Barbicans

Oldest gates in system are in Core. Same template for all

Barbicans are contained wormholes set just past the termination shock of a solar system. Keys are used to get through the gates, or they can be coded to recognize certain genetic patterns (The Imperial family as it was ~300 years BTtV is the last family that has overrides for ALL Barbs, excepting those of the extended Seps Coalition. Usually no more than four systems are linked to a single Barb. If in a high traffic system, multiple Barbs may be deployed. Traffic patterns set on entry, exit. Busy systems will have an entry and an exit Barb. Otherwise, it won't open if in use on the other side. Barbs set no closer than two days travel apart w/in a system to allow for shifting traffic and space around the exit point. (So you don't run over another ship about to come in. Space is big, but you still have to close distance to 0 to make it through the Barb)There are shields around Barbs to contain their energy. A ship is invisible to instruments and sight while behind that shield. Normal procedure says leave the shield and turn around before putting another key in a Barb. If you don't, you risk your ship being torn apart. if you unlock it again from inside the shield, the only way someone would know you were there is if they're unable to turn a key themselves. Fleet could force the gates to re-enable. Went after everyone who didn't physically dismantle their gate. Story-about someone on a world where key parts of the Barb were removed and hidden? Need to be able to leave, something wrong in system. Quest to find parts?

Evernote master:
Two original gates out from the First Colony. One to Fleet homeworld. One to Navlad main system. Outliers were first explores sent out, exiled, to find a different place to live. People who disagreed with keeping the bloodlines going and trying to make the sai talents supreme. The bigger the bank of Barbs set up into a system, the further out it is from the main sun. Over/under plane of elliptic usually. Have to factor in travel time to get in system when you go to high traffic system. Many used ship salesmen are also in information business. Strip the memory banks of logs and keys and sell that on black market as well. Have to be aware of that when you buy a ship. Erase it again when you get it so there’s no record of whatever it was before. Or try and get it out. Might have to bargain for keys in the sale. Your ship id gets added to end of the key in the log to show who used it. New ship, get a new tag so it doesn’t mix with old one. Banks of Barbs set up. Look close, but in reality are hours or days apart. Set schedule of entry and exit. Some set only incoming. Others are outgoing. Trying to squeeze in with someone else or racing them results in bad bad bad things. If you dial in to one that has an active key in the lock, you get a busy/wait signal. Don’t want to enter unless you know for sure it’s clear. If a blood sig opens the gate for whatever reason (King, General, etc, tags that person’s family name onto the end of it. Syrus has no blood family on mother’s side. All Savage. So the emperor’s line get stuck in there instead. After they get out of the system with the Fleet they run. Plenty of ways to bypass the safeties have been stolen and sold on the black market. Syrus used to travel with a stealth ID that could mimic freighters, transport, passenger, etc. When he was traveling with Kar, he took the one out of the vessel he used and traded it for one with a different military sig. The military can comb the files and see if it’s been used on a ship, but he got rid of the one associated with his unit. The other part of his team had to come back into the Empire from an Outlier system and since he’d taken their first ship and it’s masking tech, they had to rely on what the Outliers could cobble together and steal and buy. This time he bounced through three or four more gates, never leaving the shielded bubble around the Barb entrance. So they didn’t have much travel time, but the Armada out there didn’t know he’d come through. He knew the name/coords of a system with an active gray market and he muddied the trail as much as he could. Shut off the ship’s automatic hailing transponder so it wouldn’t reach out to any military in the are. After using the key he got from the base w/ Jossa, he uses the ship’s inboard gate protocols to get through the next few, to keep the all-access pass from showing in the logs. He doesn’t know that his blood sig will be attached, but he does know that a key like that will scream that something happened. Didn’t lock the gate behind him. If the Armada came through to get the Fleet, he doesn’t care. Once he gets to where he’s going, a populated system that’s got six or seven gates set for commerce, he looks for a junkyard the should have a second hand ship. He strips the masking tech from their ship, along with its shielding and keys. Bartering isn’t just for the ship itself, but for whatever’s left