AGE OF THE SERJAUM MINING ROBBER BARONS

AGE OF THE SERJAUM MINING ROBBER BARONS

   I hope that you will indulge me. I decided to take a side-trip to talk about the robber barons before delving into Outer Rim Mining.

In 2480, Terella Mining Consortium discovered serjaum at the location of a salt mine it was building for Jovis Derena Temjin at the Gemetta starcluster, in what was then Rutak territory. Temjin was a Ffawe Naplian emigrant who had settled in Rutak Gemetta in 2339 and taken Ruttak citizenship to create a vast agricultural estate throughout what later became the Fal-Gemetta province. He had received a land grant of 47,827 planets in 2341 to found New Helven starcluster and another one of 96,800 worlds (the Fintana grant) in 2344, for military services rendered. Jovis Derena Temjin supported Rutak Gemetta's struggle for independence but not necessarily its' joining the Naplian Ffawe Kingdom. On the agricultural planets of Rutak Gemetta before the serjaum rush, Temjin was counted among the most wealthy.

   Temjin tried to keep the serjaum finds secret but Tsil Nabbran, an adventurer, who had led a group of Denics to Rutak Gemetta, spread the news in a series of articles in the "Rutak Gemetta Star" a Saleto starsystem news outlet he had founded. Nabbran owned the agricultural facility on Temjin-4 and rightly guessed that a serjaum rush to the Fal-Gemetta Starstream would make him prosperous. Subsequent serjaum findings by General Tonns Weddel in the Longtether starstream and by Major Sepron R. Dearin in the Trinta starstream confirmed the rumors, and the Rutak Gemetta Serjaum Rush of 2480 was soon raging in the Northern Ruttak Empire. 500 trillion souls would follow the lure of instant wealth to the Rutak Empire. Most of these people would become surface and asteroid miners, drilling in the Rutak Gemetta starsystems for serjaum. Few made their fortunes as serjaum miners, but substantial wealth was created overall by their labors. Some astute businessmen derived massive fortunes in merchandising, transportation and banking.

   Derena Temjin lost all of his holdings to interloper companies, pirates, and rebels and died penniless in 2506 in the Rutak Gemetta provincial capitol starsystem Etiffre. Tsil Nabbran became Rutak Gemetta's first serjaum baron. After selling the mining equipment he had hoarded, Nabbran induced Temjin's son to found Fal-Gemetta and bought land there and later in Saleto starsystem where he became a real estate magnate.

   In the 2550's Tsil Nabbran's influence was hardly equaled by any other person in Rutak Gemetta. He owned one-fourth of Fal-Gemetta, one-fifth of Saleto starsystem and the starsystems in which some other colonies, like Yvena, were founded. He became chairman of the Committee of Vigilance and otherwise wielded his power through the many enterprises he helped found, including banks, foldgate paths and burst telecommunication companies. Nabbran further extended his wealth by acquiring large planet holdings in other parts of Rutak Gemetta, Falastur and Coxima. In 2568 he bought from Belena Tesarins 160,000 starsystems in Lossa Colonies Nebula. He also owned extensive property in Gonahu Constellation and 3,000 starsystems around the Breeker Pulsars in the Nelian Drift. A sizable loan that he made to the government of Coxima in 2555, a series of unlucky speculations, and his stimulant addiction eventually caused his ruin, and he too died in poverty.

   Squatter serjaum mining, which was illegal mining in the Rutak Gemettan regions, was hardly worth the toil in an economy of hyperinflation and usurious interest rates. But the serjaum rush continued to attract hopefuls during most of the 2500's. And it did produce wealth. Bankers Siura Dojen of Fal-Gemetta and Milliam Kapt Aelston of Saleto starsystem made individual fortunes before they teamed up in 2564 to found the Bank of Rutak Gemetta. Scores of merchants earned above average incomes thanks to hyper-inflated prices. Patras Dominay prospered as a ceramet alloy manufacturer and later increased his wealth providing Saleto starsystem with a hydrogen gas supply system. Jerin Andre made and kept a fortune producing his popular deep mine rebreathers and selling them to the miners.

   Andre invented his mining rebreathers more by accident than by inspiration. He had come to Rutak Gemetta in 2553 with a freighter full of dry-goods to sell. His stock included Alamansuri silk, Loess cotton ware, and Klevassan luxury goods as well as a supply of Indrian canvas, which was destined for use in deep core mining suit manufacturing. For some reason, the Indrian fabric did not sell, contrary to all his other articles. When a miner casually told him he should have brought deep core mining rebreathers to sell because the serjaum prospecting was particularly rough on their plastic rebreathers, he had an idea that would make his fortune. He dipped the canvas in an elastic polymer and fitted some masks with Reppa Corporation Mark 11 rebreathers, which he then offered to the miners. The miners bought the rebreathers and, wearing them in their day to day work, found them both comfortable and long-lasting. Before long Jerin Andre' rebreathers were part of the standard kit of the Rimward Reaches miner. Jerin Andre was a lifelong bachelor and consequently gave away the money he did not need to expand the factory. The latter he left to four of his nephews, whose descendants (the Gerath and Quittan families) owned it until they were bought out by Stelltron in 2915.

