Estación de Amazon

Description

Estación de Amazon is the outer station in Barnard’s Star, lonely in its orbit on the outskirts of the system. This remote station has a secret: a potential solution to the water shortage plaguing what’s left of humanity.

The Gaule Protectorate recently acquired this station peacefully from the former independence. Its position in the far reaches of Barnard’s Star makes it tactically useless, but what’s inside could present something of immeasurable value. Unique in the known galaxy, Estación de Amazon is populated by densely packed rainforest in which it’s possible to grow over a hundred varieties of fruits and vegetables. More interesting still, it has the only known self-sustaining water cycle in the quadrant. The station has real, freshwater rivers and even an elaborate swamp system in the ruins. The shock of green and the presence of so much water and even rain is enough to make even the most seasoned spacer gape.

Chronicle Text

This plucky little station on the very farthest reaches of the system happily rejoined the Protectorate post -Catastrophe and brought with it a substantial gift. While the research is still ongoing, what is known is that somehow the station accidentally created an ecosystem, likely born of hydroponics and onboard farming left out of control. Estacion is currently the only known station with an actual weather system and flourishing biome. Understanding is pending. Estación de Amazon, the patron station of life persevering.

Arrival Text

Statistics

System: Barnard's Star
Affiliation: Gaule
Level: 12
Legal: Weak
Orwellian: High

Areas

Bank (Banco De Fruta La Estrella)

On the outside, this looks typical of Estación de Amazon with its thatched roof and patchwork of metal walls. Inside, however, it’s clean, orderly, and full of steel-faced soldiers in tightly fitted Gaule uniforms.

Soldiers stand at the entrance and armed security personnel are stationed beside each bank teller. Due to their plentiful exports, Estación de Amazon enjoys bountiful of wealth. Much of that wealth is kept in the Banco De Fruta Estrella and the Gaule Protectorate makes certain it has the utmost protection.

Brig (Cárcel de La Tormenta)

Cárcel de La Tormenta is located in a particularly dense section of jungle. It’s built on the edge of the swamp which marks the ruins, close to the faulty humidity generators. It's veiled in a layer of white mist so thick it’s difficult to breathe. Prisoners are placed in cells with corresponding unpleasantness to the severity of their crimes.

The worst offenders are forced into high-walled cells without ceilings in the thickest parts of the fog. They’re subjected to the wrath of jungle storms with pelting, stinging rain and swarms of biting bugs with no protection. When prisoners are released, they’re permanently scarred with welts from the harsh rains and insects. Many of them also suffer lung damage and retain an ugly cough for the rest of their lives. Everyone on Estación de Amazon knows who these criminals are from the distinguishing markers and they're often forced to leave the station entirely. The Gauloise are trying to soften this practice, but they’ve run into too much Amazonian pushback so far.

Clones (Pura Vida)

Content-looking employees are ready to help anyone interested in acquiring their services. Cloning is exceedingly popular here and they always seem to have a new customer. The floating bodies in the cloning tanks are modestly hidden behind an inviting velvet curtain.

“Promethean Sect” is not a household name on this lonely little station, the ideology not having reached its tendrils this far out yet. Nearly every citizen on this station is wealthy enough to afford a clone, and laws on permits are relaxed enough for most people to have one. It’s another aspect of Amazonian society Gaule is attempting to tighten and regulate.

Consortium Embassy (Agujero De Serpiente)

A small building located near the ports. Consortium flags hang outside and a few ambassadors live and work out of the building. They tend a small fruit garden in the back and receive very few visitors. The locals quietly refer to this place as "Agujero De Serpiente" or "Snake Hole."

It’s no secret that the Amazonian people openly dislike the Consortium due to some early Post-Cat trade agreements in which the Consortium double crossed Estación de Amazon. Amazonians often use the slur serpiente, or snake in reference to Consortium citizens. As such, very few Consortium citizens visit Estación de Amazon and the ambassadors who live here are subject to heavy discrimination.

NPCs

Employment (Employment Center)

Gaule soldiers are stationed outside and the inside is markedly organized. Job seekers are separated neatly into lines and clearly labeled data pads with employment paperwork are stacked neatly at the front desk.

The strict governance of this employment center feels very out of place on the relaxed jungle station. It’s clear the Amazonians are intimidated by it, as very few people are ever here. The ones who do come glance around the room fearfully like they’ve entered the belly of a whale.

NPCs

Career Advisory

The career advisory center is mostly empty. Few people today have the needed skills to pursue good careers.

Discreet Work

Sometimes jobs are offered by those who need to be able to deny involvement. Don't ask too many questions; you won't get many answers. And don't be surprised if you wind up in the brig or sickbay.

