California Minor

DIAMETER: 3,101 km.

MASS: 2.77 x 10e24 kg.

TERRAIN: Ice

TEMPERATURE: -110°C to -12°C

ESCAPE VELOCITY: 6.7 km/sec

A small icy planet with an unusually active volcanic system. Previously considered unsuitable for conventional terraforming, Planetform Inc. has designed a new process to channel the planet’s enormous subterranean stores of geothermal energy. Despite harsh conditions, the potential for jobs has attracted coarse, manual laborers to its few hospitable areas.

## Bribes & Missions Offered

* Synth Foods, Inc.
* Universal Shipping
* Ageira Technologies
* Bounty Hunters Guild
* Border World Exports
* Gateway Shipping
* Planetform, Inc.
* Liberty Police, Inc.
* ALG Waste Disposal

## Commodities

* Alien Organisms
* Food Rations
* Construction Machinery
* Pharmaceuticals
* Terraforming Gases
* Light Arms

* Water
* H-Fuel

## Rumors

* Fastest way to some quick bounties? Head straight for the Trade Lane to the Magellan Gate, around the middle of the Tahoe Cloud. You'll get some strikes pretty fast in that area.
* This is a good location to launch into the Tahoe Cloud. You don't have to go far to find trouble in there. It's also a straight shot across the system to the Whitney Field, if that don't offer enough action for you.
* I made it all the way to the Texas Jump Hole in the Whitney Field yesterday. I didn't hang around for long. Didn't even a take a shot at the Rogues in the area. I'll go back next time with a posse.
* The air's a little thin here still. I like to sleep in my ship at night. It's warmer and there's more air. Those Planetform people are kind of uptight sometimes. Guess that's how all Bretonians are.
* Heaviest action in the system is by the Cortez Hole in the Tahoe Cloud. You better come in with your guns blazing if you want a chance of going home that night. Been trying to talk a few of my buddies into doing it, but they all keep backing out.

* The Oxygen is mostly used for the terraforming machines, which run around the clock. Their purpose is twofold: to increase Oxygen content in the air around the base, and to introduce various atmosphere forming gases like carbon dioxide and nitrogen into the atmosphere. We still have at least fifty years before this operation is completed.
* We bring in our Terraforming Gases from Birmingham in the Manchester system. At least there aren't any of those dreadful Gaians in this corner of space.
* Some time ago Planetform discovered that the Alien Organisms found in the Edge Nebula systems had very high reproductive rates, and could exist in quite hostile conditions. One of their primary functions is to dissolve the carbonate rocks found in abundance here, releasing elemental oxygen and carbon dioxide in the process.
* Most of our Water is hauled in from Freeport 4 in the Magellan system. The thin snow layer that covers this planet is actually quite recent, a product of our Phase I cloud-seeding efforts. California Minor is still too cold and arid for sustainable agriculture.
* Planetform, Inc. has operations in two Bretonia systems in addition to this one: Edinburgh and Tau-31. The Edinburgh project has been plagued from conception by terrorist activity in the area. Our headquarters is in the New London system at Canterbury.
* Liberty has been quite accommodating to our needs. We certainly haven't had to contend with anything like the Gaians. They are more pragmatic here. The primary use of this planet following the completion of our project will be synthetic Food production, now that Los Angeles is becoming too dry.
* The use of Alien Organisms dramatically accelerate the terraforming process. Original estimates for California Minor were in the 400-year range. We now think we will be able to complete it in 840 AS, less than a quarter of the original estimate.
* Our hope is that some even more robust and prolific Alien Organisms can be discovered in the mysterious clouds of the Edge Nebula. It's as if they were tailor-made for the process of making planets habitable.

* I hate this place -- cold, it's always windy, really thin air. I get headaches all the time. We're supposed to make Planetform happy by being here. What did I do to get this transfer? Must have pissed someone off back in Los Angeles.
* This is as far off the Trade Lanes as we get in Liberty. They'll build one to the planet once Planetform is finished. Then Synth Foods will shift Food production here.

* Just made the monthly Silver run from Newark. Always gives me the nerves. Everybody out there is your enemy when you start hauling high-value stuff. Guess they use it for their cloud-seeding operations.
* We bring in the Alien Organisms from Newark that Planetform uses to jumpstart the process. The Sirius Commerce Act prohibits any import of Alien Organisms onto planets with indigenous life forms like Manhattan, but sterile planets like this one don't apply.