Planet Manhattan

DIAMETER: 12,753 km.

MASS: 5.98 x 10e24 kg.

TERRAIN: Terrestrial

TEMPERATURE: -46°C to 43°C

ESCAPE VELOCITY: 11.27 km/sec

Founded in the year 1 AS, Manhattan was the first human colony established in the Sirius Sector. Over the last eight centuries it has grown into a teeming world of 220 million people who live and work in a single city that covers the vast majority of the planet. Nearly the entire population is dedicated to the manifest destiny of the Liberty free market, and today Manhattan is the hub of a vast commercial network that stretches into almost every corner of Sirius. While "going to Manhattan" has become a commonly accepted phrase for leaving home to seek your fortune, the cost of living on Manhattan itself is extravagantly high. If a trend is new and exciting -- and expensive -- then it almost certainly originated here.

## Bribes & Missions Offered

* Cryer Pharmaceuticals
* Deep Space Engineering
* Universal Shipping
* Ageira Technologies
* Border World Exports
* Orbital Spa and Cruise
* Junkers
* Gateway Shipping
* Synth Foods, Inc.
* Kishiro Technologies
* Bounty Hunters Guild
* Liberty Rogues
* Outcasts
* Samura Industries
* ALG Waste Disposal
* Republican Shipping

## Commodities

* Silver
* Niobium
* Diamonds
* Artifacts
* Luxury Food
* Construction Machinery
* Cardamine
* Light Arms

* Oxygen
* Water
* Food Rations
* H-Fuel
* Pharmaceuticals
* Consumer Goods
* Luxury Consumer Goods

## Rumors

* We ship Side Arms here to Manhattan from Detroit, our munitions plant that serves all of Liberty and much of Kusari and Bretonia. We don't usually ship Detroit weaponry to Rheinland because they produce their own, but it doesn't compare with Detroit Deathware.
* Our Detroit munitions plant gets its Water and Oxygen from Manhattan. I will make the run myself sometimes. It's well protected, which makes the trip an easy one.

* Bowex ships Luxury Consumer Goods from here in Manhattan to New London. I was hired by Bowex to pilot their freighters, but I've been thinking about going into a new line of work. I was almost killed a few days ago when Lane Hackers attacked my ship in the Independent Worlds.
* Bowex deals in Luxury Goods. Only the finest products are shipped by Border World Exports. Unfortunately, these are the very items coveted by the villainous Lane Hackers. They attack our shipments in the Independent Worlds of Cortez and Magellan between here and New London.

* Cryer Pharmaceuticals arrive in Manhattan from our primary production facility in Denver. From here they are shipped into California towards Los Angeles. Most of the time we don't encounter too much difficulty. We fight off the Rogues occasionally, but that just comes with shipping in Liberty.
* With all that Cryer does to make the people of Sirius healthy and safe it still appalls me to see those poor Cardamine junkies dying in plain view. One day soon Cryer will make a synthetic Cardamine that isn’t addictive or harmful. Cryer is dedicated to a healthy and fun lifestyle that doesn’t reduce worker productivity.

* Here in Manhattan DSE purchase the supplies necessary to run our New York bases. We ship Water and Food to Pittsburgh, and Oxygen to Baltimore. Men die every week protecting shipments of basic supplies. I know the criminals need them too, I just can't get used to the idea of dying over a shipment of Water.
* DSE is an important part of the machinery of Liberty power in Sirius, so you will see that we have adequate protection within her space. Unfortunately, many of our Trade Lane and Jump Gate construction projects are found far outside the safety of Liberty, where our affairs can often fall victim to pirates and vandals.

