Lore
Introduction
Armada’s technocratic civilization is deliberately shaped for transformation, built on motion rather than permanence, and guided by the belief that stagnation is humanity’s greatest threat. For millennia, Armada has been defined by the Path to the Endless Horizon, a cultural doctrine that frames existence as an unceasing advance toward an ever-distant goal. In pursuit of the Horizon, Armada orients itself through data, experimentation, and iteration, with their forms, designs, and systems are engineered to prioritize this continual refinement. Their environments are not meant to endure unchanged, but to evolve, adapt, and be replaced, ensuring that Armada is always moving forward, chasing whatever lies beyond the next Horizon.
Armada Cultural Identity
“The Horizon retreats, because it knows we are worthy of the chase.”
Dynast Jernix Orpheo, OT-3851 Reach Expedition Log
Forged in motion and tempered by constant change, Armada culture is defined by an unshakable belief in its own superiority, not as arrogance but as inevitability. To be Armada is to believe that stagnation is failure, that systems which do not move deserve to be surpassed or broken. This conviction is codified into an ideology structured around five interlocking tenets: Motion, Void, Biogenesis, Horizon, and Catalysis.
Together, these pillars are not merely philosophical concepts but active directives that govern Armada society, shaping everything from governance and warfare to education, genetic doctrine, and personal identity. They are taught from birth, reinforced through ritual and conflict, and treated less as beliefs to be debated than truths to be demonstrated through action.
Within these five pillars Armada society is further shaped by two ideological lineages:
- The more traditional Scholarborne, who advance and preserve knowledge through refinement and documentation
- The fast growing Evermarch, who embrace instability and relentless self-reinvention, discarding the past even as they are shaped by it.
Motion
Armada embraces movement itself, whether physical, spiritual, or metaphorical. To be Armada is to move. For the Scholarborne, this is relative movement, each step occurs in accordance with the previous, and recorded meticulously. The Evermarch reject this. Motion, they state, is the point. Previous motion is irrelevant, all that matters is that you continue to move.
Void
The greatest freedom lies in the void. And the void in turn, can move those who enter it. Sometimes, people come back from deep space changed, altered in ways that scientists cannot explain or replicate. To Armada, this is the ultimate transformation, the embodiment of Motion, what it means to truly be Armada. To discard your former self, to move in a direction that others can’t. To the Scholarborne, this is the greatest of mysteries to investigate. To Evermarch, this change is more than just that. This is sacred.
Biogenesis
Life, Armada says, is the only thing that can choose to move. As such, it is the ultimate expression of Motion. Biological manipulation has been a part of Armada since its early corporate days. As time passed and The Path evolved beyond its origin as a niche cult, life grew into the symbolic representation of the journey to the Horizon. From this, arose Biogenesis, the Armada people’s tendency as a whole to gleefully manipulate the biology of both themselves and others, without qualm or consent.
Horizon
The Horizon is not a place. It is a goal sought by the people, the purpose of movement is to reach it. It is everdistant. You cannot reach the horizon, by definition. But you must try.
Catalysis
For Armada, conflict is the catalyst of Motion, and Motion is the catalyst of conflict. In your drive towards the horizon, it is inevitable that your path will interfere with others. And this is a good thing. Catalysis is the idea that conflict drives innovation. Conflict forces the discarding of the past that doesn’t function, for the future that does. To the Evermarch, this is the purest essence of Motion towards the Horizon. For the Scholarborne, it is the proving ground, where theories can be put to the test.
Technology
Armada Systems are built to be replaced, discarded, and surpassed, with little regard for continuity or inheritance. Failure is viewed as data rather than defect. Unsurprisingly, Armada scientists are the undisputed pioneers of both space travel and biological manipulation.
Biological augmentation is routine and culturally accepted, seen as an honest expression of intent, pushing the limits of what humanity is capable of. While Amada is at the cutting edge of propulsion, terraforming, and electromagnetic manipulation, the Void remains their most coveted frontier, explored through aggressive experimentation against inconsistent outcomes. All in pursuit of the next Horizon.
Structure & Governance
“Governance is unsolvable. Its solution is a Continuum towards the Horizon.”
Continuum Auditor Thunderash Tenphir, OT-3810
Armada are a fractious people. Bound more by culture than by law. Nominally, they are ruled by the Continuum Assembly, an approximation of a council, but more accurately a mostly meritocratic framework of politicians, scientists, generals, and more.
Below the Continuum Assembly, Armada is ruled by the three great houses: Orpheo, Veltari, and Taelith. Once great families from the early days of Armada, the names and lineages have changed, but the institutions remain.
These houses are partially empires in their own right, controlling vast swathes of known space. They are also cultural powerhouses, indoctrinating their citizens into belonging to the house and its interpretation of Armada’s five cultural tenants just as deeply as they do Armada as a whole. Lastly, they are Gene Banks, repositories of every successful genetic adaptation they’ve achieved, held in the bodies of the members of the house, as Echoes of past triumphs. It is tradition for house members to take on a new Echo with every major achievement.
