Post by spike on Apr 1, 2011 18:50:39 GMT -5
The life of a Merchant is a hard one, buying low and selling high, living off nothing but the sometimes razor-thin margin between the two. How tempting is it then, to consider that instead of buying your trade goods at a hard-bargained price in the marketplace, with your precious hard-earned credits, you could simply harvest them from the ground, or collect them from some long abandoned ruins? It does not take the fiendish number-crunching skills of a Bellixian actuary to figure your profit margin in that case - a cool, crisp one hundred percent profit. What Merchant could resist that temptation?
And yet, resist it he should.
There is a tale of two brothers. Their father raised them to trade the space lanes, and on his death bed he divided between them the family fleet, two aged but sturdy and spaceworthy trading vessels. Swearing to uphold their father’s honour as a Merchant, the two brothers went their separate ways to trade.
In the early years capital was scarce, opportunities were scarcer, and the older brother began to supplement his trading with forays to the Wild surfaces of fringe planets. True, he suffered horrendous loss of life amongst his crew, and numerous disfiguring accidents, but perhaps this helped to harden him, and helped him drive his men, who became more afraid of him than they were of whatever was lurking on the lowest level of some ancient ruins. And his fearless resolve showed results. Soon his trading accounts were awash with credits, the Princes were swooning in his favour, and he lavished his funds on the purchase of a grand trading ship the likes of which his father had never dared dream of.
Meanwhile, the younger brother, holding the honour of their father just as much in his heart, but, as the saying goes, keeping his vector on a tighter orbit, scrimped and saved and traded his way through the hundred worlds. No words of welcome greeted him, no lavish entertainments in the palaces or the spice halls, just hard bargaining and cold cash. And while his capital grew only slowly, it grew steadily, and with every credit accrued, he himself grew wiser and more canny.
In due time the older brother won the favour of the greatest princes in the quadrant. Scouts reported a cornucopia of ancient riches, far beneath the surface of a newly discovered world. The dangers and hazards were evident, but the sensor traces emitted by the hidden treasures went right off the chart. Anxious not to leave behind any of the precious cargo, the brother forged a syndicate with all of the great princes to procure a vast treasure ship, bristling with armed explorers, its capacious hold ready to bring back the haul of the century. Loans were pledged, mortgages raised, and not only all of the brother’s wealth, but the larger part of the princes’ too, were secured in collateral.
The expedition set forth with cheers from the excited populace of half a dozen capital worlds. Ladies of countless palaces waved behind their handkerchiefs and swooned with admiration for the bold Captain, and feverishly awaited his return. But the news that came was dark. Disaster met the expedition. Their explorations disturbed horrors of the void, unspeakable apparitions entombed for centuries. Battle-hardened mercenaries ran screaming in terror, some falling on their own grenades rather than face the horror. Of the bulk of the crew, nothing was found, and the Captain brought his ship limping back into port with barely enough hands aboard to operate her. Financially and politically ruined, stripped of Palace protection, he faced not just the demands of his creditors, but calls for his trial and execution for malfeasance under Shalun Law.
It was in this dark hour that the younger brother arrived in orbit, still in the same old trading ship with its hull weathered by countless radiation storms and solar flares. He landed quickly at the Grand Exchange, where the herds of ground-bound factors and arbitragers fretted and chewed their lips and prayed to escape financial ruin. He walked briskly and quietly onto the Exchange floor, where even then his brother was seeking desperately to come to some accommodation with his creditors, to find finance for another voyage of exploration that might at least recoup the major part of their losses. He looked his older brother in the eyes, and the older brother, still dressed in his fine robes and lavish grand-hat, at first did not recognise this dour, plain-dressed, hard faced space Captain as his own kin. Until he spoke.
“Brother, have no fear. The spirit of our father is with us. It has presided over every trade and deal that I have made, every half credit of profit, every shilling of mitigated loss. One ton of cargo at a time, I have negotiated hard, bought a little lower, and sold a little higher. And now, I have come direct from a meeting of the agents of the Princes and the High Financiers of the Clans. And I have bought your mortgages, and the mortgages of the Princes, for shillings on the credit. Your wealth is gone, but you are discharged of debt. And your grand treasure ship, the mightiest trading vessel in the Four Quadrants - she is mine!”
No one knows what became of the ruined older brother after this. Some say he took his own life, burning open his own airlock with a plasma cutter and welcoming the dark kiss of the void. Others say he bargained away his last remaining wealth for a Rank Shuttle, and departed Known space, searching for one of the legendary Lost Quadrants. What is known, is that his last words to his younger brother were these: “It is not blood that runs in those veins, brother, for is it not written, ‘blood is thicker than water-fuel’? But this I swear, brother, your veins run not with our father’s blood, but with the Iron Coins of Thulun, made molten with the smoldering heat of your avarice!”