* One of the Rogues we arrested just spilled his guts. This guy and two of his wingmen had traveled from the Badlands all the way around Liberty space following the debris fields till he reached Baltimore Shipyards. They flew right by one of our patrols and got tagged on their final approach to Baltimore.
* Xenos are hitting the Trade Lanes surrounding Manhattan. They are moving in from the Jersey Debris Fields; there must be a Jump Hole somewhere within the Jersey. At least they don’t really attack Liberty shipping, just Kusari and Rheinland.
* Xenos in the Jersey are in a turf war with the Junkers right now. I say let the scum kill each other off. It’s not like we need Junkers loitering about anyway.
* LPI’s biggest problem is the Liberty Rogues. Lucky for us they are completely disorganized and usually not great pilots either. The problem is there are so many of them. They are all over the place -- kill one and two more pop up.
* The Junkers are criminal dirtbags, but they are smart about it, unlike the Rogues. They have a legitimate cover as scrap collectors, but we know they are as crooked as any other criminal. And they will never give up one of their own. You squeeze a Junker to make him talk about other criminals.
* The Xenos don’t usually mess with Liberty shipping, but that all changes when it comes to Side Arms. The Xenos love stealing guns, they’ve been concentrating attacks on the Detroit Munitions Plant for some time now. Ageira is guarding the plant better, so now they're focusing on the Trade Lane between here and Detroit.
* LPI is almost like two companies: you got the LPI who police Liberty space and run the Sugarland and Huntsville prison ships, and then you have LPI the consumer goods manufacturer making all kinds of products with the captured criminals as their labor force.
* LPI is a privatized police force. I am an employee of Liberty Police, Inc. We are actually just executing company policy when we patrol Liberty space looking for criminals. LPI is sanctioned by the Liberty government so we have legal jurisdiction, but the bottom line is about money.

* People like dealing with Junkers, because we always offer a square deal. That’s why we transport so many goods from Rochester, our base in this system. We bring in Gold, Diamonds, Niobium, and Luxury Foods. We don't ask many questions on where they come from; that's none of our business.
* If you don’t mind working around the law, you can always ship Cardamine or Artifacts from Rochester in the Jersey Debris Fields here into Manhattan. If you ever wondered where Manhattan gets all her illegal goodies, it’s from us.

* We purchase Luxury Goods here to be delivered to New Tokyo and Honshu. There is a large market for excellent products in Kusari. Beauty and opulence are the benefits of being rich.
* The Niobium that we get from the IMG in Freeport 6 is brought here to sell. It is a long and dangerous run. We constantly get attacked by the Hogosha in Kusari and then have to deal with the Xenos in Liberty.

* Liberty Police, Inc., or LPI, doesn’t have the will or the guts it would take to eradicate criminal activity here in New York. It’s the Navy that patrols the Trade Lanes along the southern edge of New York; the police won’t even go south of Detroit. Let’s face it: If crime ended so would LPI, and they don’t want that to happen.
* The Navy doesn’t have the authority to enter another colony’s space without the permission of the government. That’s why sometimes if you want to catch somebody you have to hire a Bounty Hunter to do it, as unsavory as that is. Usually Bounty Hunters are just as bad as the scum you hire them to capture.
* The Outcasts we have encountered in Liberty have been on the east side of the Badlands. We work in conjunction with Bounty Hunters to try and halt the Cardamine flowing into New York. Unfortunately, most infiltrators we’ve dropped into the Badlands have never returned.
* The Liberty Navy is the most sophisticated and well trained of all the navies in Sirius. Liberty’s annual expenditures in the budget for naval and military spending are based upon cost estimates for a scenario in which Liberty would be fighting against two other Houses simultaneously.
* Zone-21 is restricted to authorized personnel only. I wouldn’t fly my ship too close to that part of space. You might not mean any harm, but the Navy’s not going to wait to see. They are just going to kill you.
* The battleship *Missouri* runs a patrol along the Trade Lanes between Zone-21 and the Badlands. That’s as dangerous as you are going to get here in New York -- unless you actually fly into the Badlands; then you are just asking to get aced.
* The Navy sends patrols into the Badlands, where the criminals are smuggling in a large portion of the contraband that enters the system. We have yet to find the Jump Hole they are using, but when we do the citizens of this system will be a lot safer than they are now.

* The LSF is keenly interested in any Artifacts that private citizens have purchased, even for private use. They are illegal, and will be confiscated if discovered in your possession.
* The LSF has been commissioned with confiscating all Alien Artifacts in Sirius. Not all the other Houses are as cooperative as they should be, so sometimes we are forced to take unilateral action. Kusari officials have been particularly lax in their enforcement of the ban.
* Sometimes the LSF will employ freelancers that pass our strict security clearance checks. If you are ever lucky enough to serve Liberty in such a way, whatever you do for us will have to remain a secret for the rest of your life.
* Right now Artifact interdiction is the LSF’s priority; this comes from the top. Anyone in Liberty caught smuggling Artifacts is going to spend some time in an interrogation chamber, and then a long time on the Sugarland making toys.
* Cardamine has become a real problem for the people of Liberty, but so far our attempts to get an operative within the Outcast organization have proved impossible. Somehow they have a way to tell whether or not you are an Outcast.
* An entire LSF Dark Ops Shadow Team was found in a container on the edge of the Badlands. They had been sent in to interdict an Outcast shipment and capture one if possible. They were all dead and had bags of Cardamine stuffed into their mouths.
* The LSF advises the Navy in various locations throughout Liberty, particularly in those areas known for their Artifact smuggling routes. We also have agents periodically raid the wealthy Liberty elites' private residences in search of Artifact collections.
* The Lane Hackers have stolen advanced Ageira technology, which has given them the ability to predict and intercept cargo shipments throughout the Trade Lane network. They are a very smart criminal organization, but sooner or later they will make a mistake.

