Undercurrents 07.pdf

Undercurrents

…a guide to the ongoing colonization of Poseidon. Issue #7 • October 07

A View From Orbit

will so much as to a lack of time and energy – new jobs,

marriages, moves and game projects have all conspired

to keep us off-planet. We have been away for a long

time, but our hearts have remained on Poseidon. Though

at this point we cannot promise anything but good inten-

tions, we can at least share some of the potentialities.

Ten Years After

This summer’s annual Origins Gaming Convention in

Columbus, Ohio, marked the ten-year anniversary of the

release of the first edition of Blue Planet. The realization

that BP has been around for ten years snuck up on us

and came as a bit of a shock. It’s hard to believe the

game has been around so long. Though BP has gone the

inevitable way of all small, independent game lines, en-

tering a sort of inactive publishing limbo, no roleplaying

game ever really dies as long as folks continue to play it

– and there seems to be a lot of folks who are keeping

BP in play.

Digital Blue Planet – The next thing we want to do, and a

near certainty if Biohazard Headquarters can stay put for

more than two consecutive years, is to create PDFs of all

the published BP material for web-based distribution. The

final form these PDFs will take is yet to be determined,

but in a perfect world, all the source material will be re-

formatted into a continuous series of content-specific,

modular chapters. This reorganization would involve

minor edits, revisions and corrections, and extensive

cross-referencing, so it would create a sort of unified,

master version of the game. Of course, this project would

require a formidable effort, and so it is more likely that

when the PDFs happen, they will end up as simply re-

productions of the original books, in their current layouts.

Regardless of its final format, the digital version of BP will

likely be made available through an online vendor such

as DriveThruRPG or RPG.net.

One of the best things about BP is that the game has

always had a hardcore fan base that even now continues

to support the game, develop material and share it over

Commco…the Internet. It is actually due to the efforts of

this core community that UC #7 has finally come to-

gether. We had always hoped that UC would become a

community-driven publication, and so we are pleased to

offer a new issue, initiated and written (with only a little

fiddling on Biohazard’s part) entirely by BP’s devoted

players.

Blue Planet Redux – Though Fantasy Flight and Steve

Jackson Games have been the only companies to offi-

cially license BP to date, there have been a number of

other licensing possibilities in recent years. Most inter-

ested parties have wanted to do some sort third edition of

BP or incorporate the setting into another existing system

or space-opera universe. So far, either the parties that

inquired chose not to pursue a BP project or we declined

their requests for licenses. In just the past week in fact,

three different companies have made inquiries about

licensing BP, and we are seriously considering one,

which would revive the line using lightening press pub-

lishing to make production of new supplements economi-

cal.

With the uncertainty about exactly what the future holds

for Blue Planet, we thought we would put most everything

we have in the Undercurrents pipeline into this one mas-

sively-oversized issue, simply to make sure it got pub-

lished, and as a big thank you for your patience and sup-

port. Though we cannot promise this issue means any-

thing more for the future of the BP line than the value of

its own content, we hope you enjoy this return visit to the

water world. Thanks for coming…

Beneath Still Waters

Five years have passed since Ancient Echoes , the most

recent Blue Planet supplement, was published, and al-

most seven years have gone by since the last issue of

Undercurrents was released. For much of that time, BP

was under license to Fantasy Flight Games, while the

crew at Biohazard used the hiatus to work on other pro-

jects and to attend to their personal lives, which had

been much-neglected during the years spent colonizing

Poseidon.

Blue Planet on Screen – Several parties have expressed

interest in BP as an intellectual property from which to

develop visual media - comic books and even a feature

film in one case. There is an outside chance that the

setting may eventually be adapted into a television se-

ries, and the Biohazard staff has spent some time work-

ing with one interested party developing premise and

meta-plot ideas. If such a series ever became reality, it

would give BP a kind of life we never expected, and

would certainly drive a revitalization of the game line.

