Liminal Void Phipps 23 Worldbuilding, Part 2c
December 6, 2022
2c: Icons for "Being thrust suddenly onto the fringes of society and having to figure out how to deal with that."
- Event: When the Terran and Martian beacon networks were merged, a lot of stations became redundant. Everyone manning those stations were fired and reactors were deactivated as soon as the merger went through. The stations who had suitable engineering knowledge to restart them did so for the sake of everyone on the station, but for their trouble, they were blacklisted from all future corporate work.
- Landmark: Adrastea station was the source of one corp’s experimental “study” into worker efficiency in high gravity conditions. When the study ended in a drastic failure, workers there were all forced to sign non-disclosure and non-compete agreements before receiving medical care. After receiving the bare minimum, they were all promptly fired.
- Person: Barnaby Russell was a pilot who got fired from ferry duty due to having a management inefficiency pinned on him. On his way out, he stole a security patrol fighter and used it to hijack several freighters. He’s still at large, along with a few old friends he managed to recruit, and occasionally his crew will disrupt an ore shipment leaving the colonies.
- Peril: Every once in awhile, someone decided to give a little too much control to an automated system. When that happens (and when it goes wrong), it’s quite standard for everyone involved in programming or maintenance to be let go and the mark put on their permanent record in spite of whoever made it happen.
- Treasure: If your station gets attacked or cut loose, strip the place clean, then hide it well. What are they going to do, fire you twice? Just make sure you don’t take anything traceable…
- Secret: A lot of corporations cut people loose or mark them as falsely dead on purpose. There’s a lot of things you can hire someone who doesn’t exist for.
(Read the original on cohost here!)