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Once Upon a Time in the Outer Rim

Episode I: Last Skiff to Mos Vaada




Beck - The Jundland Wastes


Beck cleaned the Czerka cycler for the third time that day. That was one thing he hadn’t had to do back on Corsin, when he carried a blaster rifle instead of a slugthrower. Less maintenance with a blaster, but the components and gas needed to be shipped in from off-world. With a slugthrower, everything you needed to keep it operational, from the firing mechanisms to the slugs, was made right there on Tatooine. He slipped slug after slug into the cycler as he finished up, cursing as he slipped and jammed his finger on the fourth round.

He hated this backwater world, and not just for the lack of modern industry. It was the sand and dirt, too, the barren, wasteland earth that stretched, invariably, all around no matter where you were on the planet.

At that moment, Beck was leaning against the guardrail of an open-air skiff, smoking a thick, slow-burning cigarra as the ship bobbed and weaved through the rocky terrain of the Jundland Wastes. Jeeda, the crew’s Rodian pilot, kept them moving at a slow clip relative to the craft’s typical operating speed. They weren’t on their way to Mos Vaada for their own sake. They were escorting the long, multicar hover train that skated over the barren land not more than fifty paces to their right.

He loaded the last of the cycler’s eight slugs, locked them in, and stuffed the cleaning rag in the inside pocket of his dirt streaked poncho. He tilted his wide brimmed hat down, shielding his face from the twin suns, and kept his eyes on the rocks that reached up from the ground around them. He chewed on the butt of the cigarra and inhaled a cloud of smoky carababba tabac.

Sand people would shoot at anything that moved, if they were in the mood, but it wasn’t just sand people Beck worried about. The hover train was carrying thousands and thousands of gallons of water for the people of Mos Vaada. Out in the deserts of Tatooine, no matter who you were, you needed water to keep living, which meant water was just the sort of thing worth killing for.

Mos Vaada Transportation, Doga the Prospector’s shipping company that owned the hover train, the skiff Beck rode, and even Beck himself, if you thought about it like that, kept a robust, if ragtag, security detail attached to each water shipment out of Anchorhead. This particular hover train was escorted by a few skiffs, each outfitted with a mounted anti-personnel blaster and carrying half a dozen or so armed mercs, and the train itself was manned by its own security team. Beck could see a few of the mercs standing atop the hover train, rifles in hand, eyes on the terrain, and another skiff drifting further up the way alongside the front end of the train.

Circumstances being what they were, what with the sandstorm of the century on its way, they even had air support for this operation. Granted, it was a rickety light freighter sporting a jury-rigged laser cannon, not exactly the same caliber of air support as the FT-5’s that had flown cover for Beck and his unit back during the war, but it was something. More eyes to keep a look out for trouble never hurt.

“Hey boss, you keep that thing loaded, eh? A clean gun no good if the shooting starts and you got no slugs in it, eh?” the Rodian pilot shouted over the whirring of the skiff engine. Beck’s Huttese wasn’t great, and the Rodian spoke a broken form of the language to boot, but he took Jeeda’s meaning well enough.

“I hear you,” he shouted back, and rested the cycler’s barrel on his shoulder. He kept his eyes on the rising rock faces as the caravan descended into a canyon, deeper into the Jundland Wastes, toward the Western Dune Sea, toward Mos Vaada and a stack of credits. Toward the sandstorm, too, though, and other dangers.

He tightened his grip on the cycler and chewed at the cigarra, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke into the Tatooine wind.
Limited-Use Character Template


Name: [Your Character's Name]

Occupation and Affiliation: [i.e. Freelance Bounty Hunter, Mos Vaada Transportation Security, Independent Smuggler, Czerka Corporation Mercenary, Pilot]

Description: [Include such details as age, species, clothing, weapons on person, details regarding appearance, whatever suits you]

Background: [A very short and sweet, third-person account of who your character is, what he does, and what he's been up to prior to the commencement of his or her participation in this story]
Per the interest check:

Episode I: Last Skiff to Mos Vaada is the story of a a few bounty hunters and mercenaries working a job on Tatooine. Local Hutt kingpin of Mos Vaada, Doga the Prospector, is overseeing a new mining operation deep in the northwestern stretches of the Western Dune Sea. Mos Vaada, once barely worth noting with a pinprick on a map, is now a rapidly growing boom town. Though once self-sustaining, Mos Vaada's population has outgrown its ability to sustain itself on its own, and relies on shipments of food and water from Anchorhead to get by.

With water running low and a powerful sandstorm on its way, the people of Mos Vaada are depending on a hover train laden with water to help them weather the storm. Czerka Corporation, however, has other designs. Czerka's mining interests are the most expansive in the galaxy, and its directors are no fans of Doga the Prospector and his operation encroaching on their turf. Where the law and negotiations have failed, Czerka now turns to force to settle the score with Doga, organizing a crew of saboteurs to hijack and destroy the water shipment before it reaches the town with the goal of extorting the Hutt to hand over his mining operation to the corporation.




Basically, it's up to our protagonists to save the people of Mos Vaada from dying of dehydration by protecting the hover train during its journey. Or, alternatively, it's up to our protagonists to destroy the hover train and force Doga the Prospector to give in to Czerka's demands. Maybe both, who knows.


Due to the strong positive response, I've gone ahead and made this thread to kick the RP off. As I said in the interest check thread, temporary characters are welcomed and encouraged. Follow the template in the character sheet section.
Temporary/Supplemental characters or whatever you'd call them are welcome, by the by. Personally, I'm going to be playing a former PDF soldier from Corsin who turned to mercenary work after the war.
Once Upon a Time in the Outer Rim

Episode I: Last Skiff to Mos Vaada



So this is an interest check for the first chapter of an episodic set of play-by-post RP's set in the persistent world. Each episode will be set in the Outer Rim and cover the exploits of the bounty hunters, smugglers, and scoundrels you might find out there.

