A Firefly World
Where there are people, there are going to be places where relaxation and sin are available. LaVenda was an outer planets kind of 'pleasure planet'. It was 'on the way' for a number of destinations, being a middling kind of planet. So, many stopped over. Because of all this traffic, it is just started being considered a border planet, though many people still consider it a rim/ frontier world.
LaVenda, the city on the planet with the same dang name, has a huge number of hotels (all pretending to be resorts of some stripe), casinos, entertainers, companions (both licensed and 'locally licensed'), and decent food. Most buildings have air conditioning, which is a good thing given the average day is pretty dang hot. Pretty much any kind of cut tech sin and entertainment (shows, exotic dancers, singers, jugglers, drinking, drugs, smoking, cards, etc) can be found here.
While crazy folks do travel in the coaches in the city during the day, there is a maze of underground walkways allowing people to move between hotels (of the same owners) in relative comfort. There are even people pushing carts with food, drinks, and directions, in the tunnels.
While any place with gambling, alcohol, and other things to do can get rowdy, LaVenda has enforcers . Enforcers tend to be ex-military of either coat, hired by the casinos and hotels that maintain the peace in their areas. They are much more efficient (and brutal) than the local Alliance Marshals.
Business was good.
Then the silver strike happened.
There has always been the occasional prospector in the regions North and West of LaVenda City. Nothing really of note. Yet then the Greylien vein was discovered. There is enough there that an average claim will make a man rich if he is willing to work hard. Silver was only a passing interest to the mining concerns, and with the patchwork of alliance stamped legal claims in the area, they ignored it. That is, until other material were being unearthed. Now there is a patchwork of onworld and offworld mining concerns plus all the personal claims in the mountains.
All this wealth, and all the materials needing to be shipped has brought in the Norgol Rail Consortium. They are putting down new track between the mines and the city, and putting out spurs to other places. Norgol is a core business using a combination of cheap core manufacturing and local shops to make and maintain railroads out in the frontier.
With the miners, the rail road, and people who support or prey off the miners, the population of LaVenda has quadrupled. Still the place is holding it together.
To the South, there is a lot of ranching going on. Someone has to keep these people fed. There is a bit of farming (and some tension between ranchers and farmers) too.
Shorthands for this world: Las Vegas Baby!
Plots
Look what you won in a card game
: It now appears you are a legitimate owner of a good claim. Now everyone wants what you have. His alleged partners, the guys holding the adjacent claims, or a mining concern wants that deed, and over your dead body is perfectly acceptable.
Your uncle died and left you
: A variation of above, but you get the claim off world.
You're married
: You wake up and find yourself married to someone you don’t remember.
Your Ex is here?
: Lots of people have found their way here. Some for new opportunities, some to get a new life. It seems your Ex has found a new life, with access to some violent minion. Of course your Ex, has a grudge.
The Rail Job
: Crime is always an option
Card Sharp
: You lost What?! There are a lot of skilled gamblers here. Most are honest. Some, less so.
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? Responses (6)
An interesting idea, a gambline liesure planet. The silver rush seems shoe-horned into it, and in Firefly just how valuable is silver? Back when teh silver rushes hit the US, gold and silver werent that far apart in price. All in all, not bad, but a abit too heavy on the Western part of the Space-Western
Silver is moderately useful as both an industrial and monetary element. It is also the most frequent "strike" in the Old West.
A space western, with lazers a-zapping.
six guns, lasers are expensive and illegal to have.
That is the idea behind Firefly Cheka!
Agree with Scras here - the silver strike does not really do that much for me. It says buisness was good before the strike, but what impact did it have? That does not seem clear to me.
Now if there was a strike where the material was of strategic military significance, and so the central government started to impose more 'order', then that would be a big deal.
Silver is not that great of a commodity here. It is valuable, but like a diamond mind. I didn't use gold because it was cliche, silver is easy to mine, and nobody like a Chromium Rush.
This all just happened. Like in the last year or two. Nobody in The Alliance has yet to figure out there is a problem here. (Lord knows how long it took the Feds to realize the issues in Los Vegas).
The amount of wealth available here went off the charts.
What you have now is wealth, lots of it. So where you have some "shady figures" in the vice/ recreation trade supplying things that were not perfectly legal, now they have money, much more money, and much more power.
And people who like power, will often take steps to get more. Who needs the Alliance to drop down on a podunk little town/ planet, when the local shadowy figures and business men will be intriguing against each other.. doing shadowy things (which the PCs would be hired)... and doing a bit of killing ("We don't know where he went....).
In a decade or three, the Alliance will step in here and oppose order. Yet we all know how effective that is in stopping organized crime.