Tezcat

Tezcat Space Station is a space station orbiting Gats.

It was built by House Fornax and opened to visitors in 3201. Since then it has become

the travel hub visitors and pilgrims have to pass through to access Gats. Originally opened by House Fornax in cooperation with the High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox, the space station is the key piece to control travel to and from the planet.

All visitors to the planet are welcomed by Fornax engineers and station crews, screened by High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox and then fully processed by security forces of House Crux before anyone can attempt to land on Gats. Shuttle services are available for moderate fees.

Tezcat Space Station is named after an old Terran deity, Tezcatlipoca, also known as the Smoking Mirror.Allegedly Tezcatlipoca was the god of the nocturnal sky and of the ancestral memory, the god of time and the embodiment of change through conflict.

## Political theater

### The Crucian Takeover

Shortly after House Fornax built and opened the grand new travel hub that is the Tezcat Space Station, more than just pilgrims arrived to visit Gats, the High Church’s latest symbolic installation.

In the midst of all the religious folks and catastrophe tourists, propagandists and influencers of the *‘Advance’*, a House Crux Party Machine, snuck onto station and planet to spread their agenda. They argued that no other than House Crux was able to secure the planet against political terrorists of any kind and the ever present synthetic threat, which they claimed might still linger on the planet below.

While many people were receptive to Crucian ideas and beliefs, the management of the Tezcat Space Station was indifferent: They were tasked to secure the station, inspect visitors and visiting ships, grant security on station and on the way to the planet and make a profit out of all that. Political beliefs were of no interest to them.

Unable to sway the stubborn Fornax nobles managing the space station and their engineering teams, some of the Crux agents were already planning their retreat, believing that a cold and quiet takeover of station and planet would be impossible with these obstinate Majans, relaying back to Hiera that a forceful approach might succeed faster, or rather: at all.

Yet when a relatively new and overlooked asset to the *‘Advance’*, *Anwalt Crux Dehvani Astrid*, approached the station’s overseer *Prorex Fornax Piquet Nelson Junior*, and asked very directly what *Piquet’s* price was, a deal was made in mere minutes. House Crux paid the nobles on Tezcat to relieve themselves of some of the space station’s duties and took control of it.

While the image of the Fornax nobles suffered slightly, they and members of the High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox still remained on Tezcat Space Station. House Crux’s security and propaganda personnel took charge but the Majans continued to run the technical side of the space station, keeping maintenance, improving systems, repairing what was broken and making money from landing fees. Guardians of the High Church continued to watch over who entered the station and tried to fly to the planet, and why.

As the Crucians secured their foothold and started to spread their influence from Tezcat to the planet proper, representatives of the Urban Warden’s Union (UWU) of House Pyxis arrived on the space station, their involvement won and funded by *Anwalt Dehvani’s* allies in the Department of the Judiciary.

They supported the more progressive sides of the *Advance’s* propaganda and helped to unite businesses on the space station under Crux’s banner.

*Anwalt Crux Dehvani Astrid* was put into a leading position of organizing a combined effort to weaken the High Church’s and Fornax’s grip on the money coming in and out of Tezcat and Gats. Together with colleagues from the Imperial House she spent a good month to lay a legal foundation of Crucian takeovers to ensure a tighter grip over the substantial money movements.

To Astrid’s surprise, even the Fornax store owners and businesses weren’t giving much trouble, and the station began a peaceful transition to new ownership without many hiccups.

Then IKENGA Heavy Industries and Kao’s Wings LLC arrived, and, in what can only be described as a cloak-and-dagger operation, bought out several key businesses that held sway over the workers and store owners on Tezcat less than six hours after arrival. *IKENGA* swiftly bought almost all transport vehicles on the station, and in a miraculously one sided deal replaced them with old, slow and grotesque-looking grav-tractors, maiming the ability for visitors and their luggage to roam around comfortably on the station and slowing down important resource distribution over Tezcat and Gats both. In an absolutely insane maneuver, the *IKENGA* representatives also bought out the sole vacsuit manufacturer on Tezcat Space Station. The company provided safety suits for personnel on the station itself, but also sold comfortable protection for the visitors of Gats’ surface. With this petty sale, House Crux and all visitors coming to the station and planet were forced to use clunky, out-of-date and itchy vac suits for several months.

In the meantime, *Kao’s Wings LLC* attempted to strip clean the docks of the space station for their own docks in the Perithr and Imperial Prime systems. But after they successfully bought the only legal taxi service on the station to reuse their shuttles for part transports, *Urban Warden’s Union* representatives from House Pyxis intervened and started a protest about the vulture-like business practices that came with *Kao’s* acquisitions, offering incentives for station businesses to come under the *UWU’s* umbrella.

Store owners got riled up, and for an hour the scales looked as if they were favoring House Pyxis’ progressive worker’s unions ideas and the *Advance’s* control. Yet in what mirrored the move of Astrid Dehvani nearly a month earlier, the Fornax led company managed to accidentally leave money in some of the union representative’s pockets, promptly changing their minds about how necessary unions were and what business practices were or were not to be condemned.

One of the *UWU* officials even went so far as to finish a deal going beyond the union’s scope; *Levy Warden Pyxis Simonas Yohannes* swayed other board members of Stav Unlimited, a spaceship manufacturer on Lodestone, to sell their shares to *Kao’s Wings*, making the Fornax company the majority stakeholders of *Stav Unlimited* in one fell swoop.

With the Union’s representatives either bought out or unable to sway the opinions of people on Tezcat anymore, the *UWU* left the space station and Gats altogether. The union had bought the *Advance* and House Crux time, but some worried it would not be enough.

While House Crux remains the controlling force around Gats, the damage done to the agenda of the *Advance* and the defeat of their Pyxis allies placed tough hurdles in Astrid Dehvani’s path.

Public opinion about the Crucian takeover of Tezcat Space Station was still in favor of her and House Crux, but the image showed scratches. Would the young Anwalt overcome these obstacles or would the money and with it the power flow towards another faction?

And how would the bureau on Hiera react to these difficulties?