====== Space Boomers ======
The story of the Space Boomers goes back about 250 years ago.  There was a major expansion in colonization, to the degree that major shipping corporations could not keep up with the demand.  At the same time, "blue collar" work was drying up on a lot of planets as resources dried up and/or industry relocated for logistical reasons.

As such, there were a large supply of factory workers, miners, and other similarly hands-on professions and a demand for more freighters to ply the stars.  Families would band together to form [[info:Legacy_ship|Legacy Ships]], pooling resources to put the down payment on a freighter and then operating it together.  And thus, the Space Boom started as many of these ships took to the stars to serve the new colonies that the shipping corporations couldn't yet reach.

Predictably, a lot of these ventures failed; very few of these people actually had any idea how to run a starship, or a shipping company, and the majority of these operations would fail.  The families would usually wind up as colonists on these newly established worlds.  Fortunately, relatively few had catastrophic problems, but certainly more than one of these joint ventures were lost to the stars.

However, some succeeded.  Those that did became their own culture, their families living amongst the stars and sometimes never setting foot on a planet.  Over time, some of these ships merged -- literally, in fact -- conjoining and welding together their ships to make larger ships.  Super-freighters comprised of 5 or 6 smaller ships that joined together over time.

These ships are incredibly ugly; they look like floating balls of salvage.  Because of that, and also because of a perception of them being culturally backwards and low class, they are generally known as "Space Trash" to those who have such a bias.

===== Space Boomer Qualities =====
Generally, Space Boomers have certain qualities in common:

  * The engineers are known to be some of the best in the galaxy; they were literally born into it, and can keep an engine running on chewing gum and twine.  Even those that want to put "Space Trash" down would probably hire a Boomer engineer.
  * Many of them have allergy problems, especially when on a planet.  But allergies can be triggered by anything that isn't common to their starship homes.
  * Agoraphobia is common amongst Space Boomers, as many have never been under open skies before, or may even outright fear open skies due to an irrational fear of "falling off the planet".
  * Space Boomers are generally not as inbred as biased outsiders assume them to be; a number of provisions are in place to keep the gene pool varied.  Young adults, i.e. those that are trained and have completed school, often are exchanged between different Boomer ships.  Pen pals are common to encourage young people to meet others outside of the Boomer population.  And finally, there are outsiders that find the lifestyle compelling and wish to join them; these are usually accepted with open arms.
  * Weird accents are common
  * Low modesty / poor understanding of personal space can also be common boomer traits.
  * A high degree of 'family values' and being generally family oriented is also very common.