| Mactan Base | |
| Owner | |
| Lane Hackers | |
| Location | |
| D-4/3, Magellan |
CLASS: Deep Blue
GRAVITY: Complete
DOCKING: Yes
AMENITIES: Yes
CREW: 270
Lane Hackers are mostly composed of former Los Angeles Ageira Technologies employees who created the extremely complex scanning and database system known as USI (Universal Ship Identification). Departing the company rather acrimoniously in 750 AS, they have become a growing problem in the Independent Worlds.
The Lane Hackers in Magellan and Galileo share one common origin -- Ageira. The scandal that erupted within the company after the great Galileo bypass project, which resulted in the unnecessary construction of a hugely expensive set of Jump Gates and Trade Lanes, forced several executives and an elite development team out. This would become the second part of the core of the Lane Hackers, along with the original California scanner group that fled to Magellan.
The investigation continues to this day, but has so far been unsuccessful in locating the Lane Hacker bases. No Hacker leader has ever been captured, although various Rogues in the Independent Worlds have been caught possessing remarkably accurate information regarding upcoming high-value shipments.
Security measures have been added to the software, but the Hackers remain one step ahead, leading Ageira security experts to believe that there are many sympathetic programrs still within the company, possibly being secretly paid off with the proceeds from the thefts. The Lane Hackers prefer to sell their information to others rather than do the dirty work themselves, although they sometimes swoop in and tractor in cargo if it's particularly juicy. Fancying themselves as modern-day Robinhoods, they avoid direct confrontation when possible, unless they are dealing with Interspace Commerce or Ageira.
They like to frequent Freeport 4 and the Ames Research Station, as their asteroid bases within the clouds can become claustrophobic. Their cardamine addiction forces them to trade Lane shipment info for drugs with the Outcasts and the Liberty Rogues at Mactan, although usually it ends up being the Liberty Rogues who act upon any information, and take the fall when anything goes wrong.
Bribes & Missions Offered
| Bribes |
| Missions |
Commodities
| Exports | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Ships sold
| Ship | Class | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Bayonet | Heavy Fighter | 22,158$ |
| Vindicator | Very Heavy Fighter | 48,629$ |
| Transgressor | Bomber | 82,562$ |
| Dromedary | Freighter | 24,266$ |
News
| [835 AS] Interspace voids Coronado Trade Lane policy |
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SCOTSDALE REFINERY -- 835 -- Ageira Technologies and Deep Space Engineering have threatened to sue Interspace Commerce over an insurance dispute. Interspace provided a loss prevention policy for Coronado’s Trade Lane construction project, however the financial giant says the policy is now void. Describing the Jericho Pulse as an “act of god”, Interspace exercised force majeure clauses to deny compensation claims. Local transports caught in the blast are similarly out of pocket. Liberty itself has yet to comment on the situation, however the prospect of starting over with massively increased risk premiums has thrown the project’s future into question. |
| [835 AS] Coronado disaster sparks panic |
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YUMA -- 835 -- Public data feeds have lit up with distress calls from Coronado, after a system-wide EMP pulse wreaked havoc. Emergency requests for aid have been issued by the Crayter Republic and IMG, with early reports indicating that the system’s Trade Lane project has been destroyed. Ageira has confirmed that the Jump Gate remains unaffected thanks to post-Blackout safeguards, allowing relief to be delivered from Bretonia and Liberty. Panic erupted on many Liberty worlds after footage was released showing an energy field around the moon Jericho, seeming to indicate another activated alien site. President Hawthorne has called for calm, and reiterated that security forces were moving to contain the situation. |
| [835 AS] LSF receives a black eye in Ontario |
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ONTARIO -- 835 -- For months, the Battlecruiser Lehigh has skulked around Ontario. Neither the Xenos or Lane Hackers were happy about having house guests, but it seems the Xenos were the ones to put their money where their mouth was. A tide of Xenos poured from the Georgian Ice Field, using suicidal waves to peck apart the heavy defenses with sheer numbers. Lehigh was sent packing with its tail between its legs in a major victory for the Xeno movement. “They laughed at us before, but no-one’s laughing now,” says veteran Xeno Hamish Garcia. The Lane Hackers avoided getting their hands dirty, but helped out by jamming Liberty’s comms and disrupting LSF transponders. |
| [835 AS] Leaks reveal Ontario alien technology |
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MANHATTAN -- 835 -- The neural net is abuzz with speculation and worry after sensor readings of an active alien facility in Ontario were widely distributed. The datafeed claims the source of an enormous beam of energy is an ancient alien ruin on Planet Sudbury. Inert alien ruins are often discovered in the remote Edge Worlds, enticing adventurers and scientific expeditions. According to professor Johan Miller of the Hammer Institute, the discovery of an active Daam-K’vosh site is “unprecedented”. In an attempt to reduce panic, government officials have confirmed that steps have been taken to secure Liberty’s borders, and reiterated that there is currently no threat to Liberty’s people. |
