The Kingdom of Saturn

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Established on Titan from ancient Earth royal lineages, the Kingdom of Saturn is a feudal space monarchy of interlinked noble houses, united by bloodline, tradition, and unwavering loyalty to their Queen.

The Kingdom of Saturn is made up of many small dukedoms across its moons, all related to the first royal family that rules over the planet Saturn. Arriving first on Titan some five hundred years ago, the first family are descended from both the House of Windsor and the imperial family of Japan. Over time, many families claiming descent from the ancient monarchies of Earth fled to Saturn and married into the kingdom.

There are many smaller factions and dukedoms that squabble, as only a family can, but when the cause is great they rally behind their ancient Queen when she calls them. They were always a thorn in the side of the Solar Supremacy and were the first to rebel. The war began at the Battle of Rhea, when Solar emissaries pressed intolerable terms and the Queen declared war on the spot. See History. Now that the Web is open to all, many lesser nobles are building flotillas to explore the new systems and make their beloved queen the first galactic Empress. The Queen has never ordered it. Her nobles do it for the love of her, for their own glory, and because every new system makes the Kingdom stronger.

Exactly where the throne of the Kingdom sits, on Titan or in some sense over Saturn itself, is a question outsiders still puzzle over. Titan holds the most palaces and fortresses but the queen often moves her seat from moon to moon; living with her children and subjects. As none can say when Sovereign first began whispering to the independent nations, nobody knows whether the Queen started the war with Sovereign's support or whether she started it thinking defeat was inevitable. Regardless, soon after, Sovereign began speaking directly to the queen and her advisors and aided them in the early weeks and months of the solar war.

Ships of the Kingdom

The Kingdom's warships are the Titan class: famous for an energy shield no other nation has or understands, long-range gun decks, and beautiful interiors rich in art, gold and silver. Individual nobles fly their own heraldry. Queen's ships carry the prefix HMS.

The founding of the Kingdom

Five hundred years ago, Titan was a distant backwater, far from the busy colonies of the inner system. It was there that a wealthy married couple led an expedition of family, friends and workers to settle the frozen moon. He was a direct descendant of the House of Windsor, and she of the Imperial House of Japan. Neither stood anywhere near the line of succession, but they were proud of their blood. As the first to settle Titan, and half in jest, they named their colony the Kingdom of Saturn and crowned themselves its King and Queen.

The Solar Supremacy was still young then, the Solar government of its day, and nowhere near as oppressive as it would later become. But it chafed at the thought that someone else had claimed Titan first. Within a century, perhaps for political convenience, the Supremacy had all but left Titan to its self-made monarchs, writing the Kingdom off as a joke it could laugh at later. Later never came. Slowly the joke became a true kingdom, and from its very first days it was a thorn in the Supremacy's side.

The Queen

Today the Kingdom is ruled by its ancient Queen. She is some four hundred and fifty years old, the daughter of the founding King and Queen, born in the Kingdom's first century, and one of the oldest humans alive. Yet she is no relic. Endless organ replacements and cybernetic upgrades keep her body going, but the woman herself is very much alive: warm, witty, formidably clever and as charming as she is shrewd. She remembers her parents, the founders, and has watched over almost the whole life of the Kingdom they made. She rarely leaves Titan, but every day she holds court from her throne, trading jokes with courtiers, outmanoeuvring ambassadors and remembering every name. Those who expect a withered figurehead leave her presence charmed, outwitted, or both.

Family, birth and blood

The Kingdom of Saturn grows in a way few other nations would recognise. The Queen herself has some two hundred children. Each of them has hundreds of their own, and so on down the generations. Some children are still born the old way, but most come from medically assisted births outside the womb, which lets a single couple raise children by the hundred. Tradition is kept all the same: every child has the same mother and father, joined in a marriage sanctioned by the Queen herself.

Over the centuries, families claiming descent from Earth's old royal houses have come to Saturn and married in, and the court works hard to welcome this new blood and keep the bloodlines healthy. The result is a vast, ethnically mixed nation numbering in the small billions, in which almost everyone can trace some link, however distant, to the Queen and her royal family, and almost everyone counts themselves part of it. In peacetime this makes for endless family squabbles between houses and dukedoms. In war against a foreign power, it makes for a people who fight as one family.

Appearance and modification

Saturnians often take body modifications, designed to look beautiful: more regal, more human, or even angelic. The Queen herself is kept going by endless organ replacements and cybernetic upgrades. See Cybernetics and body modification.

Succession, the hive and the first rebellion

The Queen's long life is more than vanity. Should she die, the Kingdom would almost certainly fall into a vast succession crisis, and many suspect this is part of why she clings so fiercely to life. Most of Saturn's dukedoms are held by her children and grandchildren, and each would have a claim.

