Andrew, Scion of House Ravenblood. Representative to the Guild Combine.
Basic Charachteristics
Twenty Six years old.
Halian Islander Ethnicity (Close to the Orthodox Canon of "Basic Humanity" in form, with some common charachteristics. Tanned skin, light brown or blond hair, green eyes. Does best in warm,
wet climates and with a diet heavily consisting of fish, and fruit.)
Light build, well groomed appearance.
Family history of modest amounts of ancient Gene Tampering. (You are currently unaware of any effects this may have had on you, personally, besides eliminating some of the potential for genetic diseases your ethnicity is most often afflicted by.)
Skills and Personality
-Naval upbringing.
-Strong, generalised education.
-Accustomed to life in Space
-Liberal mindset, due to exposure to technologies, cultures and creeds throughout the Imperium.
-Well travelled
-Shaky understanding of and history with the sects of the church has led to small amounts of mutual distrust.
-Strong understanding of the economic systems of the imperium in their many myriad forms.
-In depth knowledge of Interplanetary trade law.
-Generalised familiarity with technology.
Personal Possessions
Clothing
-Several sets of Halian formal wear, suitable for presenting yourself in formal gatherings with minor dignitaries and most Combine officials, when you wish to remind them of where you come from.
-Entire Wardrobes of varied outfits designed and made by the Textiles Guild, suitable for a wide range of activities, social gatherings and official meetings. Fashionable, elaborate, and suited to most engagements you are likely to encounter in the near future.
-A set of Ceremonial House Ravenblood Armour. Not intended for pitched warfare, but still offers some measure of protection should you ever want to project power. It does sacrifice some amount of practicality when compared with other sets of medium armour, but it nonetheless is a great deal better than clothing or the armour of a common foot soldier. It consists of three layers, a powered wetsuit which can buoy you to the surface of water, which is itself made of highly durable, waterproof fabric. A set of refined, practical plate armour over that. And finally, a set of red and black finery to be worn over that, decorated with the sigil of your house.
Weapons
A Naval Saber, made with conventional metals and Halian craftsmanship.
A Laspistol, made in a Combine factory.
Personal Wealth
-A collection of Combine-Made Jewellery.
-A chest of Imperial coins.
-Lavish station quarters, with personal serfs and attendants.
Your Current Resources
-Noble Retinue: A company of trained bodygaurds, assigned to protect your person. (300 currently. Armed with Sabers and Laspistols. Led by Captain Elthis, a landed aristocrat, and your friend.)
-Ravenblood Guild Combine Accounts: You've been put in charge of administrating your family's Guild accounts. Most of your family's wealth exists in the form of physical assets and resources on your home-planet, but these accounts exist specifically to purchase goods and services from the Combine. Currently these accounts possess enough liquid currency to purchase an entire Frigate, with a roughly equal amount of credit.
-Personal Guild Combine Accounts: Your personal savings are not insignificant, though your recent expenses have depleted them. If you spent all of your funds, you could probably hire a few small Combine Mercenary company's for a year of service. You have a generous line of credit in addition, though not nearly on the level possessed by your own family. You can however, expect better interest rates.
-Various contracts guaranteeing travel for yourself and your retinue with the usual Shipping Guilds.
-Position of Authority over family investments and interplanetary trade.
Already your mind is on the potential benefits of establishing an interplanetary trade hub in your home system. It will certainly give you greater access to the goods and services of the combine, at least when it is completed, not to mention a hand on the pulse of interstellar trade in the area. There are some drawbacks that come with such a thing as well however. It would in effect, lower House Ravenblood's autonomy over the traffic in its home system, which would be left unable to stringently police traffic without incurring the ire of the shipping guild. In addition, the Imperium tightly controls the volume of jump drive traffic allowed to enter or exit a given system at any point in time. Though Halia has never suffered problems from that bottleneck in the past, that might change were the Combine given free access to the system. Fortunately for the time being your House only possesses one planet, which makes it unlikely that there will be a great need to move troops and materials away from it in the near future.
There is also the matter of the battleship, a would-be flagship for House Ravenblood which has been under construction for generations. As time has gone on, and enthusiasm for the project has waned, construction has slowed considerably. In theory, it will be by far the mightiest vessel in the Ravenblood fleet, which consists only of escort-craft, system defence ships, and cargo vessels. A true battleship could make your house relevant in interstellar warfare, where before Ravenblood has only been able to back much larger houses in their own conflicts for the purpose of gaining their favor.
It is upon these points which you begin to build a case in your mind, to be presented to the Matriarch some time in the future. Until then, you have work to do in sweetening the deal for your family.
Once again you meet with Tarla Numerica, the overworked head of the shipping guild on the station. She is as efficient as ever in finalising details, and before you know it, she's worked out a contract which could be presented to your Matriarch at your convenience. The details are more or less as such:
-The Combine will be allowed to construct a trade station within the Halia system. They will not at any point mine materials within the boundaries of the Star's gravitational influence without the express permission of House Ravenblood, even to aid in the construction. In turn, House Ravenblood must ensure that there is no interference in the station's construction, and comply with reasonable requests for assistance, the specifics of "reasonable request" being detailed in the contract to your satisfaction.
-The Shipping Guild will not station warships within the system, except in the instance that there is credible evidence a Void Predator Incursion is about to occur, or House Ravenblood has granted permission.
-The Shipping Guild will finish construction of House Ravenblood's Battleship within a period not exceeding ten years. Failure to comply with this clause will lead to severe financial compensation, to be paid in Imperial Tender rather than Combine Credit.
