Fist

A water world with numerous small islands of white beaches and green tropical rain forests. Only the extremely wealthy, or those that serve them, can afford to live here. Orbiting the world are small moonlets, carved with murals of human achievements.

On approach to Fist, the world appears to be an idyllic world of small island chains amidst world spanning oceans, with flecks of white clouds ringed with the flicking lights of orbital habitats. There are a few large islands, which mostly have a sub-tropical or temperate climate. There are no polar caps on this world, and the climate is relatively stable across the entire planet. For once, appearance and reality match. At least if you’re rich.

On the very borders of Imperium space, Fist is a haven for the super rich. There is a B-class high port which is one of the cleanest in the sector, and can provide most of the facilities required of visiting ships. However, the berthing fee is Cr50,000 (fifty thousand)/week which is far beyond what most people want to pay. There are several high quality hotels here, as well as high class recreational facilities such as restaurants, bars and sport halls.

If you want to head down to the surface, then you’ll need a visa, which costs Cr100,000 per VIP and needs to be renewed every year. A landing permit for your own vessel is around Cr1,000 per tonne, but most of the islands will have their own landing port for small ships. Because of the costs, most visitors use one of the regular shuttles down to the larger islands, and stay at the somewhat less exclusive resorts. Even these start at Cr10,000/week, but are still high quality and if you can afford it, worth the cost.

If you really have the money though (and if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it), renting a private island is the way to go. You can either bring your own staff (there are special discount visa rates for those considered to be staff), or have either biological or robot staff provided for you. There are no laws here (other than the requirement to pay rental costs and for any serious damages to islands or the facilities on them), and complete privacy is guaranteed. This goes as far as the high port continuously scanning for anyone putting spy satellites or other surveillance systems into orbit around the planet. Since most starships have sensors capable of doing this, flight patterns around the world are tightly regulated, and the high port itself is a quarter of a million kilometres from the planet so very few ships get a chance to approach low orbit.

There are a number of islands which have long term residency by billionaires, and since Fist asks no questions and is tax free, there are a number of unsavoury sorts that claim Fist as their home. Despite the high wealth of many of the individuals, the world itself is not considered Rich – it has enough of a tourist based economy to keep things ticking over, but the ruling government has no intention to expand it any further so actual trade is limited, especially given the low population.

As to who the ruling government are – it’s not known. It’s believed to be made up of a subset of the long term residents called The Conclave, and they control who can settle here and which islands can be developed. Beyond that they don’t have much impact on what goes on and few are aware of their actual identities, or even numbers.

For most people though, all of this is beyond their reach. The fifth world of the system is Eirus, a 50,000km diameter Poseidonic subjovian world which is blue-white in colour. It’s largest moon is Dore, an airless rocky moon about 2,000km in diameter and which is the location of the secondary starport.

Dore starport is class C, and designed to handle basic refuelling and a place to dock for those wanting to travel in-system to Fist. From above Dore, the starport looks like a cluster of spider webs spread out across the surface – docking bays connected by tunnels surrounding a central hub of hotels, restaurants entertainment. Warehousing is found around the edge of the settlement, and there are some basic ship repair facilities as well.

The berthing fees of Cr500/week here are far more reasonable and there is a thrust-8 shuttle service which charges Cr1,000/person for the roughly 2 day flight to Fist. There are no restrictions on refuelling directly from the gas-giant, though refined fuel is available at Dore at standard rates who want to refuel quicking.

Both Fist and Dore are pleasant and relatively boring worlds. There is always a reasonable number of ships around Dore, transiting between the Imperium and Outrim Void, both small free traders and larger bulk carriers. Most of the traffic comes to Dore rather than Fist, though Fist is a great place to spot expensive, custom made luxury yachts and pleasure cruisers owned by the richest members of the Reach.

Fist is in Topas Subsector, Trojan Reach, 2918. For more information on the system, see the detailed entry.