Perhaps the closest thing to a Freespacer corporation, the Grand Bizarre is a giant free floating industrial co-operative intertwined with a colossal trade caravan.

Profiteers, bootleggers, price gougers and free-market anarchists, the Grand Bizarre's crew are an oddity that came from the destabilization of the Freespacers' subsistence level economy: Capitalists. Born in the months and years following the Freespacer Genocide and its following Schism, the Grand Bizarre started its life as a virtual marketplace on the Polysentience; only becoming its own physical entity nearly two years later.

The actual trade/salvage/industrial fleet was pulled together after a few prominent traders threw their weight behind a singular massive trading exchange: One widely regarded by those used to a moneyed economy as one of the most successful pyramid schemes of all time. It was only that every profit was put towards a communal resource which was used to support various factions formed from the Schism that the Grand Bizarre didn't face too much negative consequences.

Since the fleet came into being, the Grand Bizarre has operated based on a model of propping up individual industry: The fleet has worked to add to the Polysentience by building and maintaining a huge number of server farms, many of which are dedicated to hosting Intelligent Design Nodes. And all designs are distributed freely to the Polysentience for anyone to reproduce at their own will, with their own resources. For significant projects, the Grand Bizarre hires out its industrial capabilities to mass produce resources needed by the various groups of the post-genocide Free State.

Like most Free State ad-hoc organisations, there is no formal symbols associated with the Grand Bizarre.

In keeping with the Deoradh lifestyle, the Grand Bizarre has no set headquarters. Instead it remains one colossal spaceborn caravan that travels from place to place. Where the Bizarre goes, there follows what passes as prosperity in the Free State. When setting down on settled worlds, or docking with traveling traders; streets and ship decks abruptly swarm to be filled with entire hordes of street vendors, peddlers and small business stalls.

This relative opulence leads many to believe that the Grand Bizarre represents a departure from Free State values, but the vast majority of these wares are generated through the Bizarre pushing its members and hangers on to engage in constant experimentation, artistic endeavor, and self expression through invention. What looks like opulence and plenty is a massive pastiche of hundreds, or even thousands of working prototypes of crackpot ideas and designs of nearly every variety. As a result near every member of the Bizarre has their own wares to sell on, all individually produced in mass cottage industry, and each member is expected to carry their businesses on their own backs if needed.

The centerpiece of the colossal caravan is a show of prosperity that hasn't been seen in a long time: Not one, but two Motherships dedicated to a single fleet. The huge industrial center and portable shipyard, the Greasy Palms Springwell, followed by the testbed Big Mama Buckwar; a 'decommissioned' former IWL fleet tender which joined after that group disbanded. Since then the Mama Buckwar has become the test-bed for every crackpot weapons experiment, prototype shield generator, or untested fighter-craft a Freethinker can whip up to protect the fleet. Something sorely needed, as the Bizarre is in essence one giant trade caravan operated by notorious pacifists.

In keeping with the gypsy style mega-caravan, just about all Grand Bizarre ships are an even more ostentatious show of individualistic expression than normal Freespacer vehicles. Every bare millimeter of hull space is covered with layers of graffiti and deck art. Their interiors a constantly evolving work of living art which displays the many facets of Freespacer life; whether it be hopeful, fatalistic, neurotic or obscene.

The Grand Bizarre's main trading floor on the Polysentience. The Big Odd is a colossal open build marketplace able to readily be accessed by any Freespacer or Nepleslian equipped with appropriate mindware. Once receiving input, the Big Odd manifests as the interior of a colossal open sphere, with countless small trading posts. The sphere expands and contracts according to the needs of size, and expands or contracts according to the number of active traders online at that moment. There is no standardization among the virtual marketplaces, as each vendor can freely construct their own virtual shop or stall. Everything from gleaming professional department stores, to starlit oasis caravans pulled by impossible animals made of starlight can be found in the Big Odd.

The open sphere format of the Big Odd allows a browser to actively see nearly every other vendor from any point in the virtual market place, allowing them to literally leap anywhere else due to a quirky simulation of physics. At the same time the open market place makes it a perfect panopticon allowing better surveillance of all trade done by the Syntelligence monitors.