The Evermarch reject all of this. For them, a person should take on adaptations as and when required, and then discard them just as quickly. To integrate the past into your body like this is an affront to the basic foundations of their ideals. The Evermarch holds no true political power, it is a cultural movement. And as such, there are representatives in the Assembly that hold Evermarch leanings and ideals, and the Houses are riddled with Evermarch sympathizers and fanatics.
Military
“Warfare is the most sublime form of Catalysis; if you stop moving, you die.”
Operational War Studies, Preface, “Movement Methodica” by Archivist Rephar, House Gonorch
During the unparalleled wealth of the Tenebrium Age, Armada favoured the overwhelming firepower and unstoppable Motion of the Bull, the Blizzard, and the Titan, bringing independent colonies to heel easily. Once the Severance War began, it became apparent the centuries-old, Scholarborne-refined Veltari Stout simply couldn't keep up with the raw Motion of Cortex Incisors. Mortified that their rivals better embodied an aspect of Motion they hadn't needed to express in military doctrine to that point, the Houses, partly influenced by Evermarch sympathizers in their ranks, rapidly catalyzed new, experimental designs into the field. Now, the thundering roll of the Thor, the aggressive dive of the Blitz, and the amphibious flank of the Marauder are the dynamic heart of Armada's war doctrine.
Armada’s application of EMP technology surpasses Cortex doctrine in both scale and refinement. After all, a stationary foe is already dead. Once motion is stripped away, the Starlight’s tachyons deliver the inevitable end.
Armada’s mastery of fundamental particles, and their deep understanding of the stranger properties of the electromagnetic spectrum, has enabled the creation of weapons beyond Cortex’s ability to reverse engineer. Their lightning weapons arc through groups of foes, with fresh Jaguars complimenting the fearsome charge of the Bull. The close-quarters plasma repeaters of the Pawn and Blitz are both cheap and melt through armor faster compared to the simple lasers of their Cortex counterparts.
House Orpheo is the scalpel, waging war through control, stealth, and precision. Their Snipers cripple forward radar while Ghosts lockdown dangerous targets with EMP. House Veltari brings the pressure and plasma of their homeworlds, deploying heavy units like Maces and Fatboys in sustained assaults. The Veltari commitment to forward motion is a relentless grind, a refusal to break until the enemy wreckage is ground under the treads of their advancing Bulls. Like its myriad of terraformed worlds, House Taelith adapts and overwhelms, their tick swarms are legendary across the Line Worlds, and their saturation doctrine raining down ordinance through Possums, Mausers, and Vanguards from long range.
Commanders
Within Armada doctrine, the Commander is the most decisive instrument of war. Deployment of a Commander to a theater is treated as an escalation beyond conventional limits, capable of reshaping the battlefield within minutes of planetfall. This capability is constrained only by the cognitive burden imposed on the individual pilot. Even for a Void-touched mind, there are limits.
For this reason the more practical and secular minds of Armada wholeheartedly support every avenue of research that the more fanatical minds undertake. Armada Commanders are famed for their Echoes, genetic modifications taken from saved worlds and conquered lifeforms, archived as marks of doctrine and achievement.
Armada commanders are notorious for what they would refer to as "initiative,” which their nominal superiors would refer to as insubordination. The fractious nature of their culture soaks into everything. Commanders are not bound easily, and attempts to impose rigid oversight often fail. Authority follows momentum, and those who cannot keep pace are left behind.
OT-3970 Current Status
“Where Horizons Narrow”
The Continuum Core remains intact, a neutral nexus on Genvara, where the Great Houses debate doctrinal evolution. None disagree that the Horizon lies ahead, but their paths have long since diverged.
The Line Worlds have become more graveyard than proving ground, Scholarborne continue the battle for clarity that never arrives. Taelith reports contact with unknown factions within the Nomadic Reaches while the Driftmarked continue to rebel against Continuum oversight.
The Echo Archives report contradictions, generational Horizon logs diverge from their recorded history. Commanders no longer pass their lineages unbroken, and the Horizon Confluence registers signal anomalies. Informants claim that Cortex is gathering behind the Line, constructing something unseen, and only through victory will the true threat be revealed.
Veltari doctrine remains clear: motion must be direct, disruptive, and pure. The Line Worlds are the path to the Horizon, and anything less than full catalysis across the Cortex front is stagnation dressed as strategy. Only by forcing motion, they argue, can the Line be broken and the threat behind it revealed.
Taelith rebukes this, because to them the Horizon lies not within Line World campaigns, but in expansion. Growth into the Nomadic Reaches, exploration into the sectors both lost and undiscovered. Their dynasts propose to use all available tenebrium for a generational push into Nullspace, to construct new colonies, seed fresh dynasties, and secure more void-touched.
Orpheo retreats further inward. To them, Armada is not ready. The self must be refined before it acts. They refuse calls for massive incursions until Armada has reforged itself and emerged stronger. Their silence in Continuum councils is read by some as wisdom, by others as cowardice.
More than doctrine divides the Great Houses, is the flow of tenebrium and commanders. Debates rage and the Continuum endures, it will not dissolve, but its power weakens. No single house can dictate the will of Armada. The Scholarborne feel their influence waning, replaced by the zealotry of the Evermarch and a galaxy changing faster than they can.
Action must be taken, and the Horizon calls.
