The six blocs
Some blocs are one great city with its dependants. Others are dozens of small, weak settlements bound by kinship or law. About a dozen independent cities, some 400,000 people between them, belong to no bloc at all.
| Bloc | How it's organised | Largest settlement | Settlements | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceres Assembly | One great city with tributary towns | Occator Deep on Ceres, 350,000 | About 20 tithe towns | 900,000 |
| Shackleton League | A league of self-governing trade ports | Shackleton Port on Hygiea, 250,000 | About 30 member ports | 1 million |
| Charter Companies | Four rival corporate dynasties with scattered holdings | Vesta Yards, 200,000 | About 40 holdings | 1.2 million |
| Red Clans | A confederation of small clan holds | Arsia Hold, 25,000 | Over 120 holds | 800,000 |
| Seedkeepers | A monastic order of vault habitats | The Long Vault, 10,000 | 8 vaults | 60,000 |
| The Scatter | No state at all | None | Hundreds of free rocks and ships | 600,000 |
Ceres Assembly
- Capital
- Occator Deep
- People
- 900,000
- Power
- Water
- Think of
- Babylon, or early Rome
The Assembly is the closest thing the belt has to an empire, and the hardest to change. It grew from the Berth Authority, which ran the Exodus from Ceres and never gave up the habit of running things. Its capital, Occator Deep, is the largest city in the belt, dug into the ice beneath Occator crater.
Ceres's power is water. Its ice mantle supplies most of the old belt, and around 20 tithe towns pay for that water in labour, goods and loyalty. The Assembly claims to carry the lawful authority of Earth's governments. It still keeps the Earth calendar, flies the old flags on Conjunction Day and guards the Exodus archives, which it does not let others read.
Ceresians are orderly, proud and rationed. Quotas on water, births and living space have shaped their culture for six generations, and many are grateful for them. Many others leave.
Sub-factions
- The Occator Court
- The old governing families and archivists who call themselves the Heirs. They hold Earth's law sacred and treat change as betrayal.
- The Waterwardens
- The ice-miners' guild that actually runs the water. Officially servants of the Court; in practice they decide who drinks, which makes them kingmakers.
- The Kerwan Reform
- A movement, named after Ceres's largest crater, for an elected Assembly and an end to quotas. Many splinter colonies come from here.
- The Tithe Towns
- The client colonies. Some resent the tithe and want independence; others value Ceres's protection and fear life without it.
Shackleton League
- Capital
- Shackleton Port, Hygiea
- People
- 1 million
- Power
- The Web and its credit
- Think of
- The Hanseatic League
Shackleton Port began as the lunar consortium's depot in the belt, named after Shackleton Base, whose crews stocked the Exodus with their mass drivers and then stayed behind. During the Holding the Port rebuilt the Solar Web, and around 90 AC dozens of ports signed the Web Charter: League membership gives access to the Web and its credit, in exchange for following League trade law. The League runs the belt's money, and it knows it.
Shackleton Port itself is a merchant republic run by its founding families. It is wealthy, pragmatic and officially neutral, and it lives on the memory of the crews who stayed behind on the Moon. Every child of the Port learns the Last Launch, and every trade deal carries a hint of that debt of honour.
Sub-factions
- The Launch Families
- The Port's old aristocracy, descended from the families the Shackleton crews sent ahead. Rich, cultured and quietly ruthless.
- The Lamplighters
- The relay guild that maintains the Solar Web. Technocratic and proudly neutral, they are loyal to the Web before the Port, and every faction needs them.
- The Free Ports
- Outlying League members tired of the Port's control. Some are tempted by the Aurelian Company's offer of a rival ledger.
Charter Companies
- Largest holding
- Vesta Yards
- People
- 1.2 million
- Power
- Industry and debt
- Think of
- The East India and Hudson's Bay companies
The Companies are corporate dynasties whose charters outlived the nations that granted them. Eleven orbital fab companies built much of the Exodus on credit; the Company Wars of 95–115 AC left four. Each is a scattered network of yards, mines and company towns, and each makes things no one else can.
Company people are born, educated, employed and buried by their Company, and most are fiercely loyal to it. They are proud, highly skilled, and make most of the belt's machines. Their one indefensible institution is the Old Paper: Exodus-era berth debts, passed down through families. After six generations, some people are still bonded to pay them off.
The four Companies
- The Halden Company
- Heavy industry, including hulls, drives and reactors, based at the Vesta Yards. The largest and militarily strongest Company. Most colony ships are Halden-built.
- The Marr Company
- Keepers of what survives of chip-making. Marr fabs are the only ones producing modern chips, slowly and badly, and Marr is secretive about how. Power through computing.
- The Aurelian Company
- Bankers, holders of most of the Old Paper, and the force behind a rival ledger to break the League's hold on the belt's money.
- The Kessane Company
-
Food vats, algae farms and closed-loop life support. Kessane keeps the belt fed.
Spoiler
Kessane will be the first to want rime biomass.