Though all rights to Blue Planet have since returned to

Biohazard, we have so far done nothing new with the

game line. This lack of productivity is not due to a lack of

On the Horizon

Colonial Contrib ution

Hole City

(Edited from John Snead’s original work for BP v1.0)

LHL&S INDUSTRIES

(Submitted by Tun Kai Poh)

Orbiting the wormhole on the Earth-system side, at a

distance of 500 km is the GEO base, WH-1. Constructed

in 2179, WH-1 is the most remote human settlement in

the Solar System. Hole City, as it is known by its inhabi-

tants, is really only a collection of 76 squat cylindrical

modules, connected to a central axis by two-hundred-

meter spokes. Hole City rotates at a rate sufficient to

produce one half Earth-normal gravity on the inner rim

surfaces, a viable compromise for the 1,100 spacer and

non-spacer inhabitants of the station. The inhabitants are

mostly scientists and their support personnel studying the

wormhole, but WH-1 also houses 91 members of the

GEO Transport Authority.

Location: Penang Island, Malaysia

Focus: Biotechnology, computers, light manufacturing,

consumer goods

Assets: 455 billion scrip

Colonial Holdings: None

As one of the largest "second-tier" Incorporates, LHL&S

Industries boasts a strong presence in Asia, although it is

often overshadowed by the Nippon Industrial State, and

has yet to establish holdings on Poseidon. The company

has traveled a long and unusual road from its 20th Cen-

tury roots. Originally a family-run grocery in Singapore,

Ling Ho Lai & Sons expanded into a major supermarket

chain during the Asian economic booms and moved into

agricultural biotechnology in the early 21st Century. Sub-

sequently changing its name to LHL&S Food Industries,

the corporation grew to include major holdings within

most of the emerging Asian powers of Indonesia and

Malaysia.

The GEO-TA administers transshipment of cargo and

maintains the message pod service between the two

solar systems. Because most cargo and transport ves-

sels can typically conserve fuel by making vector

changes only in their destination systems, it is uncom-

mon for them to decelerate prior to "shooting the hole,"

so most pass by WH-1 as little more than short-lived

radar blips. Accordingly, most of the actual work the TA

does with the shipping of physical cargo is administrative,

though they do provide emergency rescue and repair

services.

In 2038, LHL&S generously donated half a billion dollars

of hybrid crop seed to Asian countries in an effort to alle-

viate widespread food shortages, giving it a favorable

reputation in the region. Fifty-five years later, during the

Blight, similar acts of generosity proved futile, and many

of the corporation's branch operations were lost during

the widespread chaos. LHL&S would have collapsed

along with many other major Asian corporations, if it had

not been for a stroke of luck, combined with the initiative

and vision of one man.

The primary job of the GEO-TA is the maintenance of the

mostly automated Trans-Wormhole Communications

Ferry. The TA shuttles message recordings through the

wormhole from Hole City to the Serpentis outpost station,

and back again aboard unmanned pods. The pods are

sent each way at 12-hour intervals, carrying batches of

messages collected via tight beam at the TA's respective

in-system transfer offices. Once through the hole, the

pods’ digital cargoes are downloaded and retransmitted

to their final destinations.

In 2093, the citizens of Penang Island severed all land

links with mainland Malaysia and declared independence

from the crumbling government. LHL&S's brilliant but

eccentric chairman, Stanley Ling, in a decisive move,

negotiated with the newly independent city-state for the

transfer of all of the company's holdings to Penang.

Within six months, LHL&S was the sole corporate spon-

sor on Penang, providing the technology needed for the

island to survive the Blight, including genetically engi-

neered tapioca crops as an alternative food source im-

mune to the Fischer Virus. While the rest of the region

collapsed into anarchic Free Zones or GEO protector-

ates, Penang became one of the largest technological

enclaves in Southeast Asia.

While using the Comm Ferry is costly, with civilian rates

normally running at 550cs/minute, it does allow two-way

communication between Earth and Poseidon on a time

scale of 30 to 60 hours. Express messages can be trans-

ferred, from transmission to reception, in as little as six

hours, but such communications are prohibitively expen-

sive for all but the highest priority information.

Though the shear volume of new data means that the

Poseidon CommCore databases will always be out-of-

date compared to those on the Earth-side of the worm-

hole, it is also part of the TA's charge to transmit primary

database updates as frequently as resources allow.

Soon after Biogene successfully established a sovereign

state in 2094, LHL&S launched a copycat effort to do the

same, silently taking over the Penang government, while

absorbing the island's highly advanced computer and

light manufacturing industries. In 2095, Stanley Ling

managed to secure UN recognition of LHL&S Industries

as an Incorporate city-state.