Now it cannot be doubted that, at that moment his name was thus invoked, the long dead father of the two brothers looked upon his sons from his resting place, in that great Darkness that is beyond space itself. But which brother did he favour with his gaze? The son whose blood ran red, or the son whose blood was black as iron? You must answer this question for yourself, and the answer you give yourself will tell you, what manner of Merchant you are, and what colour of blood runs in your veins.
And yet, resist it he should.
There is a tale of two brothers. Their father raised them to trade the space lanes, and on his death bed he divided between them the family fleet, two aged but sturdy and spaceworthy trading vessels. Swearing to uphold their father’s honour as a Merchant, the two brothers went their separate ways to trade.
In the early years capital was scarce, opportunities were scarcer, and the older brother began to supplement his trading with forays to the Wild surfaces of fringe planets. True, he suffered horrendous loss of life amongst his crew, and numerous disfiguring accidents, but perhaps this helped to harden him, and helped him drive his men, who became more afraid of him than they were of whatever was lurking on the lowest level of some ancient ruins. And his fearless resolve showed results. Soon his trading accounts were awash with credits, the Princes were swooning in his favour, and he lavished his funds on the purchase of a grand trading ship the likes of which his father had never dared dream of.
Meanwhile, the younger brother, holding the honour of their father just as much in his heart, but, as the saying goes, keeping his vector on a tighter orbit, scrimped and saved and traded his way through the hundred worlds. No words of welcome greeted him, no lavish entertainments in the palaces or the spice halls, just hard bargaining and cold cash. And while his capital grew only slowly, it grew steadily, and with every credit accrued, he himself grew wiser and more canny.
In due time the older brother won the favour of the greatest princes in the quadrant. Scouts reported a cornucopia of ancient riches, far beneath the surface of a newly discovered world. The dangers and hazards were evident, but the sensor traces emitted by the hidden treasures went right off the chart. Anxious not to leave behind any of the precious cargo, the brother forged a syndicate with all of the great princes to procure a vast treasure ship, bristling with armed explorers, its capacious hold ready to bring back the haul of the century. Loans were pledged, mortgages raised, and not only all of the brother’s wealth, but the larger part of the princes’ too, were secured in collateral.
The expedition set forth with cheers from the excited populace of half a dozen capital worlds. Ladies of countless palaces waved behind their handkerchiefs and swooned with admiration for the bold Captain, and feverishly awaited his return. But the news that came was dark. Disaster met the expedition. Their explorations disturbed horrors of the void, unspeakable apparitions entombed for centuries. Battle-hardened mercenaries ran screaming in terror, some falling on their own grenades rather than face the horror. Of the bulk of the crew, nothing was found, and the Captain brought his ship limping back into port with barely enough hands aboard to operate her. Financially and politically ruined, stripped of Palace protection, he faced not just the demands of his creditors, but calls for his trial and execution for malfeasance under Shalun Law.
It was in this dark hour that the younger brother arrived in orbit, still in the same old trading ship with its hull weathered by countless radiation storms and solar flares. He landed quickly at the Grand Exchange, where the herds of ground-bound factors and arbitragers fretted and chewed their lips and prayed to escape financial ruin. He walked briskly and quietly onto the Exchange floor, where even then his brother was seeking desperately to come to some accommodation with his creditors, to find finance for another voyage of exploration that might at least recoup the major part of their losses. He looked his older brother in the eyes, and the older brother, still dressed in his fine robes and lavish grand-hat, at first did not recognise this dour, plain-dressed, hard faced space Captain as his own kin. Until he spoke.
“Brother, have no fear. The spirit of our father is with us. It has presided over every trade and deal that I have made, every half credit of profit, every shilling of mitigated loss. One ton of cargo at a time, I have negotiated hard, bought a little lower, and sold a little higher. And now, I have come direct from a meeting of the agents of the Princes and the High Financiers of the Clans. And I have bought your mortgages, and the mortgages of the Princes, for shillings on the credit. Your wealth is gone, but you are discharged of debt. And your grand treasure ship, the mightiest trading vessel in the Four Quadrants - she is mine!”
No one knows what became of the ruined older brother after this. Some say he took his own life, burning open his own airlock with a plasma cutter and welcoming the dark kiss of the void. Others say he bargained away his last remaining wealth for a Rank Shuttle, and departed Known space, searching for one of the legendary Lost Quadrants. What is known, is that his last words to his younger brother were these: “It is not blood that runs in those veins, brother, for is it not written, ‘blood is thicker than water-fuel’? But this I swear, brother, your veins run not with our father’s blood, but with the Iron Coins of Thulun, made molten with the smoldering heat of your avarice!”
Now it cannot be doubted that, at that moment his name was thus invoked, the long dead father of the two brothers looked upon his sons from his resting place, in that great Darkness that is beyond space itself. But which brother did he favour with his gaze? The son whose blood ran red, or the son whose blood was black as iron? You must answer this question for yourself, and the answer you give yourself will tell you, what manner of Merchant you are, and what colour of blood runs in your veins.