With no static facilities, the Grand Bizarre is dependent upon its large number of industrial vessels to maintain itself, and produce a surplus. The Greasy Palms Springwell is a colossal industrial city-ship, as well as a portable shipyard. Surrounded at all times by a huge scaffold array with which Free State Engineers and innumerable Junker and Swifts drones can refit, repair or even produce new ships.

Six Gypsy class industrial ships gather and process raw materials through a combination of asteroid mining, and salvaging, while nine Don Quixote class vessels carry finished goods in transit.

Quantifying the rest of the Grand Bizarre is difficult, as it is an ever-fluctuating swarm of smaller vessels which connect and disconnect themselves from the caravan at will. The Grand Bizarre attracting many different traders and craftsmen from the Free State and beyond, and it isn't uncommon to find Nepleslian, Jiyuuian, and even Graxlat miners or traders connected (always temporarily) to the fleet.

While there is no set hierarchy aboard the Grand Bizarre, it has some inkling of a leading group. A small group of six Type III Druids and Druidesses hold a significant amount of sway in the Bizarre simply on merit of being the only ones who know how to continue to manage such a huge fleet without it collapsing entirely. As with the rest of the Free State, all problems are subject to Polysentience vote, however this group has consistently been the ones to propose the most popular options to vote upon since the inception of the fleet.

In actuality, these six are the creation of the first hosted Intelligent Design Node aboard the fleet. The original founders of the Bizarre, most of which have since died due to a short lifespan, considered leaving the future of the Free State to chance to be irresponsible. They wished to use trade to in some way repair the damage done by Yamatai, and thought that since the Freespacers already had those born trained to be pilots, or engineers, or scientists, why would they not have economists?

Taking up the mantle of Druidry in lieu of having a formal designation for those who are in charge of trade, these six tend to the spiritual and emotional needs of the fleet. But make sure at most turns that it remains a trade fleet. The closest thing they have to an actual representative from this number is designated Druidic Six Six, who is the Bizarre's default representative on major contracts by popular vote.

To maintain profitability, the Grand Bizarre roams the northern reaches of space and maintains strong ties to a wide section of the disparate Free State. Such ties are just as often reluctant as they are pleased by it. Many groups in the Free State consider the relative decadence of the Grand Bizarre to be contrary to orthodox ascetic values, and see them as the signs of yet further divergence from the older ways. Beggar Princes who claim humility, yet are swathed in silks and bathed in Sith - at least metaphorically.

None the less, they retain at least tenuous good will with most other factions; the Grand Bizarre tries at all times to be too useful to ignore entirely.

Among the major post-schism blocs, the Grand Bizarre maintains closest ties to the Pacifists, as they were among those to sue for peace. While they remain outside of known Yamataian and Nepleslian space most seasons, the Grand Bizarre frequently meets with other fleets for exchanges of goods. The Bizarre takes full advantage of most foreign trade agreements put in place to repair damage done to the Free State, with a significant portion of its fleet consisting of donated vehicles; primarily from Nepleslia, although with a few from the short lived UX-12 Scrapyard salvage agreement with Yamatai.

The Rifters' attempts to remain self sufficient in exile have led to the Bizarre attempting at all turns to court their favor. Their reputation remains completely mixed in the Blue Rift, as they are both seen as a reliable source of materials but also a temptation to return from the Blue, and collaborators with foreign dominators.

The Rebels' faction had and has a two-sided relationship with the Bizarre. Due to suing for peace, the Bizarre openly condemned many actions of the IWL and other related groups. But at the same time they did nothing to prevent trade with those groups, and actively tried to court members of piratical and terrorist groups into joining up with the Bizarre to act as armed escort. The Bizarre wishes to remain independent, but also recognizes that these are the only groups within the Free State who have been reliably combat tested. Official condemnation ceased the second that Yamatai announced decriminalization of membership of hostile Freespacer groups, and the Bizarre began to recruit from their former members in earnest.

Of the minor blocs the Bizarre is closest to the Technocrats, as their enclaves are seen as the most stable and productive Freespacer markets to trade with. The Communists are incredibly wary of their overly trade and profit-centric outlook, but an open agreement is in place for any wishing to settle down planetside; the Bizarre can produce, maintain, or locate colonisation equipment for a discounted price. In as much as the Exiles can have any relationship with any other part of the Free State, the Bizarre historically offered its shipyard and maintenance facilities to prepare Exile fleets for their journeys, this has earned them some bad blood from those who didn't wish to see the exiles leave the rest of the Free State.

