Living on Pandora meant being tough as armor plate—or getting riddled with holes. It did not require an extensive education, which was why virtually everybody at the Crimson Raiders headquarters was irked at Maya for hogging the interstellar radio.
Found after the fall of Jack in the heart of Opportunity City, the device picked up superluminal communications from other galaxies with crystal-clear clarity. Of late, instead of Three Wolves' cutting remarks on "First Galaxy Problems" (as neighboring G-1 was known) or the Heavy Isotope band Red Shift, the "radio room" filled with politicians and analysts droning on about trade routes, taxes, and Local Galactic Cluster policy issues once Maya found out it could be used to tap into news rather than just entertainment.
Pandora, located in the relatively impoverished G-3 galaxy, had little access to or care for extra-galactic issues. FTL travel remained relatively expensive, and speeds that would make travel to whole other galaxies reasonable commanded prices out of reach to 99% of the galaxy's citizens. The 1% who could afford such luxuries were mostly of privileged political classes or high-level corporate suits.
G-3 in general had little love for the Local Cluster government or its even more remote higher-level, the Federated Cluster Union. In the thousands of years the Union had existed, its involvement was restricted to a single communique around the time of the defeat of the Destroyer: stop messing with alternate dimensions or there will be consequences. It wasn't that people disliked the Cluster or the Union—rather, very few people even knew they existed.
Maya had taken to spending hours in the former Hyperion Information Stockade. There was just so much to learn! Maybe it wasn't information about Sirens, but every time she picked up one datapad, she'd find herself buried in another topic five hours later with no idea how she'd moved from "Exercising Your Pet Skag" to "Local Cluster Government (G-Cluster)."
The Local Cluster, she read, was founded several millennia ago. Though travel within galaxies remains commonplace and inexpensive, movement between galaxies is still well beyond the reach of most individuals and even some civilizations.
"Blech, math" she spat, recoiling over a huge section on FTL and Galactic Development. The discovery of ways around the "cosmic speed limit" allowed explosive growth within galaxies, but progress on cost-effective intergalactic travel was not nearly as even—some galaxies had it (G-1), others didn't (G-3).
As galactic commerce expanded, it became necessary to create frameworks for trade between galaxies. On paper, no galaxy wanted to be known as a hub for "undesirable economic activities" (slavery, prostitution, currency laundering, unethical experiments, etc.), but in practice, the difficulties of maintaining compliance on a galactic level multiplied on an inter-galactic level. Just as little enforcement of various laws occurred in the outer rim territories of many galaxies, similar lax oversight was the norm for intergalactic business.
"I guess being a Siren has some advantages—like being able to kick would-be slavers' sorry asses." She grinned sadistically as she skipped several large charts and kept reading, skipping to the portion about her home galaxy.
Economic development in G-3 has been constrained by a number of factors. Lacking an economic policy due mostly to absence of a central government has hampered growth. Rampant corporatism and corruption siphon off funds at every step. Faster-than-light travel is constrained to a few corporations who act as an oligopolistic force on the market, while extra-galactic travel is the province of the intrepid explorer or moneyed scion as no widespread intergalactic travel method exists as of yet.
"No shit we're poor. Sure, this pile of Pandoran currency makes me a queen here, but it's worth nothing offworld." A few dollar bills dropped out of her hand.
The Local Cluster government rarely hears from its constituents in G-3, as virtually no one is capable of (or bothers to) attend biannual meetings held in G-1. Those that can make it have their own reasons for not attending—mainly corporations wishing to avoid scrutiny after the Destroyer incident. This was the only occurrence of not only Local Cluster, but Federated Cluster Union, censures against G-3.
Of course, there was a link to an article about that very incident, one in which Lilith had participated. The cataclysm that caused Eridium to pop up everywhere. What passed for politics on Pandora consisted of "Who has the most guns, the most Eridium, and the biggest bandit horde?" If anyone were to make a major push for mass-produced extragalactic-grade FTL tech, it would extend to "Who has their tentacles in other galaxies?" Explorers found five other galaxies nearby, but travel to them was again the province of the rich.
The article on Sirens was full of speculation (which actually required a separate page). Given the information was coming from Hyperion, it maintained its tone about Jack/Hyperion needing to control all six Sirens (well, now five). Very little was noted about Eridium dependence, she noted bitterly. Thankfully, only certain Sirens were even affected by Eridium—and Maya was not one of them.
Click.
Eridium has many unusual properties, most of which have not been completely explored. One notable side-effect from mining the substance is slag, which has many beneficial uses.
"I think I just threw up in my mouth a little" said Maya, as she ventured deeper into the article attempting to justify, among other things, repeatedly injecting humans with slag of varying concentrations.
Hyperion has exclusive rights to slag research, leading to exciting developments in propulsion technology. Eridium slag has fantastic heat-absorbing properties, permitting engines to run longer, cooler, and more efficiently than ever before.
The Local Cluster and Federated Cluster Union both declared many years ago, with much fanfare, that access to intergalactic travel should be a "Millennium Development Goal." It never happened. At least not on the scale they wanted it to, anyway.
"Maya. HEY MAYA!"
An angry Mordecai snapped his fingers in front of Maya's zoned-out face.
"Could you please pay attention?"