| [835 AS] Atum missing after Ontario battle |
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ONTARIO -- 835 -- The final messages from the Battleship Atum have been corroborated by Lane Hacker sensor readings. After catching and crippling the infested Battlecruiser Wyoming in Ontario, large Nomad warforms intervened to stage a rescue. Appearing to arrive via Jump Drive, these were likely entities of the Vagrant sub-specie. Contact was lost with the Atum after it pursued the retreating warforms through the Drive breach. The Atum likely considered that the risk was worthwhile to destroy the Nomads’ Liberty infiltrator network, which we believe is anchored by the Wyoming. Agents have been dispatched to Liberty’s Independent Worlds to search for the missing taskforce. |
| [835 AS] Liberty and Kusari trade sanctions |
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DESHIMA -- 835 -- Liberty’s President Hawthorne has announced sanctions targeting key Kusari high-tech industries, blocking their access to advanced Superconductors and funding. This came following a “security incident” in the Independent Worlds, and a failed Farmers Alliance attack on Deshima Station, which Liberty says is part of a state-endorsed campaign of terrorism against its citizens. Kusari has dismissed the claim as “lurid nonsense”, and responded by banning the export of Optronics to Liberty until its “economic coercion” is ended. Liberty has vowed to increase pressure until Kusari takes steps to eradicate the Farmers Alliance and root out their backers. |
| [835 AS] Galileo on the brink |
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GALILEO -- 835 -- Following an unspecified “security incident” in the Independent Worlds, military forces in Colorado and Shikoku have been ordered to high alert. Observers have raised alarms as the Liberty Navy and Kusari Naval Forces surge to their respective borders, warning of a heightened risk of “accidental escalation” in Galileo. Despite urgent calls for information from local system representatives, the governments of Kusari and Liberty remain tight lipped, other than confirming Manhattan and New Tokyo were in “active dialogue”. Both Houses have since put traffic controls in place, and are actively stopping and searching shipping entering their mutual borders. |
| [835 AS] Heist of the century |
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COCHRANE -- 835 -- Cochrane is abuzz after the heist of the century. Lane Hackers launching from Leiden first noticed a spike in encrypted comms bouncing off the Ames relay network. Checking in on Kepler, they, discovered absolute mayhem. “Liberty and Kusari ships fighting, dying,” noted the squadron lead. “Obviously LSF and KOI, but they had their transponders off.” The spooks were scrapping over a heavy lifter carrying a radioactive ship component. Not one to shy from destiny, the Gatebreakers overrode the “Argonaut” remote link and made off with it, bringing the loot back to Cochrane drydock. |
| [833 AS] LPI commissioner sentenced following Erie probe |
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PLANET ERIE -- 833 -- Helen O’Shea, Pennsylvania’s former LPI Commissioner, has been sentenced on corruption charges over the mismanagement of Erie’s planetary internment camps. The facilities were constructed to temporarily hold prisoners from the Liberty Insurgency while the courts cleared sentencing backlogs. Following allegations of human trafficking, the LSF launched a major investigation, discovering that as many as 10 percent of inmates were suspected of having been sold to traffickers. O’Shea is the latest and most high profile prosecution to date, and is expected to serve a ten year sentence at a minimum security penitentiary on Planet Los Angeles. |
| [832 AS] A different kind of Houston heat |
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MARLTON CITY -- 832 AS -- A huge firefight has been reported in one of Houston's urban centers, involving a gang of heavily armed assailants and dozens of casualties. The target appears to have been a major LPI penitentiary facility, with one force spokesperson going so far as to say that the raid must have been carried out by a professional mercenary outfit. Malton City has gone into lockdown amid rumors of a mass breakout by Pennsylvania convicts. An enormous manhunt has been launched, involving Marine support from the Battleship Arkansas. |
| [832 AS] Counting doses |
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ROCHESTER -- 832 AS -- The catastrophic crash of the Cardamine market has been tough for all the associates involved in the chain of its distribution, and the substantial drop-off in the quantity of it available for use and resale has caused a new problem in this series of bad episodes. The Rogues and Hackers, former partners in feeding the needs of the underworld are now at each other's throats, unable to meet demands for the drug both by their own and by customers, it seems as if stealing it from each other at gunpoint is the new business model. |
| [831 AS] Lack of Cardamine, Liberty's Underworld Burns |
