Editing Setting:Cloudburst/Maxient (section)

==Culture==

Maxient is, first and foremost, a military station.  The huge telescopes, antennae, and storage cells of the original role of the platform are still present, but now they are outnumbered by guns and armor plates, ready to repulse the hated xeno and wicked pirate.  The Imperial Navy portions of the station are given over entirely to the business of defensive war.  Each compartment is either a tidy barracks, or a storage cell packed with ammo and parts, or echoing fuel tanks, or a Commissarial office, or some other chamber of military import.  The high disciplinary standards of the commanding personnel have ensured that while there is acrimony between the enlisted men and the commissioned, there is also readiness.  The speed with which the Orkish assault in M41.897 was repulsed is proof enough of that.

The Imperial Navy here makes a show of unity with the other portions of the Imperial governing bodies that do not include the Adeptus Mechanicus.  Its officers rarely miss a chance to subtly remind the Mechanicus of their lower position on the totem pole of the port.  Outside their blocks of the station, the other Adepta are permitted a degree of travel that they would rarely be allowed in a more typical Imperial Navy anchorage.  Even the Adeptus Mechanicus are allowed into the Imperial Navy chunks of the patchwork station as long as they have need, since even the most prideful Imperial Navy officers must confess that they don’t know how their own equipment works.

The Mechanicus portions of the station are spartan in their own way.  The deeper portions of the Adeptus Mechanicus blocks overflow with icons of the Omnissiah, but at a tiny scale.  Each and every single member of the Tech-adept and Skitarii contingents of Port Maxient receives optical nerve and receptor bionics upon assignment to the station, at rates so low that they would raise the brows of Magi Biologis on other postings.  The reason for this uncharacteristic generosity is that the Adeptus Mechanicus has taken the time to inscribe microscopic prayer sigils into random wall segments and ceiling plates in their portions of Port Maxient.  Only those with specifically-attuned optic augments can see them.  This way of hiding their devotion from the uninitiated is their own method of asserting their dominance over the Navy that technically controls the station.

Of course, this has its own problems.  This is staggeringly expensive, and the program was instituted without the consent of either the Sector leadership, the Cognomen Lord Fabricator, or the people whose eyes were being gouged out.  If news of this expenditure were to reach the wrong ears, the resultant political fallout could be immense.

Although the Mechanicus does trust that the Navy desires the station to be kept intact, the massive garrison of Skitarii onboard shows exactly how far the Mechanicus trusts the Navy to do so indefinitely.  Of course, Skitarii are loyal to Mars first and local political concerns second, and so the Techpriesthood of Port Maxient takes some effort to ensure that their Red Guard are held in a position of proper respect.  This is the balancing act that most Cognomen Techpriesthood must undertake, Sector-wide: balancing Skitarii loyalties with the self-imposed realities of the Sector’s precarious decisions.

The fact that the station’s name has changed over the millennia from Maxentius to Maxient truly hurts the Cognomen-trained Techpriests stationed here.  The power of names is part and parcel of the culture of Cognomen.  The change was not a malicious one, but rather a product of simple, ordinary linguistic drift.  That does not alleviate the dogmatic insult the Mechanicus believes they labor under on the platform in any way.

Whispers of retribution against the Naval personnel aboard have reached the ears of some nervous spacers.  While it seems a bit out of character for the allegedly unemotional Techpriesthood to stoop to outright murder, there have been incidents wherein Naval personnel aboard the station have suddenly come down with radiation poisoning after insisting on using the new name in documentation.  These incidents seem to have little else in common.


Elsewhere on the station, outside the insular gaze of the Navy and Techpriests, there are other factions at play.  The culture of the station’s non-Naval Imperial population has taken a few turns that separate them from the general populace of the Sector.  For starters, the ubiquitous Sector Noble Houses that dominate trade in so much of Cloudburst are largely absent here.  This is partially because of longstanding Naval precedent that the region’s defenses against the Glasians be unhindered by squabbles among the aristocracy, but the tradition predates the Glasian Migrations.  As it happens, the station, the farthest civilian-accessible platform from the Sector Capital, has long been a place where the independent traders and Free Captains of the Sector prefer to do business.  That has increased the volume of trade of the platform enough that only one of the major Sector Houses, House Carvan, has been able to make inroads on the mercantile business to be found here.

Carvan’s sole role on the station is providing temperature-, pressure-, humidity-, and light-controlled storage and shipping options for the gigatons of fresh food that the station makes and imports.  This includes the habitation controls for the plants in the greenhouses in the Commercial Halls, and so the merchants of the station reluctantly allow the Carvan technicians in to do business.  It’s better than allowing the Mechanicus to claim more of the station as their own.

While commerce is the order of the day, there will always be a need for diversions.  Quite aside from buying everything from lives to perfume and back again, the two major entertainments on the station are the fighting rings and the casino and brothels in the Slots.

Naturally enough, the Inquisition has kept a keen eye out for any sign of Slaaneshi corruption in the places of indulgence and impropriety in the great casino.  However, the narrow scope of their focus has kept them from noticing the other, more insidious threat creeping in among the populace.  The casino’s fighting arena and whores are not the vector of choice for Chaos infiltration.  The animal fighting pits in Bay Two are.  Unbeknownst to all, the forces of Khorne have begun corrupting the animal fighters on the station.  These gladiators and servant-brawlers put their lives on the line to battle beasts, and eventually men, in the ring.  Slowly, their thoughts are turning to putting their skills to the test against less willing prey.  While the corruption has yet to sprout into a true blood-cult, that is surely a matter of time.


One factor that determines much of life aboard the station is water.  Port Maxient is nowhere near any place where water might be found.  The station’s water supply must therefore be carefully rationed, and any additional water that might be brought to the station by visiting merchants is treasured.  With no water comets nearby and no water-bearing worlds in the system to harvest, the situation would grow dire in the case of water system failure.  Thus, the Adeptus Mechanicus has a dedicated task force assigned to the station to track down any breaches in the water pipes that run through it thanks to thirsty residents of the Underguts.  These priests are eager to enact lethal force against the indigents that dwell in the forgotten chambers of the huge station.  Ugly rumor suggests that they may have even worked with the slaver gangs to round up Underguts dwellers and collect them for Servitorization, rather than endure further losses of water supply.  The Mechanicus does maintain a massive electric water purification engine in the Croplands; that is one role the Navy gladly lets them handle.  On occasion, as the crew requirements of the station have drifted up and up, the Navy has even ordered massive shipments of water from Nauphry IV to resupply the station.