Red Clans
- Largest hold
- Arsia Hold
- People
- 800,000
- Power
- Living off bare rock
- Think of
- The Scottish clans
The Red Clans descend from Arsia Station's evacuees and the miners who supplied Mars. Arsia's people were evacuated last, and the clans have never forgiven the authorities who decided that. Arsia's evacuees never bought berths, so the clans have never owed the Old Paper, and they despise those who hold it.
The clans live in more than 120 small holds: tough, frugal and expert at living off bare rock. They keep Mars time, counting their days in sols, and wear red to mourn. They govern themselves through the Moot, which gathers once every Martian year, about 23 Earth months, to settle feuds and make the few decisions all clans share.
Sub-factions
- The Arsia Lines
- The old clans descended from the station's staff. Prestigious and traditional, they keep the Martian calendar and the station's records.
- The Rockborn
- Descendants of the miners, and the most numerous. Practical people who trade with anyone and settle anywhere.
- The Debtless
- Militant clans who raid Company shipping and burn Old Paper wherever they find it. Their rallying cry is "We are not reaction mass." Heroes to some clans, an embarrassment to others.
- The Far Holds
- The furthest-out clans, already living in the outer belt before the frontier opened. They know it best, and were the first to report the rot.
Seedkeepers
- Largest vault
- The Long Vault
- People
- 60,000
- Power
- Moral authority
- Think of
- Medieval monastic orders
The Seedkeepers began as the staff of Earth's seed and gene banks, who carried the vaults into the belt during the Exodus. Over six generations they became an order: part science, part quiet faith, with vows, ranks and rituals. On Conjunction Day they hold the Reading of Species, naming Earth's lost animals one by one.
They are trusted by almost everyone and owned by no one. Their vaults are neutral ground, where treaties are signed and enemies meet, much as monasteries once were. Their power is moral, not military, and they guard it carefully.
Sub-factions
- The Conservators
- Keep Earth life sealed and pure in the vaults until there is a world to plant it on.
- The Sowers
- Believe Earth life must be spread now, in gardens on every rock. Frontier-minded.
- The Readers
-
Geneticists and archivists: the order's scientists.
Spoiler
The Readers are the first to study the rime seriously, and the ones who find Earth genes inside it.
The Scatter
- Capital
- None
- People
- 600,000
- Power
- Custom and reach
- Think of
- The pirate havens of the Caribbean
The Scatter is everyone outside the blocs: free rocks, wanderers, salvagers and pirates. It has no government, but it does have custom. Its oldest law is the air right: anyone who asks for air is given it, enemy or not. Breaking it is the one crime the whole Scatter will punish.
Sub-factions
- Gravers
- Salvagers who work the homeworld debris field for Earth relics, soil, ruins and archives. Rich, reviled and deeply superstitious.
- Wreckers
- Strip derelict ships and stations, and sometimes create the derelicts themselves.
- Longhaulers
- Ship-dwelling clans who live aboard and carry cargo where no one else will go. They know the frontier's routes better than anyone.
- Free rocks
- Tiny settlements that belong to no one and like it that way.
Independent cities
About a dozen city-states belong to no bloc, some 400,000 people between them. The richest is Psyche Free City, built into a metal-rich asteroid and wealthy from iron and nickel. It sells to every side and lets none of them in.
Fault lines
- Water
- Ceres against everyone else. Frontier ice threatens the balance, and the Waterwardens know it.
- Money
- The Aurelian Company's rival ledger against the League's Web, with the Free Ports deciding which way to lean.
- Debt
- The Old Paper sets the Companies against the Red Clans, the lottery-born and anyone else still bonded.
- Legitimacy
- Ceres's claim to be Earth's heir, which the Red Clans reject outright and the Kerwan Reform wants to reinvent.
- Blame
- Who was left behind and who decided it, still raw after six generations.
- The frontier
- The Hygiea Settlement's charters are vague, overlapping and contested. Every bloc reads them differently.
Daughter colonies
In Reaction Mass you lead a splinter faction of a few hundred people who leave one of the big colonies on a single colony ship to found a settlement on the frontier. You are not a great power: you are a small group with a grievance, a ship and a charter, and you don't fully agree with each other.
The colony ship is an Exodus-era hull, refitted. It carries the people, the fabricators and the seed stock, and it becomes the first habitat once it reaches a claim.
Splinter colonies leave for many reasons, and each takes different people, skills and quarrels with it.
| Leaving | Why they leave | What they bring | What divides them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ceres Assembly | Ration and birth quotas they will no longer accept | Administrators, records and a strong sense of law | Whether to build a fairer Ceres or abandon rules altogether |
| Shackleton League | A falling-out over who controls the Solar Web | Engineers and relay know-how | Whether to stay in the Web or build their own network |
| A Charter Company | Debt-bonded families breaking their bonds | Industrial skills and machinery they arguably stole | Whether to repay the Company eventually or defy it for good |
| Red Clans | Exile after a clan feud | Hardiness and skill at living off bare rock | Whether to make peace with the old clan or settle the score |
| Seedkeepers | A sect that wants to plant Earth life on the frontier | Seed and gene stock, and biologists | Whether Earth life should be spread or kept safe in vaults |