New Morossu
"You can smell the paranoia in the air here. Everyone’s watching someone, and half the time they’re not wrong to do it. The trick is figuring out which knife in the room is real and which one is on loan from Vanguard."
Overview
New Morossu is a corporate colony under the ownership of Vanguard Dynamics, one of the most notorious military-industrial corporations in Human Space. Terraforming efforts have reached Stage V, with a breathable, enriched atmosphere and gravity supplied by a constellation of orbital pressors. The planetoid is self-sufficient in food and water, thanks to extensive orbital farms and subterranean aquifers. Despite its relative prosperity in material terms, New Morossu is infamous for its despairing morale, violent reputation, and role as a nest of intrigue.
The colony’s population, at Zeta scale (3,888–7,776), lives under strict laws and indentured wealth status, with most civilians bound by debt obligations to Vanguard. The official economy is structured as a gift economy—a polite fiction that masks the reality of barter, espionage, extortion, and black-market trading. This uneasy balance has made New Morossu an epicenter of espionage in the outer systems, with rival corporations, Houses, and outlaw groups all seeking leverage.
Culture and Appearance
The stereotypical New Morossan is easily recognized: a long face with angular cheekbones, drooping violet eyes shimmering with metallic flecks, and a leathery tan complexion earned under harsh pressor light. Hair runs from blonde to gray, and body builds tend toward the soft, though never weak—the violence of the colony ensures even the bookkeepers carry scars.
Fashion reflects both corporate pragmatism and local defiance. Citizens don ultra-tailored suits with discreet armor plating, slim trench coats with hidden zippers, and polished oxfords. Muted tones—charcoal, navy, jet black—dominate, offset by a single flash of neon in a tie or pocket square. Hair is parted and gelled with precision, a sign of order in an otherwise chaotic world. To outsiders, New Morossans cut an intimidating figure: stylish, armored, and faintly predatory.
Economy and Power Structure
On paper, New Morossu is a service colony for Vanguard’s skunkworks, providing food, housing, and basic comforts for rotating cadres of engineers, scientists, and corporate brass. In practice, the planetoid is a proving ground. Vanguard tests new weapons and technologies here, often employing locals as operators against each other in staged engagements or against synth targets. Contracts are common, and death is casual—the line between trial run and real battle is thin.
This arrangement traces back to Vanguard’s quiet conquest. After the Cozine Disaster, New Morossu’s clans endured thousands of years of isolation, growing violent, insular, and self-reliant. Vanguard entered not with soldiers but with guns, selling arms until the clans were locked in an arms race that drove them into debt. The survivors, bled dry, had no choice but to accept corporate oversight. Now Vanguard rules without needing to raise its voice: it owns the weapons, the debts, and the economy.
Life on New Morossu
Life is brutal, paranoid, and short. Corporate security enforces order with ruthless efficiency, but intrigue bleeds through every wall. Espionage is as common as farming, with locals and outsiders alike selling stolen data to the highest bidder. Witless Minions smugglers are frequent customers, carrying Vanguard prototypes into the black market. Violence—silent, explosive, or nuclear—is an everyday hazard.
Despite the despair, the people of New Morossu are fighters. Stripped of their corporate gear, they might be dismissed as techno-barbarians. But with it, they are among the deadliest populations in the system. No outsider who underestimates them survives long, and even Vanguard knows better than to entirely trust the loyalty of their "employees."
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