Smoke City

During the previous session, the Travellers found out a few people whom they could talk to. Some of them they did contact, others remain as possibilities.

• Uldira Karemurii, the PA of the Mayor of Landing.
• Major Ackton Dantev, working as a military advisor to the Mayor.
• Kagira Shiisu, a possible contact for the southern bandits.
• Captain Harlen Stone, captain of the Wayward Mule, and also an agent of the Imperium.

The Major has mentioned there are only 20t of weapons in the warehouse, when the Travellers have information that there are 30t. So what has happened to the rest? There is a train coming to collect the goods, and take them down south. Should they try and sneak in and find out what is there, or plan a train job?

It’s decided that attacking a warehouse in the middle of a starport might be a really bad idea. Sneaking in might be possible, as might be checking the cargo after it’s been loaded onto the train and has left the station.

Whilst these conversations are ongoing, Nashu wanders off and goes to talk to the engineers managing the locomotives near the warehouse. She shows interest in the engines, and flirts with them. Eventually she manages to get into the warehouse, and spots the cargo that probably contains the weapons. Since it’s in standard cargo containers, it’s easy to tell that it’s split into a 20t and a 10t pile.

Nashu gets back to the others, and a decision is made to board the train taking the cargo. The mayor has hired some private carriages at the back for his cargo, but there are passenger carriages near the front. Nashu gets to ride up front in the steam engine, whilst Dmitry buys tickets as a standard passenger.

Gan and Irian meanwhile follow the train in their air/raft, keeping at a reasonable distance to not be spotted. They make sure that they have a good quality packed lunch with them, whilst Dmitry and Nashu have to make do with some ham and pickle sandwiches from the restaurant car. However, there is plenty of alcohol aboard the train.

Nashu spends time getting lots of footage of manly men shovelling coal into the furnace, though ends the day covered in smoke and dust. Dmitry just notices that at various points the train seems to be travelling rather fast. Fortunately, the over enthusiast coal shovellers don’t damage the engine. Gan and Irian simply enjoy a picnic in the comfort of their air/car floating well above the train, though Irian is concerned about the lack of shower facilities.

There are a couple of guards at the back of the train, but I try to leave plenty of opportunity for “something to be tried”. Nothing is. The train gets to a station at the foot of the mountains that night and stops, allowing people to get off and find rooms. Over night, nothing happens.

The following day, the train heads through the mountains, reaching the farmland to the south.

Attacking a warehouse in the middle of a starport might be a really bad idea. At a station stop, a group of half a dozen men, whom Dmitry thinks are soldiers get on the train. One of them goes to talk to the guards at the back, and Gan and Irian are able to watch him checking the cargo.

However, nothing else happens, and the Travellers leave well alone.

Finally the train arrives at another station, where the cargo carriages are decoupled and left in a siding over night. The following morning, they are attached to another engine, and head south, whilst the rest of the train heads east.

The Travellers leave the train at this point, and head back to Landing. They allow Dr Durunarar to monitor the passage of the train from their ship in orbit. However, ultimately they decide not to get involved.

They think that they’ve identified where the weapons are coming from. The Double Entry is delivering them, and maybe the Mayor is supplying the bandits with them, in order to help fuel a conflict he can use as a reason to spread his ‘protection’.

I was very much expecting the Travellers to try investigating the cargo containers, but they never did. I had deliberately set this world up to give them freedom to choose what to do, so I wasn’t expecting them to do anything specific. However, they had put a lot of time and effort into following the cargo, so I’d started dropping hints in terms of what they could do (mentioning where guards were, the layout of things etc) because it looked like they were planning to do something. But in the end they decided they didn’t need to anything.

Their overall goal on this world is to find out about the factions, and possibly select one which is best for the Imperium to back. They haven’t spoken to anyone at Smoke City yet, so fly north to go there.

Smoke City has a population of about 60,000. It looks like a bit of a ramshackle town, with some large factories near the centre which are belching smoke. Coal mines are nearby, and train lines run into the town. The land around, much like Landing, is rural farm land.

The Travellers go to the Diamond Club to find rooms, drunks and food. At around this point Dr Durunarar reports that the goods are being offloaded onto trucks. The containers have been opened up, and the cargo is being split into smaller loads.

Irian invites the broker she sold some Fusion+ to to the Diamond Club for a chat, and the others investigate the city to find out rumours. Many of the people here seem to work in the factories. It’s hard work, but they’re keen to build up Smoke City, because they want to make a better life for their children and grand children. They want high technology, better education and more trade with the Imperium.

Speaking with the head of the city, he is well spoken and argues that the future of the people is all that is important. Even if that means building up a large army and fighting the bandits and Landing. There is a large military being organised here, as well as guns and armoured vehicles. He would really like high tech weapons.

So Smoke City is military, not really a democracy, but seems to want Imperium involvement for the long term viability of the planet. It’s decided that they are probably the faction that the Imperium should support.

There were four-ish factions that I’d set up:

• The Mayor of Landing was meant as a bit of an unpleasant character, but it would be the easiest to back since he already had control of the star port. It would probably result in a stable but corrupt regime of oligarchs, with a more rural and distributed culture.
• The Railroad Barons had influence, but no real overall control. They had no real interest in running things, just getting in money from providing a service that everyone was dependent on.
• The Bandits to the south were a group of independents, and probably actually the ‘nicest’ bunch. A lot of the bad stuff was actually being caused by Landing. However, if they got into control, their government structure would collapse into lots of little factions once they no longer had the stress of being the underdog.
• Smoke City was pro-technology and education, and I’d expected that to appeal to the Travellers. However, they are also militaristic, and though have Democracy (of a sorts – companies voting based on work force size) it will probably resolve into a military-industrial fuelled society. Great for the Imperium which wants strong trading partners.

From here, the Travellers are heading to their next destination as part of their shakedown cruise. There they will have the job of delivering some military hardware, and report on the status of the world.