House of Axes
The House of Axes are a thriving martial house, with a powerful and loyal military wing under the Imperial Army. They occupy the ice world, Vulcan-Minor, within the Throne Worlds. They have a great shrine containing a pre-silence Demon Construct.
Once a terrestrial base for the gas miners of Vulcan-Majoris, Vulcan-Minor was gifted to a union of ignoble laborers given rank and title during the United Republic of Earth Colonies; development of the world continued through the end of the Republican Era as its population grew and grew. As the Republic fell apart , breakaway movements on Vulcan fought bitterly against the newly formed Imperial units stationed there, eventually escalating to an interstellar conflict in which the independence fighters made good with their threat to fling an asteroid at New Babylon – they did so, causing massive destruction that plunged the world into a yearslong cycle of shock winters and king tides. Massive effort made by the House of Flowers restored New Babylon to a livable state and salvaged what is left of the green spaces. For this atrocity, Vulcan suffered terribly under the Empire's Rise.
By the Emperor’s command, Vulcan became little more than a prison world – the Empire’s dumping ground for dissidents, remnant Republican Guard, and others deemed criminal by the new Empire. Even so, the newly minted nobility of Empire’s reign and the few lines native to Vulcan carried on the business of making a home from lunar rock. In the years after the Creation of the Colonial Earth Empire, Vulcan-Minor evolved from hardscrabble moon to massively reworked terraforming project, with planned hydrologic systems, atmosphere domes, and raw-earth habitable canyons. Construction of the House of Axe’s Inverted Tower – a deep-plunging hollow “core tower” – began and was finished during this time. Now, in addition to being one of Vulcan-Minor’s most populous cities (nearing thirty million souls), the Inverted Tower is also home to some of the galaxy’s most cutting-edge research into homunculi, thanatologic reconstruction, and other, more uncanny sciences.
Following the formation of the Empire, the House of Axes worked to establish itself in the hearts and minds of the people who suddenly found themselves a part of it. Its leaders – primarily from the minor houses of Dufort, Reyes, and Bilal – implemented a strong campaign of granting titles to promising ignoble candidates. This uplifting worked, endearing the House of Axes to the population. Such an effort has been attempted once more since the First Trade War, when the House of Axes sought to formally recognize trade and diplomatic relationships that many of its minor houses had established with powerful clans of the Mercandoles. As a result, Vulcan-Minor is one of the few places in the Empire where non-Imperial citizens – Mercandoles immigrants – have been ennobled, and now manage their own minor houses.
The House of Axes remains a Absolutionist house, long reformed from its earlier rebelliousness; however, its unique history has seen it leaning more and more toward Federalism, with several strong abolitionist minor houses on the verge of forming a coalition, and resistance fading within the house’s more conservative demographics. This trend is deeply worrying to the Fourth Column, especially the House of Moments, which is rumored to be running a campaign of deep social manipulation targeted at vulnerable or suggestible noble youth.
Minor Houses
- House Dufort - House Dufort was one of the first houses established on Vulcan-Minor by the Empire. They were a wealthy family that had established the primary security company on Vulcan. They have since waned in power, and now mostly hold sway within the Axes Army Regiment.
- House Reyes - House Reyes was another one of the earliest raised houses, that mostly handled the logistics of making Vulcan Minor productive. They focused on rehabilitation, realizing that uplifting the local population would be cheaper, more effective, and last longer than outsourcing the vast educational need for terraforming the planet would take. They now work towards Federalism, helping house Dorado work towards the same aims of the House of Sand. They control the fief of Nueva Monaco.
- House Bilal - House Bilal was made up the smaller time mining guilds that helped pacify the unions that ran the planet prior to the rise of the Empire. House Bilal maintains an iron grip on the industrial capacity of the planet, as well as control over the "core tower". They exert a great amount of power over the conservative elements of the House of Axes.
- House Dorado - House Dorado was one of the houses founded by Mercandoles that were uplifted into the House of Governance. They make up a significant proportion of those wishing to move towards Federalism.
Blood spilled but once, must be blessed be blessed with fire
Type
Geopolitical, Great house
Parent Organization
Controlled Territories
Absolutist
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