Planet Honshu

DIAMETER: 15,201 km.

MASS: 6.12 x 10e24 kg.

TERRAIN: Archipelago

TEMPERATURE: -52°C to 40°C

ESCAPE VELOCITY: 12.02 km/sec

The first Kusari colony established after the settlement of New Tokyo, Honshu is mostly covered in water, with few sizable land masses. The first settlers struggled for several centuries before a catastrophic decline in ocean harvesting forced most of the inhabitants to turn their attentions to the nearby Crow Nebula and its bountiful gas resources. Over time the former Honshu settlers moved entirely into space and formed the Gas Mining Guild (GMG), all but abandoning their ancestral home. Honshu lay fallow until Kishiro selected the planet in 510 AS as the location for its main Optronics manufacturing facility.

## Bribes & Missions Offered

* Border World Exports
* Kishiro Technologies
* Orbital Spa and Cruise
* Samura Industries
* Synth Foods, Inc.
* Gas Miners Guild
* Republican Shipping
* Bounty Hunters Guild
* ALG Waste Disposal
* Farmers Alliance
* Hogosha

## Commodities

* Gold
* Cobalt
* Hydrocarbons
* Niobium
* Luxury Food
* Basic Alloy
* High-Temperature Alloy
* Superconductors
* Optical Chips
* Polymers
* Luxury Consumer Goods
* Cardamine
* Light Arms

* Water
* Food Rations
* H-Fuel
* Construction Machinery
* Pharmaceuticals
* Optronics
* Consumer Goods
* Engine Components

## Rumors

* We have received orders from New Tokyo to take no prisoners among the Blood Dragons. Who else will fill our prison convoys bound for Shikou? Anyone can be rehabilitated through years of hard work in the Fuchu prison mines.
* I drew the Chuyu Cloud patrol this week. That means one thing -- Outcasts. They attack at will within the cloud, and there is little we can do to stop them. Last week an Orbital Spa shuttle was attacked and destroyed for no apparent reason. There were no survivors. That's bad for the tourist business.
* The Hogosha run their Artifacts across Honshu to Tokyo from Sigma-19. We have begged them to tell us the location of their Jump Hole so that we can stop the Outcast scourge, but they will not cooperate.
* Honshu is a cold and windy place. Fishermen once sailed its seas in search of the redfin. Most hybrid fish species that our ancestors carried with them on the sleeper ship never really took hold in the new environments of Kusari. The redfin was an exception, until they fished it to extinction.
* The Blood Dragons carry on their private war with Samura on the Trade Lane from Honshu to Yukawa. Samura is always issuing some distress call. They think we are their private security service. They forget that we must also guard Kishiro and the foreign shippers.
* I've never been to the *Hawaii* in Sigma-19. A policeman's salary in Kusari is far too humble to afford that. I hear that they allow criminals like the Corsairs to land on their ship. Incredible! That would never be allowed in Kusari space.
* We do not need the Bounty Hunter Gaijin to do our difficult jobs for us in Kusari. The State Police has patrolled the fields and clouds of the Crow Nebula as long as anyone can remember. Our culture does not produce common criminals like the Liberty Rogues. Kusari internal problems are more political in nature.

* The Outcasts and Corsairs have entered Honshu space in recent years. This is a very troublesome development for the GMG, as the Trade Lanes through the clouds are our main arteries of commerce. The Guild is considering upgrading our shield technology to match that of the foreign invaders.
* Honshu is our ancient homeland. I try to visit my ancestral village every chance I get. We try to maintain strong ties with our past on Honshu. After all, this is the only habitable planet that most of us have ever known.

* I'm just stopping by to visit some friends before heading on to Ogashawa in the Sigma-19 system. It's a joint–venture, gas loading facility with the GMG that I'm helping redesign to handle more ships. Kishiro and the GMG will be an unstoppable force once it's complete.
* Honshu produces all of the Construction Machinery for Kusari -- another market that Samura used to dominate but lost because of its slow pace of innovation. Now it must buy our machinery to construct ships in Yokohama.
* The police is not doing enough to control the Outcast attacks in the Chuyu Cloud. Many of us feel that Samura is applying pressure to force Tokyo Command to reduce patrols in our sector of the system, in order to gain competitive advantage with their Gas from Osaka.
* We must bring in many supplies to support our factories here. High Temperature Alloys, Cobalt, and Basic Alloys come from Mainz.
* We at Kishiro feel a special kinship with the GMG; we share many of the same ancestors. Most of the Kishiro workers in the Optronics and Engine plants know of some distant relative that joined the Guild many years ago.

* Samura still makes the daily Food run from Kyushu, but we may need to reduce it soon to bi-weekly. People are no longer eating Kyushu Rice like they did. Those Synth Food invaders have been granted landing rights on Honshu at the insistence of Kishiro.
* We are delivering a load of Junyo produced Luxury Foods. Sometimes we ship Luxury Goods or Side Arms from Tokyo. It just depends on the local demand.
* You must understand that Kusari palates are more sensitive to delicate Foods than foreigners. We can detect a great difference in quality between Kusari Food Pastes and Synth Food imports. That is why the Kusari people will pay so much more for Kyushu Food products.
* I'm taking a breather while my ship is repaired and refitted for the return journey to Kurile in the Sigma-17 system. We must brave Outcast and Corsair every trip. I've seen many of my friends' supply ships destroyed in front of my eyes. It is the fastest way to early retirement, though. Each roundtrip to Kurile counts as four years of normal service. I will be able to retire to Kyushu in three more trips, if I survive.
* Those cursed Blood Dragons harass us all the way across Honshu to the Tokyo Gate. They do not seem to bother Kishiro as much. That is suspicious in my opinion. Perhaps Kishiro is secretly supplying them with weapons and money.

* It looks like Samura alerted the Farmers Alliance to our presence here. They've started attacking our transports in recent weeks on the Trade Lanes to the Tokyo Gate. They just never give up. One day we'll have them cornered in Kyushu; I relish the thought.
* We have not been able to crack the Kusari Luxury Food market yet. Part of the problem is Kusari’s particular tastes, which lean heavily towards seafood. Stuttgart's geography and climate is still not optimal for that kind of farming.