WITCHSPACE

Jobs · A company in Witchspace

Wexley-Yorozu

Better worlds, built to order

We build the atmosphere processors, the stations and the ships that turn poisoned rock into home. Over half the work on Lave's board is ours, and our Science Division is always interested in what you find out there. Our colonies are free to join. The terms are on page 214.

These are jobs in Witchspace, a free game you play in your browser. Nobody will ask for your CV.

Where it works: Thinly settled worlds with moons to build from.

A rift in space, its rim bright white against the stars

On offer at Cambridge Orbital, Lave

The same board a commander docked at Lave sees right now.

    Working for Wexley-Yorozu

    • Junior Haulier, Lave

      Most of the work on Lave's board is ours. Food, textiles, furs, water and liquor: whatever Lave exports, wherever it's short. Three to sixteen tonnes: every load fits an empty Cobra. Start the moment you dock.

      Lave · Supplied cargo · Open to new pilots

      Apply

    • Colony Supply Pilot

      Machinery, electronics and medicine for frontier colonies with moons to build from. Long routes, steady work.

      Thinly settled worlds · Supplied cargo · Typically 50 to 250 Cr a run

      Apply

    • Rush Freight Pilot

      A yard is waiting and so are we. Rush jobs pay 40 % over the usual rate, in fewer jumps. Late still pays half. We will mention it.

      Rush · Supplied cargo · 40 % over the usual rate

      Apply

    • Survey Contractor

      Fly out to a system's moons, take a close look, and hand the data in at any Wexley-Yorozu station. No cargo. No customs. No questions about why we want them.

      Moons · No cargo needed · From about 350 Cr, more per moon

      Apply

    • Science Division Courier

      Special orders, delivered intact. Crew safety is a secondary consideration.

      By invitation · 600 Cr and up · See clause 214

      Apply

    TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT (EXTRACT). 1. The Contractor agrees to carry the Cargo with due care. 2. The Company will pay on delivery. 3. Deadlines are counted in hyperspace jumps. 4. The Company’s cargo remains the Company’s property at all times, including after the Contractor’s ship does not.

    5–37. Fuel, docking, insurance, the colonies, colony debt, the repayment of colony debt by the heirs of the colonists, and the colonies that stopped answering, which the Company is not obliged to discuss.

    38–109. Specimens. The Company’s Science Division. The meaning of the word “intact”. Situations in which the Contractor shall remain where they are.

    110–213. Intentionally left long.

    214. The Contractor accepts liability for

    Build

    Design commissions

    Wexley-Yorozu also commissions designs: sections of the Titanoboa, its constructor ship. These aren't contracts on the board. You design a module, and if it's accepted and built, the company pays your commander.

    • Module Designer, Titanoboa

      Design a section of our constructor to the coupling standard: a greenhouse, an ice refinery, a chapel, a racing gate for the workers' day off. If we build it, we pay the commander whose callsign is on the design, and put that callsign in the catalogue. The design becomes the property of Wexley-Yorozu in perpetuity, across all systems known and unknown.* The company thanks you for your contribution.

      Build · 5,000 Cr when it's first fitted · Designed by you

      Apply

    • Module Improver

      Make one of our modules better: a cleaner shape, a better place for the docks. If we accept it, your callsign goes on the module beside its designer's. Small fixes are welcome, but only better modules are paid.

      Build · 2,000 Cr when it's first fitted · Revised by you

      Apply

    • Detention Module, open brief

      The Co-operative Marshals need somewhere to keep what they catch. A block of cells, one clear shape, and nothing facing the crew that shouldn't. Standard commission applies.

      Build · Open brief · 5,000 Cr when it's first fitted

      Apply

    *In the game. Out here, you keep your copyright: designs are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0, like the rest of Witchspace. Paid in credits, in the game, to the signed-in commander whose callsign is on the design. Nobody is paid real money. The real reward is your name on it and your module flying in everyone's game.

    Hand it in on Hand in a design: no GitHub needed, and it's checked as you go. The standard is on the design page. A pull request on GitHub works too. Just an idea? Put it on the ideas board.

    Who they are

    Where it came from

    Edmund Wexley built atmosphere processors: towers the height of mountains that turn a poison sky breathable over twenty years. Haruki Yorozu built the ships and stations to carry them. Neither could afford a world on his own. Together they found a way to make the worlds pay for themselves: the colonists.

