In the wake of the fall of House Vela, the Houses Pyxis, Fornax, and Eridanus established HADES to secure the sector’s economic future. Unofficially named the Space Trains, HADES vessels are massive linked flotillas of trade vessels that provide reliable transit in and out of the Imperial Core in a sector gripped with a navigational crisis. Although on its face an acronym, the various sponsors of HADES could not agree on a unified backronym and thus left it without any official definition.
House Involvement[]
Each House provided various parts for this new project:
House Pyxis[]
The product of an inter-house split with House Vela some 80 years ago, House Pyxis are by far the distant forerunners of current interstellar-meta-dimensional navigation in the sector. The PATHS & PLANES systems, although less reliable than the LINES system that was guarded so closely by the late House Vela, are decentralized software capable of plotting maps and course through meta-dimensional space, effecting FLT interstellar travel. Both pieces of software, PATHS and PLANES, are publicly accessible, but the complex mechanics involved in HADES requires a deep understanding of the software and the expert hands of Pyxis pilots and navigators.
House Fornax[]
A mass-shipping plan for the Empire’s economy requires massive numbers of ships and the furnaces of Maja are happy to provide. House Fornax is responsible for not only engineering and fabricating the robust ship-tender-mounts that connect HADES ships to each other but also the specialized co-linked spike-drives that allow them to all drill through meta-space at the same time upon the orders of the PATHS software.
House Eridanus[]
House Eridanus, inheritors of a nearly 400-year-old break-up, collected the heavily damaged and disorganized trade fleet of the audited A.C.R.E. corporation for the program. Eridanus provided a large supply of former corporate vessels to be repaired and retro-fit with updated Pyxis software and Fornax hardware. The House also implemented a logistics network, high-jacked from T.A.H.I.T.I., that interfaces with DELPHI to organize the loading and unloading of the fleet of ships to maximize the efficiencies of HADES operations.
Organization[]
Routes[]
HADES Routes
A standard set of routes connecting the periphery of the sector to the major hubs of the core-worlds. The core planets of Andophael, Haqani, Hroa, Orpheus, and Gats are not directly reached any current HADES routes but are just a short and reliable journey to a major hub. Peripheral planets, especially in sector-north, are expected to rely upon informal transport to reach core markets.
Acheron[]
The Acheron or Core Route travels through the densely populated central planets of the sector.
- Tsatsos-Demnoph, Alvero-Tiber, Imperial Prime-Imperial Prime, Ellis-Heira,
Styx[]
Styx visits the remote planets on the northeastern arm of the sector.
- Imperial Prime-Imperial Prime, Ellis-Heira, Tavroular-Ataecina, Jel Vaa-Imperial Corrections Facility Gleipnir, Meneus-Ias
Lethe[]
From the northwest, Lethe connects the planets Echo and Hong Lu to the core.
- Eriopei-Echo, Eunelas-Hong Lu, Pamita Cha-Lovelace, Alvero-Tiber, Tsatsos-Demnoph
Phlegethon[]
Sector-west and the mercs of Koschei are reached by Phlegethon.
- Ranghil-Kolechi, Pamita Cha-Lovelace, Alvero-Aomori, Imperial Prime-Maja, Aliya-Diomikato
Cocytus[]
The Trilliant Expanse is connected to the core via the Cocytus route.
- Paavis-Intaglio, Igliza-Trillia IX, Helesco-Navette, Tsatsos-Yakiyah
Oceanus[]
Far reaches of the Bergunn system in sector-southeast are linked to the core by HADES’ Oceanus route.
- Tsatsos-Demnoph, Helesco-Navette, Benilli-Cabina, Hild-Shān, Bergunn-Pierus XXIII
Flagships[]
HADES is comprised of 10 main flagships: one from the Imperial Throne (under a Pyxis classification), two directly from House Pyxis, three from House Fornax, and four from House Eridanus. They rotate around the six routes and are deployed wherever there are seasonal demand spikes.
- HPS Slaps Hull of Spaceship (HPS Slaps)
- HPS This Baby Can Hold a Whole Lot of Stuff (HPS This Baby)
- HPS Size Isn’t Everything, it’s the Only Thing (HPS The Only Thing)
- HFS There Are No Heroes, In Life The Monsters Win (HFS No Heroes)
- HFS An Ocean Without A Monster Lurking In The Dark Is Like Sleep Without Dreams (HFS Sleep Without Dreams)
- HFS Life Swarms With Innocent Monsters (HFS Swarms)
- HES All On Black, Payback; All On Red, You’re Dead (HES On Black)
- HES Magnanimity in Monotony Mouthed the Magi (HES The Magi)
- HES A Hungry Mouth Lies at the Bottom of the River Preying upon the Unwary (HES A Hungry Mouth)
- HES Three Bells Toll and the Reaper Cometh (HES Three Bells)
History[]
Shortly after the capitulation of the Sector Trade Organization in the autumn of 3200, the combined forces of Houses Pyxis, Fornax, and Eridanus began work to find remedies to the economic and navigational crises. HADES proved to be one part of that by securing regular shipments of vital goods across the sector.
"Recovered Communications"
The first public inklings of the project was a partially recovered Mass Data Archive Incident Report video recovered and published by PRISM Headlines.
Early reporting by The Prime Daily discovered evidence of various trials and tribulations of the HADES prototypes before the organization was public knowledge. In the Imperial Prime system, a maintenance oversight overloading power to a ship-tender mount (publicly described as a non-Fornax piloting error) caused the collision of the HES Don’t Spend It All in One Place into the HFS Step in Time in sub-drive space, leading to the critical damage of the HES The Heavy Weight of Duty Is But a Feather to the Diligent. Personnel, including some minor Eridanii and Pyxis nobles, operating those ships perished instantly but a hallmark to their courage in braving the unknown can be found in the new debris field in the outer limits of the [Imperial Prime] system.
The first public transit of a fully laden HADES craft was on the Imperial New Year hosted by House Eridanus coinciding with the house’s annual Gala. Festivities normally held solely at the Eridanii Embassy on Prime’s Embassy Row started instead on Tiber and continued to Imperial Prime. Outfitted with a grand casino and, for the first year, hosting Sky-Dolphin racing, the Gala aboard the HADES vessel delivered the party-goers to Prime just as the new year rolled over, and a new Emperox was to be announced. This maiden voyage was aboard a vessel simply known as HADES, but with the coronation of the tenth Emperox was named the HES All On Black, Payback; All On Red, You’re Dead in honor of its profitable onboard casino.
Although early iterations proved not quite as stable as the LINES system in its prime, steady improvements can be seen as PATHS gets introduced more widely and logistical and mechanical kinks are ironed out, HADES, as of early 3201, is on track to reverse the economic downturn following the fall of two noble houses and a corporate coup attempt.