The Jordaan

For fifty-five years, the mining conglomerates on Cassius had one directive: drilling.  For miles they would dive beneath the planet's surface, looking for anything that could be salvaged as ore.  They came up, for the most part, empty-handed.  Including the fact that Cassius was not in the "average deviation" from Imperial shipping rounds, the mining conglomerate soon found itself broke and unable to pay its workers.

Almost a hundred percent of the mining labor was comprised of people from a racial sub-group called the Jordaan.  Nobody really understands what makes the people who call themselves the Jordaan a racial sub-group, except the Jordaan themselves.  The Jordann elders keep verbal traditional tales of long lineage alive through secret meetings in darkened basements beneath slums comprised of cramped habitation blocks.  The Jordaan live in the slums that surround the mines, yet very few of them actually enter the mines themselves.

The reason for this is that the mining company that used to operate this sector (aptly named the Jordaan District)  haven't actually mined anything in ten years.  The Jordaan revolted against low pay, polluted living conditions and poor leadership.  In the ensuing six-year labor disputes, over 1,500 Jordaan were executed by Vrall Enforcers.  However, the Jordaan ended up finding ways to shoot, poison, drown, and crush with rolling boulders the four owners of the Jordaan District mines (in that particular order).  The Jordaan claimed the District as a place where only the Jordaan belong, and under a period of surprisingly civil evictions, the Jordaan District became a two-mile by four-mile territory comprised of only those of pure Jordaan bloodlines.  The Vrall Enforcers found themselves outnumbered in tight alleyways where citizens formed an almost endless militia comprised of very strong and regularly inebriated miners with too much time on their hands.  After a few embarrassing patrols into the district, the Vrall just gave up.  They regularly forge reports to their superiors that everything in the Jordaan is just fine and civil, which is true as long as they don't actually set foot inside the Jordaan District.

The Jordaan have been emboldened by this show of solidarity, and when the solidarity was mixed and shaken with a dram of nationalism, things grew extremist. The Jordaan now see themselves as racially superior, and destined for a new future.  Xenophobia has moved in and unpacked in the mind of the average Jordaan - uneducated minds powered by hate speech.  The Jordaan are now mostly preoccupied with doing things that prove that they are more Jordaan than others around them.  Speak of a "pureblood" Jordaan race is regular conversation in the district.

Strangely enough, this definition of the Jordaan people was written sometime around the founding of the Jordaan District Mining Company.  A logistics man for the JDMC named Gelande Klebstoff had written a report to his managers about an area on the south side of a habitation complex that housed a group of people that called themselves the Jordaan Family.  The patriarch of this clan had fifteen sons, each of which carried an average of 6" higher than the average man and could outlift anyone else on Cassius.  Each of these sons had multiple wives and many of them were raising extraordinarily strong children.  The Jordaan Family (really quickly turning into a clan) were poor farmers from the fungus vats, and could probably be convinced to become miners if their lives were improved to any degree.  This report to the JDMC, called The Areas Surrounding Sector 5.5 South Logistics Report mentions the family several times, "...the people comprised of this clan are essentially taller, strong, with sandy-brown hair, small ears and facial features, a muscular build, with thick hands and large feet."  There are other references to the "tall patriarch" whose eyes were "small and beady."  In his report, Gelande Klebstoff was obviously impressed with Jordaan senior's family, and he was so convincing that mining was the key to the Jordaan Family's future he was accepted into their ranks as family, and allowed to marry a daughter (a woman of proportionally large size, reportedly).

At some time, Jordaan the Elder (who was quite old at the time of this report) exchanged gifts with Klebstoff, and Klebstoff was given a tube of sealing wax.  Normally this was done amongst the people of the area as a sign of trust, as sealing documents was seen as the moral equivalent as making a promise or a pledge.  The important part of all of this was: the Jordaan family would always add a drop of their own blood to the sealing wax.  It is quite possible that this report is sealed with wax containing the blood of the oldest known Jordaan.

This story of the wax and the Logistics Report have recently fascinated the Jordaan.  They could extract genetic information from a wax like this, and have the actual genetic imprint of pureblood Jordaan.  They even know where the report is.  It lies in the middle of the district. 

The problem for the Jordaan is that the report is held by the grandson of Gelande Klebstoff,  Enthalten Klebstoff.  Enthalten sees himself as of the Jordaan since his grandmother was the granddaughter of Jordaan the Elder.  However much proof he can bring, there are always those in the district that think he is a mixed-blood.  Enthalten has become a controversial figure, becoming alienated, holed up in a small building, clutching onto the Logistics Report.  He sees the wax-sealed document (which he stole from a warehouse left unlocked on the conglomerate's property) as an important part of his own family's history, as evidence that the wishes of Jordaan the Elder was that the Klebstoffs and the Jordaan were meant to be part of the same family.  It is this evidence exactly that gets the Klebstoffs employed: being known as someone who "Jordaan jobs it" is someone you wanna hire.

There are other players in this scenario.  The Cassius Mining Conglomeration Incorporated wants the logistics report as well for several reasons.  The first being that it is, actually, their property.  They look very bad when things like this aren't squirreled away by a scribe-servitor.  Word's got out that it is missing, and they'd pay cash for its return.  However, they aren't stupid, and know that anyone they send in would get nowhere near the Klebstoff residence.

Recently, there's been gang fights between the Jordaan and the Klebstoffs.  One particularly nasty one just flared up around Enthalten's hab.  Enthalten had to evacuate his family, but he remains behind guarding his cache of stolen documents.

During the gang fight, a group of Vrall Enforcers infiltrated the district and into Enthalten's house.  They are there essentially holding him prisoner, waiting for the airlift out.  It is assumed that when he's gone, the report will go with him, and probably get returned to the conglomerate, or mysteriously lost somewhere along the way.

The Enforcers in Enthalten's house are well armed and there are many of them.  The Jordaan are currently spreading word that their document is leaving the district, and hundreds of them will be gathering in the area before long, ready to try to take it.

Its a pretty tense situation.