Hmm...<br/><br/>Given that we have six new arrivals, I am thinking of three possible opener back-stories (assuming all six new arrivals' players are still in).<br/><br/>1) There has just been a major accident on our shift, in which a massive ice-quake or possibly a giant ice-worm caused a large portion of the tunnel to collapse. Of course such a collapse means that everyone digs to get the victims out, alive if possible. There were several survivors but we lost a lot of people too.<br/><br/>2) The shift has been low on people for some months due to older inmates dying and one or two lesser accidents, and the number of people being convicted and sent to the Cooler has been low, with the few who have been sent going elsewhere, but this time we are being brought back up near full strenght on the shift.<br/><br/>3) This is a new shift being set up on a new tunnel, on a new seam that has just been approved for mining. The settlement is not a new one, but the mine shaft and equipment are all new and the settlement has been expanded to accommodate the three new shifts of workers. The new shifts are being formed to keep newly arrived inmates busy, because there has been a sudden glut of them. The senior people on the shift have all been promoted from other shifts within the settlement or transferred in from other settlements.<br/><br/>Please note that I am implying something here that I have not previously mentioned: An order imposed from outside!<br/><br/>I don't see the social pecking order being imposed as such, and I still see who does what and sleeps where and with whom as being all things that the inmates decide for themselves. You want my job, you kill me and you can have it. But if you don't kill me, I'll kill you! Not that i see that sort of challenge being part of the game particularly, but it is there.<br/><br/>No, what I mean is that the inmates do not have access to the geological survey data. Nor are any of them actually skilled at mining (hence the low-tech tools).<br/><br/>I am envisioning a support team who spend most of their time on the orbital space station enjoying life and monitoring what is going on below them, and if it looks like all the shifts are up to full strength and more inmates are arriving, so things are going to get crowded, the marines come down and cordon off an area, then the support team come down and dig a new shaft, onto a previously untapped vein, set up all the various equipment and inform (via some method of communication that isn't important) the new seniors on each shift that they will be starting work on a new tunnel. Of course the support team use totally hi-tech tools such as lasers... in fact the shaft could be cut with a satellite laser!<br/><br/>So, anyway, three options. The bit about the support team makes sense anyway so I might just make that canon.