Bridgetown

Diagram by Dan Stack, drawn with Campaign Cartographer 2

Bridgetown… Located over two hundred years away from the nearest Federation Outpost, Deep Space Nine. Though if you looked at a starchart, they might look like they were on top of each other. Which, in effect, they are, for Bridgetown and DS9 both share common XY coordinates, it’s just that Bridgetown is 200 light years higher on the Z axis, sitting “above” Bajor. A subspace highway, one of those valuable regions where subspace far less dense than it normally is, makes journeys between Bajor and Bridgetown quite fast, taking about two days for a ship at Warp 6, where it would normally take months. This puts it a quick trip away from major sites such as Cardassia Prime, Ferenginar, and the Badlands.

What is Bridgetown? At its most basic, it is a mining outpost in an otherwise dead solar system, built onto one side of an enormous asteroid. It takes its name from a bridge over a massive chasm on the asteroid, where much of the early mining took place.

No one knows who built Bridgetown, it is like an ancient city on Earth, built and rebuild upon, layer after layer. No one has mapped out every cavern of Bridgetown. It is powered by a mismash of generators made by species that no one has even heard of. Its life support network is chaotic, it has no central computer network but rather numerous competing networks. It has been abandoned, discovered, and abandoned again over the millennia.

The newest discoverer was the pirate Evets Gnol, who came across it 25 years ago. It was the perfect hideout from Cardassian and Federation authorities. Yet such a hideout does not stay secret for long and within years Bridgetown was teaming with pirates, mercenaries, and outlaws. They built something of a working anarchy and eventually attracted more legitimate citizens – traders, prospectors, salvagers, and scientists. But it is still a rough outpost, with no real government. For all intents and purposes Evets is the “leader” of Bridgetown, but only on the truly large issues – things which endanger Bridgetown itself. For the most part, one must fend for oneself on Bridgetown.

Now, Bridgetown serves as an informal trading outpost. It is located on the fringes of the Kellinan Reach, a vast expanse of unexplored territory. Rumor has it that on the other side of the reach, over 150 light years supposedly, lies the Kellinan Empire, though no known first contact has occurred. A few minor Cardassian and Federation colonies have been set up on worlds within a few light years of Bridgetown. Traders make some business supplying these colonies, but the true money is to be made in more adventurous activities – establishing trade relations with unknown civilizations, salvaging the ruins which seem to be all too frequent within the Reach.

In addition to Evets Gnol, there are a number of interesting groups and individuals on Bridgetown, among them:

Krist Mor, an important member of the feared Orion Syndicate. He is always accompanied by his bodyguards Arzix and Cahill. Many rivals would pay a huge amount of latinum for his death, but his bodyguards have sworn to avenge him.
K’hite, the bizarre scholar-mercenary, known to write epic poems about his fallen foes.
D’on, leader of a rival organized crime syndicate. Rumor has it he unfinished business with Azrix…
“Daimon” Incini, a new arrival, manager of Incini’s Bar. Incini claims to have connections everywhere and can get you anything… for a price. He is often accompanied by his former shipmates, the Nausicaan enforcer Throk and his former engineer, the Cardassian Krel Ardana.
Commander Jasmine Kharn, leader of a small contingent of Starfleet officers assigned to explore the reach. New arrivals, it is unknown how they will proceed, though Incini has smoothed things over for them. It is unknown what he gained in return.
Sublieutenant Ayrton. Though his low rank would normally cause him to be overlooked, Ayrton is a member of the feared Tal Shiar, the Romulan Intelligence Agency. Indeed, he is the official representative of the Romulan Star Empire and not to be trifled with. He often works with the Starfleet contingent.

As for Bridgetown itself, what is it like to live there? It is a vast network of competing ecosystems. There is plenty of space, meaning anyone can own a chunk of it. However, very few of the 20,000 beings calling Gateway home choose to actually own their own property, for that means being responsible for its upkeep – life support, power, computer access, etc. This has resulted in a small class of “landlords” who do maintain their own areas and rent out space to clients. Some specialize in one field, like residential apartments, others own tiny mishmashes. It is easy to tell where one zone ends and another begins – there is usually an airlock, to prevent one landlord mooching off another.

The most valuable location is within the bridge itself, which is owned and maintained by Evets and his staff of engineers and technicians. It is leased by various shopkeepers, bar owners, and the like, making the three levels within the massive arched bridge a sort of “main street”.

A series of large towers sit at the end of the bridge, owned by various interests – pirates gone legitimate, Ferengi traders, you name it. Most of them are also “protected” by the Orion Syndicate. These towers are popular places to live and many have been built in the past quarter century. To lure renters, many of these towers have beautiful observation galleries or gardens on the top floors.

Starfleet has purchased its own small tower for the personnel it has stationed here. Starfleet would have preferred to build its own tower, but resources are far to short to allow that. As a result, power and life support must be rented, just as in the rest of Bridgetown. The personnel stationed here are in the process of setting up emergency power and life support as insurance against such dependency. As Bridgetown tradition strongly “discourages” landing craft on this side of the chasm, forcing Starfleet to rent out a docking bay across the chasm for its runabouts.

Docking bays line the walls of the chasm opposite the towers. This is a convenient arrangement for merchants within the Bridge, as it forces travelers to cross the Bridge to get to the residential towers and Clifftown.

Clifftown, as the name suggests, is a series of locations carved within the walls of the chasm on the same side as the towers. Many of them have an impressive view of the chasm itself (though that is only if you find such things impressive to begin with…)

Finally, the last settled portions are the Burrows. This is a generic name for the many caves which can be found deeper within the surface of the asteroid. Most of the power generators and life support equipment can be found within the Burrows which is often sold to the landlords of the towers. Somewhere (the line always shifts) is the division between the Burrows and the Unexplored Caverns.

The Unexplored Caverns are rather dangerous to explore – life support is sporadic at best, dependent on centuries (or even millennia) old equipment still running, an unlikely event. These caverns are usually quite dull, but every so often something incredible is found and sometimes the discoverer lives to tell the tale… Other times an ancient trap or guardian is tripped. No one knows how deep these caverns go – K’hite claims that one could cross from one side of the asteroid to the other via the caverns.

Star Trek and all related terms are trademarks of Paramount Pictures. Bridgetown concept created by Last Unicorn Games in their Deep Space Nine Core Game Book and further developed by me.