Ask Hollastin Holdout

[Voren Dhur]

Hollastin was not the sort of place you went to willingly these days.

Sure, it had been once - but that was before the virus took hold.

Poverty had always been ever-present on the planet, but these days it wasn't something you walked past and ignored.

Instead, it clung to the world like a sickness.

Voren had arrived earlier that day, a transporter dropping him off. He came with his cam-droid, an airspeeder, and four armed probe droids. 'Operations' had said that would be enough to keep him safe - after all, AMS victims couldn't jump above a certain height, could they?

"No expense spared." he laughed, climbed onto the skiff and lit a stim (something of a habit these days).

Checking his comm, he waited to see if his contact would arrive sooner rather than later. While waiting, he buzzed the cam-bot up into the sky and took some establishing shots of the area around the landing pod. It had been secured by an electric 'wall', giant pylons and well-armed corporate security troopers keeping pads safe.

Business was returning to the world - long before the planetary government got the basics in order.

The flow of credits chumped the need for living standards.

Perhaps things had started to return to normal after all?

 

[The Storyteller]

Three YD-series security droids appeared at the landing platform and despite completely disregarding the corporate security troopers they were waved through without a second of inspection. Behind them a woman in black followed. Her beauty was hard to ignore or deny, for she did not just have smooth skin and delicate features, but she had this mysterious air that made it seem like she was something you just had to desire.

"Welcome to Hollastin," she smiled as her soft melodic voice reached Voren's ears and the three security droids took their positions. One walked around Voren to stand behind him at an appropriate distance while the other two took position at their flanks. "I am Siren," her eyes suddenly doe-like for a second before she slight lowered her head as she looked the renowned journalist over just once. "You must be Voren Dhur," she motioned for him to take her side as she turned towards the stairs. They had a lot of ground to cover today and they wouldn't get there standing at the landing pad all day.

"Don't fear them," she didn't specify who she meant with them. Could be the AMS victims that could still be seen roaming Hollastin at times, or the troopers of a corporation intent on stripping Hollastin bare that benefitted from the mass deaths and land availability after the AMS, or perhaps she even referred to her own security detail. The YD-series Security droids had something ancient about them. As if they'd seen more battles than organics cared to count and if Voren tried to inspect one closer it would follow him with its photoreceptors as if it possessed sentience itself. "You'll be safe with me," the Siren smiled. Her voice was melodic, calming, soothing and something resembling the tone of a lover you've been missing or a mother telling you bedtime stories in a time when you knew no fear or worry.

@Nor'baal

 

[Voren Dhur]

Great. A weirdo. Voren thought to himself.

Galaxy was full of them, but they always seemed to gravitate toward him.

He shook his head ”Sure.” Voren replied, not entirely sold on the ‘safety’ this individual and her friends would provide.

Regardless - choice was a luxury he did not have, so he went with her.

”So, fill me in then. Corporate schills a-plenty around here? How long?” he asked, sniffing out a story in the Corporate misuse of the afflicted planet already.

His cam-bot buzzed around overhead, reeling in some good footage of landing zone, and some wider shots of the corporate logos emblazoned on the sides of the various coming and going vessels.

”Any local engagement?” he asked, interested to see if this was an off-worlder only corporate working.

 

[The Storyteller]

For some reason Voren seemed unaffected by the Siren's beauty or melodic way of expressing herself. Was he deaf to a Siren's song? Maybe he didn't consider himself to be at sea, or perhaps he simply swung the other way. "Corporations like Systech and MorataCorp are trying to help us with the virus," she answered the correspondent, "but then the likes of Tenloss and others swooped in," she referred to Tenloss Interstellar which was the front used by the 'late' Shane Covax in his Blackwell-supported attempt to usurp and rule over the Crymorah Syndicate and its worlds. "Progress grinded to a stop from all the Blackwell droids trying to takeover-" it hadn't, really, but Shane Covax and his Tenloss Interstellar had tried to make the Mothkari Crime Family bend the knee the same way he had tried to do it with the Zaa Fenn Crime Family.

They reached a convertible speeder bus that looked to be brand-new and showed something of a contrast to the rest of the capital city. The Siren motioned for Voren to get on and take a seat. The tour would soon begin in proper. "but local companies, like Zeno Corporation-" which coincidentally was brand owned and operated by the Mothkari Crime Family, Zeno Droid Technologies was after all the brainchild of one of the family's ringleaders, "-managed to give the medical corps a solid ground and it's been improving lately."

She followed him into the speeder while the droids remained on the platform and then the speeder began to move, slowly at first and then faster as if it was supposed to adhere to a strict timetable that the piloting droid had programmed into it. They had a few sights to visit for the camera droids to take in. First they'd be passing the areas of the city that were still waiting to be cleaned up and rebuild, showing the damage the virus outbreak had wreaked upon the world, then the hospital where MorataCorp and Systech logo's could be seen on supply crates and shuttles. What Voren would notice was that -as it is a world where organics were decimated by a virus- a lot of droids or all makes and models seemed to be doing most of the work.

At one point they passed a streetside cantina and clientel seemed to be mostly droids enjoying a tube of greasing oil.

@Nor'baal

 

[Voren Dhur]

It seemed as if the planet was littered with droids.

As the virus had taken hold and decimated the population, many organics seemed to have fled the system, leaving those who remained no choice but to replace their organic neighbours with automatons.

Such a move has allowed the Mothkari to expand their influence.

The Mothkari, and the MegaCorps.

"Margins must be massive." Voren thought out loud. He decided to go with it and frame the statement as a question.

" No organics must make a profound impact in the profit margins of the corps; hammering out the need to pay people drives them sky-high, no?" he asked "How do you manage the flow of droid labour? Manufacturing sites here or offworld?" he added.