Trans-Stellar Geophysical / TRANSGEO

A wave of disruption struck the off-world mining industry shortly after Nick Croshaw’s famous first jump in 2271. The space-based mining industry of the day had come to rely on gargantuan mining platforms to strip-mine entire resource fields en masse. These platforms slowly trolled mineral fields over periods of months or years to complete a contract, operating as isolated cities dedicated wholly to the extraction of resources. As the mining conglomerates added additional support and entertainment personnel in a bid to attract workers, the size of their operations ballooned to house the thousands of workers, engineers, and support personnel alongside the existing infrastructure of mining extractors, refineries, and loading platforms. When Crowshaw transited the first Jump Point to the system that now bears his name, the mining companies of the day were therefore slow to capitalize on the untapped resources laying in wait there.

Grant Geophysical, today known as Trans-Stellar Geophysical, specialized in construction of small survey craft contracted to those mining companies for exploration in the far reaches of the Oort cloud. Designed for mineral survey operations far from civilization, these craft could operate self-sufficiently for long durations while carrying all the equipment necessary to collect ore fragments and process them in onboard refineries. This unique capability was invaluable in the days following the discovery of the Croshaw system, as the survey missions launched by Grant were able to stay afield much longer and analyze their samples without returning to the Sol system. The mining conglomerates found themselves with a dearth of mining or survey vessels able to traverse the jump point and absent the key partner they would have outsourced such an operation to.

Grant continued to expand on this early lead, ultimately acquiring sensor technology startup Trans-Stellar Exploration Systems in 2305 in a gamble to secretly discover and exploit additional resource fields in the far reaches of the Croshaw system. The newly renamed Trans-Stellar Geophysical set out to reproduce their success in the Croshaw system, initially with great success. A Trans-Stellar expedition were the first to discover the famous thorium fields of Croshaw II as part of those efforts. Although their competitors had copied the sensor designs of Trans-Stellar by the 2340’s, the wild profits from mineral claims established during the first and second Croshaw mineral rush allowed the company to fall into a period of stagnation. When explorers began discovering the so-called “second wave” jump points in the 2380’s, Trans-Stellar quickly found that their competitive edge had evaporated.

The company’s fortunes have changed many times over the intervening 600 years, as have its owners. Today, Trans-Stellar employs a fleet of 14 ships as an employee-owned boutique survey operator. Their primary fleet is currently staging out of fringe space on the UEE-Banu border, and has been reported to include at least one Idris-P frigate modified extensively for survey and mining operations beyond the reach or capability of even the behemoth RSI Orion mining platform..