General Overview[]
The Vela-Pyxis Split was an event which took place in 3120 during the reign of The Shining Star, Emperox VIII of House Vela whereupon dissenting nobles within the reigning house separated to form The Minor House Pyxis.
Detailed History[]
For many years after the reign of The Blood Eagle, Velan existence was quiet with the finalized Sector Map, providing safe and stable transportation around the sector.
Election of The Shining Star, Emperox VIII Vela Padma Noy[]
Following the close of the reign of Lyran Emperox The Masked One, Vela Padma Noy was elected Emperox on a platform of fostering a promotion of expanding prosperity and scientific discovery to bring about a golden age of the Empire.
Being of a young age and highly progressive, they ushered in freedom of expression, a collaboration between the Noble Houses, increased discussion on ethical, political and legal matters among the Spiritual and Corporate entities of the sector, and fostered an atmosphere of innovation and creativity.
Discontent grows[]
3108: 46 years into the Velan reign, flush with the resources of the Imperial Throne and The Shining Star's example, groups within the city of Babili began to petition whether the House could be doing more with the throne's assets to revitalize old traditional forms of exploration.
Reaction to the petition from the Grand Forum was middling at best, citing it would be a waste of time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere. While the movement was not completely quashed, the lack of extra Imperial backing meant the groups would have to conduct the explorations on their own resources.
Discovery of Lodestone[]
3111: Granny Pyxis, as we know her now, was drifting in her shuttle indulging in her favorite pastime. Imputing completely different formulas into the navigational computer that gave the same answers as standard Velan maps and testing them out in short drills. Of course she kept this a secret, not only was it crazy, it was life threatening.
On a whim she entered a course that she knew that would never work. She looked at the math on the screen for a while, then the numbers and symbols began to twist and change. Afraid the navigation was on a melt down, she blindly tried to cancel the input. However her hand slid across the console, finalizing the entry. The drive engaged and pull her into drive space. That fateful day, a careless keystroke changed Velan history.
After exiting drive space Granny Pyxis was greeted with the sight of a huge lone asteroid with foreign structures embedded in its surface floating in the middle of space. No star or visible gravitational well that she could have possibly locked onto, the Lodestone became the focal point for a new wave of calls to action from the popular moment back on Babili. It quickly drew in more support for the exploration of the new frontier gathering from all walks of life in Vela.
Exploration of Lodestone[]
The following years pass by while Velan ships gathered around Lodestone. The Grand Forum, determined to keep the discovery a secret, decided to limit outgoing information to wider public for many reasons. Granny Pyxis was placed in charge of the following exploration, recruiting many people from the traditionalist movements on Babili.
A couple of years of intense ship board surface scans revealed the existence of 14 habitats in various states of disrepair. Their structures of an origin totally foreign to everyone, especially to those who worked in the Great Library, Or so it was claimed. The one concerning detail was the scan could not penetrate the surface, leaving it uncertain if the asteroid was indeed stable.
At this stage the only way to further explorations, the teams decide to find the most suitable and intact habitat to set up their initial base of operations. It was a large dome like structure, an abandoned city with a spire of a building in the center reaching to join the top of the dome. As the crews entered one hole in the dome, some joked "well this is an Event" and thus the name stuck for the camp.
Bio-Dome Event 1[]
Explorations from the entrance of the dome was slow going. Everyone kept getting distracted by the smallest of things and wondering at the empty ancient city ruins they had found. By rough calculations , it was estimated by the size of the dome and the size of the buildings within, that Bio-Dome Event 1 could house approximately a million people comfortably.
Using her influence and relationship with The Shining Star, Granny Pyxis organized for the construction of a spaceport and research and living facilities next to dome, inline with another large habitat (later known as Habitat Horizon A) that was close by. The news of this expenditure circulated around Haqani, raising concerns from certain sections of the population that this embarrassment was now draining Imperial resources that should rightfully be used to further Velan interests elsewhere.
After the construction was finished and the research teams could live and steadily work out of sight, the new discovery became quickly forgotten and dismissed by many as a fools errand. That did not stop the spread of tales of returning researchers inspiring the younger generations to look to the stars and wonder what else could be found out there.
