Factions

Factions at a Glance

Outer Colonial Authority (OCA)

Government · Capital: New Delphi, Arcadia

Nominally a Sol subsidiary; functionally sovereign since the Khepri Incident. Runs on biometric weapon authentication, divided authorization, and tight gate security — all standard procedure since the Five-Day War, three generations back.

Navy owns space. Marines take things from space. Army holds planets. Strategic watches the system. Patrol keeps civilian space safe.

Colonial Marshals (~2,000) and Customs & Border (~3,000) are civilian services, not part of the military. The active OCA military numbers roughly 47,000, against Aegis's roughly 15,000 — a 3:1 gap that widens once reserves mobilize.

The OCA wins wars. Aegis solves problems.

Officially, the OCA's account of Khepri is the same one everyone else grew up with. Whether that account is actually believed at the highest levels is a question some people are still quietly asking eighteen years later.

Aegis Contract Group

PMC, Odysseus-only · ~15,000 total

"The contract matters. The Code matters more."

Founded sixty years ago by three Colonial Service veterans — Ronan "Odin" Vasilenko, Augustus "Tyr" Calloway, and Serena "Freya" Whitlock — flying a single Mastiff, "Old Blue." That crew grew into Aegis as OCA demand for contracted security rose. Fugitive recovery is the seed the whole organization grew from.

Two of the three founders are gone. Calloway ("Tyr") is presumed dead — killed during the response to the Khepri attack, though the details of what he actually did that day tend to get bigger with every telling. Whitlock ("Freya") retired quietly a year later and vanished from public life. Nobody's ever offered a real explanation, which hasn't stopped people from inventing one: that she and Odin had a falling-out, that she found something about him he didn't want found, that she's still out there running something off the books. None of it's ever been confirmed. Vasilenko ("Odin") is the last founder still standing, and at 103, everyone in Aegis knows that won't last forever.

The Aegis Code — Five Articles

1. The Contract Is Law.
2. No Innocent Is a Target.
3. Force Serves the Mission.
4. Surrender Is Honored.
5. No Contract Supersedes Articles II–IV.

For Jaeger Division and the Hounds, see Life as a Hound.

Helix Industrial Consortium

Industrial megacorp · Regional HQ: Charon

"Built for Tomorrow."

Mining, shipbuilding, reactors, weapons — vertically integrated end to end. Their security arm, Helix Asset Protection (HAP), leans on droids and human personnel over androids.

It's Helix that most people picture when Khepri comes up — he was one of theirs, after all.

Vantage Dynamics

Biotech megacorp · Regional HQ: Arcadia

"Life, Reimagined."

Genetic medicine, cybernetics, neural interfaces, human cloning. Vantage genuinely saves lives — its executives don't lose much sleep over what it costs to get there. Ethics, to Vantage, are an obstacle for people who aren't in a hurry to solve problems.

Free Labor Movement

Labor movement · Power base: Port Mercy

"Your air is my air."

The Free Labor Movement represents miners, dockworkers, shipyard crews, and industrial labor. Their motto is born from life in hazardous environments, where one bad seal can kill everyone.

The movement has carried an unfair stigma since the Khepri Incident.

The Fringe

Culture/region/network

"No One Owns the Black."

Independent stations and ships across the Drift and outer system, built around autonomy and mutual aid.

Being Fringe isn't illegal. The Black Flags — a loose pirate confederation — are the Fringe's own problem as much as everyone else's, and most Fringers want nothing to do with them, despite being frequently and incorrectly lumped in with them by outsiders who've never set foot past Nereid.

The Black Flags

Pirate confederation · Power base: the Black

"Owned by None, Bound by Loyalty."

The Black Flags aren't so much a single organization as a name of convenience — a loose, shifting confederation of raiders, pirates, and hijackers based in the deep outer system and the poorly charted reaches beyond Nereid. Crews form, splinter, and reform under new captains and new colors more often than anyone can track; the "Flags" as an entity are less a chain of command than a shared reputation.

Their single most attractive target is the Core Run — the rare, irregularly timed FTL voyages that carry feedstock, medicine, mail, and cargo the Odysseus system can't produce on its own. Crews that manage to steal even a fraction of a Core Run's cargo can set themselves up for life — assuming they live long enough to spend it.

Most don't. But it doesn't stop them from trying anyway.

Stories tell of men and women who tried time and again to unite the disparate confederation of Black Flags. Fortunately for Odysseus, none have succeeded. If any ever did, it'd be a hell of a problem for Aegis and the OCA.

Contents

1. The Setting — outlines the Six Systems and notable historical events.
2. Factions — details the major players in the Odysseus System and what they want.
3. The Odysseus System — a breakdown of the Odysseus system, where the players will find themselves.
4. Technology & Equipment — details technology, items, and equipment found in the setting.
5. Life as a Hound — a breakdown of Jaeger Division, the threats you'll face, and your team.

← The Setting · Player's Guide · Next: The Odysseus System →