Created by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane on Aug 18, 2016 @ 7:20pm

LIMBO

A sourcebook for "Birth of An Empire"


Limbo

CONTENTS
1. The Triangle
2. Welcome to Limbo
3. History of Limbo
4. Interior Locations
5. Personalities

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1. THE TRIANGLE

For many years, the Triangle was just another patch of stars, unwanted by the three great powers surrounding it. Today it is one of the richest trading areas in the quadrant, and a time bomb waiting to explode.

The Triangle is an area of space, some 120 solar systems, bordered by the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire. While these three great powers bickered and warred on one another, the Triangle was colonised by merchants, dreamers, and outcasts. Such people do not give up their independence easily, and by opening trade agreements with all three greater powers, the myriad worlds of the Triangle have ensured their independence and freedom. Any attempt by one of the three powers to invade the Triangle would instantly be countered by the other two, anxious not to lose influence, raw materials, or profitable trading.

Now, the Triangle is a haven for the lawless and the unruled. Privateers and corsairs lie in wait in dense asteroid fields, waiting to strike at the unwary. Orion and Ferengi merchants compete in an often deadly game of money and power, while the Federation, Klingons and Romulans try to outdo each other in winning influence over the Triangle's many warlords. The latter two powers have also engaged in many proxy wars in the Triangle, and have often faced each other in direct combat, most famously at the deadly Battle of Klach D'Kel Bracht (2271) that took place inside a gaseous nebula known as the Briar Patch.

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2. WELCOME TO LIMBO

Far into the Triangle, a patch of unclaimed space that lies between the Klingon, Federation, and Romulan Empires, floats the space station Limbo. Situated just outside the border of Romulan space, Limbo started life in 2267 as an idealistic venture by a bunch of well intentioned, but ultimately foolish, Federation citizens. The makers of Limbo believed that by creating a neutral space where the arts and culture of the Federation could be freely exchanged with the Romulans, peace could be made. They were wrong.

The space station now known as Limbo orbits the star that Federation astronomers have named Hammaker. There is an asteroid field in the Hammaker system, but it lies so far away from the star's weak pull to just barely qualify as being in-system. Many of the rocks that make up the belt have broken free of Hammaker's gravity field and have spilled away into inter-galactic space as rogue asteroids. Navigating the belt is a relatively straightforward matter, as most of the rocks pose no danger to a starship equipped with modern navigational shields. Close to the Hammaker star lies a small gaseous cloud that may once have been the remains of a planet. It is against the backdrop of this gaseous cloud that Limbo lies.


The asteroid field and the distant star Hammaker

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3. HISTORY OF LIMBO

When the Romulan Star Empire first explored the trailing edge of the Triangle some three centuries ago, they found a huge dilapidated space station that had lain empty and deserted for millennia. The station's builders remain unknown to this day, with various theories revolving around the Preservers, Iconians, or the ancient T'Kon Empire. After taking initial scans, the Romulans left and did not return, and no-one else in the Triangle ever colonised the station. This was mainly due to its location in the backwater Hammaker system, far from the nearest Minshara-class world and way off any existing shipping lanes.

However, following the disastrous contact between the Federation and Romulans of 2265 ("Balance of Terror" TOS) following a century of silence, the Hammaker system and the dilapdated space station, became the focus for a curious social experiment. A group of well-connected and influential Federation private citizens, led by one Wilton Tull, funded and led a colonisation effort to the system in a colony ship named Concordia. Tull and his followers were convinced that cultural exchange with the Romulans would go some way to curbing their imperialism; they thought that if it could be shown that Humans were no longer inherently hostile and were capable of making strides in art and culture, the Romulans would come to see them as friendly.


The colony ship "Concordia"

Despite the odds, the Concordia and her crew successfully reached the Hammaker system and colonised it in 2267, renaming the space station in honour of their colony ship. Tull and his followers spent years turning Concordia station into a shining fusion of art and technology, restoring the space station to its former glory. Hanging in front of the shimmering gaseous cloud, Concordia had pure and graceful lines that mimicked the closed tulip form of the shell of the sea-snail, Fusinus forceps. It had no weapons, and soon gained a reputation as a market freeport along with its cultural significance. More and more settlers flocked to the station, and as years passed, most of the original Human population died off. Unfortunately for Limbo, not all of the new settlers were magnanimous cultural idealists.