Among modern factions, the Grand Bizarre has its usual mixed reputation. The Astral Locksmiths tend to be wary of their attempts to keep the Rifters connected and possibly dependent upon the outside world, although both groups keep each other at arm's length simply because neither can truly afford to get on the others' bad side. The Grand Bizarre can't afford to be blocked out of the Leyline system as rapid transit allows more profitable trade of perishables, and safety from pirate attacks. At the same time, the Astral Locksmiths are loathe to antagonize the Bizarre due to limited resources found within the Blue Rift; and should they need mass shipments the Bizarre is the most capable exporter active in the northern Kikyo sector.

Meanwhile, their relationship to the Viridian Array is one of mutual ambivalence. The Grand Bizarre is one of the most capable industrial producers of weaponry active, but is also not willing to alienate the rest of the Free State by buying into the Viridians' militant philosophies. While they do trade with one another, there is no formal trade routes the Bizarre travels which include a Viridian Array outpost, but they have no restrictions on trade and Viridian ships have their own trade routes which allow them to meet up with the Bizarre to do trade with the Bizarre's underculture of armorers and gunsmiths.

Due to the Freespacers largely working on a barter economy, actual trading with the Grand Bizarre can become quite tricky. As is, the Bizarre hosts what may be the most elaborate commodities trading board on the entire Polysentience; maintaining up to date values for most raw materials and many completed goods with a series of monitoring SI built harvest data across all trades made in the Big Odd to provide set pricing for almost any good or service found in the Free State.

As is, through this system just about anything can be used as currency when trading with the Grand Bizarre, with a hard preference towards raw materials, with purified water being the closest thing to a 'standard' currency. As they do trade with groups outside the Free State, they are one of the few Freespacer fleets to trade in actual money, allowing trade of Freespacer Resource Vouchers in exchange for foreign money.

Most trades are done with a 10% markup in price when cash is involved. No goods in the Grand Bizarre have a set price in an actual money value, and most traders will tend to haggle; this generally results in a set price for any goods produced or sold there to be next to impossible to nail down.

Like most Free State engineering, Grand Bizarre's Intelligent Design Nodes have a set philosophy: Ideally everything must be long wearing, economical, hardy, multi-use and modifiable for a variety of purposes.

• "Turtle Stack" Performance Grade Cybernetics (WIP)
• "Moondyne's Graft" Hackable Voidwalker (WIP)
• “Borne Figment” Workwear (WIP)

• “Long Drop” Magnetic Well Device (WIP)
• “Dowser's Sunder” Deep Space Scanning Array (WIP)
• “Hand Fisher” Zipline Transit System (WIP)

• “Pigsback Velveteen” Modular Breakfast (WIP)
• “Gearbox Delights” Recreational Devices (No Comment)
• “Sun Puddles” Hackable Moonshine (WIP)
• “Maker's Blues” Mind Expanders (WIP)

• "Bracebelt" Smart Fabric (WIP)
• “Cascade 19” Mining Pellets (WIP)

• “Starwayman's Bray” Recoilless Revolver (WIP)
• “Radium Rider” Nuclear Blunderbuss (WIP)
• “Antetraumatic Distresser” Personal Demolition Device (WIP)

The Grand Bizarre dedicates several Intelligent Design Nodes to the reverse engineering of imported goods, all in attempts to improve the knowledge base of the Free State. In practical effect this has simply allowed the Bizarre to have a small underculture of free market gunsmiths and armorers who reproduce restricted good. This trade is all custom done, and usually on the lower end of the technological spectrum, as most foreign designs are deigned too 'fiddly' for mass production and Free State engineering in general.

It's only in recent years that the Grand Bizarre has started distributing their plans for an increasing number of freely replicated “products”. Their initial formation was as a maintenance, mining and salvage fleet, and most of their major projects have been by commission, with most of those being done in a very calculated manner in order to cement relationships with much of the disparate Freespacer factions.

Dumont created this article on 2016/08/14 00:51.