Side Jobs

This is the right place if you are looking for quick and easy jobs.

Name Description Credits Statistic
Coffee Picker Estación de Amazon is the only supplier of real coffee beans in the galaxy. The demand is enormous, and they need your help to keep up! 42 Agility1
Decontamination Pod Operator All newcomers to the station must undergo mandatory chemical decontamination sweeps! You’re the lucky chump who gets to run them. 45 Social2
Port Maintenance The port must always be kept separate from the station's biodome. Maintenance team seeking short-term help in removing invasive plant life and keeping the ports clean. 35 Agility
Swamp Ranger There’s a reptile poaching problem on Estación de Amazon. Security team seeks brave souls to patrol the Ruins and protect wildlife from poachers. 50 Stamina3

Government Center

A brand new building constructed by the Gauloise. The straight, blocky architecture contrasts strongly with the scrappy look of the surrounding buildings. Soldiers stand at the entrance and nod as people enter to receive their daily rations or speak with an official.

The interior is sleek, sophisticated, and air-conditioned. The humidity is stripped from the air in this building and replaced with a dry chill. Gaule soldiers wander between government officials with data pads awaiting signatures. The familiar hum of technology drowns out the sound of the forest. This building feels like reality lodged in the dreamy world of Estación de Amazon.

NPCs

Gym (Amazon Sports)

The training area makes clever use of the trees and features an obstacle course which utilizes a good deal of climbing trees and vines. Very few Amazonians use this place; most of its occupants are Gaule soldiers working out.

There is no indication about what is just forest and what is the training area. There’s just a wooden sign designating the general area as a training zone and a few bits of stray equipment strewn around the forest floor. It’s not the most functional gym in the system, that’s for sure.

You must have minimum combined physical stats of 45 to avoid injury at this gym.

Inn (El Rancho)

The joyful music of El Rancho can be heard before the inviting wooden signage and thatched roof structure can be seen. It’s a friendly place that always seems to be in the midst of some kind of wild party.

The bar and lounge are full of locals and Gaule immigrants alike. The Gauloise are easy to spot — they huddle together, skinny and in conservative attire. There are very few Gauloise on Estación de Amazon who aren’t currently enlisted in the military and it shows in the hard lines of their faces.

Bar (The Laughing Sloth)

A giant sculpture of an ancient animal called a “sloth” greets visitors at the entrance, enigmatic smile forever plastered to its face. Amazonians and Gaule soldiers alike come to enjoy this cheerful watering hole. Colorful fairy lights hang along the walls with flowers and vines weaved into the wiring.

This bar only serves a few varieties of beer. It mostly specializes in sweet, tropical drinks created from fruits grown on the station. Burly, severe-looking Gaule soldiers can be seen delicately sipping brightly colored cocktails in flamboyant glasses. These cocktails are much more at home in the pudgy fingers of laughing Amazonians, who gather here to sing, dance and play their handmade wooden instruments.

Menu

NPCs

Hotel Rooms (Ranchitos)

The rooms here are colorful and relatively spacious. Each room has its own bright painting adorned on the wall created by a local artist. Most depict trees, some show images of strange animals and birds.

The bed is comfortable and soft. Frames are made of local wood and some even have ornate carvings of flowers or palms in the bedposts. Each room has a window facing out into the forest and guests are lulled to sleep by the singing of crickets and cicadas. If a traveler is lucky, they’re treated to the sounds, sights and rich scents of one of Estación de Amazon’s famous thunderstorms. They say that no matter how far you stray from Earth, the human soul will always be soothed by the rain.

Prices

  • 1 day: 90.06 cr
  • 5 days: 360.24 cr
  • 10 days: 630.42 cr
  • 30 days: 1621.08 cr

You should have minimum intelligence of 15.5? to avoid injury while reading.

NPCs

Lounge (Swallowtail Lounge)

The gently glowing script outside lets you know that you have arrived at the Swallowtail Lounge. Soft, gentle music plays and beautiful blue and brown animatronic Morpho butterflies flutter gently around the interior and lend a magical ambiance.

There is a remarkably soft atmosphere to this place. They serve a variety of sweet teas and locally baked fruit pastries. Most of the clientele are women. Tightly muscled Gaule military women are engaged in intimate conversation with curvy, pink-cheeked Amazonians. It’s the kind of place one can go to alone and always emerge from with a few new friends.

You should have minimum social of 15.5? to avoid injury while socializing.