As the Triangle grew more lawless, more and more privateers and corsairs began to use the station as a freeport. Soon, they were immovable, and competing gangs of Orion, Romulan and Federation outcasts began to war for control of the black markets. The name Concordia vanished, and was replaced with Limbo.

In 2410, a disgraced Romulan Sub-Commander named Tella Yavin arrived on Limbo with a cadre of followers. Using a combination of violence, blackmail, and diplomacy, Tella Yavin quickly gained control of Limbo's black markets. She and her fanatically loyal paramilitary army, the Black Stars, has ruled Limbo ever since.

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4. INTERIOR LOCATIONS

Back when Limbo was Concordia, the interior of the space station was a wondrous sight. Narrowest at the bottom, a helical staircase wound its way around an elevator core from the bottom to the very top of the station, spanning several hundred metres. On the slender stem at the bottom, graceful docking gantries and entry hatches for visiting ships were evenly spaced up the staircase.

Above the docking areas as the station began to flare and undulate outwards lay the heart of Concordia; a spacious, open atria with vaulted ceilings whose bulkheads were composed of transparisteel to allow for stunning views towards the system's gas cloud and deep space. The Atria itself was filled with graceful arches, sculptures, gardens, and water features.

Above the atria were floors devoted to commerce, living spaces, artists' studios, performance stages, gymnasia, and at the very top, main engineering, science and the control centers of the station, all linked to the atria with that continuing spiral staircase.

The grandeur of Concordia was several lifetimes ago, though, and has been long forgotten by all the modern denizens of Limbo.

The once-pristine white walls of the interior are now grubby and shabby. Crude graffiti, scorch marks from blaster fire and stains from mysterious drips mar the walls. The glossy midnight black granite tiles of the floors are broken, uneven, chipped, and dulled with years of grime, scraps of food, and bodily fluids. The Atria is filled with a favela, but the tenements are not able to completely obliterate the stunning view, or completely obscure the Atria's dilapidated grandeur. The marketplaces are seedier versions of what they used to be, but have retained their function over the years. Up higher, the artists' studios have been converted into luxury housing for the station's rich and powerful. Stages and gymnasia have been converted into night clubs, bars and gambling parlours.

The very top of the station where all its essential functions lie is the sovereign domain of Tella Yavin, a Romulan woman who rules Limbo with an iron fist and plenty of firepower. Everyone on the station knows to give Tella her cut of any transaction, or risk a quick trip out of the air locks, helped along by the ruthless Black Stars mercenaries.

The Atria: The main focal point of the Atria is the grand staircase. Resembling the inside of a snail shell, the staircase rises from the center of the large open space. Over 20 stories high, the atria is a marvel of engineering and design, with views of an ever changing gas cloud and stars, and vaulted and decorated ceilings.


View of the modern heavily-modified staircase and attached streets

There are four main neighborhoods in the Atria now. The richest is the Escalla Daura, a series of two story apartments that have been constructed on the four viewing balconies built along the grand staircase. The next, built around the base of the staircase is the Dungheap, a poor tenement of cramped high rises which is home to the manual workers in Limbo. Here, the refuse from all the neighborhoods is collected and disposed of in Limbo's reprocessing centers. The Dungheap is necessary since the Atria was not designed as a living facility, and all the buildings are improvised affairs, without a proper waste or energy delivery system. Excretions are also dealt with in the Dungheap and reprocessed to make soils, which are then used to fill old ponds and fountains, allowing a kind of primitive agriculture to take place to support the inhabitants of the Atria. Ringing the Dungheap and taking up the majority of the Atria is the Skyscraper district- a circle of two multi-story tenements which have shops and services at the bottoms. Finally, the Oblivion district is a ring of buildings that use the windows of the Atria as one of their walls. The view is beautiful, but some say that the inhabitants of the Oblivion district are all a little bit mad. After all, who would want to feel as though they could fall into the stars at any moment?