of the memory banks inside. In theory, the next ship’s been wiped of keys and tracking software. A new ship ID code will need to be registered. Syrus kills someone, takes their identity before he sells the ship? New maruste on his back. Wants to get his hands on another rolling ID mimicker, since he doesn’t have a Crack on hand to hide his ship from the logs. Not a “what are you going to do with your ship” sort of registration, but ‘what class of vessel is this’. He’s got something with a decent sized cargo bay, could be passenger or cargo. Has to balance how many people are going to be on it in relation to what kind of load on the life support he wants. Rooms for himself, J, D. Two more rooms? Storage or people. Puts a reefer in one of them? Freezers? Going to ships fresh foodstuffs, real spices, etc. Go from Ajiri planets to asteroids and city planets. Real food grown and raised in real dirt is expensive. Meat, cheese. Unhatched eggs. Most eggs in space are like Egg Beaters. Gets a permit for shipping (steals?) Plans to use shielding tech and hide, poach some game? Real permit, needs to prove that he knows how to handle produce? What one planet raises as a specialty might be really valuable in another system. Some planets hotter by default, so they have more tropical fruits/foods, etc. Others are colder, so they have things from more temperate climes. Trades between systems. Otherwise it’s hothouse grown or false environments or hydroponics pods. Risky on a city planet if the water supply is tainted. Asteroids too. Meat is special. Dairy and liquid eggs (eggs beaters in space!).*Want the permit for higher end, lightweight good. Heavy stuff needs a bigger ship, but things like cotton, leather, silk, fresh fruit and meat are lighter. No liquids. Also needs a faster vessel for spoilage worries. Reefer fridge makes sense. And he can hide one unit for the game he takes down/smuggles. Smaller ship easier to get in and out of port than giant cargo hauler. He can claim the girls are passengers too.*Dummy sats are small, shielded. Lock down sensors on other side of Barbican- give a false image to blind the people as to who is coming through-keep the gate from locking*The shields on the Barbs that keep them from warping the systems they’re set near also hide entry and exit of ships and vessels under a certain size. The Fleet sats can get through, but the big ships show up right away. (Always on at a certain level. Just a matter of keying in the code. Take more power to spin up and take the larger vessels as they come through, and up the shields to correspond. The logs are supposed to alert the Gatepost and let the guards/tarif clerks/customs know that someone has come through, but a good Crack or the right set of military IDs will override that. The race has been to keep those logs and the security around them upgraded enough that smugglers and fugitives can’t break and and alter them to either hide the fact that they’re coming through, or show a different Ship ID on the roster. Military has maps and charts of where the Barbicans lead. Syrus only gave keys to Q's branch of Fleet. Send out with Kizen's branch too. Q spends some time getting things lined out with Fleet and starts conquering again. Q hadn't been worrying about any sort of map/plan up till then because they were just following the gates. Now there's a way to split off again. One part of Fleet starts conquering various system in the Net one way, the other half goes the other. Syrus looks at his charts and goes for the opposite end of the globe. One crack in the globe, leads out to Separatists. Or the System that has the gate to them is inside the globe. But the Separatists are outside. Original people who set that up in Navlad wanted to be able to keep an eye on them and restrict access (rather, escape) Tariffs when come through Barb. Bribes/tolls. Some places have high taxes on goods going off or coming on planet. Other p;laces, gangs watch the ports and control trade others have to bribe your way past customs/guard base. And then when you land. Some, no leadership in place. Crossing ocean in little ship w/cargo planetside not so safe. Does that matter in space? Smaller ships also used because they can carry specialty goods that don't need as much space for things like art pieces or spices. Larger ships carry things like planters for crops (printed in space, stack, bring to surface. Don't till ground if can help it) Also care things like stone and lumbar up (Pricey, but more obvious) Large, bulk orders. Big companies not go out to Borderlands. Not really go out of Core at all. Use subcontractors. Independent carriers. Place that S finds for the girls to hide is on side planet. Self sufficient. Religions ignored and degraded by Navlad Empire. Safe, because they're the gateway to the free planets. One gate in, from one other planet. Not connected to any others but the separatists. Plan is to blow the gates if the Fleet shows up. Extra measures in place? Or just watching?