Location:Near the border of the Taurian
Concordat and the Federated Suns
Number of Worlds: Six
Current Ruler: Dame Paula Trevaline
Military Strength: Two Companies
Technology Level: Poor
Literacy Level: Poor
World Name: Tortuga
Star Type: G2IV
Position in System: 3
Time to Jump Point: 9.11 days
Recharging Station: None
Political Ruler: Dame Paula Trevaline
ComStar Facility Class: None
ComStar Representative: None
Percentage and Level of Native Life: 10%, Plant
Description:
A world of vast savannas and once-abundant raw materials, Tortuga
has the dubious distinction of being the center of the Tortuga
Dominions. The ruler of Tortuga is the self-styled Dame Paula
Trevaline, also known as "Lady Death" to friend and foe
alike. The descendants of the original settlers, the remnants of
a Federated Suns Light Cavalry regiment, have degenerated into a
tight-knit band of pirates who prey on Taurians and Davions
alike.
The Tortuga Dominions are a result of the Reunification War
against the Taurian Concordat. During the latter stages of that
conflict, the Federated Suns 237th Light Cavalry Regiment was all
but destroyed in a wasteful penetration raid against the Taurian
outpost of Sterope. Unable to hold their positions and unwilling
to be thrown into the vicious fray somewhere else, the 237th
opted to jump outward into the unknown. A generation after
settling a small, pleasant world beyond the fringes of the
Federated Suns, the newly formed Pirates of Tortuga began
operations against their callous former comrades in the Federated
Suns.
With equipment and machinery won at gun point from half a
dozen Davion worlds, the Tortugans began to expand their foothold
in their new world. Within a century, they were stable and
self-sufficient enough to begin colonization efforts of their
own. By the early 2700s, the Tortugans had settled five
neighboring star systems. Abundant radioactives and raw materials
on these newly claimed worlds helped the rise of what has since
become known as the Tortuga Dominions.
Of all the Bandit Kingdoms in the Periphery, the Tortuga
Dominions maintain the largest spacefaring navy. Estimates place
the size of the Tortuga jolly rogers at about 15, though a lack
of spare parts and machinery has forced the Tortugans to
cannibalize several of these.
In the last two centuries, the Tortuga raiders have struck
deep into the Federated Suns and the Taurian Concordat. Already
known for utter depravity and ruthlessness, it appears that the
Tortugans are becoming more desperate as their planets are now
finally beginning to run out of resources.
Over the years, Tortuga has been stripped of almost all its
ore, and it is currently nearing ecological exhaustion. An
estimated sixty thousand brigands of every description inhabit
Raiders Roost, the sole settlement on the planet. Most live in
conditions of near destitution, as the major share of captured
booty goes to Dame Trevaline's most experienced cutthroats.
[Prepared by Precentor Eliza Phereson, Research Team-chi, ComStar Archives]
In the mid-3030s, when the AFFC briefly made the Tortuga
Dominions one of its major targets, Paula Trevaline shifted her
operations to the Taurian Concordat and the Mica Majority.
Neither Periphery state could offer much resistance to the
pirates - the Mica Majority because it lacked large-scale
military resources, the Taurian Concordat because its Protector
refused to recognize any threat aside from a possible Federated
Commonwealth invasion. When the AFFC turned its attention to
preparations for the War of 3039, Lady Death and the Tortuga
Pirates were free to raid with impunity. From 3033 to 3040, the
bandits of the Dominions seemed unstoppable.
After the Tortugans resumed raiding Federated Commonwealth
worlds in 3039 and 3040, the commanders of the AFFC decided to
end the pirates' reign of terror once and for all. In 3042, the
AFFC High Command sent the Ninth Regimental Combat Team to the
region of space where they believed the Dominions to lie. After
two months of searching for the Dominions' capital world, the
Ninth RCT landed on Tortuga Prime, taking Lady Death and her
troops by surprise. The Ninth overcame the pirates after several
pitched battles, capturing Lady Death and decimating her forces.
Upon their return to the Federated Commonwealth, the Ninth RCT
delivered Paula Trevaline to a maximum-security prison on New
Syrtis, where she remains to this day.
Fervently glad to see the backs of their brutal pirate kings,
the remaining residents of the Dominions continued to scratch out
what livings they could on their resource-depleted worlds. The
once-fearsome bandit kingdom exists as a leaderless collection of
subsistence-level planets.
Current info shows that Fuchida's Fusiliers, a former
Federated Commonwealth mercenary unit gone rogue, operates from
the Tortuga Dominions.
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