The Sanctum: The Sanctum is Tella Yavin's main holding on Limbo. A nightclub/brothel/black market, this den of hedonism is where Tella Yavin holds her court during the station's nightly hours. Here, amongst pounding music, ample alcohol, drugs and blood red lighting you can buy anything or anyone if you just have the right price. Tella Yavin's throne is the long-defunct centre seat of the original Concordia colony ship. She makes sure it is central, drawing everyone’s eyes to it, and a large bank of couches hosts those who come to see her. A forcefield (and several armed-to-the-teeth Black Stars) prevent anyone with delusions of a coup from carrying out their plans.


The Sanctum

The Waters: A public bath house that serves the people of the Atria. There are filthy common baths for the local poor, who have to share towels, water and sponges, and luxuriously pristine scented clean pools for those with the latinum to afford them.

The Penthouses: Want to live in the lap of luxury on Limbo? Then you have to live in the Penthouses. These were the original living quarters for Concordia, and they are the only rooms that have been kept in perfect repair. It's not cheap. As well as the rent, the Black Stars charge a hefty sum for protection.

Tella Yavin’s Fortress: Up at the top of Limbo is the bolthole of Limbo's queen-in-all-but-name. Tella Yavin and the Black Stars have cobbled together several floors of former homes, building them into a fortress complete with sensors, booby traps, killing zones, automated drones, and enough weapons and supplies to wage war for years. Not to mention a state-of-the-art surveillance nexus.

Orion Mercantile Association: A loose banding together of Orion businesses on the station, businesses that include slave trading, gun running, smuggling, and murder for hire. Their public spokesman is Harad-Sar, a man who trades information for latinum.

The Pit: A large complex straddling the Skyscraper and Dungheap districts, the Pit is run by a vicious Cardassian crime lord named Alket Daheel. The Pit is an arena that shows blood sports every night. Deadly duels between warriors, slaves and wild animals from all over the quadrant take place before the baying crowds of morbidly curious tourists, blood-lusting rich oligarchs, and the yelling mob. A thriving gambling industry on the fights also exists, with severe penalties for any losers who can't pay.

The Forum: Always open, all of the time, the Forum is the Atria's vast marketplace. Watched carefully by Tella Yavin's spies to make sure she gets her cut of every deal, all manner of things are bought and sold in the Forum's market stalls, from luxury Spican flamegems to rat-meat pastries and everything in between. Oddly enough, the Black Stars keep the brutality to a minimum here, anxious as they are to keep the profits coming in. Slave-trading and smuggling deals are done discreetly, if at all.


The Forum

Ferengi Trade Mission: The official representatives of the galaxy's most upstanding citizens, the small Ferengi outpost is constantly embroiled in a life-or-death economic war with the Orion Mercantile Association. Both organisations would like to put the other out of business, but neither have been succesful. Led by the skillful DaiMon Snek, the Ferengi remain strong players in the cut-throat world of Limbo. With no Federation regulations holding them back, they can be the Ferengi they were born to be.

The Shadow Market: The Forum is not the only place to buy and sell goods and services on Limbo. There is always a market for dark deeds, be it information, murder, the fencing of stolen goods, or slavery. The Shadow Market has no fixed location or schedule. Nobody knows who organises it, although some whisper about a Shadow Master who disseminates the information to its buyers and sellers. Many people think the Shadow Market is just an urban legend, but grizzled old traders sometimes swap horror stories about accidentally stumbling across it in a dark, secluded part of the station, and of the awful things they saw for sale...

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5. PERSONALITIES

Tella Yavin: Tella Yavin is that extremely rare Romulan - an individual with dark brown skin and eyes. Amongst the Romulan species, dark skin colour is not a natural racial trait, but rather a genetic mutation. In the past, such children might have been ostracised or had to work harder to earn their place in Romulan society. What little is known of Tella Yavin indicates that she was born on Romulus and joined the Imperial Navy at a young age, rising to the rank of Sub-Commander. At some point, an incident occurred in which she was stripped of her rank. Rather than commit suicide, Tella Yavin gathered a small cadre of outcasts and struck out into the Triangle, arriving on Limbo in 2410. Within a year she was mistress of the entire station. She is cold, cunning, ruthless, and deadly. All obey her or die.

