Blackheart's Upbringing

The year is 2885. The Syndicate has, for the last thirty years, been laying down countless mining colonies on whatever planets they can get their claws into in a cost-effective manner. The huge investment in laying down these colonies mean they've been drafting work crews from the near-earth worlds, and that's a lot of mouths to feed. Demand for grain and raw foodstuffs is at an all-time high.

Despite this, the farming worlds still suffer. Space travel has only just become cheap enough for your average person to travel, but established shipping firms still hold monopolistic control over logistics in the region. Though they're facing actual competition for what might be the first time in history, the simple fact remains that they can basically dictate what prices they buy exports at - and selling on the local market is essentially a waste on a farmworld, so producers have little choice in the matter.

Although space travel is cheap enough now, it wasn't when these worlds were first settled. Sending out a scouting ship just to survey new land is expensive enough - having a freighter bring over someone's entire family, all the construction equipment needed to set up a farmstead, and associated livestock, heavy machinery, and harvesting equipment? That's a massive undertaking, especially when done on the individual rather than institutional level. As such, those who first settled these worlds are under a heavy debt.

This is the context in which Benjamin Goodearth was born - though history and local legends would remember him almost exclusively as "Benjamin Blackheart". Growing up without a mother, his father always taught him that he was nonetheless fortunate; that it was the sacrifice of his parents, and his grandparents who settled this world that would give him freedom. Just twenty more years until they expected to pay off their colonization loan, and then true freedom and security would be theirs - something denied as a matter of course to all from the homeland.

Though schooling is provided by what passes for a local government, the majority of young Benjamin's life is occupied with tending the farm. Most tasks here are done using older, more reliable machinery; his grandparents hadn't opted for more expensive factory-style setups, instead trusting that their extended family would have enough hands to do what needs doing. Indeed, it's a large family that lives on the farm compound. Uncles and aunts are numerous, as are cousins - and grandma's still around. Livestock are tended to, tractors maintained, and the yearly pattern of sewing and harvest are only really broken up by the occasional merchant visit. Father always cautions Benjamin to stay behind him on the rare occasions he's allowed to come along to visit the ship that, every few months, parks itself a mile or so from their farm.

These visits have a curious air to them, at the same time clandestine but jovial; it's almost a community affair, as all the neighbors (usually rarely seen since everyone lives so spread-out in their own little enclaves) flock to this landing site every time the ship's seen cruising overhead. All manner of goods, both mundane and exotic are laid out on the thruster-scorched grass on pallets. Father purchases a new electric razor, grandmother picks up a new set of prosthetic teeth that automatically adjust to her jaw shape. Colorfully-packaged candies labeled in unfamiliar languages spill out of a box - the scar-faced merchant throws some in for the kids as lagniappe.

Sometimes adults go into the ship to talk at length. When they come out, it's usually at the wheel of a new tractor, or directing crewmembers to load up their truck with heavy crates. Benjamin always knew that money's tight while growing up, but it seems to flow like water at these exchanges - and for good reason. By the time the family returns home, they've always got several boxes of manufactured goods in tow. Replacement heads for tools, engine parts, toilet paper, lumber; you never know what the merchant has in stock, but it's always at a price that's worth it.

As Benjamin matures, it's with the knowledge that things will be better once he's an adult. He's always been taught that once the mortgage is paid off they won't have to buy from shady characters; now that he's a bit older, he understands - though it's never been explained to him - that this merchant is in fact a pirate. In the future he'll be able to take the family truck into the planet's only real major city and visit the spaceport warehouses. The prices are much higher, but the stock of goods reliable - you always know the quality of what you're buying, and you always know they'll have it in stock. Rather than buy parts to repair the aging machinery brought along by the grandparents, they can afford new tools and tractors. They'll be able to shift from just surviving payment to payment to truly thriving.

Benjamin learns to fly the family's crop duster. He feels at home in the air. Up there he's free, away from terrestrial worries - but gravity and obligations always bring him back down. Now that he's old enough - and father's broken leg never quite healed right - he's in charge of negotiating with the pirates for supplies. Cash goes into the gloved hand of the captain; goods are loaded onto the family truck. The ritual repeats three times a year, and now Benjamin Goodearth dreams of space when he's up flying that little pesticide-loaded plane. Times change. The Syndicate's colonies have become established, their boom-economy workforce dismissed. Prices for food in the Dirt Belt and Core are falling, and the shipping companies won't lower their fees to accommodate. The family is earning only enough to scrape by, and little by little things break down. A broken tool is something that can be written off with regret. An injury, not so much. Disease sweeps through the family compound and claims grandmother's life. She was ancient, true, but some say she was holding out for however long it took to see her debts finally released, and witness her family knowing freedom before passing on. She wouldn't get her wish.

The medical costs proved to be too much. The family couldn't care for their sick and maintain their payments, and so the farm was sold back to the bank for a pittance. The family, once respected in the community, pocketed what little they could scrape together from the sale and scattered to the winds. Some traveled to the Syndicate as laborers. Some traveled to the city and tried to find jobs, but ended up with scant opportunities and a life of uncertainty and want. Some took what livestock they hadn't sold and disappeared into the undeveloped valleys - the life of a propertyless nomad herdsman wasn't an easy one, but at least they had something.

Benjamin waited until a familiar shape was visible in the sky and went to the landing site he'd been to so many times. When he boarded the pirate ship this time, it was to stay.

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