Faction Leader Name: The Pilgrims have no single leader in their colony but are lead by their own council of representatives from the various districts of their own. When the joint defense council of Aio was founded They voted to send Representative Claiden.

Appearance: A tanned skinned man with a hazel coloured left eye. His dark hair is cut short and is greying at the temples. A gruff looking man with weathered features that naturally lean themselves towards a frown. Broad shouldered and solidly built, Claiden clearly holds himself with rigid posture and the kind of body language that looks like he's always sizing up everything around him.

But that's just the organic parts of his body. Claiden's origional right eye and arm are completely gone. Some scaring is still visible around his face to remind him of the injury that took them from him. The bionic eye is of a design that doesn't even try to look human, just like most Pilgrim augments. A bright yellow lens that goes flat over the surface of his skull and is held in place by a charcoal coloured metal frame that goes around his eye socket like an old style eye patch and curves around the back of his head to the back of his skull where its protective form meets the input sockets that let him interact with his colony's mainframe.

His cybernetic right arm follows the same colour scheme, down to the dark mixture of blacks and greys, laced with luminous veins of yellow gold light. The shoulder and bicep jut up and out respectively with its own form of industrial carapace. even as the forearm and hand become thinner and more delicate the design keeps to an aesthetic of stark straight lines and sharp armoured angles. Claiden said goodbye to having sleeves on his right arm a long time ago, looking like he bears this prosthetic with pride. The arm on its own gives the impression that its armoured exterior was made to intimidate as well as protect its inner workings.

Under his clothes are a few smaller plates and signs of internal enhancements that allowed Claiden's body to support its new fixtures and operate at a higher level than biology would allow.

Short Bio:
"Name?" Asked the registrar.

"Claiden."

"And the rest?" They asked after an awkward pause.

"It's just Claiden these days."

They arched the tattoo that served as an eyebrow. "One of those, eh?"

Like most of his fellow pilgrims Claiden is from one of the first worlds. He doesn't know much about the history of Old Earth but from what he's heard once the first colonies started declaring independence the galaxy started resembling a time in human history called "The Wild West". Caliden grew up in a time openly ruled by corporations and where the powerful wielded their influence with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The bright side of it for someone like him was that since all the rules were being broken and remade over the colonies it left a world of possibilities open to him.

In Claiden's case he got his break in the unchecked rise of private military companies among the First Worlds. He signed up to a company called "The Cult of The Rich" early on and served for a year when the company was hired to help put down a military coup in an outter colony. It was also where a plasma mortar strike hit his unit and blasted Claiden half into oblivion. Laying out on the table he just managed to put a thumbprint on the tablet, giving the docs consent to chop and drill away, whatever they had to do to keep him alive. When Claiden woke up he was less human than he was before.

He served in "The Cult" for another decade before retiring from active service and finding his way to somewhere more peaceful. By then Claiden had modified his enhancements and taken on more voluntary ones by then. He'd even dabbled with mind altering mods, afterall who needs to deal with your issues when you can just suppress the nightmares. Claiden could live comfortably out in the older colonies but he was always left with wanting more.

That was when he found religion! The Ardent Path sprung up on the first worlds, shoving aside the religions of Old Terra in the face of the rapid human diaspora and expansion. Ardent's don't believe in a god per se but believe that each person holds within them a spark of the divine. That no personal god exists in the traditional sense but gave itself to create them and that it is the duty of each person to seek ways to improve themselves and the purpose of life is to reach the zenith of your potential. Though it was started by unaugmented humans it was only a matter of time before the faith had to decide where it stood on bio-engineering and artificial enhancements.

The church Claiden found was okay with it! Ardents and their devotee priests could agree with it as an way to help folks reach their peak, so long as the tech didn't become a crutch. It was here that he found people willing to talk him through a way to actually accept his new body. In fact there were a ton of cyborgs in the congregation, it turned out a lot of them in his city really did know each other. Most took pride in their machine selves if only to spite the CA jerks that put so many restraints on them! Sure any jackass can have a pulse rifle but get an arm that can punch through concrete and you're a public threat!

It was during this time of his life that Claiden met several other cyborgs that had built lives for themselves and had used their enhancements to rise to the top of their industries like he had. With some backing from the Ardent church (which was really taking off in terms of political power) they put together a colony effort, one on a planet far from the CA where folks like them could live free and make cybernetic laws free of Old Terra's prejudice and corruption.

The plan was to make their new city self sufficient as soon as possible before branching out into off planet trading and expanding their heavy industry. It was also a request of The Ardentia that the colonists give them a defined presence in the colony they had helped fund and spread it where possible. A religious representative is on the Pilgrim's own council but it is their own Ardent's aim to see the faith spread to their neighbour colonies as well.

