M. L. Crassus

M. L. Crassus
Vessel Profile
TypeJumpShip

History

The M. L. Crassus was a JumpShip and private yacht owned by the twenty-fourth century Terran Alliance businessman and autocrat Jonathan Chaffins II. Chaffins was heir to the Chaffins Colonial Development Corporations or CDCC, a family company that had been a major player in the explosion of colonization efforts in the Inner Sphere in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries.[1]

Chaffins' personal wealth increased more than tenfold during his lifetime as colonial investments in the twenty-third century evolved into developed world economies in the twenty-fourth; already raised to wealth and privilege, Chaffins embraced profligacy, spending his wealth in grand gestures that included funding fifteen percent of the development cost of the Grand Canal of Mars, making his purchase of the M.L. Crassus, a personal yacht outfitted with no less than 152 tons of gold and platinum fittings, a relatively minor expense.[1]

The largest and grandest investment made by Chaffins during the course of his life was the establishment of Autocracy of New Virginia, a multi-world private demesne in the Deep Periphery that he intended to rule over as king and dictator, rather than having to hand authority over to troublesome colonial administrations as was the case with colonies founded by CDCC closer to Terra. Backed by the CDCC, Chaffins had little trouble founding his eight-system empire and obscuring its existence and location from authorities.[1]

Ruling as king proved very different to being a corporate CEO, and far more fun in theory than in practice. Chaffins attempted to hold on to power as long as possible before eventually being lynched by the colonists he was oppressing; one of his last acts was to scuttle every JumpShip involved in the colonization of the Autocracy of New Virginia with the exception of the M.L. Crassus. The final fate of the M.L. Crassus isn't recorded, although the loss of most of the Colony JumpShips crippled the colonies and resulted in a sharp industrial and technological decline in the newly-free Virginian Union.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Interstellar Expeditions: Interstellar Players 3 , p. 26-27, "RWR Outpost #27"

Bibliography