Renegade Rodian
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To exploit the resources of Kessel.
- Image: Spice Mine K76 from Star Wars: Rebels
- Canon: Kessel, Spice Mines of Kessel
- Links: N/A
- Name: Helix Syndicate Spice Mines
- Materials: Spice
- Classification: Mining Facility / Prison
- Locations: Kessel (several hundred facilities throughout the planet’s Northern hemisphere)
- Affiliation: Helix Syndicate, The Sovereignty
- Size: Large
- Population:
[x0001] H01 Artificial Intelligence - [x0075] Helix Syndicate Enforcers
- [x0100] Trajan-Class War Droids, Mk. I
- [x0002] Trajan-Class War Droids, Mk. II
- [x0100] Helix Syndicate Support Staff
- [x0220] Debtors / Prisoners
- [x0380] Sallust-Class Service Droids
[*]Accessibility: The treacherous terrain of Kessel’s northern hemisphere does not allow for road-building. As such, all of the Syndicate’s spice mines are accessible only by air travel. Each facility has two landing areas: one for freighters bearing supplies, the other for shuttles ferrying personnel. Visitors are typically not welcome. Sovereign and Syndicate vessels are the only ones with clearance to land at any given time, though distinguished guests could potentially be invited for a tour every so often.
DESCRIPTION
The Syndicate's Spice Mines are a network of several dozen of mining outposts found throughout the planet’s Northern hemisphere, all of which produce varying types of spice onto the galactic market. Previously these facilities were ramshackle, disorganized, and otherwise crumbling due to neglect. After the Sovereignty allowed the Helix Syndicate custodianship over the hemisphere's wealthiest mines, these facilities were re-structured based on templates established by the Syndicate elsewhere.
As the Spice Mines are operated in good faith, they serve a dual purpose as corrections facilities for the Sovereignty’s worst criminal offenders. Many of the organic personnel working in these mines are derived from the Sovereignty’s prison population. A smaller percentage are those indebted to the Helix Syndicate who have been deemed incapable of paying their debts any other way, and have been shipped to work the spice mines as a result.
But the Sovereignty is still small and exporting debtors (temporary additions at best) from the Pentastar Alignment is a costly process. To offset the lack of available criminals in the Sovereignty, the Helix Syndicate has brought in a large number of droids. These droids accomplish the most hazardous labor required to operate the spice mines and are accountable for the majority of its productivity. It’s expected that they will, gradually, be phased out as the Sovereignty expands its borders and incarcerated undesirables become more plentiful.
Since these are true criminals who are being punished by the law rather than poor simpletons who missed one too many payments to the Syndicate while being out of a job, the miners are not treated nearly as well as they are in the Helix Syndicate’s Debtor Mines. Conditions are sparse, but they aren’t inhumane. Both the Sovereignty and the Syndicate would prefer working prisoners to dead ones.
Most of the prison support staff will commute off-site to a nearby settlement after the working day is through, leaving behind only the security droids, Enforcers, and a small skeleton crew. As such, living and leisure areas for these personnel are also greatly reduced when compared to the debtor mines. Aside from the occasional lounge and the Enforcer’s barracks, things are relatively mundane.
POINTS OF INTEREST
- Section A: This section houses the debtors and the prisoners. The population of people here is generally a mix between people who owe the Syndicate money and the Sovereign’s political prisoners. The conditions are livable, if a bit austere. Unlike the regular debtor mines, there is no sliding scale of luxury for productive prisoners.
- Sections B - E: These sections house the Sallust-Class Service Droids that account for most of each mine’s productivity. Maintenance bays, charging racks, and storage areas for mining equipment are commonplace here.
- Section F: The administrative hub for the mines. This is the nerve center for the entire operation, from which everything is coordinated with the help of an administrative AI.
- Section G: Spice extracted by the mine is processed, packed, and stored in this section. A large landing pad designated for bulk freighters only.
- Section H: The mines are in this section. All of the heavy industrial equipment and tools are also stored here. It is located close to Sections A through C.
- Section I: This section houses the living quarters for organic security personnel as well as the storage area for the Syndicate’s robust garrison of battle droids. An armory for outfitting both of these forces can also be found in this section. As one might imagine, it is rather heavily secured and difficult to get into.