Yet those who know her say her heart is simpler than that. All she wants is to see her children happy, and in Saturn that means everyone. In some ways she is like the queen of a great hive, but a noble, regal and beautiful one, and her Kingdom reflects it. Saturn is famed across the solar system for its magnificent palaces and extraordinary art.

The Kingdom had always been a thorn in the Solar Supremacy's side, and its rulers knew it was only a matter of time before the Supremacy moved to crush them. So when the chance came, Saturn took it and was the first to rebel.

Links with Mars

The Kingdom keeps quiet, mistrustful links with Clan Camelot of Mars, a clan of British descent that has always been willing to work with foreign royalists. Neither side fully trusts the other, but the connection endures. See The clans of Mars.

Faith: the Church of Saturn

Faith lies at the heart of the Kingdom of Saturn. Its people are Christian: a blend of old tradition and the ancient code of Bushido, inherited from the Kingdom's twin royal founders. The three old christian branches have a place in the halls of power and Saturnians believe their Queen was placed on her throne by God. She is head of the Church, though she leaves its running to the Archbishop of Sinlap, the Kingdom's highest priest, whose seat lies in the great crater of Sinlap on Titan.

Saturnian faith asks for honour, duty and unswerving loyalty to God and the Queen. Duelling is an accepted way to settle disputes between nobles, and those who bring disgrace on themselves or their house are expected to atone for it, sometimes with their lives. Ancestors are deeply respected and remembered, but never worshipped, because Christian doctrine always comes first.

Sovereign is a matter of fierce debate in the Kingdom. Some say it was sent by God to free humanity, others that it is the work of the Devil. On one point the Church is absolute: Sovereign must never be worshipped.

The Cathedral of Sinlap

The entire crater of Sinlap is a single cathedral, the largest in the known universe. Within its vaulted expanse lie the tombs of Saturn's heroes, and worship never ceases there, by day or by night. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Sinlap, the three great universities and the spiritual heart of the Kingdom, but its doors are open far wider than Saturn. Christians of every denomination who hold to the Nicene Creed travel from across the solar system to worship beneath its vaults, and many stay a while in its peace.

Sacred art

The Church of Saturn is renowned for its beautiful art: frescoes and oil paintings of scenes from the Bible and other religious stories, such as Saint George's battle with the dragon, the baptism of Christ and the Crucifixion. Scenes from Christian history are just as common, especially the persecution of Christians through the ages, such as the martyrs of Japan, and great events of the last few thousand years like the Crusades and the abolition of slavery, all of which the Church celebrates as Christian acts. This art follows strict rules. Christ is always shown fully human, with no cybernetics, because he is wholly man and wholly God, and depicting him otherwise would be heresy. Saints and other figures may be shown with cybernetics or in what Saturnians call contemporary armour (see Appearance and modification). Saturn and its moons often appear in the background, along with the Kingdom's palaces, buildings and cities. Saturnians know perfectly well that nobody in those times looked like that. It's simply their chosen style, much as Renaissance painters put plate armour and the faces of patrons in biblical scenes.

The Pioneers

The Kingdom occasionally accepts smaller nations and usually folds them in by marriage or by giving them a role (see Refugees and newcomers). Not every arrival is folded in that way. One belt nation that lost a war to Ce-Co became a small nation within Saturn and stayed their own people, not integrated by marriage into Saturnian houses. When the waystations opened, they took the chance; the Queen gave them a charter to explore and colonise in her name. They are known as the Pioneers, among many other names of their own: loyal to the Queen, mainly flying Sovereign-class ships, a people within a people.

Named characters, ships and flotillas

• Princess Lianna: Commander of Her Majesty's twenty-third garrison flotilla. Her cruiser is H.M.S. Haguro. See the account below.
• Baron Von Baryon and the Punctured Pig: Known in the Kingdom of Saturn as a Duellist, a Rogue and a Drunk, Baron Von Baryon was one of the first to take a flotilla deep into the void. His flagship, the Punctured Pig, is famous for always being left slightly damaged from the last battle, as the Baron likes to show his battle scars and give his opponent a sporting chance. With his boar sigil and striking red ships, he is a legend among the stars.
• Sir Lucan, the Old Wolf: Those ships that bear the heraldry of Sir Lucan, the Old Wolf, are known for his patient manoeuvre tactics mixed with ferocity in the attack. He hasn't been in contact with other Kingdom forces for many years. Some say the Old Wolf has gone rogue, though others whisper that he has direct orders from the Queen herself.
• Lady Hera of Argon: A large sovereign class fleet earning fame in the deep void serves the Lady Hera of Argon, generally taken to be a noble of the Kingdom, though few outsiders could say where Argon lies. Her beautiful purple, white and gold ships bear the ancient charge of the fleur-de-lis with a sword, and are a glorious sight.
• Marshall Miyamoto and the Azur Flotilla: The Azur Flotilla is in the service of Marshall Miyamoto and defends new Kingdom colonies from piratical raids on their transports. What "Azur" signifies is not widely known.