The Story of Human Exploration and Discovery Beyond the Orion Arm
The materials contained herein unless otherwise noted are the copyright of J. Austin Wilde, 1991 to 2009, all rights reserved.
Home
Sagittarius Colonial Atlas
Ahriman (HM+31 0938 B)
Amethyst (HB+32 3331 B)
Angelique (HM-50 2602 B)
Apollonia/Phyrigia (HD+35 2475 A)
Aquilla (SAG+56 0107)
Arkhangelsk (HM+41 2746)
Atlantis (HM+52 0225)
Aurora (HM+47 2620 A)
Avignon (HM+31 3323)
Baker's End (SAG-36 0528)
Bellarmine (HM+36 1662 A)
Bellissimo (HM+40 2827)
Beowulf (HM+39 5516 A)
Bounty (HB+38 0524 A)
Buran (HD+32 1678)
Cauldron (SAG+47 1522)
Charybdis (HB+56 0404 B)
Concordia (HM+00 2422 A)
Cora's World (HM-40 2634)
Daedelus (SAG+45 4907 A)
Demeter (HM+31 3563)
Destiny (HD+47 0309)
Dustbowl/New Deseret (SAG-42 4503 B)
Frontiera (HD+40 1336)
Frostpile (SAG+43 2208)
Fury (HM+53 0102 A)
Gateway (HM+00 0000)
Goldrush (SAG+33 2643)
Gulag (HD+40 4019)
Hecate's Hate (HM+32 3972)
Hyperborea (SAG+44 1855 B)
Ice Station Mike (HD+42 3267)
Ice Station Oscar (HD+42 5807)
Inshallah (HM+53 0608)
Jena (HB-33 4139 A)
Jewel/Sulfur Flats (HM+41 0955 A & B)
Jin Xian (HM-45 4415)
Jove/Fuzhou (SAG+49 2911 A & B)
Libertad (HD-46 2312)
Marino (HD-31 4687)
Midgard/Muspellheim (HD+54 1018)
Mirabilis (HM-45 1718)
Neu Bavaria (HM+31 7329)
New Anchorage (HD+35 3455 A)
New Ares (HM+57 0405 A)
New Havana (HM+55 1217)
New Tanstaafl (HM+43 3626 A)
New Taranto (HB+31 2685 A)
New Zion (HD+47 0954)
Paydirt (HM+36 2309)
Porto Fria (HM-52 2716 A)
Pu'uhuonua (HM+35 2017)
Research Station Victor (HB+55 1522)
Sakura (HM-31 0629)
Sandovar (HM+34 0139 A)
Santa Clara (SAG+31 0179 B)
Scherzo (SAG+55 2007 B)
Sheba's World/Neu Bayer (HD-51 1306 A)
Tanner's World (HB-32 1052)
Tartarus (HM+31 5806)
The Alamo (HM+34 0552 B)
Tortuga (HD-37 4529)
Toulon (SAG+55 0823 A)
Valhalla (HD+31 1168)
Viracocha (HM+31 1175 A)
Waypoint November (HM+31 1969 A)
Waypoint Omega (HM-06 1121 A)
Waypoint Tango (HD+41 4528 A)
Waypoint X-Ray (HD-66 1619)
Waypoint Yankee (HD+10 1721)
Waystation Alfa (HM+34 1207)
Xiamen (HM+48 2891 B)
Zhengzhou (HM-27 9791 B)
Encyclopedia
Spacecraft
Technology
Classification
Designs
AMC Registry of Vessels
| Caravaggio, Pietro | Cauldron | Celestial class | Ceres class |
| Ceres Metals Corporation | Charybdis | Chinook class | Cimmeron class |
| Citoyen d'Honneur class | Collier class | Concordia | Connestoga class |
| Conrad class | Cora's World | Corsair class | The Commerce War |
Current and only master of the SDC's premier starship, Bonaventure (AMC-002). Participated in Expeditions ONE through FIVE. Born in Florence, Italy, in the European Union on Earth in 2301, Pietro Caravaggio is most famous for his daring expedition to the Pleiades star cluster, which lies more than 440 light-years from Earth. The expedition, officially under the aegis of the National Geographic Society, was bankrolled by Gavin Aurimas, who in addition to providing most of the funding, also provided a Long Jump stardrive system under lease for the ship, the Maia (NGSR-8). The lease was the first time a privately owned civilian starship ever possessed a Long Jump system, which contravened SSTE's agreement with the Western Alliance that only their warships and auxiliaries could use the technology, and served as a precedent for the later fitting of the Bonaventures with Long Jump systems.
