Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable Planets (section)

== Praetoria ==

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Founded in the days of the Rebuilding as the Imperium attempted to recover from the horrors of The Beast the world of Praetoria lies in the Segmentum Tempestus just over the rimward border of the Hubworld League and was, at that time, the last stop before the vast desolation of depopulated worlds that stretched out until distant Inwit.

At the time Praetoria was home to a few prospectors, a single orbiting station of dubious functionality, a few hydroponics farms and more sand than any planet should rightfully have. It was a nowhere place on the periphery of anything of importance with nothing to truly boast about. Save for its location that was going to become quite important to the Imperium in its efforts to rebuild and secure Segmentum Tempestus. A planet, even one as borderline habitable as Praetoria, could be ideal for passing traffic in this endeavor.

The initiative as seized by the old trade and transport families of Gredbritton who had risen to prominence on Old Earth in the Unification as the Warlord had given them all of the contracts for rebuilding the trade routes across Old Earth. Using this initial wealth they had invested in Rogue Trader writs and moved out into the Great Crusade behind the expeditionary forces. Being just a few extended families and associates they were never capable of operating on the same level of Horus and his Void Born, who was seemingly everywhere, but they never really dreamed of doing so in those halcyon days. They were seemingly just happy to prosper and funnel additional wealth back to the old country to share amongst their people.

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The initial families that laid claim to Praetoria, named so by them as it originally had no official name beyond a Navis Nobilite cartographical code, were swift in building their world into something usable by the Imperium and therefore profitable. Semi-derelict ships, not in short supply at that time to be sure, were bought up by the score and commissioned ship-wrights and tech-adepts lashed them together into ugly but serviceable orbital installations. The Imperium would need places to moor its fleets. 

The sand was sifted and fused into the glass as the ice was obtained from comets disassembled mid-flight and vast swathes of the warm equatorial regions started to glitter in the dust like spilled diamonds across a grubby tablecloth. Vast hydroponic farms to feed the Imperium’s armies and fleets.

Flatly packed refineries and mining stations were loaned to the original prospector families that had called the system home under honest deals that they take from the asteroids and moons of the system all that they wished but would deal exclusively with the old families. The fleets would need a place and parts to repair their weary vessels.

By the time the fleets of the reconquest arrived Praetoria was waiting for it with open arms and friendly smiles with all the basic amenities and supplies that a fleet could need. To the voidsmen of the fleet, it was the equivalent of expecting to stop at a run down highway rest stop only to step into a fine hotel with a nice restaurant, well-stocked bar, friendly staff and with very reasonable prices. The handwritten letter of appreciation penned by The Steward’s own hand and stamped with his own signet ring is preserved to this day in a stasis field in the governor’s palace.

As the resettlement of what was known at the time as Tempestus Wilderness Space continued traffic continued to travel through Praetoria and the world only grew in wealth. In the years that followed as the Wilderness Space was tamed and civilized people rebuilt their ruins into mirrors of old glory trade followed. Initially, it was nothing but things from the Hubworld League sold on a promise of payment from the Imperium itself or promise of payment in some prosperous future. In time produce of the tamed and civilized Tempestus began to flow into the Hubworlds and Praetoria became a gateway going both ways.

The old generation of founders that knew anything of Old Earth or even remembered the name Gredbritton were gone soon enough as mortals do and Praetoria began to become a world of its own in mind and soul. More importantly, it became a world of its own in the eyes of the Administratum and with this declaration of success came the tithe and that was the origin of the first iteration of the Praetoria Guard.

And that was the inglorious founding of that prosperous world.

Time passed and the population of Praetoria grew, the tithe contribution increased and the ground settlements turned from towns to cities and eventually started to grow into the hives known today. The original founding families and their cadet branches grew distant from each other consolidating their power and assets each in their own fortified cities and orbitals of which they ruled with almost absolute power. By decree of the Administratum the planet, if it wanted to keep its contracts with the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Merchant Navy, was obligated to elect a representative for the planet if not an actual ruler as the Imperium had not intention of wasting it's time dealing with myriad squabbling lesser nobility. Typically this seat, arrived at by-election by each of the major families, went to a lesser house with little to no power of their own and so could only act as intermediaries and not as actual dictators.

