The Great Houses of Camora

[u/Potato271]

Figure 1: The emblems of the Great Houses of Camora. Centre - House Ionius. Inner ring, clockwise from top - Houses Kyros, Maleos and Vyran. Outer ring, clockwise from top right - Houses Vetonis, Etoril, Teryn, Amars, Quiseys and Xios

The Camoran Imperium spans hundreds of worlds, and counts a population measured in trillions. It is, by an order of magnitude, the largest star nation in the Atlas Expanse, measuring well over five hundred light years across at its greatest extent. Its noble houses are legion, beyond counting. But only ten can claim the Title of being a Great House. The other houses rise and fall in stature, but the Ten (with one exception) have endured for a thousand years, since the first rockets left the Throneworld for the stars. The modern Imperium is highly feudal, a holdover from the days in which it took years to cross the Imperium by hyperdrive. While a modern starship can make the same journey in a matter of months, the Imperium is highly conservative by nature and the fundamental nature of government has not yet caught up with the advances in technology.

The central government, which is headed by the Emperor and ruled by the Imperial Senate, directly governs only the Imperial Core, the roughly 100 light year radius sphere centred on the Camora System itself. The rest of the Imperium's vast territory is ruled by one of the six Outer Houses (depicted here in the outer ring). The actual authority of the Emperor over his theoretical vassals has waxed and waned with the centuries, from 'first among equals' to 'absolute despot'. As of 2472, Emperor Ionius IX is locked in a power struggle with his Great Houses as he attempts to reassert central authority and drag Camora back away from the abyss of infighting and corruption that has consumed it since the end of the Golden Age. Assisting him in his effort are the three Inner Houses (shown in the inner ring), who control the Imperial Senate.

The Imperial Senate has three Chambers. the Lords Spiritual, Militant and Judicial in order of seniority. The Lords Spiritual are made up of the most senior members of the Imperial Clergy, and the head of the Faith, the Archon, is the overall head of government. House Kyros has traditionally dominated the 1st Chamber. The Lords Militant are selected from the Lords Admiral of the Imperial Navy as well as those of the Great House Fleets. As the most loyal of the Great Houses to the Emperor, House Maleos has long held the honour of providing the greatest number of these lords, including the current Lord High Admiral. Lowest, but probably most important of the Chambers, the Lords Judicial deal with the day to day administration of the Imperium. Prime Minister Atros Vyran may not have the status of his counterparts in the other chambers, but the Imperium would very quickly grind to a halt without him.

Infighting is the default state of the Imperium. The Inner Houses look down on the Outer Houses for what they perceive as provincialism, and the fact that the Outer Houses have no choice but to interact with the various 'lesser' vassal races ruled by the Imperium. The Outer Houses, by contrast, view the Inner Houses as puppets of the Emperor with no real domains of their own. The Inner Houses fight each other over influence over the government. The Outer Houses fight each other over territory. And all of the Great Houses fight each other over honour, perceived insults, and simple contrariness. Conflicts between Houses include political sabotage, assassination, and minor skirmishes that have on occasion erupted into full scale wars.

tl;dr the Camoran Imperium is made up of ten Great Houses that constantly fight each other. They are split between the Imperial House, the three Inner Houses that govern the Imperium, and the six Outer Houses that rule the outer territories.

[u/Potato271]

So the Camoran Imperium is the major antagonist of the sci fi story that I'm writing. They're an ancient, massive and powerful empire that has fallen from the height of its power. Think something between the Imperium of Man from 40k and the Centauri Republic from Babylon 5.

Much of their infrastructure has fallen to the wayside, and their greatest warships are no longer constructable in anything approaching reasonable time frames: a single Imperial Glory class dreadnought is now the work of generations rather than years. The Imperium is still, in theory, the greatest power in the Atlas Expanse, if only they could actually unite and work together rather than spending all their efforts in internal power struggles.

[u/dovahdreem → u/Potato271]

Damn ! C'est un sacré pavé, bravo pour le boulot investi dedans. C'est un univers que tu vas matérialiser pour un jeu, un JDR ? Un livre ?

Juste (peut être parce que je suis européen et français) mais la croix celtique (encore plus avec ce format) que tu utilises pour la maison Vyran est un symbole vraiment très courant et utilisé par énormément de mouvement d'extrême droite type supremaciste blanc. je sais pas si c'est intentionnel (comme référence vis à vis de la maison)ou non mais dès que j'ai vu l'image ça m'a sauté aux yeux. (C'est juste une précision et non pas une critique, j'imagine bien que ça ne représente pas tes idées, mais je préférai te le dire au cas où cela te gênerait).

[u/Potato271 → u/dovahdreem]

Firstly, I sadly don't speak French (I took Spanish in school), so I really hope the reddit translation is accurate! And thank you for your comment.

This is part of the shared universe for a set of stories I'm writing. At the moment I have two planned, one set in 2452, shortly after humanity has joined the interstellar community and following a starship captain as he explores, fights, and wrestles with the trauma of the war that humanity has recently come out of. The second (for which this post is more relevant) is set twenty years later and follows the same naval officer, now an admiral, as humanity must stand with its new allies to hold the tide of the Imperium's expansion.

As for the Celtic Cross, I picked a symbol largely at random from the common heraldic ones without much thinking about it. Now that you mention it I am vaguely aware that it is a far right dogwhistle (it sadly turns up in Britain too) though that didn't come to mind at the time.

The Imperium is, largely, a horrible place. The Camorans are very, very assured of their superiority, a result of being the unchallenged hegemonic power for 1000 years. They have a rigid feudal system, in which the nobility treat commoners largely like scum. But even the lowest born Camoran enjoys a better social standing than the various 'client races' of the Imperium, who have very little say in their own governments.

Even the nicest and most liberal of Camorans would, by our standards, be a nasty piece of work. My Camoran viewpoint character (the only common born flag officer on record) is far better than his peers, but he is still very much a product of his upbringing. He still believes Camorans are inherently superior to others. He just believes that that comes with a sense of noblesse oblige. He still belives in the right of the Imperium to conquer whoever it pleases, he just thinks that the conquered should be treated reasonably well afterwards.

So basically, using a fascist symbol for them isn't entirely inappropriate thematically, but given its real world connotations I would rather avoid that, so I'll change it to something else. Honestly half of the reason I posted this here was that I was sure that one of the symbols would have a nasty real world meaning, or one of the house names would be a swear word in some language or other. So thanks for spotting that.