Editing Setting:Tri-Sector (section)

=====Mercantile Noble House Senai, Coriolis=====
When it comes to the beauty of the natural world, the artificial society, and their blending at the seams, there are few groups in the whole Cloudburst Sector that have quite captured the art of it all like House Senai. The Coriolis-based House of military nobles are high-standing members of the Sector Peerage, and had ruled an entire Fortress-citadel on Coriolis for over two thousand years. Their indulgence in high art is a more recent phenomenon, and of all of the House patronages in the Sector so far, the relationship between the nobles of the House and the group they patronize is most distant in Senai’s case. Very few of the Senai family members are actual artists, as opposed to House Joun-Lee, which has several of its youths as actual midshipmen in their command vessel, or House Albert’s many family lawyers.

As is the case in many of Coriolis’s noble families, the roots of the House Senai are planted deep in the Imperial Navy. The Holy Fleet of the Imperium is a refuge for the untalented youngest children of many Imperial peer families, of course, and has been since after the Scouring ten thousand five hundred years before, but for House Senai, it is a point of pride.

The House Senai origins are all tied up in the ancient remit of the Imperial Navy to supply transport and air combat roles for the Imperial Guard. As was imposed by the Lord Regent Primarch, Roboute Guilliman, over ten thousand years ago, the Imperial Guard may no longer maintain a fleet of its own, and no armed air nor space craft. Instead, those were to be provided by the Imperial Navy or Adeptus Mechanicus, so that no one faction of the Imperium may amass both enough ground and space firepower and transport capability to conquer any territory. House Senai was originally a household of lifer Imperial Navy officers, many thousands of years ago, who were responsible for transporting the many millions of Segmentum Solar and Ultima soldiers and colonists who built the first wave of Cloudburst colonies. Eventually, the House settled down, then nothing more than a very wealthy family with a very small noble title, in the leadership of a refurbished Navigator fortress on Coriolis.

Eventually, the House expanded their remit over the surrounding land, using their money to create efficient and clean irrigation systems, surveillance networks, and galleries of entertainment and sport for the people who lived around their fortress. When Coriolis was formally declared a Fortress World of the Officio Munitorum, the Senai family was elevated to a proper title of Earldom, and given a high posting in the newly established Coriolis aristocracy.

As with all noble families that received their title through hard work, the Senai family lorded their position over their rivals, and immediately began flaunting their power. Keeping up the tradition of sending their youngest off to serve in the Navy with commissions, deserved or no, the House Senai family never quite lost sight of their roots in service, but have taken to the Coriolis nobility like a Terran Highborn. The family eventually lost the position of fortress administration with the shifting tides of economy and politics on the planet, but by that point, they had diversified their holdings to include far greater varieties of money-making businesses. The House had then moved into direct patronage of many of Coriolis’s artists and universities.

As a part of their patronage of the many art colleges of the planet Coriolis, the House Senai funds many up and coming painters, sculptors, and photographers in their journey through their mediums. Many of the House itself are not involved in the process at all, and simply spend a bit of money to enjoy the outcome. However, the House Senai elders have hired many vendors and curators to dispense and sell the artwork of their patronages to galleries and museums across the Sector and beyond. As can be expected, the Ordo Hereticus and Ecclesiarchy have covertly examined the artworks the House distributes for signs of Slaaneshi corruptions.

Senai-affiliated merchants also salt the works of their patronages through the great auction halls and guild offices of the greater Sector, as much for exposure as money. After all, Senai isn’t the wealthiest noble house around, but there’s no harm to be found in good publicity.

Artworks that the House has taken possession of directly are stored in huge, pressure- and moisture-controlled vaults. These vaults have expensive cogitator-controlled thermostats and light level controls purchased from the Cognomen factories, to prevent the natural damage that artworks can suffer when improperly exposed to the environment. When a piece is bought, it is loaded by House technicians into simple grav-sleds and lifted into waiting shuttles for delivery to the happy customer. All Senai facilities are guarded by House Joun-Lee mercenaries, despite that being something of an overkill gesture on the most heavily defended planet in the Sector.