Episode I: Last Skiff to Mos Vaada is the story of a a few bounty hunters and mercenaries working a job on Tatooine. Local Hutt kingpin of Mos Vaada, Doga the Prospector, is overseeing a new mining operation deep in the northwestern stretches of the Western Dune Sea. Mos Vaada, once barely worth noting with a pinprick on a map, is now a rapidly growing boom town. Though once self-sustaining, Mos Vaada's population has outgrown its ability to sustain itself on its own, and relies on shipments of food and water from Anchorhead to get by.

With water running low and a powerful sandstorm on its way, the people of Mos Vaada are depending on a hover train laden with water to help them weather the storm. Czerka Corporation, however, has other designs. Czerka's mining interests are the most expansive in the galaxy, and its directors are no fans of Doga the Prospector and his operation encroaching on their turf. Where the law and negotiations have failed, Czerka now turns to force to settle the score with Doga, organizing a crew of saboteurs to hijack and destroy the water shipment before it reaches the town with the goal of extorting the Hutt to hand over his mining operation to the corporation.




Basically, it's up to our protagonists to save the people of Mos Vaada from dying of dehydration by protecting the hover train during its journey. Or, alternatively, it's up to our protagonists to destroy the hover train and force Doga the Prospector to give in to Czerka's demands. Maybe both, who knows.

Leave a post if you're interested in playing a role in Once Upon a Time in the Outer Rim: Episode I - Last Skiff to Mos Vaada
Is there a particular format you’d like for characters specific to this RP?
Approved.
Pssst, it's invalid now....can we make it...persistent?


Permanent link here: discord.gg/vvaMb2W
Rensler – Offices of Ku’lya, Kast & Vosadii



Callum sat at his desk, Raya Navi in one of the two seats across from him. Between them, laid out on the glass surface, was her datapad. A small, holographically manifested Rodian, seated at a desk, hung in the air just above the device. He was in the middle of a fiery rant on state of the galaxy.

“I’m talking about Rendili StarDrive, I’m talking about Republic Fleet Systems, I’m talking Czerka Corporation, Hoersh-Kessel, SoroSuub,” he pronounced, counting them off on his long, presumably green fingers, “they’re all working together, pouring money into the Senate, into their campaign accounts, into their bank accounts, into their friends’ bank accounts to make sure they get what they want. And what do they want, New Republic Nation? That’s right. They want to bring down Corellia. They want to bring down the CEC, they want to bring down StarDrive . . .”

“Who is this?” Rensler asked. He'd asked the team to look into whatever leads they might dig up on lobbyists and interests with the money and a motive to buy a fifth of the Senate. This Rodian, who as far as Rensler could guess was some fringe media personality, was not what he was expecting.

“Neero Bext. He’s the netshow anchor for Holonet Free Coruscant, the leading broadcast on this Rim-wing media outlet called The New Republic,” Raya explained. “He’s a big name on the Holonet conspiracy forums.”

“. . . the deep state is telling us, they’re shouting it in our faces, that they don’t care about your freedoms! They don’t care about the free
market . . .”


“And you think he’s on to something here?” Callum asked, eyes on the furiously gesticulating Rodian.

“He’s a bit, well, unhinged, I guess,” Raya said, looking down at the broadcast. “But he’s talking about the same kind of voting trends we’re looking at here. The idea of the seizure bill being some kind of subversive conspiracy isn't exactly a fresh idea. It seems like it gets talked about a lot in these circles, and this is the guy everyone talks about when they discuss it.”

“. . . but the mainstream news,” Bext continued as they spoke, nearly spitting the word mainstream, “tells us the deep state isn’t real. That these are crazy, fringe conspiracy theories and that people who question the system are out of line . . .”

“I guess this is the territory we’re in,” Callum said. He did not go to law school for this. Lobbying was a career field roughly adjacent to the practice of law to begin with. Delving into a crazy, fringe conspiracy, especially one that might be real, that wasn’t covered in the books. That wasn’t something you picked up professionally, either. “Where is his studio?” Studio. Could be this Bext character was filming this out of a cramped, one-bedroom apartment somewhere.

“The address on their incorporation forms is a postal box down in the low 4000’s, Sector L-81.” That was only an hour’s trip from the Federal District’s upper levels. “They’re probably in the area, but,” she said with a shrug, “there’s no address. You want to talk to him?” she asked. This was a stretch as far as a lead went, and he could tell she knew it. She was probably surprised he was taking it seriously.

"Right now we have nothing. If he's in the area, we might as well," Callum said. He could hardly explain it himself, though. There was, literally, no reason to think this Neero Bext was grounded on any planet in the galaxy. All the same, again, conspiracies weren't his area of expertise. Maybe an expert would be helpful.

"Right, of course," Raya agreed.

“Let’s get that address through Coronet, then,” Callum said. “Give Jast a call and put him on it. And see if we can hire out one of his security contractors for the trip. This Bext doesn’t seem like the most stable person.”

“Do you want me to go down there?” Raya asked. If Callum had to estimate a guess, he’d say she wasn’t terribly excited at the prospect.

“No, I will. I’ll take Ben, too,” Callum said. “Force knows that child isn’t doing anything worth his billing rate up here.”

“. . . I don’t have all the answers. I’m just saying when you look at Project Corona, when you look at the Strategic Intelligence Service, when you look at the military-industrial complex, when you look at the facts, you know, you just know something is going on. It’s time to wake up, Coruscant!”
Approved.
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