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When the convoys heading from Cali to Mactan and Buffalo thinned out - and even stopped for a brief moment - the underworld in Liberty literally imploded. Previously close alliances quickly fell apart to the displeasure of the Outcasts, and every part of the underworld in Liberty was desperately trying to get as much Cardamine for themselves as possible. The Outcasts and their most loyal agents stepped in almost immediately in anticipation of something like this happening, and set new rules for distribution according to set keys. A small group of Liberty Rogues defied them and followed their own rules of distribution, but they didn't fare too well - the Dons, despite the ongoing crisis in Malta, do not tolerate insubordination. For this reason, several powerful Junkers and Rogues immediately decided to dilute Cardamine instead of redistributing ostentatiously against the wishes of the Outcasts at the expense of their clients, thereby raising their own shares. Fortunately for these savvy businessmen, word did not reach the Outcasts until some time later, and thanks to an improved network of cooperation, most of the organizers were able evade Malta's assassins. However, all these measures had only limited effectiveness. Many end-clients and casual Cardamine users have been forced to seek medical attention due to their deteriorating health due to potentially fatal withdrawal symptoms. It is not known how many Cardamine users eventually died because of the shortage, but it appears to be in the order of single-digit percentages - much to the very verbal displeasure of the Outcasts themselves. |
| [831 AS] Jump Hole Upheaval Causes Chaos |
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HEISENBERG -- 831 AS -- Jump holes across Sirius have become increasingly volatile and chaotic over the last year, with Professor Sophia Nagel from the Heisenberg Research Station linking the unusual phenomena to the Pulse. The Pulse was an unprecedented blast of hyperspace energy that was detected immediately prior to last year's Jump Gate Blackout. Professor Nagel and her team are certain the Pulse originated from outside Sirius, but are otherwise no closer to identifying its source or mitigating a future Blackout event. "Following the Blackout, we began to see immediate signs of jump hole destabilization in multiple different regions, with many ultimately falling out of phase alignment altogether", she commented. The dramatic upending of Sirius' jump hole network has already prompted many groups to abandon stations and withdraw from systems that appear to risk being cut off. While months-long trips between the stars are possible thanks to the Liberty Engine and many centuries of innovation, few ships are designed or provisioned to make such arduous journeys. Those who were displaced by Sirius' redrawn map hope that system connections will return, while adventurers and explorers rush to discover new routes. |
| [830 AS] Liberty underworld bolstered by Insurgency survivors |
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FONTANA -- 830 AS -- The Liberty Insurgency dramatically exploded following Liberty's invasion of Vespucci, with the human wreckage now scattered across Liberty's underworld. While some slunk away into the crowds of Planet Erie or the obscurity of foreign Freeports, others sought refuge with the Liberty Rogues, Xenos, or Technocracy. Those survivors are now having to prove their worth with their new hosts, with the Xenos in particular having an extremely rocky history with the Insurgency and its predecessors. More than anything else, these pariahs provide an object lesson on the risks of fighting Liberty head-on. |
| [830 AS] Liberty annexes Planet Erie |
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PLANET ERIE -- 830 -- The Liberty Navy has launched Operation PESTICIDE to annex Pennsylvania, following the collapse of talks between Liberty and Zoner authorities. President Hawthorne declared that Liberty could no longer tolerate a "lawless frontier" within its very core, and that the Zoners had repeatedly refused to extradite criminals and terrorists from the Pennsylvania protectorate. The recent destruction of an LSF satellite was the straw that broke the camel's back. Militias congregating around Planet Erie were routed following the Zoner Carrier Pinnacle’s destruction. The Battleship Alma then secured Erie’s orbit and landed Marines to impose Liberty law on Lake City. Surviving militants have vowed to resist Erie’s occupation. |
| [830 AS] Trouble in paradise on Erie |
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PLANET ERIE -- 830 AS -- Since the destruction of Williamstown Depot near Planet Tremont, Liberty and Erie's autonomous Zoner government have been locked in a standoff. Liberty has long suspected the Insurgency attack on its logistics station was facilitated by informants on Erie, and has accused the Zoners of allowing Insurgency and Xeno operatives to roam the planet with "impunity". This morning, a missile streaked from Erie's wilderness, shooting down an orbiting LSF satellite that had been tracking "terrorist activities". Liberty has accused Zoner militias of the attack, and ordered Erie authorities to hand over the perpetrators, and all Insurgency affiliates. Zoners have denied responsibility, calling the attack a “Liberty false flag”. |
| [827 AS] Junker woes in Liberty |
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ROCHESTER -- 827 -- The Junkers have suffered a blow in New York, after an fierce Xeno attack heavily damaged Rochester Base. An improvised force of Junkers, Liberty Rogues and Lane Hackers repelled the assault, but not before several torpedoes found their mark. The Junkers have posted record bounties for Xeno kills, however the disruption is likely to severely impact the flow of contraband down to Manhattan for some time. Rogue boss Arthur Clemons joked, “I wouldn’t want to be a Xeno right now. You ain’t long for this world if you get between an Outcast and business.” |
Rumors
| Lane Hackers |
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| Outcasts |
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