Darmstadt Depot

CLASS: Unknown

GRAVITY: Partial

DOCKING: Yes

AMENITIES: Limited

POPULATION: Unknown

Stuttgart has been the breadbasket of Rheinland since 100 years after settlement. Over time, its farmers formed a powerful union, named the WVS. The organization successfully lobbied the Rheinland government to subsidize Stuttgart agriculture for hundreds of years. With the end of the 80-Years War in 680 AS, however, the subsidies were no longer tenable.

In a secret deal during the war, the Rheinland government borrowed huge sums from Liberty. Facing default on their loans, they were forced to offer something to House Liberty. Synth Foods wanted complete access to Stuttgart, which Rheinland granted in exchange for renegotiated debt repayment terms. Immediately the Liberty Food giant moved in, buying out huge numbers of nearly bankrupt Stuttgart farmers. Much of Stuttgart was converted into vast expanses of the bio-engineered mono-crops of Synth Foods.

The government backed the foreign company wholeheartedly and looked the other way as Synth Foods used unscrupulous business practices to further consolidate its control over Stuttgart. Remaining independent farmers were forced to buy all of their Fertilizers and seeds from Synth Foods and sell all of their production to them at low fixed rates -- prices that were designed to squeeze the maximum out of the farmer and shift all risk away from Synth Foods.

The once proud Stuttgart farmers were reduced to indentured servants. Inexorably, Synth Foods assimilated the bulk of the planet’s arable land, dutifully paying its Rheinland federal taxes and feeding the bribe machine in New Berlin. The WVS tried to fight back legally in the courts but soon discovered that their influence had been sold to a higher bidder. Finally, in what some called an act of desperation, the more radical elements of the WVS left Stuttgart and founded the Landwirtrechtbewegung -- farmers rights movement -- simply referred to as the LWB.

LWB built a small depot called Darmstadt within the Ostnebel. This serves as a base for operations targeted at Synth Foods convoys within Rheinland space. The Red Hessians also use it as way station along their route to Omega-11. The “war” has been going on for 25 years now, and both sides claim to be winning -- although Synth Foods now controls 90 percent of the planet’s agriculture vs. 60 percent just three decades ago.

## Commodities

* Water
* Diamonds
* Food Rations
* H-Fuel
* Pharmaceuticals
* Consumer Goods
* Engine Components
* Light Arms

## Rumors

* The WVS, or Stuttgart Growing Association, protected the rights of the Stuttgart farmers for a very long time. It was an age of wealth and pride for Stuttgart. We were a united front in New Berlin and lobbied forcefully to gain government subsidies. But it all came to a stop at the end of that terrible war.
* After the Eighty-Years War, the Rheinland Government was bankrupt, and they were deep in debt to Liberty. That is how Liberty corporations were able to get their hands on the soil of Stuttgart. They came in with their foreign capital and bribed the old government into selling the garden. The debt to Liberty was cancelled, but honor is something you should not trade at any price.
* The Red Hessians use this base as a rest stop in their travels through Rheinland. In return we may purchase many Commodities from their base, Vogtland. The Engine Components we get from them help keep our ships operational.
* A benefit of the Ostnebel Cloud that hides Darmstaad is the Jump Hole that leads to Dresden. It makes travel throughout Rheinland easier. The other Jump Hole in Stuttgart is across the system in the Westnebel; it will lead you to Omega 11.
* Under the WVS, Stuttgart was a planet of proud farmers who owned and tilled the land as free men; it was a paradise. Do you know what it is to caress the leaf of a plant growing strong in your own fields? When my father was a boy, he walked lands with his father that had fed our family, and all of Rheinland, for generations.
* The LWB (Farmer’s Rights Movement) was founded in 730 AS after Synth Foods executives took control of the WVS (Stuttgart Growing Association). The WVS was dead from that day forward. We came together to safeguard what rights we had left. The LWB is not a terrorist organization; we fight to protect the farmers on Stuttgart from exploitation at the hands of Synth Foods.
* We are supplied by the New Berlin Junkers of Kreuzberg. They offer us almost everything we need, from basic necessities to Side Arms.
* Pumping Fertilizers and Terraforming Gases into Stuttgart makes it impossible to grow anything else but that damned Synth Foods weed. The weather systems have shifted and the luxury crops that helped individual farmers stave off Synth Foods buyouts are starting to fail. We will attack any ALG Fertilizers or Synth Terraforming Gases on their way to Stuttgart.
* Every Synth Foods ship laden with crops leaving our system not grown by WVS farmers is an insult to Rheinland, and the great farming culture that once was Stuttgart. That is why they must be destroyed; every convoy we can destroy with Synth Paste brings us one step closer to the sovereign lands we lost.
* The subsidies that Stuttgart farmers enjoyed before the Eighty-Years War stopped overnight at the war’s end in 685 AS. New Berlin was bankrupt. Immediately, more than half of the Stuttgart farmers were plunged into poverty. I understand why they stopped the subsidies, but to do so overnight destroyed the last remnants of a stable economy in Rheinland. I curse the fools in New Berlin.

* Aside from basic supplies, we bring Side Arms and Engine Components here. The LWB are only too happy to purchase those goods. Whatever we don't sell continues on to Ronneburg.
* This system has a strong police presence compared to others, but the lanes here are also carrying many juicy Commodities. The traffic to and from the Republican supply depot here is a tempting target for us.
* Daumann, Kruger, Republican, the government -- it's all just the rich exploiting the poor. I hate our government and our corporations too much to ever try and help this accursed place. Men are crushed to nothing by the system, that's why I became a Red Hessian. I'd be damned if I wasted my life living under another man's boot.
* I've been all over Rheinland and the Border Worlds. I've killed Bretonians, Police, and Military. I began my career fighting the Corsairs in Omega 5. After that meat grinder, I became numb to it all.
* My brother is a Rheinland Federal Police pilot; he operates out of the station Ulm, north of the *Westnebel*. I do not fly in that space -- we may be on opposite sides of the law, but I do not wish to see any harm come to him.
* The Nurnberg was making a gun run from here to Omega-11 when it was attacked by a Federal Police patrol while crossing the open area in the center of the system. The ship was pursued into the Westnebel, where it lost contact. Because it never arrived in Freital, the police must have destroyed it.