Lahasa Fy, our Board Chairman, recently attended the Sixth Uli Swap Meet and filed this brief report on behalf of Shili Free Press in summary of the events that took place.
On the planet Nimban in Hutt space, traders and entrepreneurs from across the galaxy converged in a single location to meet, mingle, conduct trades, and engage in a host of other activities. This continued the successful string of these semi-annual events that has become the largest social and economic event of the galaxy’s calendar for many. This event is held in honor of noted Jawa trader and pirate, Uli-ah Gafsa, who, in year 14 and 15, hosted two of these cultural events away from Tatooine for the first time in recorded history.
The recent edition, the sixth memorial meet held in his memory following his death, took place officially between day 291 and day 300 of this year, but sentients often arrive months in advance and remain for weeks after the official closing.
The overall swap meet is hosted by the Knights of the Fountain, with a sponsor for each iteration. The hosts organize some of the events at the meet, particularly the races, while the sponsor provides prize money for different events. This edition’s sponsor was the Zann Consortium, which provided some irony, since the meet’s namesake was killed by Zann enforcer Seth Haze. The safety of all who attend is assured on the surface of the planet, as the meet is always conducted at a neutral location, but every event, it seems that many people voluntarily put themselves in danger by boarding the ships of other sentients, placing them at risk of capture.
The following is a brief list of notes covering the highlights of the event:
- The Golden Bowl diner franchise formerly owned by Kuga Morguul was obtained by Murgo Contarus, whom I begrudgingly admit is now even more a prolific restaurateur than myself. It was unclear if the deal included Mr. Morguul’s Protato Chip brand as well.
- Kuga himself retired from the food business, and from most of his other endeavors, which was his reasoning for relinquishing his business interests. Mr. Morguul reportedly now works for Jic Uiji as a droid lubricator.
- Jad Hep Viridux continued his domination of the racing circuit, winning the sublight and hyperspace-based Krieg’s Run races, with Elias Pollux winning the slower paced sandcrawler race event.
- There was only one reported murder, a Ms. Samantha Luu. She was reportedly captured by Ember Aranyos. He sold her into the custody of Redjon Mirrabel, who killed her following a series of verbal threats, attempts at blackmail, and other less wholesome attempts by Ms. Luu to obtain her freedom that clearly did not entice Mr. Mirrabel in the slightest.
- At the meet, apparently coincidental with the kidnapping and ransom, Ember Aranyos announced his decision to withdraw from his current endeavors, and will instead focus on training Force-sensitive younglings for his order of Force users.
- Eidolon Fleuf Naze, fresh off of a scam worth hundreds of millions at the expense of Jay Ortega, went on a spree of stealing tents that were being used to establish trading stalls at the meet. Most if not all of those tents were later returned after owners paid minimal ransoms, reportedly as low as 10 credits. Naze later spent approximately 70 million credits during an allegedly drunken on-line shopping binge, reportedly buying up the entire tent supply from the Trade Federation market warehouses, and is still looking for more.
- A few of the rarer ships in the galaxy were on display, including Eidola’s Fairwind-class Gunship and my own Meridian-Class Frigate, as well as Tomas O`Cuinn’s Star Destroyer, which he recently used to scam the Aurodium Legion out of a reported 20 billion credits.
- Hunting is always a popular activity at the events as well. This year, although there was no official hunting competition as there has often been in the past, the most talked about trophies were a string of successfully captured droid bandits.
For those sentients interested in joining the crowd for the next installment, the seventh Swap Meet is scheduled to begin on approximately Year 20, Day 115 on Malastare in the Dustig sector.
Hope to see you there, and in the mean time, stay safe out there.