Access Denied

When Josephine Ling took up her position as chairman

of LHL&S in 2190, she began a private project to uncover

Stanley Ling's long-lost research projects, in the interest

of historical curiosity. She has recently discovered a hid-

den data archive in the Ling family estate in Penang con-

taining stunning information about the dark legacy of

Stanley Ling's paranoia.

In the years that followed, Ling directed the Incorporate

to take a competitive rather than cooperative approach to

combating the Blight, diverting huge sums into many

secret and often redundant projects intended to give

LHL&S the lead in countering the Fischer Virus. Ling was

adamant in his refusal to share his company's research

with the GEO and other governments, let alone rival

companies.

In 2101, Stanley Ling secretly commissioned the con-

struction of a half dozen fully automated biodomes in

secluded locations around the world, in order to test

strains of the Fischer Virus in various controlled environ-

ments. The exact locations and natures of the biodomes

were kept secret through extortion, threat and assassina-

tion. Isolated from the rest of the world, managed entirely

by computers, these biodomes were only ever visited by

Ling himself. The secret domes might have produced

results that could have cured the Fischer Virus years

before Biogene did, if Ling had not erased all traces of

their existence shortly before his death in 2106.

His increasingly irrational obsession with secrecy dis-

rupted efforts to stop the Blight in Asia and wasted valu-

able company resources. Finally, in 2106, the Executive

Board of LHL&S ousted Ling, who died soon after in a

mysterious accident that claimed not only his life, but the

results of his anti-Blight research as well. With the mad

visionary died almost everything LHL&S had learned

about the Fischer virus, crippling the Incorporate's efforts

to cure the Blight. Many historians today believe that

LHL&S could have shared the glory of defeating the

Fischer Virus with Biogene, if not for Stanley Ling.

They still wait, dormant, their fusion reactors long dead,

in six well-isolated, geologically stable locations around

the world. Josephine Ling is currently organizing expedi-

tions to enter and explore these long-lost installations.

She has also obtained six tactical nuclear warheads from

her Chinese military contacts - just in case any of the

expeditions accidentally unleash a long-slumbering strain

of the Fischer Virus upon an unsuspecting planet.

LHL&S Industries emerged from the Blight Years as one

of the smallest of the Incorporate city-states, and lost

many battles against the NIS for control of the new Asian

markets. In 2168, the company finally broke into the

tightly held Chinese markets, due largely to the diplo-

matic efforts of LHL&S's Executive Board, fully half of

whom are ethnic Chinese, descended from company

founder Ling Ho Lai. LHL&S's genetically engineered

crops have become an essential element in rebuilding

agriculture in mainland China, and the company has

become the primary supplier of computer technology to

the Chinese government. Since then, the Incorporate's

unique and highly coveted trade status with China has

remained its single greatest asset.

The thing that most bothers Josephine Ling about her

ancestor's secrets is not what she has discovered to

date, but what she has not yet found. For Stanley Ling's

archives hint at even more secret projects that were un-

derway when he died, projects that have remained hid-

den for over ninety years...

Longshore

(Submission by Neil Smith)

Location and Local Terrain

Longshore is located at 2º 56' 37" S, 2º 24' 18" E, on the

northern shore of the island of Mandalay. The town is on

the seafront on the western shore of the Irrawaddy River

estuary. The town is named for the 4 km long sandy

beach that runs along the local coast. This gently shelv-

ing beach provided the original Native community with a

low-surf shoreline on which to easily beach their boats.

Behind the beach, the land rises gently for about two and

a half kilometers before rising steeply into the hills of

northern Mandalay. The shore is covered in lush tropical

rainforest.

The company was slow to respond to the re-opening of

Poseidon, and fell behind other bioengineering firms

when the Long John revolution swept the industry. It

wasn't until 2191 that current chairman Josephine Ling

made a deal with GenDiver to acquire a regular supply of

xenosilicate ore, in order to remain competitive in the

biotechnology field. Today, LHL&S is finally preparing to

establish a research lab on Poseidon, in the New Hawaii

chain. LHL&S currently maintains good relations with

GenDiver and Independent China, and stands with its

allies in opposing the authority of the GEO.

