Goltha Development

Goltha Development is a Major Story Vignette. It will appear when the Captain lands on a Rychart world. An officer will begin a dialogue saying there is a diplomat who is looking for capable Star Trading Captains. The contact Cassie Cain will appear on the planet. She will promise an interesting mission, but you must reach personal reputation 30 with her first, by doing missions or selling intelligence.

Synopsis
A secret De Valtos lab is developing a new technology called a Goltha Scanner which may be a disruptive technology. Cassie has found a way to steal the technology and make a great profit, but she needs your help. Will you mislead a mother about the death of her children, or kidnap and blackmail a spice addict to do it?

Walkthrough
 Reveal/Hide SPOILERS This is one of the more involved Story Vignettes and can take quite a long time to resolve. It will involve ship or crew combat. If you are not equipped for such things you may want to try it at a later point.

First, you will need to bring money to bribe a lab technician, Eva. Eva will give you the first round of information to bring back to Cassie. Then Cassie will send you on a two part spy mission to the secret lab. It is in Farfallen quadrant (I assume this is not random, it will appear here in all map seeds.)

The spy mission will reveal two approaches: Kai Mar, a researcher, can be induced to flee the lab if we forge messages indicating that her family is in danger. Then the captain can attack the ship she hires to flee, take her prisoner, and bring her back to Cassie. This involves one ship combat. Alternatively, the captain learns that Karl Vose, another worker at the lab, is a spice addict. He can be kidnapped while at a spice den. This involves one ground combat.

Once you succeed *or fail* at either approach, the mission for the other approach will disappear from your mission log. That means if you fail the combat, the mission can't be completed. Presumably, failing the combat puts the lab on high alert, and there isn't any opportunity to try the other approach.

When you bring back either prisoner to Cassie, she will congratulate you, and announce that the technology may be ready in a year or more.

After a year or more, you can visit her again. She will give you a $200,000 bonus and the two items Redlight Goltha Scanner and Redlance Goltha Scanner become available. These are specialized versions of the scanner module which occupy a medium slot and have a far larger effect. (Note these items alphabetize under "R" in the ship reference and they are initially Rychart limited.)

At some point, the scanners become available to more factions; but I have not been able to tell what triggers this.