The spice mines are lightly defended. They possess a rudimentary shield generator in addition to six anti-aircraft turrets, with three covering each landing pad. Some anti-personnel turrets can also be found near the entrances to safeguard against any attempted prison breaks, but other than that the first line of defense for any spice mine is the inhospitable badlands them.
Inside the buildings, there are security checkpoints at every major juncture. Keycards are needed for access to most areas. Retinal scans are mandatory for access to more important areas, like the administrative center or security barracks. Be advised that the retinal scanners can detect whether or not the retina they are scanning belongs to a live person.
A network of security cameras keeps close watch over all residents at all times and auto-turrets keep watch over the hallways. These auto-turrets remain deactivated unless an intruder is detected. When active, they will open fire on any individual not carrying a clearance keycard or not logged in their facial recognition system.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Of all the planets where spice can be extracted, Kessel has always remained one of the most productive. Through the centuries the spice mines have stood, Kessel has contributed an incalculable amount of resources to the galaxy’s burgeoning narcotics epidemic. It was an industry started by Kessel’s own royal family, who used the tremendous profits to cultivate the planet’s southern hemisphere into a lush, temperate paradise. Kessel’s aristocracy and its citizenry grew wealthy, prosperous, and complacent in the wake of this.
And then the Silver Jedi shut them down. The spice mines closed, and the money dried up.
No one can dispute the Silver Jedi meant well. Kessel was, after all, a planet of slavers. They simply failed to find any means of supporting Kessel once their primary source of revenue was effectively dismantled. The economy collapsed and the government followed soon afterwards. People left Kessel in droves to find work and support elsewhere and the overall population reached critically low levels, nearly on par with what had been experienced when the Gulag Plague was at its height. Perhaps this was their intention all along. Perhaps Kessel, built on the backs of slaves and sin, did not deserve to survive.
Whatever the verdict reached, Kessel was not to die yet. The Silver Jedi, faced with enemies on all sides, elected to simply abandon hundreds of thousands of populated star systems to whatever fates awaited them. Sith, Confederate, Sovereign, Imperial, whatever: the Silver Jedi decided they were no longer in the business of caring. The government of Kessel was now nonexistent and so could not re-open its spice mines. But without any Silver Jedi Sentinels watching over the world, criminals, pirates, and slavers moved in.
The Spice Mines of Kessel roared back to life, only now without even the light-handed touch of Kessel’s aristocracy to prevent horrendous abuse of sentient life. Slaves and slavers found their way to Kessel en masse, and the galactic underworld gorged itself on the surplus of spice once again - much to the profit of the slavers, as the Silver spice prohibition had jacked up prices considerably. Fueled from Kessel, slaver fleets originating from Hutt Space began to range farther than ever before. Life up and down the Mara Corridor, between the Confederacy and the Empire suddenly became a lot more violent as slavers sundered families and razed settlements.
Ultimately this was all worth it - as the Silver Jedi’s leadership have escaped alive and well to Kashyyyk. From there, they can no doubt continue to be a stalwart beacon of liberty and democracy.
The criminal anarchy on Kessel was not to last much longer, thankfully. The nascent Sovereignty would eventually step in, subjugating the planet and evicting non-compliant elements. The slaves were summarily freed, then sent to repopulate the Kessel’s abandoned cities in the Southern hemisphere. The fate of the mines themselves was left somewhat more ambiguous.
The Helix Syndicate eventually stepped in. Several dozen of the richest and most productive spice mines were identified, then quickly occupied, by Syndicate forces. A tentative understanding was reached with the Sovereignty in the process: so long as they paid their fair share in taxes, the Syndicate would be left to their own devices. The Syndicate proceeded to standardize the mines, stationing garrisons and bringing in droids to conduct a majority of the labor. The mines continue to rely in part on organic toil, though this is largely handled by debtors imported from the Pentastar Alignment, or captured criminals the Sovereignty has little tolerance for.
Compared to the prohibition of the Silver Jedi, the pause in production generated by the transition was minuscule. Spice now flows freely from Kessel as it previously did, but the profits now belong to more permanent powers… And ones that don’t send slave ships up and down the Mara Corridor.