The Maia, under Caravaggio's command, departed from Alpha Centauri after its successful space trials with Estrella Esperanza shipyards on 8 January 2334. Maia left known space after several Long Jumps to the periphery on 14 July 2334. The plan was for the Pleiades expedition to leave log buoys in stable planetary orbits in the star systems along its way so that, if they did not return, eventually others could track them down. After more than a year and fifteen Long Jumps, the Maia reached the star it was named for, Maia, 360 light-years distant, and the closest star in the cluster to Earth. The Maia then traveled to Atlas, at a distance of 381 light-years, then finally spent four more years surveying and studying the remaining bright stars in the cluster roughly 440 light-years from Earth. The voyage was not without its problems, including a near disaster while orbiting Electra which claimed four lives. Caravaggio's unflappable command style and cool leadership saw the expedition through these difficulties, both technical and personal, and brought the Maia home to Earth to a hero's welcome on October 12, 2341.
Headquarters - Tartarus, (HM+31 5806 System)
Ceres Metals Corporation was one of the first corporations formed offworld and thus not subject to any Earth laws. It has developed an anti-authoritarian attitude over the last couple centuries under the leadership of its founders, the Farrior family, one that has led to isolation and legal squabbles with the Great Nations, and this in turn made the opportunity to come to Sagittarius one it couldn't pass up. Currently residing in orbit above the cold, dense, high gravity world of Tartarus, Ceres Metals is attempting to make its fortune exploiting the heavy and rare earth metals needed by high tech industry. Ceres Metals also has rich holdings on the moon of Gamma in the SAG+55 2007 System, though why they have chosen to make Tartarus their headquarters instead of the lush moon is open to speculation. It is believed that they were in negotiations with Fa Enterprises of Sagittarius for a partnership in developing several mining and industrial sites in currently uninhabited systems, but the untimely death of Fa Zheng De had thrown the outcome of the deal into doubt.
The Commerce War was a war primarily between Russia and Manchuria, and fought largely by proxies, that raged for over two centuries. The goals of the war itself seemed long lost to any of the combatants by the end of the conflict. Indeed, other than encouraging the mutual antagonism between the two nations, it served little in the interests of either party, and created an entire class of lawless pirates, privateers, and mercernaries that could and would be used by any of the Great Powers, as well as by terrorist groups such as the End of History, for any multitude of bad ends. The Commerce War has been defended at various times by those who contend that the use of proxies, mostly against other proxies, has acted as a safety valve for the Great Powers, and prevented a truly devastating interstellar war from occurring much like the numerous brushfire wars of the late 20th century acted to prevent a fullscale nuclear showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The primary targets of the Commerce War were the interplanetary, and later, interstellar transports that served the economies of the belligerents. Manchuria first began using privateer and mercenary crewed vessels against Russia as tensions heated up in the Russian Far East. Russia responded with its own forces, mostly Jovians who had a axe to grind with Manchuria after their recent war, but also Martians and other cis-lunar riff-raff who had no home on Earth and little to lose in space. Guangzhou, India, and Brazil all got involved to greater or lesser extents depending on their current relations between the two feuding powers. Several space-based corporations, having suffered from some misfortune and being left with only their ships for assets, have tried their hand at the conflict with a letter of marque and reprisal tucked away. Most lost everything, even their lives.
For the most part the Western Alliance was unwilling to get involved. There was little love for either nation involved, and if they wanted to plunder and destroy each others' spacecraft and space-based installations, that meant more opportunities to go around for everyone else. The problem soon appeared that the various low lifes and desperados hired by the belligerents were none too picky about respecting neutrality when there were no legal targets around, and outright piracy was bad for everyone. Even worse, powers such as Aztlan, who had grievances with the West, were using these little 'accidental' takings to wage their own proxy wars. Great Britain and the United States took a particularly hard line against piracy, followed by Japan, Brazil, and Argentina in order of involvement and the severity of response when a pirate vessel was intercepted. Outright piracy itself was very rare during the Interplanetary age, but not unheard of. The opening up of interstellar space in the 2200s made actual piracy more viable, as pirates and privateers who occasionally went rogue had more places to hide. By the 2300s with second and third hand starships becoming more available, the ability of less wealthy groups to turn pirate grew, and the Commerce War started turning especially ugly, and increasingly getting the Western Alliance directly involved against Manchuria and to a lesser extent Russia.
The Commerce War was brought to a close in 2359, but only after a decade of increasingly bloody incidents and escalations of the conflict threatened all out interstellar war and culminated in the crash of the Epsilon Eridani-Epsilon Indi stargate by the End of History. Manchuria's back was against the wall, and while Russia was happy to see them writhe a little more, even the Duma could see how dire the world situation was getting, how close to the edge they were dancing. Colonies had already been hit by asteroids by 2359, biological attacks had struck the Epsilon colonies even before the stargate crash nearly sterilized the two star systems, and antimatter was available in dangerous quantities to anyone willing to use it as a weapon. The world held its breath and tried to step back from the brink.
The trade agreement with Russia and the formal recall of their privateers was hailed outside Manchuria as the first moment of sanity from that nation in decades. Unfortunately, the end of the war brought with it many legitimate privateers who had just seen their sources of income taken from them. Most of them became mercenaries, others turned pirate themselves. Both options could find work with the very forces of supranational instability that had caused so much of the chaos in the 2350s.