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.
-Family ownership of a moderate amount of debt from the newly discovered colonists.
You have a few minor moves to make before you begin any big plays, so you get to work. First you commission the technologist guild for a cryptocracking job, to see if they can make heads or tails of what might be in the files that Eugen allegedly intercepted. You receive an update in only a matter of hours. They've been run through an encryption protocol that their technicians are familiar with, used by a few of the major houses, including the Archaios. They can try to work on it, but success in sifting out anything useful is highly unlikely without a concentrated espionage effort to find the right key for this specific set of messages. Even if you did find the right key, it would still be incredibly difficult to work around safety protocols, unless the person who designed this particular iteration was entirely incompetent. Most House keys, such as your own Ravenblood family key, are physical objects that at the bare minimum themselves unlock with contact to a family's genetic material. Those keys then decode the desired encrypted information. Reverse engineering the "physical" key in order to find the "digital" key is no small effort, and one made more complicated considering families tightly track their own keys, often with homing beacons. As soon as one goes missing, it is good practice to commission an entirely new set. No matter what route you take in trying to sift through this information, it's likely to be a nightmare. It is no wonder that Eugen has failed to do so himself. Nothing is stopping you from trying however.
Once more you call Sino in to meet with you, and he arrives quite promptly. This time you offer fruit-scented water, which he accepts with an approving look. It doesn't take you long to get to business.
"So cousin, Adam is asking for a great deal of money in order to fund his effort. I ought to know how this money is going to be spent, or i could not in good concience provide it." You couch the query in statements of your duty, which you hope will be enough to avoid any response resembling a sermon.
His response is actually quite polite and understanding. "An understandable concern. Quite frankly, they are needed to secure privateers, and to fully arm volunteer forces. We hope to avoid violence through the threat of force, and for that our forces need to be a credible threat. If Eugen's vassals can be convinced that an all out civil war would be disastrous, they may not back his claim, which ought to force him to retract it. His legion is fierce, and his holdings vigorous, but without support he simply won't have the forces to have a credible chance of victory. You fill in for yourself what is being left unsaid. If Eugen's vassals and political allies fully back his claim, they will likely crush Adam's volunteer army, even with church backing bolstering his numbers. With sufficient monetary support, Adam could forge his rabble into a real army. Based on Eugen's own correspondence with you, he doesn't seem to be currently paying Adam any mind, focused on his vendetta against a seemingly even weaker opponent, the House Spymaster. You can't be sure wether that is out of blind singlemindedness, or because the Veteran simply does not think Adam is a threat. It may mean that he won't be prepared should Adam attack with a real force, or it might mean the opposite.
"I need to know wether you have a real chance of success. Or whether your venture will simply drag us into a disastrous war. Convince me." Your missionary cousin seems glad to do just that, and silently provides you with a list of names. Curious, you have a look, and discover it to be a list of promises from various minor lords on Halia. Promises of supply convoys, companies of artillery and infantry, and a few naval ships. Most notable of all, is the support of over a dozen Town-ships. The Town-ships themselves are hardly powerful military vessels, but each has a small fleet of gunboats for defence, and of course large populations to draw militia from. Adam's would-be army might be a rabble, but it is not quite a *small* rabble.
"These are many of the most pious defenders of the orthodox faith, all rallying to Sir Adam's banner. We hope that you will help us provide the swords to battle the persecutions of a mad heretic. Will that be all?" He seems gleeful, like he's already won you to the cause. You politely dismiss him so that you can think....
Truth be told, you are not a military man. You are however, a pragmatic one, so you begin hedging your bets. It's possible that your actions in the next few months may eventually end in you being unwelcome on your home world, a sad thought. Alternatively, it's possible that this civil war on the horizon might tear the foundations of your family apart, leaving it better for you to slink off. So, just in case, you begin to check your prospects.
The Shipping Guild is one of the first, obvious choices. Its powerful, wealthy, and always looking for talent to captain its ships and manage its trade routes. Tarla Numerica is the first you meet for a clandestine job interview. The efficient women tells you plainly that she would be glad to offer you a position in her employ as a trade bureaucrat. Not exciting work, but it's a position of some modest measure of influence over interplanetary trade in the region. She also offers you some potentially more exciting work, as a high level officer on board one of the Guild's many Freighters. She might also be able to squeeze you in as the captain of a more modest courier ship. Your personal retinue would be provided with security positions on board whatever ship you served aboard, something which would serve as another level of control for you aboard such vessels.
The Banking Guild would also be willing to offer you a position as a high ranking loan officer, work you are well suited to and experienced with. You could exert a lot of influence with access to such large sums of money.
The Mercenaries Guild offers you a contract as the head of your own company within their employ. In exchange for signing on with them with your Retinue, they would offer you a large stipend, and allow you to underwrite recruitment and equipment under business expenditures. If you developed a good enough reputation, they might even assist you in building your own mercenary legion.
The Guild Combine administration offers you a few different positions. First, they could assign you to station head Adraxte, who in turn would make you a sub-administrator, effectively the ruler of part of the station. Alternatively, assuming you get your family to agree to build a new station in your home system, they could make you co-administrator of that station, with a member of the shipping guild as the other co-administrator, to oversee construction. You would however, be expected to exploit your knowledge of Halia and its rulers though, for the benefit of the Guilds. Finally, the Guild Combine might be willing to make you a local ruler on a Combine controlled world. Not of the planet of course, but rather of a city state.
Finally, you seem to remember that many years ago, your Grandmother indicated that she may one day want you to take an Imperial Appointment, and therefore that you should try to avoid offending any Imperial diplomats or officials. Perhaps that is still on the table, if the next time you go to Halia she is still alive. You can at least gain some measure of comfort that you at least have many options for your future, if things go badly for you at home.
For now however, you ought to be concerned for your present. Do you plan on returning home aboard the next freighter bound for Halia? Or do you plan to wait for the next return vessel, so that you might first know beforehand wether your grandmother has survived her surgery? And either way, what do you plan on doing in the next couple weeks?
Author
Topic: Fading Empire (SG) (Read 6393 times)