Mirst
- Shuksam redirects here.
Shuksam and mirst are two types of rare stone crystals, also referred to as semi-precious stones, odd-looking rocks, and as "rocks and gems", which had been mined in several mining operations on the Fald Plains on the planet Shiloh during the Star League era.[1] They are frequently mentioned together, and it is unclear what the difference is. Ambiguous wording loosely indicates that "rocks" refers to shuksam and "gems" to mirst.
It was mentioned that most of the mines were looted in the First Succession War, and by the early 31st century only some caches still remained hidden; implicitly, there are only stores and no more mining is going on.[1] The spectrum of a shuksam deposit is detectable via BattleMech sensors.[1] The crystals give unusual EM readings[2] though it was not specified if that refers to either or both types. The EM readings may or may not have beem the reason for the JumpShip Mogami to suffer two consecutive, extremely improbable misjumps while carrying four DropShis with altogether over 33,000 tons of shuksam and mirst crystals; the first misjump was accompanied by a massive electromagnetic surge that disabled key systems and burned out the Kearny-Fuchida Drive's initiator and after repairs, the second jump attempt resulted in a very similar misjump.
As of June 2758, the Believers of the Saints Cameron had begun to use shuksam and mirst crystals to "commune with dead Camerons", making the crystals literally or at least figuratively more valuable than germanium. Captain Walter Wilfred of the Mogami managed to buy enough shuksam and mirst to fill four Mule DropShips and his JumpShip's internal cargo bay to capacity before market projections reached Shiloh, but then had the misfortune to suffer a misjump immediately afterwards.[2] Given that shuksam and mirst were considered rare to begin with, the loss of over 33,000 tons in this way may have further inflated the crystals' value.
At some point between 3007 and 3017, Snord's Irregulars arranged to be assigned to the fighting between the Lyran Commonwealth and the Free Worlds League on Shiloh and volunteered to scout the Fald Plains, with the unspoken intention to find and recover the semi-precious stones. Snord's command lance indeed found a cache of stored shuksam rocks (later on referred to rocks and gems), and fought their way through an enemy lance (the 110th Black Marauder Fire Lance) who had found the hidden mound of rocks earlier but could not prevent Snord's unit from securing the prize.[1]
Bibliography
- Shrapnel (magazine), issue #13: A Ship out of Time
- Cranston Snord's Irregulars