Ymir Animal Skins
For Homesteaders on Ymir, there are only a few ways to make solid money, because the government farms produces far more goods than they can. Asides from contracts with the Science Department, the primary methods are forestry and hunting, where hunting is both for meat and for the animal skins. Richer individuals pay handsomely for high quality skins, while some companies and the Battle Spears buy skins of species they can use for producing armour.
Many Homesteaders were already experienced with processing animal hides on Earth, so trial-and-error helped them learn how to process the various species on Ymir. They shared their information willingly with the Science Department, and vice versa, which greatly advanced the art of creating furs. As a form of gratitude for all the support from Homesteaders, whenever Battle Spears are forced to take down animals, they near-always will give the corpses to nearby Homesteaders.
With help from Homesteaders, the Science Department discovered some Ymir species have forms of natural camouflage, most of which works poorly against humans but excellent against Ymir predators. This helped them advance the Battle Spear Uniform, building in natural camouflage. In recent years, several companies have also been researching said natural camouflage, buying skins from Homesteaders to use in their products.
One of the reasons Homesteaders own the niche market of skins, is that only Homesteaders and Battle Spears are allowed to own and use firearms. Normal citizens, no matter how rich or influential they are, are under no circumstances allowed to hunt. Even if they were to work for a Homesteader, they would be restricted to trapping, and only with their employer's permission. As such, Homesteaders are not expected to have any serious competition for the next decades.
- Frozen corpses
- Processed hides
- Clothing and rugs
I like the story behind this!