Planet Stuttgart

Planet Stuttgart
Owner	Rheinland Federal Police
Location	3E, Stuttgart Rheinland
Technical information
Population	unknown
Docking	Yes
Terrain	Terrestrial
Diameter	15,209 km
Mass	6.12 x 1024 kg
Temperature	-1°C to 34°C
Escape velocity	12.23 km/sec

Colonised in late 94 A.S., shortly after the exploration of the Stuttgart system by the famous Rheinland explorer, Von Rohe, Stuttgart was hailed as the Jewel of Rheinland. A green, almost inconceivably fertile world, owing to the high concentration of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere, planet Stuttgart was colonised heavily by tens of thousands of would-be farmers, attracted by the prospect of making a living on a planet that did not spend most of its time bathed in sub-zero temperatures.

It quickly became the primary food producer for the whole of Rheinland, with many plants from Earth and elsewhere in Sirius being grown with ease in the oxygen rich atmosphere. It was during the formative years that many of the huge farming clans and dynasties started, the largest of which were the Bachmeier, Erlichmann, Sterl and Weiss families, who controlled enormous plantations and farms across the planet. The farmers organised themselves into a collective known as the WVS, a powerful Farmers Rights union that lobbied New Berlin for farming subsidies successfully for centuries. The government money boosted Stuttgart's food output and generated a huge amount of wealth for the farmers, but the happy situation was not to last.

As the Eighty Years War against the Gas Miners Guild wound down towards its ignoble conclusion, the Rheinland government, realising that it was almost bankrupt, decided to cut all subsidies to planet Stuttgart almost overnight. The WVS protested massively, but was completely ignored. It later came to light that the Rheinland government had borrowed massively from Liberty during the many years of fighting against the GMG and, with the end of the war in 669 A.S., Liberty was calling in its debts. Having no money to pay them with and in an attempt to renegotiable more favourable loan conditions, the Rheinland government gave Liberty corporations, Synth Foods in particular, unrestricted access to the planet Stuttgart.

With the Rheinland currency completely devalued and unemployment skyrocketing by the day, the vast majority of the farmers on Stuttgart were virtually bankrupt along with the rest of their nation. Synth Foods moved in immediately, buying out many of the farming dynasties over the following decades, including the huge Erlichmann family, which had had a series of mysterious disasters occurring on a number of plantations in the year preceding their collapse. Most of the remaining farmers were forced to buy all of their seeds and poor quality fertilisers from Synth Foods, and sell much of their produce to the Liberty corporation at the same time. Despite this, the population continued to rise as immigrants poured in to serve as the labour force on Synth Food plantations, with the current population estimated at around 540 million as of 817 A.S.

In 770 A.S., Synth Foods began increasing the carbon dioxide level in Stuttgart's atmosphere in order to make it even easier to manufacture Synth Paste. Again, the WVS protested heavily to the government, but was duly ignored. This sparked a number of sabotage incidents at Synth Food owned factories and it lead to Synth Foods forcing the Rheinland government to replace virtually all of the original WVS board members with their lackeys in 775 A.S., destroying the farming union's voice in New Berlin. It was this final act that lead radicals from the WVS, including the former head of the Erlichmann family, to found the LWB later the same year, in the hopes of one day driving Synth Foods from Stuttgart and returning the planet to its rightful place as the Jewel of Rheinland.

Missions Offered

• Rheinland Federal Police: $45,000 to $65,000 range
• Bounty Hunters Guild: $45,000 to $65,000 range

Bribes Offered

Spoiler:
ALG Waste Disposal Border World Exports Bounty Hunters Guild Daumann Gateway Shipping Kruger Minerals Orbital Spa and Cruise Republican Shipping Rheinland Federal Police Synth Foods, Inc.

Commodities

Exports

Food Rations Luxury Food Oxygen Synth Paste

Imports

Basic Alloy Cryocubes Fertilizers