The Fallow Belt
The Fallow Belt is the Asteroid ring Lastcall Reach claim-jumpers are pillaging for the heavy-metal that started the rush.
Rules Reference
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Aesthetic | uncharted |
| Anchor System | LASTCALL-REACH |
| Fold Bleed | high |
| Population | ~600 in drifting prospector habs |
| Role | satellite |
| Zone | Beyond |
Notes
Controlling Faction: Independent
Dangers: Cold and radiation - suits fail, drills jam, rigs drift., Fold-static interference: ship compasses spin when claim-jumpers get within 400 kilometres of the belt's far arc., Rival claim-skippers - armed, outside any law, settling lode disputes at gun-point.
Hooks: Three prospector crews have gone silent in the same coordinates in the last thirty days., An unlicensed rogue psion is selling cheap fold-lifts out of a hollowed asteroid - nobody asks where they trained., Helios survey drones keep returning with their memory cores wiped clean.
Lore: The Fallow Belt is the asteroid ring Lastcall Reach claim-jumpers are pillaging for the heavy-metal that started the rush. Officially nobody owns it; in practice Helios Foundry has reserved the densest arc via an in-system beacon-post, but no Legion has come to enforce. Prospectors live in hollowed rocks and jury-rigged habs, drilling ore with second-hand rigs and selling to the only broker who will pay, Drift Logistics, who takes a forty-percent clip and pays in vouchers. Three crews in thirty days have stopped transmitting. Their last pings cluster in the same coordinates, on the belt's far arc. The hollowed rock called Stargazer's Maw hosts an unlicensed fold-jumper; he does not name himself, charges half what Drift does, and accepts any cargo. He has been there, locals say, longer than the rush. The Helios drones that have returned from the far arc come back with their memory cores wiped, the data slot intact but the slot blank - as if something had read them without wanting to be read in return.
Notable: Stargazer's Maw, a hollowed asteroid serving as an unlicensed fold-jump broker's den., Survey-drone graveyard: twenty-three Helios drones, all with blank memory cores., The Three Missing: crews whose last signal was 'we hit something that was not ore'.