Sessions 17 – 18: First Contact
Dates: 4/20/2011 to 8/3/2011
Where: The Asteroid Belt in FS30 system (Mhemne system)
(True20 – Modified Face of the Enemy Star Frontiers adventure.)
First Contact with the Mhemne Belters. The party discovers the system is subjugated by other Sathars and they are using the system for ship and weapons building. Negotiating with the Belters, they learn about the fragmented society that is Mhemne society. They also learn that there is a spy amoung them, sabotaging the efforts of the resistance in the asteroid belt. As it turns out, it is a bio-modified human to look like a Mhemne, from VoidCorp.
What they learn of the Mhemne is their history prior to the Sathar invasion was not all that peaceful and they are not exacly a united people.
Mhmemne Historical Data
More than 2,000 years ago, the Mhmemne expanded out into their starts from Ninguis, colonizing their moon, builkding mulitple space stations and mining their asteroid belt. They divided into three primary factions (see below)
2,000 years ago – The Belter War. A war with the outcast Belters and the Homeworlders. The Colonials divided their loyalties and fought amongst themselves. This war lead to the cataclysm that rendered the home world into the state it is in today – a cold ice ball. The Belters hurled an asteroid at the homeworld to end the war.
10 years ago – Sathars invaded FS30 and began to build ships (in violation of their treaty with the Federation), with the support of VoidCrop as a first attempt to integrate VoidCorp tech with Sathar tech.
Mhmemne Faction Data
The Mhemne Society is made up of 3 primary factions:
Ice Worlds or Home worlders
Originally pacifist communist/socialistic aristocrats now fragmented resistance on the homeworld. Adhering to their communist ways, they cast out their pacifist ways and are “fighting comrades” (a la Soviet Armies in Leningrad)
They were the most advanced faction technologically before the invasion.
Confederates or Colonials or High Colonists
Freedom loving independents, they are a conglomeration of loosely allied colonial states located throughout the various colonies and space stations. Formed from groups that fled the totalitarian government of the home world, they are divided up in various subfactions that compete for power in the High Colonies.
During the Belter War, allegiances were divided between the Home worlders and the Belters.
Sathars have subjugated the Colonials by political means, convincing certain factions to collaborate while manipulating the political structure to keep the factions internally struggling while the Sathars build their ships. They use the Colonial factions against each other to keep the peace, essentially.
Main Factions: Federalists (freedom loving capitalists), Kasholists (fanatically religious), Unionists (Socialists), Syndicate (alliance of crime families). There are also the Renegades (bands of pirates, terrorists, anarchists and raiders).
Belters
Technologically, the least advanced of the factions.
They are formed from the outcasts, criminals, and fringers that were given a choice by the Homeworlders – live in prison or work in the Belt mines.
There is a hodge-podge of scavenged and stolen tech. They covet any kind of tech they can use. They are good engineers, techs and scanengers. They can reverse engineer just about anything.
They are divided into clans, but rarely openly fight each other. Their united hatred of the Home worlders and now the Sathars keep them from openly going to war against each other. However, covert actions are not unheard of.
After negotiating with the Mhemne, they gain initial agreements ot start trade if the newcomers help free the system. But UPF (or UpFeds) feel that the Belters are not that reliable of a source or a good representation of the race as a whole. They order the party to the planet and instruct them to contact the homeworlders.
While preparing for the trip to the homeworld, the group learn more about teh mysteries of the Mhemne.