The biggest and most notable exception to this rule being Rodri of house Haagreevz. What made him exceptional was that the majority of his ancestry, bar the strictly patrilineal line was distinctly common in origin and therefore assumed to be poor. This was proven to be incorrect, at least to some extent, as by means unknown though assumed t but unproven to be illegal, he had assumed a substantial fortune. This was a fact that he kept quiet from as many as possible for as long as possible, carefully acquiring favors and potential deals.

He knew, at least for him and his kin, that there was limited scope for expansion on Praetoria. The noble families were taking up all the room at the top and were utterly uninterested in changing anything at the risk of losing so much for uncertain returns. This to Rodri simply would not do.

Rodri was a risk taker, he wouldn't have gotten as far as he had were he not, and he expended all of his family's wealth in buying out the shares in many promising looking but relatively small companies under several hundred different names. It was a gamble that paid off to the relief of his kin and wealth flowed into house Haagreevz like a fine rosé wine to be put aside for later sale.

When Rodri stood before the parliament on the first day 003M33 he did not do so as a glorified messenger boy feigning timidity and meekness, his spine was straight, his gaze was hard and his head held high. He set forth his proposal for investment in a Merchant Navy and "Protection" Fleet of Praetoria's very own to be commissioned of the Mechanicus and constructed in the worlds own orbital dockyards, for additional funds to be put aside for the armies, for a greater incentive and drive towards improving the structure of the hives and orbitals for the common plebs to whom he himself was not as distant from. The proposal was met with thunderous laughter and derision of the highest order. Who was this upstart little peasant to come before such as they with a demand they demanded, who was he to dictate to his betters?

Through all the uproar Rodri stood unflinchingly. His confident good cheer turned to cold stone sternness. Who was he? He was the man who was fully capable of bringing every single one of them low or at least making their ever so comfortable lives so very difficult. He owned the ground that their opulent mansions were stood on. He owned the waste collection businesses that they used. He controlled the water to their share of the hydroponics and had the controlling shares in most of the electricity companies. All the little grimy things that made civilization work but deemed beyond the notice of the high and mighty. He gave them one whole day to mull it over as he was feeling so very generous.

And mull it over they did, although blind panic might have been a better word for it. It was true, he held all the cards as the false names of shareholders and investors peeled away to read Haagreevz to the legal limit of what he could own and Haagreevz in the names of his brothers and cousins of barely above peasant status.

A few did try to challenge him suspecting, not unreasonably, that he did and could not have taken all of this so quickly. It must have been acquired on loan, a dragon made of paper and twigs. True though it had much of it was loaned in Thrones form anonymous off-world investors who would have only benefited with increased ships in the trade lanes and border outposts who needed greater ties to the wider Imperium for protection if nothing else.

The foolish little lords that challenged Lord Haagreevz, and it by God did he make sure they addressed him properly now, were indeed brought low and spent many centuries recovering their losses those that even could; mega-corps, Mechanicus brotherhoods, and even other noble houses found that they had little choice but to side with house Haagreevz.

For all that he was cutthroat to an unprecedented degree in that time on Praetoria and ruthless almost to a fault, Rodri was fiercely loyal to his supporters and when the fleets set sail his supporters found that they had been given good shares in the spoils.

In time the house of Haagreevz fell from favor as such things do and stepped down from the post of Herald of the Parliament gracefully. The position had become in the generations after Rodri no longer a joke but kingship in all but name. The first of the next dynasty to assume the responsibility, an otherwise unremarkable man known as Gwenaël of house Lozach, turned the position into one of legal royalty and demanded a coronation be held. It was suspected that the other lords went along with it as the Lozachs were not the most imposing house and Gwenaël was very old. Indeed his son could not get enough support to take the throne and the crown passed to another family.

In the fullness of time, the crown rested on the brow of Eadið Griuugel in the year 775M34. It was not the first time a Griuugel had held that authority and it was not the first time Praetoria had been ruled by a queen. It was, however, the first time it had been ruled by a queen under her own undeniable authority. Previous queens, in that most definitely male dominant society, had ruled under the authority of rich and powerful husbands and fathers. Eadið Griuugel, on the other hand, was the unquestionable head of the rambling Griuugel house and ruled it completely.