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Tella Yavin (service record likeness, Imperial Romulan Navy)

The Black Stars: Tella Yavin's private paramilitary army were formed a few months after her arrival on Limbo. Named for the distinctive insignia they wear on the shoulder pads of their armour and helmets, the Black Stars are paid well to obey Tella Yavin's word. They are very well equipped with modern weaponry, primarily Romulan and Klingon disruptors, and also command several small, heavily-armed interceptor craft that they use to patrol the system. Numbering somewhere around three thousand, they are made up of representatives of almost every race in the Alpha Quadrant, including Humans, Romulans, Breen, Nausicaans, Chalnoth, and many more besides. There are no Klingons or Jem' Hadar amongst their ranks - Klingon honour would not allow it, and the Jem' Hadar serve none but the Founders.


Black Stars member

Kajek: The Black Stars are led by Kajek, a vicious Nausicaan warrior with decades of combat experience behind him, both as a mercenary and as a pirate. Never seen not wearing his trademark blood-red armour, he has fought in eighteen separate wars, including the First Dominion War fifty years ago, where he personally slew sixty-seven Jem'Hadar in hand-to-hand combat. Burly, shaggy-haired and permanently angry, he combines his aptitude for killing with a superb ability to command small units. He was with Tella Yavin when she came aboard Limbo nineteen years ago, and he has trained the Black Stars to be a frighteningly effective fighting force. Although entering his twilight years, Kajek is loyal, dependable, and utterly ruthless, the perfect lieutenant to the Mistress of Limbo.

Kajek

Harad-Sar: Head of the Orion Mercantile Association, Harad-Sar is a man with problems. He used to be Limbo's most powerful merchant as well as its primary information broker, but he is facing stiff competition from the Ferengi and with the rise of the Shadow Master, he is losing his edge as an information broker. Much as he would like to meet the Shadow Master, he has still not been able to arrange it and is privately getting worried. Harad-Sar is a tall, bulky Orion in his middle years, who does not suffer fools gladly and is able to spot an opportunity for profit a parsec away. He is rumoured to be one of the few people on Limbo who knows where the next Shadow Market is going to be held, but he never, ever gives up information for free. His business interests are many and varied, but include the traditional Orion trading of slaves. He keeps a large harem of slave girls in his compound, and these unfortunate women bear the brunt of his violent frustrations most nights.

Harad-Sar

Alket Daheel: The Cardassian owner and operator of the Pit, Alket Daheel has been on Limbo for just a year longer than Tella Yavin. He watched her meteoric rise to power with malicious envy, but while she cornered the black market, he moved in on the gambling and blood-sports. The Pit is a large complex that holds dozens of species of wild xenos and houses several gladiators who fight them for pay. Sometimes, lost people end up in the Pit, fighting for their lives or agreeing to combat to settle a debt. The place is packed every night, with spilled blood and gambling latinum flowing freely. Alket Daheel has used his vast wealth to make important mercenary contacts throughout the Triangle and makes sure his own bodyguards have access to the latest equipment. Some day soon, it is possible that he could call in those mercenary contacts and make his own move for power. Until then, he watches, and waits, and wonders how much Tella Yavin knows about him.

Alket Daheel

DaiMon Snek: The officer in charge of the Ferengi Trade Mission to Limbo, DaiMon Snek is a young Ferengi whose star is rising. Pudgy and permanently hunched, with a maw of crooked bodkin teeth, Snek is ugly but exudes the confidence of the rich. Blessed with a ravenous avariciousness alongside a complete lack of a conscience, Snek has transformed the Ferengi Trade Mission since he took it over nearly two years ago. Where the previous DaiMon concentrated on the simple buying and selling of goods, Snek has vastly expanded his business portfolio, moving into dangerous grounds such as smuggling and currency laundering. In turn, he hires muscle to protect his interests, clashing with other established merchant groups like the Orions. Snek is very careful to learn as much as possible about a potential new business partner, covering all his angles before he makes his play to maximise his own profit. He is a wily and dangerous operator.

