Act 12 — Expansion into Prioxis
Era: Power Unbound (Era 3)
Previous: Act 11.5 — Hell Hosts Life
Next: Act 13 — Robert Anderson Story
Overview
Expansion into Prioxis follows the Hell Hosts as they begin expanding their economic and logistical presence throughout the Prioxis System.
Unlike previous Hell Host expansions, this does not involve the conquest or occupation of new territory. Instead, the faction begins making greater use of Prioxis’ enormous civilian economy, establishing new supply routes, trade connections, commercial agreements, and logistical networks capable of supporting its rapidly growing military.
The expansion brings the Hell Hosts into a very different part of galactic civilization.
Prioxis is dominated not by enormous armies, but by corporations, civilian governments, trade organizations, law enforcement agencies, smugglers, criminal syndicates, and enormous commercial networks.
As the Hell Hosts become increasingly involved in the system, they encounter the Protection and Crime Enforcement, major corporations such as Valkyrian Interstellar and Helix Dynamics, and criminal organizations including The Brotherhood, Black Vipers, and the Mirage Collective.
The Act significantly expands the civilian, corporate, economic, and criminal sides of the Omicron Galaxy and establishes the environment in which many later stories take place.
Sub-Acts
12.1 — Prioxis
The Hell Hosts begin expanding their presence within the Prioxis System.
Prioxis is one of the largest civilian and economic centers in the Core Systems, with enormous populations, trade networks, shipping routes, industrial infrastructure, and corporate influence.
For personnel accustomed to heavily militarized worlds such as Voridinus II, Prioxis represents a very different side of galactic civilization.
Civilian transports share orbital space with corporate vessels.
Cargo fleets move continuously between planets and stations.
Private companies possess influence comparable to some governments.
Billions depend upon the trade networks passing through the system.
The Hell Hosts recognize Prioxis as an increasingly important part of maintaining their own enormous military infrastructure.
12.2 — Open Market
Hell Host logistical operations begin making greater use of Prioxis trade routes.
Rather than attempting to produce every resource within their own territory, the Hell Hosts establish connections with civilian suppliers, manufacturers, transport organizations, and other commercial groups operating throughout the system.
Weapons, food, industrial materials, medical supplies, technology, replacement components, and countless other resources move through these networks.
The expansion demonstrates that even one of the most powerful military factions in the galaxy remains dependent upon the wider galactic economy.
Prioxis offers enormous opportunities.
It also introduces the Hell Hosts to the complicated network of interests controlling those opportunities.
12.3 — Michi LB9V
Hell Host interests eventually lead toward Michi LB9V, one of the largest weapons trading worlds in known space.
Massive factory cities, weapon foundries, orbital loading platforms, refineries, and industrial districts dominate the planet.
Governments, corporations, military factions, mercenaries, smugglers, and criminal organizations all participate in its enormous arms economy.
The distinction between legitimate and illegal commerce is not always obvious.
Valkyrian Interstellar maintains legitimate industrial operations on the planet, while organizations such as The Brotherhood, Black Vipers, and the Mirage Collective operate throughout its criminal underworld.
For the Hell Hosts, Michi LB9V offers access to valuable manufacturing and supply networks.
It also provides their first major exposure to the scale of organized crime operating throughout Prioxis.
12.4 — The PCE
The Hell Hosts encounter the Protection and Crime Enforcement, the primary interstellar law enforcement organization operating throughout the Core Systems.
The encounter establishes an important distinction between the two organizations.
The Hell Hosts are a military power.
The PCE is a law enforcement agency.
Its officers investigate murders, smuggling, organized crime, corruption, terrorism, black market activity, and other threats affecting civilian populations.
The PCE maintains investigators, patrol officers, intelligence personnel, tactical response teams, and specialist divisions throughout Prioxis.
However, the organization possesses problems of its own.
Corruption, excessive force, corporate influence, and internal political divisions have damaged its reputation in several regions.
Some officers genuinely seek to protect civilians.
Others have become connected to the same political, corporate, and criminal interests they are supposed to investigate.
The Hell Hosts’ expansion forces the two organizations to increasingly operate within the same territories.
12.5 — The Underworld
Greater involvement in Prioxis exposes the Hell Hosts to the system’s enormous criminal underworld.
Three organizations demonstrate the different forms organized crime can take throughout the galaxy.
The Brotherhood operates as a massive loyalty-based criminal network involved in smuggling, illegal weapons, information dealing, mercenary contracts, and black market commerce.
The Black Vipers represent a more violent form of organized crime, relying upon territorial control, intimidation, narcotics trafficking, weapons distribution, and heavily armed enforcement.
The Mirage Collective operates differently from both.
Rather than openly controlling streets or trade routes, the Collective infiltrates corporations and financial institutions through shell companies, bribery, fraud, information brokering, money laundering, and economic manipulation.
Together, the organizations demonstrate that crime within Prioxis exists at every level of society, from industrial streets and smuggling corridors to corporate offices and financial institutions.
12.6 — Corporate Interests
The Hell Hosts also encounter the enormous influence held by major corporations throughout Prioxis.
