Editing Setting:Tri-Sector (section)

=====Mercantile Noble House Lunther, Hapster=====
One of the key advantages of the complex and interdependent economy of Hapster is that its lines of patronage and commerce are very well defined. Laws that govern noble patronage are clear and unambiguous. There are thousands of years of precedent behind every decision, and the Imperial government has ample knowledge of all the local rules and protocols by dint of their tremendous age. There are noble families on Hapster that predate much of the Terran aristocracy.

As a natural result, some of the ancient lines of patronage between the Hapster aristocracy and the guilds, laborers, and artists they patronize are so ironclad in their age and circumstance that they have become economic fixtures of their own. The House Lunther, by far the wealthiest in the Subsector by two orders of magnitude, is one such fixture and the largest. House Lunther has one colossal advantage over the younger noble families of the Sector. Its ancient ties to the Navigator House True allow them to be the only noble House in the Sector to have a staff of Navigators on retainer. As such, House Lunther’s ships are faster than any other in the Sector save possibly the Daggers and Astra Explorator. Their ships, lacking the massive armor and weapons of a warship to slow them, can speed along Warp paths that fly narrower routes and longer distances than most others. The speed of their ships allows them to serve in a niche that no other House in the Sector could fill: logistics. The House Lunther fleet carries all manner of supplies, information, and passengers across the Sector, for a price.

House True is nominally based on Terra, of course, as most Navis Nobilite Houses in good standing are. However, House True once felt a distant tie of kin to the Hapster Subsector, seeing as that is the rough region of space in which they took shelter during the ancient purges of the mutant populations of Terra. Today, of course, most ties between True and Hapster are purely commercial. Given how few psychics in general and Navigators specifically there are in the Cloudburst Sector, however, it is well worth the investment for True to send some of their younger scions out to the hot reaches of Cloudburst for work with the House Lunther fleet. They have the market utterly cornered, with only official Imperial Adeptus Administratum and Officio Munitorum vessels having more ready access to the skills of Navigators there (beyond the Inquisition’s dark fleets, of course).

House Lunther is active in the politics of Hapster, too, but thanks to the highly stratified and procedure-driven laws of Hapster they can exert little direct influence over the governing or legislating of the Subsector. Lunther flotillas occasionally contract with House Joun-Lee mercenaries for transport services. Their most frequent subcontractor is House Ritria, for whom House Lunther often transports supplies.