The Irrawaddy estuary is dominated by tidal mudflats that

form a rich feeding ground for wading avians and inter-

tidal creatures. Depending on the tide, the navigable

portion of river varies in width from 200 meters to 3.2

kilometers. The eastern shore of the estuary is rocky and

undeveloped, with no anchorage. The town's proximity to

the equator ensures that it is very rarely threatened by

large cyclonics, but smaller storms are not uncommon.

eastern end of the beach; a deep-water anchorage and

harbor is being built to the west. There are large aquacul-

ture fields in the nutrient-rich outflow of the Irrawaddy and

along the main beach.

The town is built along two streets that run parallel to the

shore. The Promenade runs right along the beach, with

native huts lining the seaward side of the road. The

beach also serves as an open-air workshop for boat-

wrights and netmakers. On the shoreward side of the

Promenade, native huts have been replaced by colonial

buildings – mostly shops catering to the prospectors, with

a few bars and restaurants offering pleasant sea views.

History

The region around what would become Longshore was

originally explored in 2091 (CY 04) by an expedition of

Athena colonists seeking to colonize New Hawaii. They

stopped off at numerous places en route from Haven and

founded Atlantis later that year. Following the eruption of

Mt Odysseus in 2124 (CY 33) and the subsequent de-

struction of Atlantis, 150 people decided to settle the

Longshore site. These people survived by fishing,

aquaculture, and farming, and their settlement also

served as a layover port for the occasional travelers mov-

ing between New Hawaii and the Haven Cluster.

Inland of the Promenade is Rangoon Street. The town

center is at the eastern end of this road along the river-

front, hosting many businesses and the main offices of

the various organizations operating in and out of Long-

shore. Most colonial residences are found on the western

half of Rongoon Street or north on the western bank of

the Irrawaddy, along a muddy track called Irrawaddy

Way.

After Recontact, the story of Longshore is typical of many

settlements across Poseidon. A GEO survey team visited

Longshore in 2166 (CY 70) and noted its potential for

development. Nine years later, a GEO science mission

set up in Longshore, to catalogue the ecologies of the

island of Mandalay and the surrounding area; it became

a HIST mission in 2188 (CY 89). This mission prompted

a small colonization effort, with the colonists mostly inte-

grating well with the Native community.

Demographics

Longshore is, in Poseidon terms, a fairly large town with

around 5200 residents, including 600 Natives and 25

cetaceans. It also serves as a center for another 2500

roving prospectors and other bush-dwellers inhabiting the

surrounding islands. There are a number of UK colonists

working in Longshore, ostensibly under the aegis of a

colony effort by the newly reestablished United Nations.

The discovery of Long John in 2187 (CY 89) changed

Poseidon, though it took a few years for the changes to

become apparent in Longshore. As news of the discovery

spread, the populations of many small colonies boomed,

and Longshore was no exception. In 2191 (CY 92), the

first small deposits were found in the Squall Alley region

and the floodgates opened. As the nearest colonial set-

tlement to the Squall Alley fields, Longshore became a

regional staging areas for the northern part of the Haven

Cluster.

Government

The town is formally administered by the GEO, though a

locally elected council handles the day-to-day manage-

ment. The natives generally shun the council, opting to

handle their own affairs – creating a sort of village-within-

a-town hybrid not uncommon where colonies are estab-

lished on native townsites. There are also offices for

Hanover Industries, Biogene, Lavender Organics, and

the UN.

Town law enforcement is handled by the administrative

headquarters for Sector 1, District 2 of the GEO Patrol

(Mandalay and southern New Hawaii) and Marshal Hec-

tor “The Vector” Stack is based there.

Two Incorporate states also set up large colonization

efforts nearby. The Hanover Industries incorporate state

founded Lebensraum in 2193 (CY 94) and the Nippon

Industrial State founded Simushir in 2195 (CY 95). Both

of these city-states are centers of massive development,

each with current populations of over 25,000. As their

development continues, it is sure to have an increasing

impact on Longshore and the region.

Economic Base

The town is supported, to a large extent, by the coin of

the itinerant Long John prospectors. Many colonists and

natives alike work at fishing and aquaculture to feed the

town and the prospectors. Most of the rest of the inhabi-

tants work in various cottage industries that provide serv-

ices to prospectors, such as vehicle maintenance, guid-

ing, entertainment, Long John brokerage and survey

equipment sales.

Physical Layout

Longshore is sited in a broad, shallow bay at the mouth

of the Irrawaddy River. It is built on the edge of the long,

sandy beach. There is a shallow-water anchorage at the

While there is a healthy economy of repair, maintenance,

and modification businesses, there is little actual heavy

manufacturing in Longshore. This sector is filled by facto-

ries in Lebensraum and, to a lesser extent, in Simushir.