Market (Mercado del Atardecer)

This market smells like fresh citrus and it’s brimming with colors. There are many fresh fruit vendors and local artisans selling wood-carvings, jewelry and, paintings. The usual tech and gear are also available here in no short supply.

On a good day, it’s quite common to find luxury gear in this market awaiting the purchase of a rich local. There is a strange fusion of modern technology and base humanity at play between the fruit, the art, and the spacer equipment. The market is somewhat busy but the people here are mild enough to make pushing and shoving uncommon.

NPCs

Public Market

People offer things to be sold or buy things here.

Storage

A wet, mossy wall of storage lockers has been overtaken by climbing vines. Incredibly, it remains usable.

You wonder if all your items will get moldy sitting in here for so long. Probably.

  • Small: 237 cr
  • Medium: 569 cr
  • Large: 1422 cr

Vendors

Here you can find many things sold by different vendors.

Port

The floor here is familiar metal, kept free of moss and soil. The ports are so carefully manicured they could be found on any station, although plant-life seeps in around the edges and must constantly be cut back.

Estación de Amazon is very wary of off-station contaminants, and thoroughly check all visitors to be absolutely certain they do not carry any harmful pathogens. If the water were to be contaminated it could permanently damage their water cycle or spawn a phage that could wipe out huge swaths of plant life.

NPCs

Docks

The docking clamps have never fully recovered from the Catastrophe, they spark and freeze up quite often. They don’t look entirely safe.

Docking here is a slow and difficult process due to the shoddy machinery. Luckily, the station is far enough out of the way that they do not receive incoming vessels in great volume and are able to take their time.

Local Shuttles

The shuttle bay is never empty but it’s never packed to capacity. There are always changing rotations of Gaule soldiers coming and going here. There are also short-term visitors; scientists, merchants, Herbalist seekers, particularly adventurous tourists and, others.

Customs checks are tightest here. No one gets through without an elaborate scan of their person and their luggage. On top of that, each new visitor must endure a full decontamination sweep in a pod and be thoroughly sprayed down with various disinfectant chemicals. Only after these procedures are finished may a traveler access the rest of the station.

NPCs

Shipping Bay

Gaule soldiers form long lines here, awaiting care packages and letters from their home stations and families. The Amazonians that frequent the shipping bay are mostly merchants sending out orders of fruit preserves or nuts to outside stations.

The Gaule Soldiers are at their most human here. The usually stony-faced people become as cheerful and animated as children while they read letters from home. Amazonians rarely receive packages; they want little to do with off-stationers (aside from collecting their credits, of course.)

Residences (Alajuela)

The residential district is oddly rural. Houses are built out of a mishmash of scrap metal from the pre-Cat infrastructure of the station. Roofs are weaved from gigantic dried palm leaves braided together to tightly insulate against rain. Most homes are on the ground, but some are built up high in the thick branches of the enormous trees.

Long rope-ladders hang down from many of the tree-houses and some of the richer inhabitants can afford small hover vehicles to shuttle them up and down from their lofty homes. People here are happy and calm, many of them sport a somewhat plumper figure than the average person. There is a distinct lack of Gauloise here as most of them live in designated military quarters closer to the heart of the station.

NPCs

Ruins (El Salvaje)

Vast, untouched jungle, most of it too wet and swampy for human inhabitants. The trees are tightly packed together and every inch of the floor is covered in fallen leaves. Moss climbs the walls nearly up to the ceiling. The sounds of the forest are loudest in the ruins—it’s the thickest concentration of insects in the known galaxy.

Lamps must be used here, as the forest is so thick in some places it blocks out all light. Thick clusters of biting insects, venomous snakes, and deep, sucking pools of mud await anyone who enters. Most tech left here has long been ruined by water damage, but there is value here yet. A few small amphibians and reptiles live deep in the forest and can be sold on the black market for a high price. The ultimate prize would be a “crocodile," a gigantic ancient Earth beast rumored to roam the deepest reaches of the swamp.

The Wrecks

The Wrecks are unequivocal no-man's land. Not even the Syndicates have begun to comb through the detritus of pre-cat civilization. It's dangerous here, but not altogether unworthy of exploring. Due to the instability of the Wrecks, and the tendency for unsavory types to skulk around among them, they often prove quite profitable to sift through.

On any given day the Wrecks pivot between desolate emptiness and sparse population by desperate people avoiding prying eyes, bandits, and merchants looking for some cheap and interesting wares. It can be worth your time to pull on a pair of gloves and dig through the debris in the wrecks in search of something useful, just keep your wits about you during your excavation. You never know who's watching in the wrecks.