Now in the wake of the sack the pilgrims have had to salvage what they can. Still reeling from the trauma of the destruction their populace are divided on where their colony should go from here. Some believe they should only militarize as much as needed to defend themselves from future raids so that the majority can continue to focus on the pursuits that first brought them to found the colony. Others are looking to turn their facilities to more aggressive means and expanding in the face of external threats.

Either way it falls to Claiden to help shape how his home colony will make its way on this new world alongside the others. He wasn't happy to go back into the military world but he was one of the most experienced members of the pilgrim council in that field and a one of the colony founders, giving him the right kind of clout to sit next to the other colony leaders.

Faction name: The Steel Pilgrims

Settlement name: Touchdown City

Colony Theme: Manifest cybernetic destiny! The steel pilgrims are a people who have each in some way fused themselves with technology. Theirs is a society built upon finding the balance between the fusion of technology and the human spirit. A place where the individual may find their own path and not be bound by the stagnant ways of the old world. The future is here and though we are each individual we have each found a similar path to ascend what we were.

Population Notes: This is a colony founded by cyborgs. Though most residents still regard themselves as human, just with highly advanced prosthetic and enhancements, the founders who first brought it to life own the word. The early population group was brought together by The Ardent Path and members of the church make up a large portion of the population. Their branch is often having to defend itself these days, making it clear that they are NOT a machine cult. Simply members of a congregation who all share similar mechanical enhancements.

Unlike a certain other council representative, these colonists do put their faith in the immutable strength of metal. Like Claiden himself many of them have adopted cybernetic parts that pop with artificial colours of some kind and are shaped by inorganic designs. Elective enhancements are becoming more common in Touchdown city now that CA laws are not weighing people down under as much and since the sack many are looking for more quick and tangible forms of protection.

Critical Infrastructure (Besides various civilian habitation and light economic industries and resourcing operations, you have six core pillars of your colonial society, economy, and relevant resources for planetary defense. At the start of the game you have your governing district, a space asset, and four write-in assets of your choice. At the moment none of them are militarized or turned to war-work yet, and if you lose too many your colony will collapse.)

Governing District Touchdown City started life as an Ark class settlement ship. Vessels like that are made to land hard and plant themselves on the planet surface, opening up and being dismantled into easy to build prefab housing. The pilgrims have progressed since then, making their own modest cityscape. The origins are still clear though, as the remains of the ship that would found Touchdown City are planted right in the city centre, looking like the bones of a metallic space whale that have been picked over by scavengers. The council members have made their official quarters out of the ones they had on the voyage over. Located high over the public park that was made out of the landing crater once colonists were able to move out into the city proper. It shines with a soft glow at night, former emergency exit and warning lights coming to life like fireflies.

There is an official meeting room for the Pilgrim council but it is rarely used these days as each member as been modified so that they can link into a private communication channel, allowing them to talk to each other at any time without the use of external devices.

Starting Space Asset: Satellite Hark - A communications satellite, linked to Touchdown City. Hark is reponsible for the extensive communications network that runs through Touchdown City, meaning its residents need never fear a bad signal. It is also capable of relaying long range signals, allowing Touchdown to stay in contact with the first worlds and outer colonies. Although their initial plan was to get away from the reach of external authorities the founding pilgrims knew better than to cut themselves off from the galaxy completely.

Write-in Assets
Asset #1 The Ardent Church. A residential district including a circular building that serves as a place of meditation for each devotee of the Ardent Path. dotted throughout the district is a library, art gallery and various small businesses that have all found sponsorship thanks to the Ardentia. Whether you are a member of the congregation or not there is somewhere in "The Paths" where you can get away from the industry of the city and find a quiet pleasure. Be it a good bar with friends or talking philosophy or the arts, the things here have kept the public morale up even in the wake of the sacking.

Asset #2 Hab-support sector Alpha. Mechanically enhanced or not the Pilgrims are still mostly biological and need food, water and good air. This was something the founders agreed it was better to be over prepared for so HSS-Alpha was constructed. Dedicated water treatment plants, hospitals, and medical engineering facilities make up just some of the district's facilities.

Asset #3 Ground breakers Ltd. A specialised heavy industry sector, headed by Pilgrims with a history in the mining industry. These factories specialise in making heavy machinery that helped speed up the construction of Touchdown City and had planned to break into making mining equipment once the city was ready.

Asset #4 The Workshop. A ground based heavy industrial sector full of automated work lines and fabrication machinery that requires neural links or cybernetic limb links to get working. The ark ship that brought the Pilgrims was full of raw materials and once this sector was up and running Touchdown City was able to able to expand rapidly and reach a higher standard of living before raiders ran rampant through it.