These settlements have large-scale manufacturing

plants, and their output is easily shipped to Longshore.

Indeed, a Hanover emporium ship visits Longshore at

least every two weeks. In addition, shopping trips and

visits to Haven and Lebensraum are commonly made by

Longshore residents.

open wounds, and even infest healthy human skin. They

were surprised to find that their mostly bioplastic clothing,

tools, devices, buildings and vehicles could be digested

and broken down almost before their eyes. Even many of

these non-medical infestations have proven fatal, when

devices failed, buildings collapsed or vehicles crashed.

Today many cures have been offered, but this insidious

problem continues to claim the lives of many Poseidon-

ers and cause economic damage totaling millions every

year.

Infrastructure

Longshore’s power is provided by a fusion plant operated

by the GEO. The plant provides all the local electricity

needs, including power for desalination, the water treat-

ment works, and a large satellite communications hub.

The majority of roads are paved with coral sand biocrete

and most of the colonial buildings are built from bioplas-

tic. Transport within the town is generally on foot, though

there are numerous, small, battery powered scooters and

carts, and a few transport and delivery drones follow

dedicated lanes.

There are two general strategies in the fight against fast

fungus: disinfection and prevention. Whereas disinfection

relies on constant vigilance, prevention is based on trust

in the effectiveness of applied anti-fungus technology.

Prevention efforts started very early, with fungicides be-

ing mixed into the nutrient solutions of the different

bioplastic strains. After some setbacks several com-

pounds were identified that halted or at least slowed the

spread of fast fungus on bioplastics.

The efficiency of these measures was far from total, with

some strains developing a resistance against the new

chemicals at an astonishing rate. To address this prob-

lem, several companies have recently offered fungicide

coatings that can be applied to the surface of existing

bioplastic and, most importantly, wooden products.

There is a small landing field to the west of the town, and

work has started nearby on dredging out a deep-water

inshore anchorage and harbor. There is a daily flight to

Haven and flights twice each week to Second Try,

Cliffside, and other regional destinations.

In the likely event that some species will develop immu-

nity against the fungicides, more efficient compounds

should be developed. To this end we have taken a closer

look at the commercial products offered as fungicidal

coatings and have tested their efficiency against all

strains of fast fungus that have been cataloged in the

biological database at HIST.

At the eastern end of town near the river, there is a gov-

ernment complex containing the town hall and colonial

manager’s office, the GEO patrol’s district headquarters,

and a small hospital. The hospital deals with minor inju-

ries and illnesses and emergency care, but after being

stabilized, serious medical cases are airlifted to facilities

in Haven or Lebensraum. The hospital building is also

providing lab space to a HIST biological survey team

currently based in Longshore.

Our results were revealing: all tested products were vir-

tually identical in composition, differing only in the inac-

tive portions of the applied polymeric compounds. It is

therefore not surprising that they all showed the same

shortcomings. They displayed good fungicidal properties

against the vast majority of archived strains, but only

inhibited the growth of three strains, two of them native to

the Pacifica Archipelago.

Just north of the government center, a small GEO school

offers primary and secondary education to local children,

and a small home-stay program allows the children of

prospectors and outlying settlements to attend the school

as boarding students.

Fighting Fast Fungus - by Dr. Melissos Sameina, HIST

(Submitted by BP List Member Max)

The compounds were least effective against a particularly

virulent strain that was retrieved from within the Sierra

Nueva cluster. This species seemed to thrive on the fun-

gicides, demonstrating exponential growth and devouring

the treated samples within hours. It is not known if this

particular strain occurs outside of the region in which it

was found, but if it does it would prove devastating to

those who rely on the efficacy of antifungal products.

Virtually everyone who has spent more than a few weeks

on Poseidon has had at least one unpleasant encounter

with one of the more virulent strains of fast fungus. It is a

little known fact that this saprophyte has been responsi-

ble for more deaths on this planet than those attributed to

encounters with large predators. The first colonists were

unprepared when they discovered aggressive fast fungus

strains that could destroy food stores in only hours, infect

Another way to inhibit the spread of fast fungus is to seal

the surface with inorganic compounds that are indigesti-

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