Make sure you’ve already read the article on the “RAIDING AND TRADING BELTERS”

Once the Belters grew aware of Northway and the Guild’s existence, there was a period described by senior administrators as “the sounding years”. While the actual states and average workers were locked in the break-neck competition of the Hungry Years, the leaders and industrial planners of each faction were trying to figure out how to coexist. From 2031-33, each group was dimly aware that there were at least two other industrially-focused states, but they weren’t particularly sure what exactly their respective industries were focused on. All of their “contact” came in the form of manufactured parts and the word-of-mouth from the intermediaries who sold them. There were many complicating factors in this communication system:

• For various reasons, none of the three factions wanted to communicate directly about industrial planning:
  • Callers were universally opposed to any kind of direct communication. In their experience, the rumors surrounding newly produced parts and who made them was essential for convincing their people of the Hungry Years and that there were already industrial superpowers waiting to attack them. 
  • The Belters were by far the most geographically isolated. Their only allies were the Raiding Belters/Deposed and Hellridge (which was moving further away from them during the 30’s). They knew nothing of the power-dynamics in the East and assumed that they were weaker by far. Thus, they believed that any attempt at direct communication would further expose their weakness and their rivals would “move in the for kill”.
  • At this point, Northway was only communicating with Arcwater and traders who agreed to their terms. 
  • The Guild was far too concerned with maintaining order between its own Cities and neighboring clans to risk sending anyone out to the West. They established Denver as an official City in 2035, but this was when most of the Belter’s fleet was distributed elsewhere. 
• Many of the intermediary distributors often received their parts from other intermediaries who had made the parts they sold from potentially even another intermediary. Hypothetically, the Guild could make pure iron ingots that would then reforged into steel cable by another Guild City, which would then be used for a compound bow made by a lesser Clan, and finally modified into a stationary ballista by Agrarians who then sold that product to the Belters and said it was “made by the Guild”. The Guild typically had no control over its intermediaries, so its industrial capabilities were wildly over-perceived by the Belters and Northway. 
• The actual travel-time of these parts from the producers to buyers made it nearly impossible for other factions to tell how quickly their rivals were progressing or what processes they were most heavily investing in. 

What ultimately developed in the years before the meeting in Conver was a system of “signalling” through aggressive production and distribution of parts. The hope was that their rivals would gain a better picture of what each faction was specializing in. The end result was that the Belters realized it was pointless to compete with Northway for high-precision components and anything electrical, Northway saw that they should focus more on making high-quality products and entrust bulk production to the Belters, and the Guild saw that they could delegate almost everything to Northway and the Belters. This “sounding” process was deemed highly important, not just for the sake of developing a balanced economy but for concerns over the end of the Hungry Years. The prevailing understanding was that their most dependent consumers would be the same population that would go to war in their favor. In this regard, the Belters triumphed. Their nomadic style had made them unique relationship with countless stationary settlements in a variety of clans. These communities had come to depend on the Belters for basic tools, equipment, and vehicles. While many factions (including the Belters) had grown to rely on the hyper-specialized parts made by Northway, this reliance was only felt by senior engineers and administrators. The Guild had actually curried resentment from an overwhelming majority of Clans for their deliberate monopoly of basic industrial resources. At the very least, the three industrial superpowers of Post-Burnout America had achieved a form of co-dependence. 

Through 2043-44, the Belters were essential for the development of the first Dreadnaught. Although they had assisted in several raids against the alliance, they knew they had to help with the Guild’s long-term security. They agreed to transport materials to Denver for a “classified weapons-project”. When the true nature of the Dreadnaughts became apparent, the Belters saw a way to permanently attach themselves to the Guild’s vision. With their unparalleled ties to backdrop-communities, the Belters proposed that they could secure a continual supply of the metals required to produce Rustfire. In exchange, they asked for Denver to be able to produce their own Dreadnaughts. Although they didn’t have a good estimate of the vehicle’s fuel-consumption (far lower than their initial estimates), the Guild knew they needed to secure a supply of rustfire’s input resources and good terms with the Clan who controlled the area around their most isolated City. The Guild agreed to allow Denver to produce components for the Belter’s Dreadnaughts, so long as they wouldn’t interfere with their demands and that the Belters not use Denver to assemble it. 

The Belters agreed, and in 2048 the first Rustfire-powered Chimera was assembled.