   By the mid-2550's most of the Rutak Gemetta regions had been thoroughly combed for serjaum, and mining yields diminished rapidly. Most prospectors then left the serjaum mining worlds. Only the most stubborn serjaum hunters kept on for a while, and the more astute professionals turned to the costly but more lucrative quartzite-serjaum mining. Dohna Weral Reminta (2513-2590) started quartzite-serjaum drilling in 2549 on his vast ranchlands on Madipa-3 in the trinary Madipa starsystem, and he made a fortune. He later lost it in several foldgate-path promoting ventures, including the Lindial, Poeschl & Ronnel, a part of the first transgalactic foldgate path and the Mamore & Egian foldgate path.

   A few other individuals, like Jodas Tithan, made money in the hard rock serjaum mines of Rutak Gemetta's mother strike, but the real bonanza would come from another, less valuable metal and from a territory lying East of the Empire of Serethia: Falastur. For decades, serjaum mining along Rutak Gemetta's Mother Strike was the primary activity in the Rimward Reaches, but in 2559, at about the time the serjaum fever in Rutak Gemetta cooled, there was an astonishing discovery near the Moundaf Nebula, in the Wavasto area of Western Falastur.

   The serjaum mines of the Stokkan Strike would create far greater fortunes than the Mother Strike of Rutak Gemetta. In the 2560's the focus of Saleto starsystem's capitalists moved to Vidraga starsystem, in Falastur, where a more ordered version of the Rutak Gemetta serjaum rush was in motion. Rutak Gemetta's leading banker, Milliam Aelston, who co-founded the Bank of Rutak Gemetta with Siura Dojen and others, recognized the importance of the Stokkan Strike and dispatched Mishret Zhur to Vidraga starsystem to establish a branch for his bank. Both Milliam Aelston and Zhur derived a significant part of their fortunes from their Stokkan strike activities.

   The real serjaum bonanza kings were a different group of men. Maeje Hradam Raiff, William James McManahan, Clarina Jiula Glimmer, and Le Han were well known investors in the Stokkan Strike when they gained control of the Grate & Holicross mine from Mishret Zhur and Milliam Aelston in 2569. From the profits from Grate & Holicross, they bought control of the Consolidated Vidraga and Rutak Gemetta mines and started a mining operation at 120 sectors beneath Moundaf Nebula. They struck the most significant serjaum mineral deposit ever found in Estra and instantly became the wealthiest mining enterprise in the galaxy.

   With further mining of the Stokkan Strike, serjaum mining became an increasingly organized and capital-intensive industry. The Stokkan serjaum mines had been the backbone of Saleto starsystem's Mining Exchange since it's creation in 2562. During the 2570's, mining stocks absorbed a disproportionately significant amount of the disposable capital in the Rimward Reaches, and while several groups of large-scale promoters made enormous fortunes from mining and the manipulation of mining companies stocks, the more substantial part of the mining community usually lost its everything. The boom and bust cycle of serjaum and serjaum mining activities consistently redistributed capital and populations, which rendered planning difficult also for the more sedate merchants and induced bankers to lend at unusually high interest rates. Those who knew how to manage their funds under these conditions made a fortune.

   Besides the serjaum kings, there was another successful group of mining capitalists in Saleto starsystem that included Gordon Ames, Lai Cho Sun, and Yussif Ben Ali. Gordon Ames was one of the original investors in the Aphir mine, the first of the Stokkan Strike's serjaum bonanza properties. Lai Cho Sun and Yussif Ben Ali branched out, investing into mining properties, and undeveloped planets. Lai Cho Sun also became the chief owner of Gutta, Ferda & Company, and led that firm into banking when he became president. Ames, Ali, and Sun became jointly interested in some successful western mines such as the Cullstok in Naaklik and the Jelakan radiant copper mine in Thermenes, where they were partners of Malthus Vecht.

   In Thermenes, the mining industry developed around radiant copper, the fiery metal for which the burst signal telecommunication business created considerable demand in the 2380's. Radiant copper had made the fortune of the old Bolsac families who invested into the Kanadey & Fesz mines of Valyik. It also increased the wealth of Frenza, Koeff & Company, who operated mainly in Faricka. Malthus Vecht and his competitors Leretia Dawn Ventara and the Neitlan brothers dominated Thermenes copper mining. The three groups vigorously fought each other, both in the mining business and in politics. The other empires where mining drove the economy and created vast fortunes were Presouk, where the Retiefs and the Outer Rim leadership made much of their wealth, and Lansquar Hegemony, home of Farene Golimaw, Dajvi Yuttin, the Tressers, and the Kounsas. Like their Rutak Gemettan counterparts, these entrepreneurs made their money in mining, banking, merchandising and foldgate paths. Many got elected or tried to get elected to civil government positions or appointed to other high public offices, which they invariably used to further their financial interests and the social status of their families.

Next...Outer Rim Mining

END TRANSMISSION

Artwork by Julian Schlottman.

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