House Advantage

House Overview

House Advantage is an ultra-new house, created when a loose association of bright young things in the Imperial administration pulled off a brilliant political manoeuvre that gained them some substantial and lucrative Imperial possessions (and, in the process, seriously irritated several of the larger Houses). The problem was that their plan didn't extend much further than that; they have no standing military, a skeleton administrative service and a rather unclear idea of who's in charge and what the next objective is. The most probable outcome is that Advantage will collapse through infighting, organisational chaos and the depredations of Gwyne and Reeft; but a good many smaller Houses would like to see them survive at least for a while.

Players

• maga
• katre

House Skills

• Trade: Average
• Industry: Average
• Research: Good
• Exploration: Good
• Diplomacy: Average
• Military: Bad

House Aspects

(Two things of note about the House that can be used to benefit/penalize character actions wrt that house -- this could be unusual talents possessed by the members, a particular House ethos, some standard-issue piece of equipment, etc)

Possibilities

• Disavow: "That position was the personal opinion of a House Advantage stakeholder and does not necessarily represent the policy of House Advantage at this time." Duck out of any commitment, contract, alliance or policy position that has become inconvenient, with relatively little penalty. Downside: everybody expects you to do this.
• Paradigm Shift: Inveterate glory-hunters, House Advantage characters are always more motivated when they're doing something charismatic, new and unexpected. If I'm not defining the zeitgeist, why did I even get out of bed?

House Background

(More about the House, history, governance, name of home planet or planets, any special assets, etc)

History and governance: During the decadent Venafi Dynasty, several thousand years ago, the Emperor of the time spent a truly stunning amount of money terraforming the planet Hrobaj into a pleasure-planet on which to settle his several thousand concubines and their offspring. During the ensuing economic collapse and dynastic changeover, the mostly-terraformed world (and the concubines etc) was abandoned, and the location of the wormhole was lost. But folk tales abounded, and "Hrobajan folly" is still used to mean "catastrophic self-indulgence on a vast scale" in many parts of the Empire. Until recently, no one was really worried about the planet, as there was bigger game to fry.

Until, that is, a bored underling in the Imperial Department of Planning found an outdated and heavily mis-filed early report on the terraforming effort on Hrobaj. [He could be an archaeospy: see Agents_Of_Empire/Brainstorming.] Instead of trashing it, he read it, and discovered a) the location of the wormhole, and b) that one of the reasons Hrobaj had been selected was due to its extensive lodes of thorium, in a very isotopically pure state that would require little processing and easy extraction. The Venafi Emperor had intended to keep them secret in case of future need, and only the economic collapse (due to his own terraforming plans) kept him from proceeding.

Armed with this, the clerk and some like-minded friends quickly formed Advantage, Inc, and managed to maneuver the Emperor into giving them title to a lost planet with no known use. Once they had legal title to Hrobaj, they lost no time buying ships, stabilizing the wormhole, and starting up mines, quickly turning themselves into House Advantage.

House Advantage is run along corporate lines, with all of the original bureaucrats as the Board of Directors, and a CEO running the show. So far, they are aligned around the mining operation, but a Long Term Strategy group has promised a forward-looking document on future growth opportunities, due sometime early next fiscal year.

Characters of Interest

(list characters in the house, players or non-players. players should have a more complete skillset listed, but you don't have to decide now who is who. it would be useful to know the names of important/significant people in the house even if they aren't present on the colony -- eg, the head of the house)

• Akwe Nerumi Blue-Star-Guidance, a mercenary corporate raider of sorts; brought on during the takeover, now holds enough shares to be a de facto leading light of the House
• Senator Pabula Erythro, a longtime eminence grise and voice of reformist dissent in the Senate, widely-respected but fundamentally ineffective for a very, very long time. Brought on by Advantage largely for respectability; her motives are uncertain.
• Elaine the Navigator, amphibian explorer and adventuress. Dismissed from Grazene for consistent failure to follow orders; took up with Aramin, didn't follow orders there either, dismissed; moved to Advantage. Unlikely to follow orders.
• Jathries Smith, originally an archivist in the Imperial Department of Planning, he found the lost documents describing Hrobaj and helped set Advantage in motion. Due to poor infighting skills he now has a lot of shares but has been mostly sidelined, but he wants to make a play for more power in the House.
• Enatha Starhaus, CEO, the most brilliant MBA of the generation. Stunningly charismatic for twenty-five minutes, after which you realise that nothing makes any coherent sense at all. Body-sculpted for maximum confidence-inspiring appeal to key demographics. Great teeth, great hair, great skin, serious brow, honest eyes, androgynous. Easily swayed by stakeholders. Nominal leader of the House, though everybody knows this is a polite fiction.

The Colony

• Since the planet was a recent, opportunistic grab by Advantage, the two probably don't have a lot in common. It's probably reasonably productive but somewhat choked by grandfathered bureaucracy, and neither very cosmopolitan nor a total backwater. Here's some ideas:Maga 14:31, 10 May 2011 (PDT)
  • The main planet is mostly shallow seas and marshes. Raft villages, stilt cities. Major producer of animal proteins and cheap biotech. Mines carbon from its uninhabitable planets, converts it to organic mud, sells the mud to terraformers and space habitats.
    
  • The main planet was designed by the great terraforming artist Hrobaj during a particularly decadent dynasty of the Empire, as a pleasure-garden for the Imperial family. When the dynasty fell, the planet escaped with only a tactical nuke hit or two, and was then abandoned; it's since been informally resettled by various squatters, and the Empire has only just got around to reasserting its ownership (because it's become more strategically important?). Potential industries: tourism?
    • inky doesn't think tourism works very well for the setting, so we should either abandon this one or come up with a viable alternative. (Generic agriculture probably doesn't make much sense either.)
  • The main planet is mostly tundra and boreal forest, frozen in winter and sweltering in summer. A heavily developed trade hub, with minor mineral resources but mostly wealthy from trade, entertainment and the shadow economy. Very wealthy, but highly experienced at preventing any of that wealth from moving into House hands; the older Houses have played pass-the-banana with it a great deal and consider it more of a burden than an asset.

• What sort of planet is the colony on and what is its name, what's the terrain like, what resources are found on the planet
• What does the colony do (ie, why is there a colony here?) Was it for resource-gathering (farming, mining, etc), industry, military training, or what? ('Research' and 'tourism' are probably stylistically bad choices, so I wouldn't pick those as the primary thing)
• What nearby planets might be of interest?