FACTION NAME: The Machina Conclave
SETTLEMENT NAME: Installation Alpha Primaris
COLONY THEME: Unrelenting Industry without limits or ethics. Extreme cybernetics are common and often produce horrific results. Immortality through machine, even if just a machine with a body. Artificial Intelligence is not to be trusted so humans hardwired into machines are used instead.

POPULATION: There is not a single unaugmented human within the Conclave as from birth, children are installed with hardware and cybernetics that they will constantly switch out as they grow. There is no pomp nor circumstance to the installation of new implants as they are seen as basic parts of life but should a child's body reject their new additions, they will be terminated and repurposed. Death is not an excuse to the Conclave leadership

By the time one has reached adult hood, their mechanical parts easily equal their organic parts, if not over take. Work has extreme importance as only industry matters and production with little leeway allowed. Thanks to extensive neural implants, even those who perish are often given life but put under direct control of their overlords, more as living robots than anything. Its often said there are no people in the Machina Conclave, only resources.

CRITICAL INFRASTURCTURE: Heavy Industrial Sector
Whereas other settlements boast of large, strong industrial production area, only the Machina Conclave can boast of having the largest and most extensive as the entirety of Installation Alpha Primaris is a giant manufacturing with more factories and workshops than even living quarters. The mechanical augmentation its people endure are required for life as it is nearly impossible to sustain normal human life in the settlement between 18 hour work shifts and heavily polluted air. However, without the limitation of Old Earth, the Machina Conclave can produce a terrifying amount of goods and materials rivalling that of entire corporation from the Central Authority.

ADMINISTRATION UNITS: The Machina Conclave is a strict hierarchical oligarchy where merit and prestige will drive you up the ranks. At the lowest level are the Fabricator Minoris or "Forge Lord" who control single factories or facilities and are the most involved. Above them are the Fabricator Majoris or "Forge Overlords" who control entire districts of sprawling manufactories and compounds. At the very top is the Fabricator Rex or "Forge Master". Each position is obtained through election with only those who display cunning and power able to advance. In some ways, the system is akin to a feudal domain where the Fabricator Rex will still control a sizable personal domain while also lording over the rest of his peers.

Appearance wise, the Machina Conclave has little care for visual beauty and has an extremely dirty, gritty utilitarian design with pipework and cabling and conveyers reaching out from the buildings like a great web of machinery.

SPACE ASSEST: The Omniscient Resolve
A massive mining vessel with its own onboard manufacturing plant spanning its entire length, the Omniscient Resolve has long been used to crack open asteroid and process its materials into anything and everything of worth. Powered by great fusion generators and with dozens upon dozens of entombed bodies acting as its AI, tt is nothing less than an void-born behemoth of iron and steel that hungers for the resources of industry. Perhaps most sinisterly is its EMP cannons, used to disable other ships before devouring it with its massive reclamation maw that grind and crush the entire ship and its contents down, humans on board or not.

WRITE-IN ASSESTS:

1) Deep Crust Bore 07 "Jörmungandr"
Upon the skyline of Installation Alpha Primris, many will confuse the tallest tower on it as a skyscraper or some other building, but in truth it is the largest mining drill the Machina Conclave possesses. Nicknamed Jormungandr, its burrows beyond the planet's crust and straight into the heart of the planet to extract metals and minerals that flow within. Its said that anywhere between a third to a half of the entire raw resource extraction comes from Jormungandr alone.

2) Cloning Facility
Very few people come to the Conclave of their own free will and the even the act of buying prisoners of convicts isn't enough to quench the thirst for labor the endless forges demand. As such, the Conclave has dabbled in the illegal science of cloning to increase its labor pool. The beings that come out of such facilities are often malformed and horrendous, soon encased in metal and machine to serve as tech-thralls and slaves to the finances and Forge Lords.

3) Titan 01 "Will of Iron"
Correctly called a "God Engine", Titan 01 is an ambitious project of creating a massive bipedal engine of war to bring ruin to the enemies of the Machina Conclave. However, even with the myriad resources and manpower of the Conclave, the monster is barely constructed with only its frame, main reactor and but one turbo-laser cannon built. Thus far its sole purpose has been to defend Installation Alpha Primaris as a massive stationary turret and provide energy from its reactor core.

4) Communion Relay Nexus
The figurative hub of data of the Conclave, the CRN acts as the main terminal for all tech-thralls and anyone who isn't a Forge Lord will be linked to the CRN so that they may be controlled directly. It is this Nexus which allows workers to be pushed beyond normal human limits to work and power the nervous system of the deceased to allow for the dead to continue their service and duty. All communications entire through its terminal and everything is controlled by the Nexus.