-House Ravenblood will be granted permanent supervisory appointments aboard the station, to be filled at their discretion.
-Once completed, the Station itself will legally be considered separate from the Halian system, and therefore outside House Ravenblood territory. Anything docked with the station will be considered part of the station for purposes of this clause.
-You will be offered a "finders fee" if the contract is signed by all parties. It's a relatively modest sum as far as deals between interplanetary political bodies go, but a rather handsome one in proportion to the size of your own pocketbook.
Mostly it's fairly standard, and about what you might expect. As of yet, no one is under any obligations, but now that you have a solid iteration of the proposal, it gives you something to present to the Matriarch at your convenience. You do however, have to wait the minimum of weeks until the next ship from Halia arrives at the station, which means you're left sitting on the contract until you at the very least receive word from home. So, in the meantime you continue to do your job aboard the station, making sure that your family's assets abroad don't vanish up into smoke unexpectedly.
...
During those weeks you encounter some opportunities, some more personal, and others more relevant to the interests of your house in particular. One night, your friend Captain Elthis pays you a visit. Like you he's an Islander, and you grew up alongside him. Unlike your noble pedigree however, he belongs to the aristocracy of your Father's island, and therefore received a maritime education where you received a more scholarly one. He was groomed from birth to become a military officer, like many of his station. Rather than serve aboard a ship on the sea however, he was placed in charge of your retinue, and has been with you ever since you were assigned as the family representative with the Combine. He's stout and loyal, though he hates recycle air as much as anyone in your retinue, and is probably the loudest about it. He's also vain, trying his best to cut a dashing figure at every opportunity, and in that regard life aboard the station has done him a few favours, given its robust markets and access to fashions across the imperium. Elthis has noticed your interest as of late in the materials of war, and though he does not know the details, he asks you if it may be a good idea to re-outfit your retinue. Currently, your three-hundred guards are outfitted to protect you against assassins, thugs, and serf mobs. Armed with swords, pistols, and girded in light stab-resistant fabrics, they have been quite effective in guarding you from assassins, thugs, and the occassional serf mob, but if you plan on marching to battle at any point, he explains that it might be a good idea to outfit some or all of them for war. High quality armor and weapons for three hundred bodyguards don't come cheap however, and if you provided them with cheaper gear it may reflect badly upon you. You currently don't plan on leaving the station to go into battle, but it's worth considering.
During a block of your spare time, a broker you're familiar with arranges an appointment to meet with you. Apparently he's been hired out by a group of settlers who until recently, were long thought dead. A hundred or so years ago, a minor house located a planet suitable for terraforming, and it just so happened that they possessed the technology necessary to begin some of the first stages of that process. The first wave of settlers that they sent were mostly intended to supervise that terraforming process, and to build the infrastructure necessary to support subsequent waves as the planet became more habitable. The second wave never came, as that minor house fell into financial ruin, and was absorbed by the house they themselves were vassalized to. It had been expected that the first, failed expedition of a hundred thousand souls would simply starve to death without the support of their house, but apparently they have survived. You suppose that technically makes them independant now, which means they have far fewer legal protections than a House or Guild might. The broker gives you a list of the things that they require at bare minimum, and also what they are able to provide in return. After running some quick calculations, you determine that things are very foul indeed for the colonists. They've barely clung to life for the past century, but year by year their population has decreased, with only indomitable ingenuity keeping them alive at all. They require water, more diverse food, and replacement parts for machinery that was only supposed to run for a few decades. A cynical part of you notes that you could easily take advantage of their desperation, with food and water being incredibly easy for your planet to produce. They can't afford what they need at fair prices, but you could provide it for them nonetheless at outrageous interest, potentially even creating dependency on Halia as their debt accrues and prevents them from buying from other sources. On the other side of the coin, you could also ingratiate them towards the Ravenblood family by being generous, which might lead to future returns if the colonists achieve any kind of future success on their little world, possibly even absorption of the colonists and their planet into Ravenblood holdings. Alternatively, you could simply engage in piracy, hiring mercenaries to go raid the defenceless colonists, or even attempting to call on members of your family to go conquer the partly terraformed planet. Whatever you plan however, you ought to do it quickly. The broker has brought this to you first as a personal favor, and this kind of opportunity will surely be pounced on by someone else on the station if you don't act on it first. The broker of course, politely asks for a finders fee. You expect he'll be spreading word around the station of this opportunity should you not provide it.
Finally, you hear word that a prominent member of the Archaios family is seeking a political husband for his daughter in another house. The Archaios have traditionally been a rival of the much smaller Ravenblood family, with larger territory and better political connections. Both border eachother, and the Archaios have occassionally tried to take Halia for themselves in centuries past. The Ravenbloods have traditionally avoided that fate by playing the Archaios off of the equally large Navarric House, which is proud, militaristic, and unwilling to allow the Archaios the advantage of Halia's position. Most minor houses would protect themselves from being crushed between two powers by swearing fealty to one or the other, but Ravenblood has remained proudly independent.
It's to some surprise that you discover that the Archaios are considering you or one of your family members as a potential match for the girl. Helpfully, they've even sent you details on her and her pedigree. Her name is Junia, and she's three years your junior, though with some measure of accomplishment to her name already. She studied under Imperium diplomats to Xeno races, and therefore likely has an uncommon level of knowledge about them, treacherous as they might be. You're even provided a digital portrait, in which she looks slightly annoyed at something. She's pretty, in an understated sort of way.
You have some things to consider. Though you could also of course, simply ignore these concerns in favor of waiting the weeks it will require before you might receive word from home.
Author
Topic: Fading Empire (SG) (Read 6399 times)