Political Profile Of The Universe

Consequences For Trade

Corporate States like Engema and Zaatxe, these are well-ordered worlds, which have usually developed from settlers who practiced a free form of competition. Taxation is high on such worlds, but the living standards are high also. Corporate planets wish to protect their trade, so goods are expensive, but luxuries are welcomed. Import licenses are often necessary. Engema is an agricultural world, run as a single farming co-operative. Farmers receive a fixed payment for their crops, whether or not the harvest is good, and selling prices do not vary greatly. It is a dependable market, and customer relations are good. Luxuries, machinery and raw materials sell well here. Zaatxe is an example of a rich, industrial state (Tech level 12). It produces luxury good, elaborate and innovative machine systems, and specializes in Prototype design. Prices fluctuate depending upon the level of inter-state competition, but it is always a safe bet to buy recently-developed machine items which have not yet spread very far across the galaxy.

Dictatorships such as the worlds Lave and Enzaer, are only moderately safe to trade with, but are well worth the risk (provided the trader is well defended and combat trained). Very often pirate attack will not occur because of an agreement between pirate fleets and the world itself. A proportion of all incoming trade is 'allowed' to be stolen by pirates, who will then leave the world alone and protect its ships from aliens or rogue traders. It is an uneasy liaison, which often breaks down. Lave is an agricultural world, and Enzaer an industrial planet, but a similar principle operates on both surfaces. There are two trading standards, that of the People and that of the Aristocracy. Standards of living are artificially generated, a veneer of progress, and luxury goods, machinery and textiles sell well - usually. The great demand, however, is for basic commodities, especially foodstuffs, clothing and raw materials. These will sell well when the voice of the People has been raised in protest.

Anarchy Planets
A trader can make his biggest profits here and reach his grave the quickest. Worlds like Onisou and Xeesenri have vast wreck-yards in far orbit, the dead places of ships that came to trade honestly, and fell prey to trickery. These are lawless places, and have usually become so because the original settlers competed too hard when there was too little resource material. Those worlds which survived holocaust did so because of uneasy and bloody alliances between clan families. Pirates and mercenaries were hired for protection and assassination purposes. Anarchic worlds will trade readily in narcotics, slaves, firearms and exotica, and the price will be good ... if you get a price at all. These worlds are almost always supplying invisible Masters, usually élite trader/combaters who have turned to crime as the most profitable way of life. Such form loose federations, and trade on the black market extensively throughout the galaxies.

These worlds pay highly for goods they cannot produce themselves, because they know that traders avoid them. Their own products need specialized, illegal outlets: weaponry, narcotics, eavesdropping devices ... if its covert, then anarchic worlds are producing it. Trade in these items and you will get rich quick, or dead quick, or at least become a 'Fugitive'.

Note: Maesin shown relative to Lave

Alien Races

Of the 2040 officially registered planets in the GalCop, all but 45 support human colonies only, that is to say, human presence elsewhere is restricted to settlements in under-populated parts of the land surface. Trading at such worlds depends, for its success, very much upon the extant state of co-operation between human and alien. Humans control the Coriolist stations in orbit, but the availability of items for trade, and their relative expense, can be affected by the controlling life forms. Most alien life forms are either too primitive, or too glad of off-world trade, to interfere. Some, such as the Reptiloid life form of Esanbe or the Amphibiois of Anbeen, can make a trader's life very difficult., by haggling at the point of a laser.

The available planetary information on all worlds will indicate the nature of the inhabiting life form.

Bird-forms. Dealing in alien artifacts on such worlds often involves forming a close liaison with Flight Elders, or Nest Elders, and this is very much a job for the specialist. Bird-forms are, on the whole, a delight to trade with, and the highest form of honor (fairly universally) that an off-worlder can receive is an invitation to 'keep the eggs warm for a moment'.

Amphibioids are usually a lot sharper than their wet sluggish appearance would suggest. They are usually keen to trade in narcotics, or exotic foodstuffs. Skin creams are always well received. Technologically they tend to be backward, but will pay high prices for such middle-range items as automated ponds, croak meters, spawn freezers and swamp purifiers.

Felines are dangerous in the extreme. No matter what sort of political structures the world may have, feline aliens are pack orientated, and feudal, and very unpredictable. All traders are advised to wear body suits, to prevent secretions of sweat from triggering a feeding response among these hostile and enigmatic life forms. To win the confidence of a feline alien is almost invariably to be invited to mate, so a certain aloofness is recommended.

Insectoids. The most dangerous insectoidal life form is the Thargoid, which is mentioned in the Combat section. Insectoidals are usually highly intelligent, often existing as a group mind. There is rarely any individually among insectoids, and the trader must beware making deals in such a way. One life form builds earth cities up to four miles high, and over four million drones live in the middle levels. According to legend, any trader who voluntarily ascends the earth passageway from ground to upper surface of these immense mounds is honored with the rare title Ascender of the Scent City, and then consumed alive. But trading with insectoids can be immensely profitable, as there are so many of them (to trade in wrist watches, for example, means two to four watches per individual in a clone-group of perhaps ten thousand).

In dealing with any alien life-form, for the purposes of trade, there are three cardinal rules: Learn the body language of the alien race. Cover up your body scent. Beware of Carapace concealed weapons.