Vanaheim

Vanaheim is one of the founding members of the Imperial Trust, and is still arguably its most powerful member. While Vanaheim itself is a rather beautiful civilised world, it is surrounded by an orbital ring which includes the majority of the Imperial Trust's shipyards, the industry to support them, orbital quarters to keep them fully staffed, and a massive amount of orbital defences to protect it all. Only a tenth of all Vanaheimers live on the planet itself, mostly members of the upper class. The current Governor of Vanaheim is Governor Bertil Mikaelsson. There are 30 billion people living on the planet itself, and another 240 billion living aboard orbitals.

## Environment

Vanaheim is a paradise world known for the beauty of both its environment and its people. This is maintained by strict population limits and having all industry occur in its orbital infrastructure rather then on the world itself. What damage the population of Vanaheim, approximately 30 billion, does to the world is quickly cleared up by the Dark Age environmental technologies that it has gained access to since the foundation of the Imperial Trust.

## People

There are two distinct social classes on Vanaheim: the Vanir and everyone else. While there are some differences between the two there are also several major similarities. First is a general level of pride in Vanaheim's fleet, and a belief that the victory is decided in the void with ground actions merely being to clean up afterwards. While this is not exactly true on most worlds, it is accurate for Vanaheim itself. Given Vanaheim's predominance in the fleets of the Imperial Trust, this does lead to many Vanaheimers believing that they are the main defenders of the Imperial Trust, and saying so when others can hear them. You wonder just how bad Avernites and Muspelheimers must be for you to be considered the arrogant worlds in the Imperial Trust, rather then Vanaheim and Asgard. Next is a love for the skies, with hobby flying being one of the most popular sports on Vanaheim and almost the entire popualtion being qualified on at least one type of aircraft. Finally, Vanaheim is one of the most conservative worlds in the Imperial Trust, and is considered to be the leader of the conservative political faction.

The Vanir, Vanaheim's ruling class, are unusually numerous for a noble class, and number around five percent of the population. They are the descendants of the original settler of Vanaheim, and were one of the oldest noble houses in the Imperium, and they also have a long and often troubled relationship with the Aesir. The main reason that the Vanir are so numerous is that any child with a single Vanir parent is counted among their ranks, regardless of whether they are legitimate or not. The lowest Vanir have only a few privileges over the rest of the citizens of Vanaheim, which include the right to live in the Vanir only regions, where there is free housing, as well as free entry into the most prestigious military and Naval Academies on Vanaheim, a noticeable stipend and the ability to vote for the elected members of the All-Thing, the ruling body of Vanaheim. Above the basic Vanir are various levels of noble houses, each of which has one or more seats in the All-Thing, and in total make up two thirds of its members. Almost all Vanir are highly beautiful as a result of the genetic modification done to their ancestors in the Dark Age of Technology, and there is a particular shade of hair known as Vanir Platinum that almost half their population has.

Counted among the Vanir is Navigator House Norn, the once minor Navigator House which provides most of the Navigators in the Imperial Trust. The most unusual features about the Norns, as they are commonly known, is that only female members of the house gain the Third Eye, and that they also tend to be gifted in Divination. Due to certain discoveries on and around Avernus it is believed that Navigator House Norn was the prototype Navigator House, and that it was created well before the Patanova cycle.

The remaining citizens mostly live in the orbital cities and shipyards, where they build and maintain the majority of the Imperial Trust's fleet. The size of the Vanir allows there to be a lot more social mobility on Vanaheim then on many worlds, with rich commoner families often marrying poor Vanir families and getting access to all the privileges of the Vanir within a generation. This leaves there to be far less resentment for the upper class then is common, though there is still some.

## Orbitals

The majority of the population of Vanaheim live in its orbitals, a vast ring of shipyards, manufactorums and cities that surround the planet. These shipyards are by far the largest in the Imperial Trust, and are able to match or even exceed the combined output of the rest of the Imperial Trust's shipyards. The rest of the orbitals are devoted to producing the goods needed to keep Vanaheim running and to supplying the shipyards, a feat that requires a great deal of imports to achieve.

While all of the orbitals of Vanaheim have a level of armour and weaponry, they are in no way able to fend off any but the lightest of attacks. This job is left to significant defence fleet, a sizeable minefield and well over ten thousand orbital defence platforms of varying sizes. Even without external support it would take multiple battlefleets of attackers to reach Vanaheim's orbitals, and far more then that to overcome the defences.

## Leadership

While Vanaheim is run by a Governor, there are major limits to what they can do without support from the All Thing, Vanaheim's parliament. The All Thing consists of over a thousand members, at least one from each noble house, and is responsible for changing laws, as well as choosing and dismissing the Governor. Due to this the Governor of Vanaheim rules only as long as he maintain the support of the All Thing.

While in the age of the Imperium Vanaheim would change Governor a few times every century, since the Death of the Emperor there has been a greater demand for stability, leading to Governors lasting for centuries at a time.

## Military

The military of Vanaheim can be divided in three groups, the Air Force, the Defence Force and the Navy. Of them the Defence Force is definitely the least well regarded.

Vanaheim's Air Force is massive, with countless wings of fighters, bombers and landers all rated to function in the void as well as on the ground. The skill level of their pilots range from decent at best for the militia, to its ace wings which are some of the best in the Imperial Trust. As well as its air wings the Air Force includes Vanaheim's Drop Infantry, entire armies that can be dropped onto even hard targets and can rapidly redeploy using their integral dropships. The best of these are the Vanir Drop Infantry, elite Drop Troopers formed entirely out of members of the Vanir trained from a young age for this role. It is possible for a commoner from the regular Drop Infantry Regiments to be scouted for the Vanir Drop Infantry, and when it happens said soldier is immediately accepted into the ranks of the Vanir. This is the only way to become a member of the Vanir without being born into the position.