The Wilds

The Wilds are a desperate warren of blind alleys and deadly corners. With unreliable lifeline systems, the area has become the domain of those to whom danger is mother’s milk. Feral tribes, solitary scavengers, and well-armed Syndicates roam these blood-soaked walkways, unhinged in equal parts by primal terror and the promise of bounties lurking in the rubble.

Syndicates use these bullet-riddled spaces for insecure storage, and many a bandit has been cut down attempting a bold raid on someone else’s well-guarded cache. Once a benign web of service tunnels; every inch of The Wilds now serves treachery and murder. Deep in the festering darkness, heartless animals track their prey guided by primordial instinct. Only fools come here without first securing a serious weapon and a clone back-up.

Security

This office is tiny, cramped and too humid to stay sane. An extension for the office is in the midst of being built by Gaule officials, but until it's ready the officers have to suffer through the clutter. The security team is effectively two teams, one Amazonian and one Gaule. It was decided a blended team would be most beneficial for all parties.

There are two Cheifs of security here since just one could not be agreed upon during the Gaule change of government. Louis Diaz and Alexa Bertrand—one Amazonian, one Gaule. They can be found bickering about best practices or trying to micromanage their blended team of Gaule and Amazonian officers.

NPCs

Sick Bay

The Sick Bay is spacious and clean. A blended team of doctors and Herbalists move busily between patients. The area is more manicured than the rest of the station, but a layer of moss lingers on the floor and they maintain a small garden of natural remedies off to one side.

The Herbalists of Estación de Amazon are one of its oddities. One of the main draws for outside visits are people with chronic illnesses who feel failed by modern medicine. Herbalists claim they have natural remedies for much of this, and many people swear by it and pay through the nose for treatment. The scientific merits of the Herbalists of Estación de Amazon have yet to be proven.

NPCs

"Galactic Destinations" Introduction

Nestled in the far reaches of Barnard’s Star, Estación de Amazon is a remote outpost newly aligned with the Gaule Protectorate. Gaule soldiers are being sent there on a rotating basis until a permanent Gaule presence can be established. Attached is a recent correspondence from the commanding officer of Estación de Amazon to his new rotation of troops.

Dear Soldier,

You are receiving this letter because you have been drafted into our next rotation of troops stationed on Estación de Amazon. I am aware there have been rumors circulating about this posting and I would like to dispel them now.

Yes, water falls from the sky, no you will not drown. Estación de Amazon is unique for its self-sustaining water cycle and that is indeed a large part of our interest in it. What many of you misunderstand is that the amount of water on the station always remains finite, just in different forms. You will see rainfall, rivers, and swamps during your tenure at the station. You will see more water than you have ever experienced before. Some new recruits find this disturbing but I urge you not to panic, it is completely safe.

No, there are not monsters living in the Ruins of Estación de Amazon. Your fellow officers listen too well to the stories of old women. I understand many of you have never encountered a non-human animal before, but I assure you there is nothing to fear. Yes, there are a variety of small reptiles, amphibians, and insects present on the station, and yes, there have been “sightings” of larger creatures deeper in the swamps. But these “sightings” are nothing more than wild, unproven rumors.

Yes, the trees are alive, no they do not attack humans. Estación de Amazon is home to trees taller than most buildings, that’s true. And yes, they are technically alive and that is a strange concept to some. But when you hear rumors of poisonous trees, these do not refer to trees which will bite you. They are poisonous to eat. Trees do not move. You are in no danger from trees. If I receive another concerned letter about this asinine rumor you are in danger from me.

Lastly, you may have heard rumors that we are not welcome here. These too, are false. Estación de Amazon welcomed the Gaule Protectorate with open arms in exchange for protection from the Consortium and the Freebooters. I will admit that there are some tensions between the native Amazonians and our troops, but they are nothing more than the usual growing pains of a new alliance. You will find the Amazonians to be a charming and jovial presence here on the station. They may find you intimidating at first, alien even, but you are encouraged to get to know them. I’m not your mother, make it work. If I hear of any Amazonian-Gaule brawls among new recruits you will report directly to me. Behave.

I am certain you will enjoy your rotation on Estación de Amazon. Many soldiers request repeat or permanent postings here after their first rotation ends; I did. You will have the opportunity to taste a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables not available anywhere else in the galaxy. You will come to be soothed by the rain, by the buzzing of cicadas and frogs out your window at the base. Most importantly, you will be among friends. This place is strange and it’s far, but I give my word, your fellow soldiers will look out for you. We look out for each other here.

If you have questions or concerns, please direct them to my secretary and I will do my best to respond promptly.

Wishing you a pleasant day,
General Luka
Commanding Officer of Estación de Amazon

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