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- Sector
- 1.1 Lavaland
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- Nanotrasen and the Wizard Federation
- 2.1 Wizard governance
- 2.2 Nanotrasen governance
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- Technology and the Asclepian
- 3.1 Bluespace travel
- 3.2 Magic practices
- 3.3 The Necropolis
- x. Mechanical implications
Name: Proxima Hyperion
Number of planets: 10
Central Command's information outpost: Titania Orbit, Ouranos
Lavaland's location: Hephaistos
The sector is named after its primary and only star Proxima Hyperion or Hyperion to non-human characters.
The title is inherently reductive, a result of Wizard academics who have tried to ward off thrillseekers and untrained personnel from the Hephaistos perimeter - the strategy has had questionable success. The mining perimeters are entirely owned by Nanotrasen.
The true nature of Lavaland is elaborated on in Chapter 3.3 - for the sake of an overview: The mining perimeter called Lavaland is not confined to just Hephaistos, but the planet itself holds the biggest and most important site relevant to the Necropolis, which is needed by scholars to access the novel magic within.
Proxima Hyperion is a strict plutarchy, with the ruling class being split between public officials for the Wizard Federation and Nanotrasen board members. The wealth disparity is massive accross economic classes, with the poor and unemployed being relegated to the bottom; many of them form pirate gangs or black markets to sustain their spacefaring tenor - that is, until they get arrested or killed. Pirates and criminals of higher wealth may occasionally create their own organizations, be it for an ideological reason, personal enrichment or the mere wish to engage in terrorism: the Federation and Nanotrasen may refer to them all with the single moniker of The Syndicate, for obvious propaganda reasons.
| Nanotrasen | Wizard Federation | The Syndicate(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governance | Board of Investors | Duchy of The Senate | Militia leaders |
| Influence | Federation Contractors and Space Station platforms | All of civil space | Black markets and unexplored space |
| Leading species | Humans | Any magical and psychic specimen | Any |
| Standard of living | Baseline | From high class to royalty | From poverty to baseline |
| Capital structure | Company Headquarters, Gaea | Wizard Senate's Great Circle, Gaea | Anywhere |
Because of the existing plutarchy the Wizard Federation execute policy for the best interest of Nanotrasen, and they prefer to remain uninvolved in routine matters and station management. Central Command is a joint Wizard-Nanotrasen outpost and orbits one of the moons of Ouranos, one of the farthest planets from Proxima Hyperion.
In regards to domestic policy, Wizards are privy to outsiders, if not outright paranoid. Wizard institutions have a tight grip on information exchanges, and will try to withold information or misdirect to protect their research. This includes the executive branch and regal caste of the Wizard Federation: The Senate, or Great Circle of Senators, encompasses all Wizards of great experience and age, which includes academics, military leaders, famous lineages and diplomats. Becoming a member of the Senate is extremely hard for a practicing Wizard, let alone impossible for anyone else.
Legally speaking, all members of The Senate hold the same executive power during a Great Circle, but the impending dissent and distrust has led to many elders elevating Dukes of prestigious lineages to direct discussion and push past any stalling in legislation. In effect, this makes Dukes the most powerful members of The Senate - this extends to their magics, as it's frequent for Dukes to receive blessings from other Senators, to try and gain their favor. By all conventional means, Dukes are immortal and maintain their position indefinitely.
Nanotrasen has no direct interest in public policy, since the Wizards maintain that role in Proxima Hyperion. The Board of Investors still call the shots when a project needs to be opened or closed, and they are not shy of bullying business partners like Interdyne and Cybersun for pharmaceuticals and field equipment respectively. The general consensus among local enterprises seems to be, if Nanotrasen calls your name, you're out of business.
The general paranoia gave way to the urban myth of the Nanotrasen Death Squad, a team of nameless shock troopers that is supposedly sent out to clear the record, if handshakes and paper checks don't get the Board what it wants. The company itself does not confirm or deny its existence, which gives merit to the legend.
Board members are the wealthiest inhabitants of Hyperion Proxima, and the most significant ones have capital spread accross the entire sector, which may include private magic institutes, to try and exploit both research avenues for profit - or to the more eccentric Board members, discover the Asclepian for themselves. The barrier of entry to the Board itself is negligible - one needs only to own stated capital that is made public by the company; this does not translate to ultimate wealth or power by itself. Millions of Board members are insignificant when put next to the sheer might of the most influential capitalists, whose decisions remain anonymous to the public, and can tramp over disagreements with instant results.
Going against the Board of Investors means becoming an enemy of the corporation.
