to fall ill, I was sure that would be the end. Our victory in retaking the missile defense grid cleared me a path to the surface, and while I was too ill to fight, I now find myself the sole inheritor of vast swaths of land. These ruined holdings could together make a city if restored properly, and I will see it done. The orange grasses that cover Malta are the source of Cardamine. Several years after our arrival, one of our scientists discovered how to process the drug into its current form. The grasses are one of a few plants that will grow in such acidic soil. When the Outcasts discovered the other inhabitants of Sirius we wanted to destroy them. We believe that the sabotage of the Hispania was the work of another colony trying to lessen competition for resources. Instead of throwing our lives away in an attack, the Dons decided to seek revenge with the Cardamine. If we can get enough of Sirius hooked, we will rule this space. The Cardamine cartels ship the drug from this planet to our two distribution centers: Ruiz and Cali. From there it travels throughout Sirius, infecting the populace with the hunger for more of what we have to sell. There were more than four sleeper ships that left for Sirius. Eight ships launched from the Federation dockyards on Pluto those many centuries ago. The Coalition fleet intercepted them before they could activate their jump drives, and three of the sleeper ships were destroyed in Sol. Five ships escaped, four of them might sound familiar: the Liberty, the Rheinland, the Bretonia, and the Kusari. The fifth was the Hispania. MOX is always in demand here. We use it for our larger ships, and we have discovered a means of making extremely destructive weaponry from it. Should a large navy enter this system, it would soon be destroyed by our planetary defense missiles. The missiles are a vehicle for chain-reaction, plutonium-tipped warheads. In the heart of the Siniestre Cloud is an intense radiation pocket of unknown origins. Over the centuries, this area -- located midway between the Omicron Beta Hole and the planet Carinea -- became the traditional burial grounds of great Outcast pilots. When a warrior dies, they are put in their ship with their most treasured weapons and set adrift in the zone, always facing towards the source of the spirits. But be careful, strange alien beings are said to guard this most sacred of Outcast places. The Hispania, our sleeper ship that launched from Sol, escaped the Coalition forces undamaged, but there was a saboteur aboard. We had almost made it to Sirius when an explosion woke the crew and her passengers from their stasis sleep. The ship was crippled, adrift in the vastness of interstellar space. The new ruling families have proclaimed that slavery will never return to Malta, that this destruction must serve as a reminder that our birthright is ours alone, not something to be shared with the dregs of the sector. Cardamine is shipped directly to Buffalo in New York. New York and Liberty offer us the greatest opportunity to exploit the benefits of a Cardamine addicted people.

NOTE: Page generated on the 15/12/2024 at 15:51:00 UTC