* We offer the finest in luxury vacations and stellar tourism. Our spas and resorts are the finest in the galaxy. If there is a beautiful spot in Sirius you’re dying to take the family to, or if you’re dying to get away from the family, Orbital Spa and Cruise has what you’re looking for.
* We ship Luxury Goods from here in Manhattan to Curacao in the Cortez system. We strive to provide our guests with the absolute best of all things, so when they think luxury, they think Orbital. It's quite a commitment since these shipments are often attacked by Rogues and Lane Hackers.
* All our cruise ships require constant resupply of Luxury Goods for our clientele. I ship Luxury Goods from here in Manhattan to the Shetland in the Edinburgh system. It isn't a joy ride, since there are all kinds of fun exciting ways to get blown to bits on the trip.
* A lot of the Luxury Goods produced here in Manhattan are headed to the luxury liner Hawaii in the Sigma-19 system. I just got assigned the route a few months ago. So far I've had nine escorts come and go courtesy of the Outcasts.
* Ever hear of the LWB? They are some kind of militant Rheinland farmers who have turned to piracy. The Luxury Goods we ship from here in Manhattan to our resort on planet Baden-Baden in the Stuttgart system have been falling under their attacks.

* We ship the finest in Silver from New Berlin and Hamburg into Manhattan. We also ship Diamonds into Liberty from New Berlin. Both Commodities are used in the manufacture of Luxury Goods, a Manhattan specialty.
* Republican Shipping sends the Luxury Consumer Goods produced here to New Berlin. Sometimes it gets to me that I'm putting my life on the line to haul some rich executive a Diamond tie pin or real leather shoes.

* We supply Manhattan's luxury market with its Niobium from our dealers in Freeport 6. I used to pilot the flight myself a while back, but I lost my nerve; I just can't do it anymore. I'm not going to get killed for a paycheck. Luckily, I knew a higher-up and got transferred to a desk.
* Samura gets the best for the people of Kusari. We do not manufacture Luxury Goods ourselves so we come here to get them. The finest Luxury Goods are bought here in Manhattan and shipped to our intermediaries in New Tokyo.

* Synth Foods offers tasty Pastes throughout all of Liberty and beyond. Our Paste containers are always filled and always on the go with your favorite Synth Foods flavors. Sure we lose daring pilots and gunners and engineers all the time, but when you have a job to do, it's just part of the work day.
* We produce Luxury Foods like lettuce and potatoes on Stuttgart and ship them here for the privileged few who can afford them. They are highly perishable, so we usually make the journey in one shot.

* We handle all manner of precious cargo bound for the outer colonies. We ship Luxury Goods to New London, New Tokyo, and New Berlin. It is extremely dangerous between New London and here, especially because of the Lane Hackers. They aren't the dangerous part, it's the Outcasts who they sell the shipping information to that you have to worry about.
* We bring all manner of Commodities into Manhattan: Gold from New London, Silver from Bonn, Niobium from New Tokyo, and Consumer Goods from Houston. Universal uses her best pilots to make these runs; the Commodities onboard are very valuable and their loss is sorely felt.
* Universal Shipping is the backbone of shipping within Liberty and New York. We supply all Liberty Navy and LPI bases with Food, Water, Oxygen, and H-Fuel. Usually the escorts we get are LPI or the navy to bring these goods in, so it is a pretty safe run. It took me a long time to get the seniority to pull these kinds of routes.
* We ship Manhattan's famous Luxury Goods to the booming planets of Los Angeles and Denver. A lot of the ultra rich go to California or Colorado to play or retire. They are newer systems that cater to the elite.
* Universal Shipping handles all Pharmaceutical shipments to naval bases within Liberty space. The Liberty government has complete confidence in Universal, or else they wouldn't provide us with such a crucial contract.