Traveller Solo: Searching for Cargo on Montca

 Montca is an interesting world to travel about in. Our League passports let us exit the port fairly easily as Ewo and I took  an underwater bus from the port to the False Cay. While there were tubeways and a much faster air transport, Ewo and I really wanted to experience the full experience of the more tourist-style of transport. The vehicle, while looking like an ancient submarine, was a fully fusion powered ship.

The sea-life on Montca was much more varied than the land-based creatures. Huge snake-like things slithered through the underwater currents, and once I swore I saw some leviathan out in the murk. There were a few dozen other passengers on the 3 hour trip. My face was plastered to the view ports while Ewo's tail I noticed had some interesting flicks as smaller fish flashed past.

The False Cay is an artificial reef: being both a high-tech and high-population world, Montca built cities wherever they liked. The orbital cities as well as the underwater ones ranged from a few thousand to millions of people. False Cay was a smaller city at just over 100,000 people and while sea farming was what all cities did, there was also an advanced machinery company there, Requiem Machinery. As Mont was our next destination, there is always a demand on non-industrial systems. While also being a bit more expensive on the high-tech world we're on, we were following up on a some rumors to see about a discounted lot. And polymers: there's a unique plant here, ipomoea acuminatus, that is used to make an industrial sealant. 

Leaving the submarine in the undersea city of False Cay (and I wondered, was there a Real Cay?) we joined the small crowd to exit the ports. Taking a slidewalk, we were carried several kilometers to Requiem Machinery. There we met a Mr. Ulf Mathiasen, a salesman for the company. 

"Greetings, greetings!" he said with a short bow in our direction as we were led to his office. "Glad you called, and how may we assist you today?" He sat his corpulent body into a sighing seat as Ewo placed her comp at the desk. She looked over the top of the holo at Mathiason and started the bargaining process. She managed to get him down to 50% of the cost, meaning Cr750,000. Of which we only had Cr400,000. However, he was willing to split the lot in half. A bit later we had made the arrangements to transport 10 tons of machinery parts to the No Refund, and we concluded our business there. 

Being late, we stayed at a hotel that had an interesting view.

It was a very peaceful night, and nice having a lot more space than my cabin back on the ship. Having only Cr25K, we did decide to see about the polymers - hoping we could catch a good deal. A breakfast of fish and some sort of fried sea kelp which was a lot better than I would have expected (and made a note to see about getting some for our ship larder!) we walked the city a bit before our meeting. All the buildings seemed to have their own sea locks in the event of emergencies, and the light through the domes was refracted from the waves. The air did have a salty tang to it and there was always a fresh breeze from the air systems.

Sugriwa bin Selamat of Kapus Lights was a tall man, his silver-flecked hair falling past his shoulders contrasting with his dark skin. He was vice president of extra-system sales and services apparently, and his demeanor to us was not quite as friendly as Mathiasen's. While we did get him down to Cr210,000 for the 40 ton lot and no lower, it was a battle to see about a smaller lot. But finally we got him down to 4 tons for Cr21,000. Arrangements were made to load the ship and we took our leave. Heading back to the port we took a similar sub. My face was still plastered to the ports looking for that leviathan without any luck on the return trip.

Back at the port, we verified that the cargos we had purchased were being transported in the next day or two. Searching for freight to carry, there ended up being 9 lots ranging from 1 to 6 tons, 16 minor lots from 5-30 tons, and 7 major cargos of 6-60 tons. So we managed to fill the cargo bay (which I really need to refigure the cargo: going with 240. See this post for that refit update). I managed our manifest:

• 10 tons advanced machinery (speculative trade; bought for Cr375K)
• 4 tons polymers (speculative trade; bought for Cr21K)
• 10 tons of exotic aromatics
• 10 tons of some odd spices
• 30 tons of specialized seeds as Mont has a similar atmosphere to Montca apparently
• 20 tons of minerals used for some manufacturing process
• 50 tons of insidiants that apparently the deeper part of the oceans here produce. I believe most of the cargo tonnage was based on the very secure looking containers. As with the previous radioactives I stuck a few extra sensors on those
• 60 tons of bulk precipitates
• 10 tons of polymers
• 40 tons of  counter-prions. 

230 tons, which apparently in the League get transported at Cr1,200 for the 2 parsec jump to Mont. The Cr276K will come in handy to pay all the ship expenses. We also picked up several passengers, more than our limited 2 guest rooms would handle. So we at least have a full ship to head off to Mont.

Well, at least I finally got back to this. And mixed and matched a few versions of Traveller. Had I been refereeing the game with players, there may have been some additional conversations with the 2 sales people we met, but as I already talk enough to myself, I felt I did not need to do so. Rolled for reactions and Mathiason had a 10 for very friendly, whereas bin Selamat had a 6, so not as friendly but no outright refusal. Cargo lots and tonnages were from Mongoose v1 as was the speculative trade items. The freight items came from the T5 big book which has some good random cargos, but not for all trade types sadly. And of course Montca was one of those missing any of its 2 trade types. So I used the Fl (fluid) which technically is fluidic worlds, not ocean worlds, but good enough for me. Some random name generators for the various company names, sales people names and the ipomoea acuminatus plant used for the polymer base. Thanks FantasyNameGenerators!

I also rolled in the Startown Liberty book, but rolled up a ship with 7 people in it. Both Ewo & I missed out intelligence rolls to notice, so another missed opportunity. 

In the meantime, what is Captain Laux doing? He, as always, disappears into the woodworks while Ewo & Malik roam around selling and getting cargos. This is me, rolling dice behind my referee screen....wait, just me and me alone. He is busy at the port warden's office, discussing things with the Space Patrol who do have a significant presence on Montca (see this post for a bit more detail). Just what they are discussing I've yet to figure out yet, maybe I'll try & think of something before I do my next solo Traveller post. But it does have to do with the Imperium and the League. Which I also need to see about maybe expanding out a bit, have some tensions. In case I ever get to play in MTU vs the OTU with real people. I may be swaying my Fantasy Trip group to at least try it...