The workers of Proxima Hyperion may be superstitious but not without reason; technomancy and cybermancy are generally accepted practices by both Nanotrasen and the Wizard Federation, with outlooks varying from enthusiastic to alarming. The technology itself relies on distorted perception or reality tunnelling, in a more literal sense than depicted in literature. This is when Bluespace steps in: named after an unnamed Duke's first encounter with it, the crystal is able to pierce real space and create Bluespace cavitations, which are unstable and will collapse almost instantly. To an unknowing person, this manifests when they break a crystal and get teleported to a random location.
The effects of a cavitation collapse can range from mild inconveniences to city-clearing catastrophes, from a single spark to a Blob outbreak. The combined efforts of Nanotrasen and the Wizards brought them to discover the Asclepian, a hypothetical, unproven stabilizer for Bluespace that harnesses the properties of phoron crystals - or plasma crystals, as commonly mislabelled by miners sent to Hephaistos - to allow for the indefinite upkeep of Bluespace-driven technology. As it stands in the setting, all Bluespace technology is considered disposable, including power cells, tools and shuttle engines.
Since conventional propulsion can take hours to days to simply reach different orbits of the same planet, most intrastellar shuttles are equipped with Bluespace engines: they're bulky, heavy thrusters that require external heating, and are prone to breaking when traversing long distances quickly - or worse. Regardless, this makes Nanotrasen the leading exporter of Bluespace vessels in Hyperion Proxima, and for this reason alone the sector is frequently cited by outsiders as a service center for personal and commercial ships.
The most bare-bones Bluespace shuttle can cover between 2 and 15 parsecs in the span of a day, with the ideal distance determined by the path that the Bluespace cavitations will take in real space. Divinations and blessing rituals can steer the outcome in the pilot's favor, though it is not guaranteed.
Central Command vessels are overseen by the Board of Investors for quality inspection, tech rituals and routine service, but The Senate is the responsible organization in writing, as those shuttles are for military intervention or emergency response, and equipped with propulsion systems that are not meant to be accessible to the public.
The systems of magic are varied and hinge on personal preference and training - even among Wizards and Senators. In the case of Nanotrasen's accepted practices, technomancy lends to more productivity for employees, using space station equipment to help with divination, spiritual comfort and rudimentary telepathy to most individuals.
Hephaistos lends itself to unsupervised experimentation due to its inherently unstable nature. Engaging with the Necropolis or Legion is typically disallowed by Nanotrasen, but the company has public precedent in employing those magics in their favor. They are still considered unsafe.
Each Nanotrasen station is offered space for Chaplains to carry out blessing rituals and divinations to their discretion. They may still carry out rituals in public.
Cybermancy is relegated to the activation of personas in synthetic brains - the relevant rituals to give them sapience. The practices are unreliable and often fail, resulting in normal automatons instead. If a cybermancy invocation works, the synthetic unit will retain its sapience, regardless of brain type, and will always have the intellectual capacity of an adult human at minimum, experience not withstanding.
The true dangers of Lavaland magic lies with the Necropolis, a construct to an unexplored reality that some Wizard theologians have attempted to connect to the Human classical literatures, those that define realms of divine punishment, like Sheol or Hell.
Once manifested, the Necropolis will offer some of its powers to vulnerable sapients and not, with the ultimate goal of expanding its influence; its success is seen on Hephaistos with the Ashwalkers, a tribe created from the several, previously migrating Lizardman fleets that were reformed - and physically reshaped, giving them greater hunting abilities and rock-like skin. The true shape of the Necropolis remains unseen, even by Ashwalker magicians.
Nanotrasen maintains a tight control on Necropolis summonings; their miners' intuitions leads them to chase after greater Devils like the pink-skinned Bubblegum, in pursuit of performance bonuses, greater spells or bragging rights.
Chapter 1 does not blacklist any non-human from being educated by humans to follow their nomenclature.
Chapter 2 does not blacklist any non-human from becoming a Board member or Central Command executive.
Chapter 2 changes the Wizard antagonist to Rogue Wizard.
Chapter 2.1 blacklists any character with Psionic Dampener and/or without Magic Skills from The Senate.
Chapter 2.1 changes any mention of Solar Federation to Wizard Federation.
Chapter 2.2 does not prohibit independent businesses from forming, but makes them non-permanent.
Chapter 2.2 implies eventual perma-death or expulsion from Proxima Hyperion for your character if they become an enemy of the corporation.
Chapter 3 does not alter any gameplay items tied to Engineering or Research, but offers a roleplay setting for magic characters in those avenues.
Chapter 3 does not prohibit non-miners from referring to plasma crystals differently. Assume that the name is extremely common to civilians.
Chapter 3.2 does not force characters to interact magically with their work gear, but gives them the option to do so.
Chapter 3.2 does not change Heretic.
The Board of Investors and The Duchy of The Senate are admin-adjacent. Non-admins can join either organization non-permanently.
A character can be part of multiple factions with justifiable reasoning.
Factions are not static.