Her word was law and although none could say that she was unfair none could either say she had much kindness to spare. What she did have was ambition. In her youth she had traveled far in the Imperium, as many aristocrats did, but whereas they had traveled to sneer at the primitives and the lesser people beyond the border and reinforce their notions of Praetorian superiority she had gone to learn. She had traveled to the towering spires and deep lightless caverns of Old Earth, she had walked the streets of Magna Macragge Civitas in distant Ultramar and even spent a year among the rude and rustic people of harsh Fenris. And she had learned, oh yes she had learned and as her wisdom grew it was matched only by her ambition.

Her ambition was the creation of another Ultramar with the Praetoria as it's Macragge. The worlds of the Segmentum Tempestus would be their subjects and vassal states. Using the already extensive influence of her world over these younger worlds the influence of Praetoria grew to a stranglehold. In the first thirty years of her reign over a hundred worlds were more influenced via media tampering, blackmailing of leaders and advisors and the introduction of armed private soldiers of the nobility to "protect their substantial investments".

Daring as she was Queen Eadið would not go so far as to pursue a course of action that could tamper even slightly with the tithe, she knew at that time that the Administratum and the Arbiters were starting to take note. Although what was happening was merely internal matters and business matters between worlds and therefore not crossing Imperial Law it was becoming in danger of rocking the boat. The Arbiters tended to get twitchy when their boat was rocked.

Things carried on longer than they should as The Harrowing rocked the Galactic West and the Imperium could ill afford to provoke an internal conflict. This carried on until 995M34 and two years after the conclusion of that war when Queen Eadið overstepped her bounds in the eyes of the Imperium when she demanded the release of courier ships owed as part of an unpaid debt

Unfortunately for her, those ships were the property of the Throne. This event gave the Administratum all the excuse that they needed to send in the Dark Clerks and begin a Grand Accounting of Praetoria and her assets and influences. It was not a good time to be the head of a noble family in the following days. Many had abused their power over the lesser world mistaking lesser worlds for lesser people and people of less worth. To the Imperium there were no lesser citizens and when all those cruel indulgences and petty tyrannies were brought to the light the punishments were fair, but they were not kind

It was decided that for the transgressions, which on some of the more impoverished worlds had been considerable, perpetrated by the crown and the nobility that Praetoria could no longer be trusted to govern itself responsibly. But for all her mistakes and sins Queen Eadið had been extremely popular with both the commoners and the gentry. As a compromise, it was decided that she would be permitted to remain as Queen but would have power only in an advisory capacity and that there would be no king or queen after her. She could have resisted, the Imperium was still recovering from The Harrowing and her world had never been stronger, she could have fought back but to do so would mean to meet all of the civilized galaxy in arms and although her people could have held out for a long time they would not have had any hope of victory. Resistance was not worth the price.

Thus began Praetoria under the unimaginative but reliable rule of the Administratum. True to their word Queen Eadið was the last to wear that crown for more than two thousand years. Praetoria surrendered it's held on the vassal worlds without a fight and without demanding recompense and the stirrings of inevitable war and the rumblings of civil dissatisfaction and unrest died away.

In a show of generosity, the Imperium did allow the Praetorian nobility to keep their orbital stations on former vassal worlds. They had, they admitted, been constructed legally and posed no real risk to the planets they orbit. This mollified the lords of the Parliament somewhat.

It was not a unconsidered gift. So long as those stations remained profitable they would be defended and by extension so would the worlds that had been wronged and so long as the nobility continued to have those stations and value them the Imperium would always have something that they could take off them should they get any ideas.

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=== The Order of the Old Tree ===

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The Order of the Old Tree is a name now considered inseparable with the planet Praetoria and inescapably associated with it’s ruling elite, but it was not always so. In the days of yore beyond the living memory of the eldest of Earth’s children they were far more humble. A lesser order of the Adeptus Biologicus from mostly western Merikan splice-commune stock they moved off world early and intentionally resisted amalgamation by confining themselves to remote and typically impoverished regions of the Imperium, having reached a consensus that poverty was better than bending the knee to the [Expunged] who dwelt on Mars or their sycophantic lapdogs who had forgotten that they were human. And oh yes they believed that they had forgotten that, the Splicers might have been chimeras grown in test tubes but they knew where their devotions and loyalties lay. They were human and they lived in service to humanity, they served the people, they did not rule them, they served the people, they did not serve [Expunged] masters, they served the people, they didn’t serve some half machine abomination on a dead world the colour of rust and dried blood.
 