Valkyrian Interstellar is one of the largest aerospace and industrial engineering corporations in the galaxy, producing starships, orbital infrastructure, transport vessels, fleet systems, and other large-scale technology.
Its products are used by civilian and military organizations throughout known space.
The corporation publicly maintains political neutrality, allowing it to conduct business with numerous factions regardless of their wider conflicts.
Helix Dynamics possesses similarly enormous influence within medicine, biotechnology, genetics, cybernetics, pharmaceuticals, and advanced scientific research.
Its technology has improved countless lives throughout the galaxy.
However, Helix has also become associated with classified experiments, dangerous augmentation projects, biological incidents, and unethical research.
The corporations of Prioxis demonstrate another form of galactic power.
They may not possess empires or enormous standing armies, but their technology, resources, infrastructure, and economic influence allow them to shape events throughout the galaxy.
12.7 — Rania
The expansion eventually highlights Rania, one of the largest agricultural worlds within Prioxis.
Unlike the polluted industrial cities of Michi LB9V, Rania consists of enormous farmland continents, oceanic harvesting regions, agricultural cities, automated farming complexes, and bio-engineered ecosystems.
Its importance is considerably greater than its peaceful appearance suggests.
Rania supplies food, livestock, nutrients, and agricultural resources to civilian populations and military forces throughout nearby systems.
For an organization the size of the Hell Hosts, worlds such as Rania are essential.
Armies require weapons.
Fleets require fuel.
But billions of personnel also require food.
Rania demonstrates that some of the most strategically important worlds in the galaxy may never fire a weapon.
12.8 — New Routes
The Hell Host expansion into Prioxis ultimately succeeds in creating greater access to the system’s trade and logistical networks.
New supply routes strengthen connections between Hell Host territory and the wider civilian economy.
Prioxis provides access to industrial equipment, weapons, food, technology, transportation, medical resources, and commercial infrastructure capable of supporting the faction’s continued growth.
However, greater involvement also brings greater exposure.
The Hell Hosts now operate within a system shaped by powerful corporations, organized crime, corruption, law enforcement, and competing economic interests.
Prioxis is not another battlefield to conquer.
It is an interconnected civilization that the Hell Hosts must learn to operate within.
As Hell Host involvement in the system grows, the Protection and Crime Enforcement continues its own struggle against the criminal and corporate forces operating beneath Prioxis’ prosperity.
Among the officers investigating those forces is a detective named Robert Anderson.
Characters
Act 12 focuses primarily upon organizations and locations rather than individual characters.
Hell Host personnel appear throughout the expansion, alongside members of the PCE, corporate personnel, traders, civilians, and criminal organizations.
The Act also introduces Robert Anderson in preparation for the events of Act 13 — Robert Anderson Story.
Factions
- Hell Hosts
- Protection and Crime Enforcement
- The Brotherhood
- Black Vipers
- Mirage Collective
- Valkyrian Interstellar
- Helix Dynamics
Locations
Additional trade stations, industrial districts, shipping routes, and civilian sectors throughout Prioxis are encountered during the expansion.
Major Events
- The Hell Hosts expand their economic and logistical presence within the Prioxis System.
- New Hell Host trade and supply routes are established.
- Michi LB9V becomes increasingly important to Hell Host industrial and military commerce.
- Rania becomes important to Hell Host supply networks.
- The PCE is introduced as the primary law enforcement organization operating throughout Prioxis.
- The Brotherhood, Black Vipers, and Mirage Collective are established as major elements of the Prioxis criminal underworld.
- Valkyrian Interstellar and Helix Dynamics demonstrate the enormous influence of corporations within the Core Systems.
- Hell Host involvement within civilian galactic society significantly increases.
- Robert Anderson is introduced.
Deaths and Casualties
No major deaths are associated with the Act.
Expansion into Prioxis focuses primarily upon economic expansion, worldbuilding, and the introduction of organizations that become important to later events.
Lore Introduced
Act 12 significantly expands the civilian side of the Omicron Galaxy.
Major concepts explored include:
- Interstellar trade networks
- Civilian supply chains
- Corporate influence
- Galactic law enforcement
- Organized crime
- Black market economies
- Weapons trading
- Agricultural supply networks
- Military dependence upon civilian infrastructure
- Corruption within major institutions
- The relationship between military, corporate, civilian, and criminal power
The Act establishes that control within the Omicron Galaxy is not determined entirely by military strength.
Economic influence, information, transportation, food, technology, and access to trade can be equally important.
Consequences
The Hell Hosts emerge from the expansion with stronger connections to the civilian economy of the Core Systems.
Their presence within Prioxis also brings them into greater contact with the Protection and Crime Enforcement, major corporations, and criminal organizations operating throughout the system.
The Act establishes Prioxis as an important setting for future stories and provides the background necessary for understanding the work of Robert Anderson.
These developments lead directly into Act 13 — Robert Anderson Story, which shifts the focus away from the Hell Hosts and toward one of the PCE’s most successful detectives.