Ouray Base

The Xenos were originally comprised of heavy manufacturing and mining workers within Colorado and Texas. Quite a number of their ancestors also worked at the Ames Research Station, which was a good employer for generations. But Liberty increasingly made money from its information technology licensing and Trade Lane associated monopolies rather than hard, manufactured goods. Over time most of the blue-collar workers became unemployed and were pushed to the economic fringe of Liberty society, with this trend culminating in the collapse of almost all Colorado based mining industries in 600 A.S., precipitated in no small part by the failure of the terraforming projects in the California system, and the exhaustion of silver reserves in the Silverton field.

As the Liberty rich moved to Colorado to escape the paradise lost in California, the Xenos were displaced to a small base in the mined out Silverton asteroid field, located inside a hollowed out asteroid known as Ouray. The base took several years to make habitable, with the various construction projects finally completed in 628 A.S. Once settled in to their new home, the Xenos began launching sporadic raids focused against foreign shippers, in the hopes of driving them out of Liberty.

Whenever they were captured they were sent to Huntsville prison in Texas, where cross-fertilization with other inmates only helped to swell their ranks. Xenos also hate the foreigner Outcasts that feed the habits of Liberty's morally corrupt rich. For this reason, most of those declared NCR for drug crimes are placed aboard the Sugarland to keep the two groups separate.

Because of the Xeno preference for other Houses' ships, Universal Shipping has actually benefited from the attacks and has lobbied the government to take it easy on them. It is rumoured that some of their attacks on foreign shipping were not Xenos, but actually mercenaries hired by Universal to harass the competition. As a result, certain clandestine deals (that Universal strenuously deny) have been struck, and as such the Xenos have entered into an "agreement" with the Liberty corporation. The agreement was that the Xenos are to ignore Universal Shipping in return for supplies, information and political pressure on the Liberty government in their favour.

The Xenos are currently one of the poorest of all the criminal factions, so they have little resources to buy better ships and weapons. To gain a more stable income stream, they hope to evict the Junkers from Texas, and ultimately New York, and thus control a crucial market for black market goods, mostly artifacts, "cracked" software, and illegal gold and diamonds. The implications of the drop in cardamine sales are obvious.

The Xenos' love of side arms regularly brings them into conflict with Ageira, especially around the Detroit Munitions plant. They also regularly attack the Junkers in the Jersey Debris Field of northern New York, in the hopes of displacing the scrap merchants as the premier smuggling outfit within Liberty.

Missions Offered

 * Xenos: $12,500 to $20,000 range