In their early history asceticism was cultivated as a virtue as they reasoned that they might as well find comfort rather than resentment in their state of borderline deprivation and it wasn’t as if they were starving. The people that they served were typically poor but generous, or at least generous with the Order. Generosity tends to flow to the people who can cure toothache and other such everyday miracles and poor as these communities were they got at least slightly less poor for the inclusion of the Sisters of the Old Tree.
 
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The truth of the matter at this point is that little of the earliest history was actually remembered as finding the next meal was generally considered more important than keeping a coherent chronicle of tedious events. Why was the Order right from the onset predominantly female? Nobody is sure. There are theories about the early theology of the Order but nothing that can be proven with certainty. It was rumoured that they practiced a form of human parthenogenesis in those days. Indeed parthenogenesis was a secret unlocked by the AdBio in ages long since past but for what reason they would practice it is unknown consider that there are far more conventional ways of propagating the Order, even without going to outsiders for the purpose. Whatever the reason or the exact method by the time anyone was interested in writing anything down it had always been that way, much the same as the origins of the name of the order. What is known is that in the days of great poverty they had to either have children normally or recruit from outsiders as the equipment that they relied on to splice new members eventually broke down and they didn’t part from the AdMech on polite terms. The AdMech were willing to buy the old equipment back but not to repair it for them.
 
In time the AdBio became it’s own institution independent of the AdMech as the AdMech were getting sick of them and their attitude and “encouraged” them to set up shop somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just not on Mars or near Mars or for preference anywhere in the Sol System in its entirety. The freed AdBio offered the hand of friendship to their wayward friends who gratefully accepted it. This marks the end of the Early Order History and the transition to the Pre-Praetorian History of the Order.
 
For the most part and for thousands of years the Old Tree Sisters were a mostly unremarkable group within the AdBio. They were somewhat more sever than most, almost entirely female and tended to intentionally seek out poor communities to serve but as far as eccentricities go it was pretty unremarkable by AdBio standards. About the only real difference inclusion onto the AdBio made was that they had a safety net in case of emergencies, which was nice.
 

Eventually the history changing decision from the Council of Elder Bio-Druids (as they were calling themselves at that time) came to the Order. They were tasked, should they accept, to fix the genetic degeneration of the ruling elite of Praetoria by any means that they though necessary, and they were given to aid them in this task a much coveted and extremely valuable seed from a gestation tree. Exactly how the Old Tree got this assignment, lucrative and prestigious as it was, when more worthy orders of greater standing were available is as unknown now as it was then. Some say that Gregoria Barton, the Abbatissa of the Old Tree at that time, had used her legendary beauty to seduce one of the council and swayed a critical vote in their favour. If so such a thing was never proven and indeed no proof was found then or later.
 
And so the Old Tree planeted itself in fertile soils of Praetoria. For all that they had been given the assignment they had not been given additional resources, the Elder Bio-Druids assuming that they wouldn’t have bid for it if they couldn’t do it. The Old Tree under the orders of Abbatissa Barton moved itself wholes sale to the new world after handing over their concerns to other orders that they trusted and pooled what resources that they had. The gestation tree would take twenty years before it would produce any crop and at least thirty under optimal conditions before it would be capable of producing more than a few young each spawning. The sisters for those years did what they had always done and integrated themselves in the lower strata of society, ingratiating themselves with the populace, spreading their roots far and wide, increasing their numbers and preparing. Thirty years later Abbatissa Gregoria Barton, or hushed whispers had it her parthenogenetic descendant of the same name, made her Order’s presence known to the aristocracy. She and her most lovely to look upon (and shrewd and cunning) sisters approached the most prominent of the lords of that world and offered themselves to those lords as rewards from the Imperium for their worlds loyal service to the Imperium and, as the most august lords of such a world the Imperium must be seen to reward such diligence and loyalty. Few if any of those foppish fools refused such tantalizing offers and as rewards of the Imperium they were not hidden but flaunted at gatherings of the high society at every opportunity and these women were not just beautiful but graceful in speech and wise in their words and versed well in the etiquette of the courts. They were sophisticated ladies well educated in the classics and virtuous and honest seeming and the lords of the other great houses grew jealous; they demanded to know why they had been overlooked. Had their service to the Imperium not been as diligent? Had they not been as loyal? Were they not as worthy as these preening little princes who strutted around with such vanity? They demanded that their contributions be as recognised. Abbatissa Barton assured them that no insult as intended and sure enough one of her sisters arrived in each of the courts of those spire lords in the months and years that followed. Praetoria had been collared but those that realized were dismissed as malcontents and stirrers of unrest.
 
