New Queensland Station

New Queensland Station is a story in two parts set in Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe. Both parts appear in the second issue of the fanzine. It was jointly written by Gene Breshears, Whitney Ware, and Keith Alan Johnson.

Plot

While on a routine trip to the planet Aussland's orbital station, New Queensland, with a quantity of corn it's hoping to sell to a local broker, Marimba, the crew of the merchant ship, the Tai-Pan is caught in a skirmish between corrupt members of the station's port authority and rebels intent in securing Aussland's independence. To make matters worse, one of the ship's crew, Geoffrey Thorndike had made a deal with Marimba to transport illegal weapons in the corn. The resulting violence leaves half of the Tai-Pan's crew dead or seriously injured, and the survivors cut off from their ship.

History

The Beginings of the plot that would become NQS, was created almost 24 hours after creating the Tai-Pan Project itself.¹ The original idea behind the story was to establish a number of jumping points for possible plotlines. Also, the killing off of more than half of the crew (all of them being non persona Characters), opened the Tai-Pan Project to new contributors who submited their persona characters to the project.¹

Impact

NQS is perhaps, the defining story of Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe as several of the major storylines (Sins of the Brother, Haresay for example) expand plotlines started in NQS. Some readers have grumbled that NQS introduces a large number of characters only to have them die, while others recommend it to new readers of the fanzine.¹

See also

Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe

Haresay, A different interpretation of New Queensland Station told from the point of view of Karaya del-Tanzikt.

Reference

¹ Ten Years of Anthropomorphic Art and Fiction published in Tales of the Tai-Pan Universe #17