MERCURIAL SYSTEM

The Mecurial Imperium, the Doom Seed, and Smuggler's Haven

The Mecurial Imperium was a pre-Shadow War power, and ruled a fairly large empire from the 4th planet of the Mecurial System...Mercury. The citizens of the Mercurial Imperium refered to their sun as the "Primal Fire." Their Imperium stood longer than any records now show...prior to the Shadow War. That fateful conflict was the complete end to their culture.

The Mercurial technology was based on field-generation...much as the rest of Sector 42's technology is mechanically or even electronically based. Where others may use gears and servos to build a droid, Mecurial droids would be almost completely held together by fields...the field itself acting as a sort of operating system. While othes may build a roof over their head...the Mecurials would generate a field.

Needless to say, this sort of powerful technology was a threat to the Dark Lord and the Vilardeen during the Shadow War...and thus an evil plan was put into place. A special Vilardeen ship...both fast and full of fire-power was loaded with the prototype of a new type of weapon. It was called the "DOOM-SEED," and deployed correctly, the weapon would affect the structure of a star, in this case the Primal Fire, and cause it to prematurely enter the Red Giant phase of its life. 

The ship was successful in deploying the weapon...the Primal Fire expanded to a point where the first two planets of the system were engulfed, and the rest of the planets were made completely lethal. There are legends that the inventor of the Doom Seed was aboard the Vilardeen ship, and that the ship had difficulties and was destroyed by the expanding star. The inventor was a paranoid man, and had not allowed copies of his designs to exist anywhere except on his person. Thus the Doom Seed technology was never used anywhere else during or after the Shadow War...for it was forever lost...

A large Mercurial Space Station was in orbit over Mercury when the Primal Fire expanded and superheated the system. Its field technology prevented its destruction, and the Space Station eventually thrived as a haven for smugglers...and came to be known as Smuggler's Haven. Of course, in the past 500 years the Space Station has undergone some pretty drastic remodeling and repair...so many of the levels of the ship are more mechanical now...and much less field-based. The Space Station is so close to the Primal Fire that ships cannot even approach it without the field of the Space Station being expanded to protect the ships. Thus it has remained safe from Fendora Bengala forces...who would love to destroy the Haven. Almost no one except smugglers come to the System due to the complete lack of accessible resourses and available facilities to anyone except smugglers!

The status of life on Mercury is a mystery. Potentially many could have survived on the planet itself due to the field technology that they employed...but no one speaks of it on Smuggler's Haven...it is a "non-topic." And no one has been able to investigate it due to the heat and radiation from the Primal Fire...the Space Station's fields would have to be expanded to protect a ship approaching Mercury...something they won't even discuss with outsiders.

Smuggler's Haven teams with a variety of alien races...some you may have never run into before. In many cases the population aboard Smuggler's Haven represents the under-belly of the Sector...but considering who seems to be in power (The F.B.T.)...perhaps the under-belly isn't so bad! The Haven is run by a human man called "The Administrator." He is infrequently seen on the public levels of the Station...and seems to keep to himself for the most part. A minimum of rules exist on the Haven...don't kill...don't steal, that kind of thing. Basically the rule is don't get caught! A group called the Renegades keep the peace on the public levels, and are supervised by The Administrator. They are a rough fun-loving lot...and occasionally cause a certain amount of trouble themselves...

A semi-autnomous group splintered out of the Renegades, and took to calling themselves Vuska's Renegades.  While based out of Smuggler's Haven, Vuska's Renegades were more of a rag-tag war-band, fighting the good fight on the right side of many conflicts.  Vuska's Renegades are a thorn in the side of the Fen-Ben Trade Corportation, and have been known to target Fen-Ben shipments and remote bases.  Over the years, the number of Vuska's Renegades has dwindled through death and attrition.  With the death of Vuska himself several years ago, the group lost something important.  Only the toughest and most determined of the Renegades remain, and though few in number, they should not be underestimated.