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From Gulf of Fallen Stars
When the scream hit, the Lowell sector was somehow spared of most of the damage. The public government, cut off from guidance of the Mandate leadership and from the indispensable goods brought by intersector trade, turned to private enterprise to make ends meet and manufacturies of their pretech postscarcity society running. Over the years this social contract has managed to maintain a Peerless living standard for the citizens of the Lowell sector, just as long as nobody asks too many questions about how the corporations manage to maintain it. But despite the lack of questions, it is no secret that what drives the prosperity is the cold-hearted exploitation of every other sector of space that the Lowell plutocracy can sink their teeth into.
The Leviathan Company is one of these megacorporations. A few decades ago they managed to open the wormgate to the star cluster now named the Leviathan cluster, in the similarly now named Leviathan sector. With their control of the wormgate, they control the only access point through which goods and trade can pass back and forth between the Lowell Commonwealth and the Leviathan sector. Though Leviathan perform plenty of trade themselves, they prefer to make use of semi-independent entrepreneurs to pave the way. Flying Leviathan ships, armed with Leviathan weapons and often carrying Leviathan pretech goods, these entrepeneurs fly out to explore the sector, trade rare elements, establish trade routes and even on occasion colonize entirely new planets and systems. Most entrepreneurs trade in volumes too small for Leviathan to really care, though the Leviathan Corporation is happy to buy the exotic goods and much needed raw materials and send them back to Lowell. A few entrepreneurs managed to strike it big, creating sizable, permanent trade routes worthy of Leviathan's attention, at which point the corporation swoops in and offers to purchase the asset in exchange for ludicrous amounts of capital and access to better gear and services from the corporation.
Beginning entrepreneurs from the Lowell sector are only allowed to work with an implanted Soulstacks and backups every time they return to Gate Station. They also must take one of the Lowell backgrounds and their free skill must be a mostly useless or very niche hobby-based one (anime trivia, steam engine restoration, VR zero-g battleball).
Ships are rented out, but Leviathan is pretty chill when it comes to extending payment, in cases where the group has failed to find a profit. They are however relentless in hunting down locals that attempt to use the arrangement to get a free ship. Lowell entrepreneurs in that situation are also hunted relentlessly, but with the goal of getting them alive, so they can be sent back to Lowell in shame. Of course, since they have soulstacks "alive" might still involve blowing up their ship and killing their current shell.