Cutting Room Floor: Crude System

Originally published September 23, 2013

GURPS Handbook of the Planets Inputs: Personal user number 317; System number 10169

The system named Crude possesses a bounty of worlds rich in hydrocarbons. Much like Saturn's Titan, the gas giants of this system possess several moons covered in oceans of liquid methane and heavier materials such as ethane and propane. While all interstellar societies have long moved past using these substances for fuel, they still are valuable in the production of plastics and in specialized application like refrigeration.

The atmospheres on all these worlds are thick and toxic, made up of nitrogen and methane. The low gravity helps with exporting but any exposure of the material to oxygen is fraught with danger.

For this reason the system is crawling with prospectors. Most of the activity is focused on WildCat, the largest moon of the fourth planet. Here a dozen operations are focused on siphoning off the raw materials to orbital facilities high above. Business is good and fortunes can be made by those able to quickly harvest large quantities of pure hydrocarbons. However a lack of cooperation has slowed efforts to build a beanstalk, an elevator pipeline into orbit. A beanstalk pipeline would greatly decrease the operating costs of all the prospectors on WildCat, since they no longer would need to worry about getting their goods off the moon. It would also protect them from Zeiler Plastics.

The Zeigler Plastics company has come to dominate the trade for ethane and other hydrocarbons in this section of the galaxy. They have just opened their own beanstalk on Derrick, the largest moon of the third planet. A rapidly expanding firm, Zeilger was established by an early team of prospectors from WildCat two decades ago. Pooling their resources they used the windfall from the early shipments to buy up processing ships to turn the ethane into plastics while in route to nearby systems. Flooding the market with cheap goods they have quickly captured a segment of the market and are ruthlessly expanding. A dominant player in shipping and refining, they now have their sights on controlling the extraction trade.

Things are already becoming unsettled. Prices are dropping as the beanstalk lowers the cost of lifting the materials to waiting refinery vessels. It is likely some of the companies on WildCat will be bought out or got bankrupt in the next few years.

Game Aspects (using the Fate system):

WildCat: Every Man for Himself, Seas of Methane but no Oxygen

Zeigler Plastics: Cooperation at Any Cost, More Work than Staff

System Details:

Crude: a class M4V star glowing brightly over a hydrocarbon rich solar system. Roughly 8.8 billion years old.

Derrick: the small ice moon of the third planet, this world contains the second largest concentration of hydrocarbons in the system. A beanstalk elevator connects it to space, funneling chemicals continually.

WildCat: the largest of the two small ice moons (IVc), half the surface is covered in seas of methane and ethane. Dozens of separate operations are underway siphoning and refining the raw materials before shipping them off in huge container ships.