Background
Home 
System 
Background 
Characters 
Episodes 
Organisations 
Links 

 

[History][Places to Visit][The Catholic Church][Serendipity][The Will]

 

Can't stop The Message

 

The Alliance could not stop the message getting out, but they did all they could to minimise the damage. They blamed the problem of the Reavers on a secret program that had been set up by a renegade minister who was made the fall guy. Schisms and power struggles have continued on in the Alliance for the past year, but it looks like the Alliance will survive the scandle. The inquiry into the whole affair will likely blame a few individuals and the rest will be swept under the carpet. An arm of the Blue Sun Corporation (see below) was implicated in the drug trial on Miranda and several senior executives lost their jobs as a result. Blue Sun no longer seems to be as close to the Alliance government as it was, but in some ways this seems to be worse as its operations are no longer closely monitored or regulated by the Alliance.

Of course the other effect of all this is that a sector of the known 'verse has been quaranteened off and Alliance patrols have been stepped up around the border making life more difficult for smugglers and those living on the edge. The detail is not popular with Alliance Captains and only those not in favour seem to be posted out there ......


Blue Sun Corporation

The Blue Sun Corporation has it's fingers in many things. They are primarily a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, but also have a security arm and a weapons manufacturing arm. The Blue Sun Corporation can be seen everywhere - on food packets, T-Shirts and billboards. Most Blue Sun products are essentials and you would be hard pushed to survive without using any of their products. Blue Sun products are not necessary the best but they are reliable and never any nasty suprises. Blue Sun have a monopoly on packaged foodstuffs and their products are essential to new settlers.

Blue Sun doesn't do all this for the love. They're out for a profit, and as they grew bigger they become more greedy. It is no secret that Blue Sun engages in corporate espionage and political lobbying on a large scale. It's subsideries have branched out into many other fields which also include the less than ethical areas. No one except the top executives know everything that Blue Sun is up to though.


The Corone Mining Consortium

 

The Corone Mining Consortium was formed just before the war and was made by the merger of several powerful mining corporations. These individually were having problems with independents mining their claims. The new Consortium had the resources to hire the best lawyers and protect their own. They were able to bribe the right politicians, buy out troublesome landholders and tangle independents in legal battles. Corone seems to try to buy up any claim that seems to be worth having, and if that doesn't succeed then accidents happen. Corone keeps the costs down by using indentured workers and buying up debts to reclaim then in debtors court. The mining Guild has taken on the Corone Mining Consortium and won, but it is an uphill struggle.

The Corone Mining Consortium runs a debtors prison on the partially terraformed moon of Jinxor. The moon has a thorium mine that debtors must work in to work off their debt. The lucky priviledged debtors get to work as menial servants in the compound. Supplies and new inmates are brought to the moon via a secure heavily armed Corone Mining transport every two weeks. No other ships are permitted to land on Jinxor and ships have been known to be destroyed when trying to break out people from the debtors prison. Prison Governer Franz Embers rules the prison in a firm manner, though is known to accept bribes to give debtors more cushy jobs in the prison. His chief lieutenants are Marshall Ward (a brutal bully) and Fey Flint (an ex Alliance Captain).


The Tongs

 

The Chinese underworld had many gangs that came from the world that was and settled themselves into the underworld of the 'verse. There are a number of gangs that exist that are known as Tongs. The tongs control much of the underworld in parts of the galaxy and demand protection money and percentages from criminals under their juristriction. The Alliance has never really dealt with the gangs of Tongs on the outer worlds and many think that this is punishment for the outer worlds involvement in the war. The Tongs are powerful in their homeworlds and should not be crossed unless y'all want big trouble.


The Brethren

 

Since the message was sent over the airwaves (in the film Serenity) there have been a number of changes in the black. Most noticably a new group of preachers called the Brethren have begun appearing on worlds and have been preaching about God's anger with mankinds messing with his creations. They speak of holy vengeance and preach that all must pray for God's forgiveness. They are not always popular on all worlds, but a few of the outer planets have taken the message to heart. The Shepherds will not outright condemn them as they are still worshippers, but there is a growing concern amongst a number of monisteries about the tone of these new worshippers.


The Ship

 

The Firefly class ship "Serendipity" is co-owned by Josiah Flint and benjamin Tang. Captain Flint owns 65% and is the captain of the ship and Benjamin Tang owns 35%. Josiah is therefore the captain of the ship and Benjamin is his second in command on board. Up until now Captain Flint has kept his past to himself and not subjected himself to idle chatter about his private life. Of course the private life of folk has a habit of not staying private and a recent passenger on the ship turned out to be the wife of a man called Oleg Valensky whom Josiah had shot in a bar brawl some years ago. Miska Valensky had spent years tracking down Josiah intent on gaining revenge on him. Her anger drove her increasingly insane and she sabotaged the navigation on the ship, killing ship's engineer Rufus Sewell as he tried to stop her. She then headed up to the cockpit to find her quarry and shot pilot Madelyn Hammond to prevent her interfering with her revenge on Josiah. She then began monologging about all the things that she was going to do to the Captain to torture him before he died. Risking everything Josiah tried to quickdraw his gun and shoot her. She was quick enough to shoot him back in the head. Benjamin Tang hearing the noise came in and shot her just as she shot Josiah dead.

As the smoke cleared four people were lying dead on the ship. With the navigation systems out, the engineer, the Captain and the pilot all dead the ship was continuing on it's course with few options on where it was going. Luckily ahead there was a small moon approaching. The crew using their initiative used their thrusters to head the ship directly at the moon. As the ship got closer to the moon a message is receiving over the radio. "Unidentified Firefly vessel you are intruding on the property of the Corone Mining Consortium. Please turn back now or your vessel will be blasted out the skies ....."

 

[Home][System][Background][Characters][Episodes][Organisations][Links]