Planets: Silo

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Silo

GUILD COMMERCIAL CONTROL

The spire in the center of Crater City is the Guild’s equivalent of licking food so no one else can eat it. Except instead of licking, they dragged an asteroid larger than most moons across four systems, crashed it into Silo, and planted a fortified tower in the resulting crater – making it a highly defensible command center for their government and commercial engines. The spire is their seat of power, the place from which they pull the strings that control the Wilds. Best not to touch.

SURVEY REPORT

:::::::GUILD PLANETARY ASSESSMENT 1702-a:::::::

Planet: SILO

Location: Guild-Controlled Wilds

Diameter: 3,189

Moons: None (Orbit remains clear of debris)

Atmosphere: Thin at mean surface level; suitable density at lowest points. Pollution increasing at standard rates.

Weather: Arid conditions with some cloud cover and low-moving fog. Little seasonal variance. Commerce remains largely unaffected.

Temperature: Cold at surface level; temperate at crater depth. Some increase due to starship-based pollutants.

Ecosystem: Insignificant. Commercialization attempts have largely been unsuccessful.

Financial Assessment: Crater City continues to dominate trade in the Wilds with no current threats to its position.

Spacelane Assessment: All spacelanes remain clear and traffic is flowing freely. Increasing starship density may necessitate future expansion.

Overall Assessment:Planet remains stable and suitable as a spire host. However, Crater City is nearing its density potential. Expansion is required to fully capitalize on trade opportunities.

Recommendation:Surface expansion beyond the crater wall is not feasible due to the thin atmosphere. A planetary atmosphere terraforming assessment is recommended.

Assessor 2137

:::::::END:::::::

SPIRE

Like everything else on Silo, Crater City's infamous crater is Guild-made. An asteroid larger than most moons was dragged from four systems over and dropped on Silo. The resounding impact was the Guild's proclamation that the Wilds was now a recognized part of the Concord galaxy.

This was during the golden age of Guild expansion into the Wilds frontier. Planting a spire was a significant sign that the Guild was interested in using the Wilds for more than resource mining. They were intent on expanding all aspects of their operation far beyond just the Core Worlds.

The Guild chose Silo for its central location in the Wilds, which was critical to their expansion plan. Silo could be connected via a spidering system of spacelanes to most of the Wilds and the Guild's military bases. There was no better option. The problem was Silo itself, which was a desolate tundra; the air was too thin, temperatures were too cold, and resources were scarce.

All of that was easily solved with the asteroid.

The lower altitude inside the crater means the air is more breathable, the temperatures closer to the world's magmatic core are more comfortable, and the impact crater acts as a protected and defensible port for the Guild's commercial operations at the spire.

They had made it into an acceptable location to put down roots. And that's exactly what they did. All spires the Guild manufactures are ready-made government outposts, replete with offices and boardrooms for Guild corporate headquarters, docking bays for Guild ships, signal amplifiers and stealth defenses. All that's needed are the Guild corporate officials. They followed closely behind the Spire, especially those from corporations hoping to stake their claim on the worlds of the Wilds with untapped potential.

That spire rises like a mast out of the atmosphere, declaring to all who come within orbit that this is a seat of the Guild in the Wilds. Which has become all the more important since the eruption of the Tempest.

The Crater City spire is the only spire in the Wilds. The rest of the worlds in the collection it belonged to are gone now—or, if not gone, then lost somewhere on the other side of the galaxy sundering storm.

In the aftermath of the Tempest eruption, the Wilds suddenly found itself without the supply chains it had come to rely on for most goods, foods, fuel, and essential services. There was no seat of government. There was no centralized hub for commerce. There was only destruction, detachment, a sense of panic, and escalating chaos. The remains of the galaxy were at risk of collapsing.

The Guild acted swiftly and efficiently to prevent disaster. They consolidated resources and power on Silo, making it the keystone that would hold the remains of the galaxy together, ensure all worlds had access to the goods and services they required, and grow the military might of the Guild Guard.