    A Wexley-Yorozu colony is free to join. The passage, the prefab housing, the air: all on credit, at fair rates, repaid from the colony's work over a generation. Most colonies repay it. Some are still repaying it four generations on. A few stopped answering, and Wexley-Yorozu sent a ship to see why. The ships came back. The reports were sealed.

    What it wants, and the people inside it

    A company is people, and people are driven by feelings, not strategy. Wexley-Yorozu's plan is a twenty-year one (become the landlord of the frontier: clause 214 hands a defaulted colony, its world and its people to the company), but what makes it real is who carries it out, and why. Glad, sad, mad, bad.

    • Glad. The colonists who signed up. Free passage, a world of their own, and the first breathable morning. Most of them are glad still.
    • Sad. The families at home, listening to a relay that says "all well" because nobody has switched it off.
    • Bad. Corwin Ashe, Regional Director, Colonial Accounts: not a monster, just a man who writes "relief: 31,000,000 Cr; recovery: 4,000,000 Cr" and signs the cheaper one. He is promoted.
    • Mad. Teodor Vasse, administrator of the Ninefold, who sealed his bridge rather than hand his people over; Sam Dray, the tug pilot who was told not to answer and answered; Dr L. Marsh, the agronomist who warned them and was reassigned.

    The Ninefold is the first of these stories (exploration): an untested seed, a failed harvest, a debt, and clause 214. The explorer who finds its report decides who learns the truth.

    What it does

    • Builds things. Atmosphere processors on half-finished worlds, Coriolis stations under licence, and the heavy ships that carry both.
    • Hauls heavy. Station modules, processor parts, machinery and colonists to the edge of settled space, often through Vorg's frontier.
    • Buys knowledge. Its Science Division pays more than anyone for survey data, especially from worlds no one has charted, and pays most of all for anything unusual found out there.

    What people say

    • The Science Division has standing special orders: certain finds are to be brought back intact, whatever the cost to the crew. Nobody admits to having seen one.
    • Wexley-Yorozu knew about the Thargoids before anyone. Its oldest survey files have pages missing.
    • Every colony charter has a clause on page 214. Nobody has read page 214.

    Its ship: the Bullsnake

    Named for the bullsnake: big, heavy, and loud when it's annoyed. (Original class.)

    • A slow, stubby workhorse (70 m as built) with an ore hopper slung beneath its spine; bigger loads, station modules and processor sections, go the same way, slowly.
    • Barely armed and hard to stop; drones and tractor booms instead of guns.
    • A frequent sight at Wexley-Yorozu worlds, where a half-built station or an atmosphere processor stands in orbit (a point of interest for explorers).

    See the Bullsnake →

    From the trading companies, the canon. Their liveries, story hooks and concept-art prompts are there.

    Standing

    Wexley-Yorozu keeps a record of every contract you fly for it. Your standing decides what it offers you.

    1. Partner+100The top of the ladder. Partner perks are designed, not built yet.
    2. Preferred+40The most valuable cargoes.
    3. Trusted+15Valuable cargo.
    4. Contractor+5Bigger loads, and now and then a special assignment, by invitation.
    5. Casual0Starter work: small loads, open to any pilot. Where everyone begins.
    6. Unreliable-5Starter work still. Deliver on time and they come round.
    7. Distrusted-9Starter work, grudgingly.
    8. BlacklistedNo work at all, until you make amends or they forget.

    Standing rises with every contract delivered on time: one point, two for a rush job or danger pay, three for a special assignment. Abandoning a contract costs three, losing its cargo with your ship two. Below zero, Wexley-Yorozu forgets a point a day, or takes compensation.

    How contracts work

    • The company supplies the cargo. You fly it there.
    • Deadlines are counted in hyperspace jumps, so closing your browser never makes you late.
    • Late pays half.
    • Deliver well and your standing rises, which opens bigger work. At Contractor, the companies start getting in touch.

    Every commander starts at Lave in a Cobra Mk III with 20 t of hold and 100 Cr.

    Between them

    • Wexley-Yorozu builds the worlds the others trade with, and owns the debts of the people on them. Hexon sells its colonies medicine; Vorg sells them protection; the Mutual carries for them at cost and asks awkward questions.

    The other three