Expenses Rise[]
Years past as the exploration team uncovered more and more about the Bio-Dome. Over time the base of operation was moved to the skyscraper like spire in the center of the dome as the majority of sub systems pointed towards the structure hinting some significance to the design. What was uncovered in the basement was a large control room with many levers and buttons labeled in alien text.
When power was supplied to the room, a cascade reaction was caused flowing back right to the asteroids core, kick starting power supply to every habitat. Environmental systems sprang to life, scanning those in control room and supplying the Bio-Dome with an environment capable to supporting human life. With power restored, chaos ensued with many people pushing random buttons, one causing the room to fill with toast, trapping those inside. From that day forth labels appeared on the different buttons that they think they know the function of - many have question marks, while some have a simple "DON’T PRESS" written on them
After a few years passed with a few unfortunate accidents with button and lever tests, particularly regarding the Playfair orbital station. Each time a new station was built, not long after some bizarre event would occur requiring a replacement. This further drain on the Imperial reserve heightened tensions among parties within The Great Forum, some calling for the abandonment of the project.
Activation of the "Drive"[]
As the concerns grew, various groups called for The Shining Star to personally investigate what was happening at the Lodestone and to try and reign in the spending of the project. They of course agreed, given a chance to visit Granny Pyxis, as she was one of their close friends and also to placate the growing turmoil in The Great Forum.
The Shining Star's visit was met with great enthusiasm and many flocked to show the things the had found and to share the stories of their discovery. While the initial meeting was a little chaotic, Granny Pyxis soon organized some structure not to overwhelm her friend, finishing of a guided tour of the Control Room.
The room was now brightly lit, many of the buttons flashing randomly. A new holo-projector stood in the middle of the room with exposed wires running to the back of several control panels, the image showing a familiar yet strangely disjointed map to the sector. Granny explained the image was found in some of the archives of the Lodestone's strange computer systems and was only one of the few things they uncovered that they could recognize.
It was at this time a hush fell over the researchers, all the back lit buttons in the Control Room began to blink in unison for a short period of time, then they all went out, save for a panel in front of the hologram of the sector map. Here only seven buttons were lit, six in a hexagon shape with a button in the middle. With irresistible curiosity, Granny approached the panel and pushed one of the buttons on the outer ring.
The lights in the whole Bio-Dome dimmed, an unholy groan noise was heard coupled with the ground vibrating under their feet. Light seem to stretch for a split second, then nothing. All the panels returned to their random blinking as if nothing had happened. The only sound that was heard was of one of the MES gifted researchers retching in the background.
The Stuck Emperox[]
After the tour had ended, The Shining Star took Granny aside to tell her the bad news. The Grand Forum had voted to suspend the funding and the Lodestone would become one of the unimportant locations in the sector. Without the extra funding, Granny could not support the people that had amassed on the Lodestone. With that the Shining Star returned to their ship and began to prepare to depart to return to Haqani
There was only one problem, the navigation in The Shining Star's ship was not responding the way it should. The navigators tried and tried again to input the same formulas that brought them to the Lodestone to return however the spike drive could not get a lock on any gravitational well with conventional mathematics. With no way back to Imperial space, The Shining Star had to turn to Granny Pyxis and her researchers for aid.
Hours stretched into days of exhaustive trials of navigation formulae and integers until mentally drained Granny decide to explore the possibility to try source locations where they thought the Lodestone could not possible be. Empty sectors of the Velan map. Starting at the Lodestones last known location, the computational exploration did not take long and they established, somehow, the Lodestone altered how the meta-dimensional drive lanes existed pushing it out one sector from where they thought it was.
Founding of the House Pyxis[]
This left The Shining Star in a predicament, they had growing pressure from the Vela parliament to disband the project on one hand and on the other, Granny Pyxis and this potentially great untapped alien technological wonder which would either be swept aside as unimportant or ceded to another House.
The only other option left to them was to found a faction as Granny Pyxis as it's leader, granting her autonomy with the Lodestone and Imperial funding to continue her work and quelling the civil unrest back on Haqani allowing those who wished to return to traditional ways could join the new House without reprisal. Many of the popular movements seized this opportunity to begin life anew taking many of their ships and belongings to explore the new frontier.