DaiMon Snek

Willis Baker: Willis Baker is a star that shone brightly before burning out. Born in New York, Earth, he graduated from the prestigious Harvard University before entering the world of business, rising to the head of the huge Galactic Reserve Bank. His reign in the position began brightly enough in 2412, with Willis personally leading the Bank's charge into the real estate market on the farming world of Gault, bread-basket for much of the rimward Federation. Aggressively flooding the planet's economy with sub-prime mortgages for farmers who were often not able to pay when their circumstances changed, Willis tried to offload his bad debt onto smaller financial institutions by assuring them of the debts' solvency. When the whole apple cart collapsed, so did Gault's real-estate economy, driving millions of farmers into bankruptcy. The Federation's Economic And Trade Council intervened to avert a financial crisis, famously declaring the Galactic Reserve bank "too big to fail" and diverting billions of taxpayers' credits to keep it afloat. Rather than stay and face the criminal charges of fraud coming his way, Willis Baker stole millions of the diverted funds and headed for the Triangle. Now he lives as a dilettante playboy in the Penthouses of Escalla Daura, ignoring the many arrest and extradition warrants issued in the Federation for him. In his mid-fifties, slightly paunchy with greying hair and the arrogance of the moneyed, Willis Baker is not afraid to show off his stolen wealth and doesn't think twice about the farmers he swindled. If there's one thing he doesn't do, it's remorse.

Willis Baker

Kalanda The Black: There are not many permanent Klingon residents on a space station so close to the border of the Romulan Empire, but Kalanda is one of the few. Even rarer, she is an unattached female. Formerly married to Klag, son of the small-but-proud House of Torg, her husband, father-in-law and two brothers-in-law were killed by the rival House of Sekmet before she could give Klag a son. With no males of age, the High Council dissolved the House of Torg and distributed its lands and titles amongst the House of Sekmet. Kalanda spoke out publically against this power grab, and was discommoded by the High Council. Rather than take a met'leth to her own throat, she denounced her own people and fled into the Triangle, coming to rest in Limbo. Now, she sells high-grade bladed and disruptor weapons from her warehouse in the Skyscraper District. If anyone was to ask her of honour, she would spit on the ground and tell them how personal honour is the only kind that matters. At six-feet-four with a craggy forehead, close-cropped black hair, dark swarthy skin and a mouthful of filed teeth, nobody would be foolish enough to argue.

Kalanda The Black

Simon DeWitt: Born on the Human frontier colony world of Issus III, Simon DeWitt never had much use for the Federation. He heard about its glittering capital worlds and its utopian society, but found it never really translated to frontier life. So, as soon as he was old enough he stowed away on a freighter and never looked back. After ten years of working for various merchant captains, he finally had saved enough latinum to put a down payment on his very own Argon-class freighter, the HIGHDIVER. He assembled a handful of crew, set out to seek his fortune, and ended up on Limbo. On his last run, the market for Benzite stemmbolts went through the floor, and how he's stuck on the station trying to figure out how to offload his cargo and make a profit. If he doesn't, he won't be able to make his next payment and he'll lose his ship. Tall, ruggedly handsome with dark hair and just the right amount of beard, DeWitt hasn't lost on a deal yet, and isn't planning on starting now.

Simon DeWitt


MV Highdiver

"Bloodface": The Hammaker system is a haven for pirates and corsairs, and in the Triangle, the name of Captain Bloodface strikes fear wherever it is spoken. Born on Betazed with a freakish port-wine stain on his face that he keeps covered, Bloodface was always getting into trouble with the law. His parents disowned him, and he escaped offworld, coming to the Triangle where his natural empathetic abilities served him well in figuring out who was afraid of him. Now, he commands the dread pirate ship DARK PHOENIX (a heavily-modified Klingon K'vort-class light cruiser) and is wanted in all three Federation, Romulan, and Klingon jurisdictions. He is currently harbouring in Limbo, hoping he can be of some service to Tella Yavin and make some easy latinum. He is a lithe, heavily-tattooed man who keeps his head hair away from his face to accentuate his port-wine stain. He carries twin disruptors, a thick-bladed knife, and if those fails, calls on his crew who are never far from his side. He is sadistic, greedy, and potentially violent.

Captain Bloodface


Pirate ship 'Dark Phoenix'

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