As time went on these concubines, skilled as they were, took on some of the tedium of the running of the great houses of Praetoria to the relief of the lords and ladies and in time they also had the children of those lords. Exactly which children is often difficult to trace as under the Promethean inspired and influenced legal systems of Praetoria they were children of the marriage first and foremost and in the official genealogies that is how they were seen. Some clue can be inferred as the head of the house was expected to designate an heir rather than it going to the first born son by simple virtue of birth order and it can be assumed that the heirs were the sons of their wives, who themselves were daughters of other noble houses, so as not to show insult to their neighbours. Not that it mattered to the Sisters of the Old Tree who were keeping their own very detailed and extensive records of genealogy and also records of other things as well as it was always a passing curiosity as to what they did on their holy days when they would meet in their strange temple in the underhives with it’s strange and holy off-world tree. And of those children if was the gentle hands of the Order that at least in part had some role in raising them and in them they instilled the notion of loyalty to the Imperium above loyalty to just their planet as the Imperium was sworn to protect Praetoria in reward for it’s loyalty.
 
In time these children, both biologically those of the Sisters and those merely under their influence, and they in turn became lords and ladies and the lords were in gratitude from the Imperium given concubines from the new generation of the Order and the presence of the Old Tree started to take on the form of a tradition.
 
By the dying of the 41st Millenium the Order of the Old Tree is felt from the depths of the roots of the underhives to the crowns in the sky. They are behind every strong lord, they stand behind the throne of the king, they are promised to the sons of the lords and king as a symbol of the unity between Praetoria and the Imperium and they have the support of the common masses as they siphon the wealth of the upper crust back into the hives and enrich the lives of the people in the downtrodden masses. Due to the increasingly competent ruling elite and the more effective distribution of wealth and indeed and increase in wealth by offworld contacts brought by the Order Praetoria has not been richer in an age if ever.
 

Which is not to say that the inclusion of the Order into society has been entirely without flaw. There is greater stratification in society and less social mobility. In the old days the noble houses had to at least occasionally marry down if only because they had run out of cousins to marry. This is no longer a concern with the freshly available genetic diversity of the Order without the loss of prestige from wedding a social inferior. Also there have been deaths. For all that they are an AdBio institution the Old Tree is extremely loyal to the Imperial Throne and fond of their new station and their new families as they are they know where their loyalties fall and they know how to make very hard decisions. The health of society as a whole and even the family trees of many old an established house can benefit from the removal of irredeemably defective branches. Children are usually spared, at least young children who might still be salvaged and trained to loyalty and diligent service. He boys are typically sent to the military orphanages, there are far worse places to end up, and the girls are typically raised by they order to supplement the next generation of Sisters. Often the daughters of nobility fallen from grace are sent to the off-world missions where their sins are wiped clean and they might make new lives for themselves and there are far worse fates than that.

The sisters themselves do not typically deal such dark work, although it’s not unprecedented. The work is often handed over to the Order of the Blooded Thorns, an order of the Adepta Securitas with which the Old Tree has maintained a strong tie with for many centuries.
 
The AdBio as a whole tends to look down on the Old Tree and sees them as having dirtied themselves with political games. Their original assignment was to fix the aristocracy and it was a task that should have taken a century at most and then the order could have been assigned to some other task. They were not supposed to set up a permanents project and inescapably bind themselves to the ruling elite, indeed it is debated if they should loose all standing in the AdBio and be cast out. It has not yet come to that if only because their efforts have mended the somewhat spotty reputation the AdBio has developed and encourages people to overlook their more “eccentric” members and their morally dubious works.
 
As the bell strikes on the last day of 999M41 it is known that the tree grows strong and as the tree grows strong the Imperium weathers the storm.

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