"We all knew from the moment the Tempest tore through space that the Wilds could no longer afford to be an untamed frontier; it had to function as a mature and stable galaxy if it hoped to survive. Silo is the beating heart of the Wilds, sending its vital pulse down the spacelanes that bind us all together."
// ROGNER, DIRECTOR OF WF EXPANSION CORP //

SORTING HUB

Nearly every product in the galaxy is brought, sold, imported, sorted, packaged, and distributed from Crater City. The distribution hives are filled with crates stamped with Guild-commercial logos from worlds across the wilds – Spine Wine from Leviathan, Fourth Ring Produce from Three Rings, Luxury Concrete Mix from Akkar, and of course Crescent sneakers. Whatever the people of the Wilds want, Crater City is ready to ship it.

Starship loading docks line the spire and the crater, constantly moving both imports and exports—every ship that carries raw goods in, is reloaded with goods for distribution on its way out; a transport ship is never wasted.

Vertical tracks carry the goods up and down the spire like blood in and out of the heart. Inbound goods are routed via a system of railevators to sorting hubs where workers sort, repackage, and stamp the merchandise to be loaded into crates destined for consumers across the Wilds.

If the spire of Crater City is the heart, then the sorting hubs are the lungs that infuse inbound goods with Guild commercial vitality and jettison them to their new destinations. This crucial job requires nonstop work and dedication, much like the cardiovascular system of many organic beings. This unremitting pace is only met thanks to Guild-brand live-work operations at the sorting hubs. It's the most efficient way to sustain output.

Sorting Hub workers live in Guild housing pods right on the premises. All their needs are provided for right in there in the hub. Joggle Burger stands are constantly cooking, and energy drink kiosks are always stocked with the galaxy's highest caloric options. Deep Sleep shells ensure each worker gets the most efficient sleep in the allotted four hours. And a refined reward system promotes proficiency without causing disruptive distractions.

"Crater City represents the dream of a perfectly efficient commercial hub, one we will use as a model as we expand operations through the Wilds and beyond."
// PORTAR, DIRECTOR OF EFFICIENT EXPANSION SOLUTIONS //

BLUE BUDDY

The premier delivery system in the Wilds, Blue Buddy packages provide both effective recipient triangulation and security measures to ensure tamper resistance. Mostly.

Designed by Consumer Delivery Solutions 2 (CDS 2) about a century ago, the Blue Buddy system never caught on in the Core Worlds. Clients purchasing luxury items were offended by the foul language that streamed out of the small robot's voice box.

Rather than reprogram the errant voice—which was originally programmed as an act of defiance by a disgruntled employee and left in the final design to save cost—CDS 2 lowered unit price and strategically targeted clients in the Wilds.

Blue Buddy caught on quickly in the Wilds as a cheap solution to the problem that people needed lots of things delivered all the time. The aggressive security system, which threatened to self-destruct if tampered with, was also a win in the Wilds; it was more necessary there, what with all the ne'er-do-wells looking to make quick coin.

As Blue Buddy's popularity grew, CDS 2 caught the attention of Superlight Transport, the biggest shipping conglomerate in the Wilds by a long shot. Superlight Transport was seeking an exclusive contract with CDS 2. Their only holdup was the language.

While most Wilds clients didn't mind the cursing, the foul language wasn't tolerated by Guild corporate officials, who were a large percentage of Superlight Transport's clients. So CDS 2 patched in an update that bleeped out the curses—which means just about everything the little guy says is now a bleep.

With that update, Superlight Transport signed the contract and put Blue Buddy to use across its fleets. This was a windfall for CDS 2, who has since been reaping the benefits even though the updated software caused its own set of new problems. Recipients now have a hard time parsing Blue Buddy's mostly-bleeped-out instructions and often wind up accidentally triggering the security detonation on themselves.

CDS 2 promises there are patch solutions coming—though they have also said their current top priority is a software upgrade that would interfere with the hacking tools Freegunners have been deploying to override the security self-destruct. Freegunners have become the bane of Superlight Transport and CDS 2 as they have found a way to unlock the contents before the self-destruct triggers.

If CDS 2 doesn't solve this problem, there may be room for CDS 3 or CDS 2B to make a move into the market with their knockoffs: Cobalt Chum and Melancholy Mate, respectively. (CDS 2B, while less creative with their corporation's name, took a bigger risk with the naming angle of their bot.)