Author: John Reiher

So you have a new colony world. It’s little over forty-sixty years old. Second or third generation. But you need more than a mule and an acre of land for modern or future colonists. You’ll need entertainment. You’re colony will have an Internet and folks will want something to look at when the robot is done plowing the north forty.

Initially, the colony will be totally dependent on entertainment brought to the colony by supply ships. And depending on various things, those ships might show up once every two to three years. Also, is the colony a “chartered” colony run by the home world, a corporate colony, or an independent?

The first two, there’s an entertainment budget and a committee dedicated to acquiring the latest vids, e-mags, and other forms of entertainment. And they cost money. Depending on the colony size, you’re either buying rebroadcast rights or buying individual copies for everyone in the colony. Neither is cheap, so only those shows that don’t have high ratings, or were popular 10 years ago are affordable. Books and games also have the same problem, though a “digital” library is viable and doesn’t have the problems movies and series have in terms of licensing.

And this happens because “Hollywood” or it’s equivalent, believes that piracy is not possible on the colonies. Like a lot of entertainment executives, they lack imagination.

The most common form of piracy is “intentional inattentiveness”. Independent cargo haulers can get a “theater” license to show the latest movies, and “demo” license to sell digitally signed copies of various series. What happens is that the ship uses a “entertainment” computer to run the projectors and sell legal copies of various shows. And then they purposely leave the computer unattended.

On that computer are “unsigned” copies of the stuff that they are selling. And they have unguarded data ports. One petabyte datastik and you too can have the complete, 5 season run of “My neighbor the Martian” for free. There is a “donation jar” app on the computer, and most folks donate. It’s cheaper than plunking down 250 credits to have the privilege of watching the antics of Bob the Martian.

So, you’ve set up a colony, got your crops in, wheat, potatoes, maize, and other veg, but… there’s something missing. Something that is land intensive, not very adaptable to hydroponics, and it’s something humans are wired to have. It’s good in your coffee, on your oatmeal, cookies, cakes, and, of course, candy.

It’s sugar.

It only grows in wet, temperate or tropical environments. It needs at least 63cm of rain, but it is one of the most efficient converters of sunlight into biomass. Plant once and harvest up to 10 times before replanting. But your average cane weighs about 1.36kg and only yields 0.12kg of sugar. Yes, there are the other products that can be used, but you need a lot of plants to satisfy the want for for sugar.

So, if you have the right environs for sugar, you grow sugar and ship it, either refined or in cane form to other worlds. If you just want sugar, it’s available. If you want all the products from refining sugarcane, you can get cane, just a lot more of it, as cane is 85% juice, of which only 11% is sugar.

Of course at higher tech levels they just synthesize it. But it’s a major import for those worlds that can’t grow it or make it.

Looking at the basics of UW, it would lend well to a Cowboy Bebop setting. Replace Jump Points with Hyperspace Gateways linking the planets, a more space opera feeling for tech, and I think you have the making for an interesting game. Would it need a couple of custom careers, or would the current set of careers and backgrounds work?

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