Sons of Hephaestus

The logo of the group

The Sons of Hephaestus is a terrorist organisation founded in 2720 by former government member Te Hau Arataki, a woman who thought that all planets have an identity and terraforming planets ruined that identity. This was a popular standpoint and so her organisation gained many followers and supporters. She was a peaceful woman who mostly focused on peaceful ways. However, the group would change when she passed away and they are now the most feared group across the empire.

## Information

### Politics

Despite being called Far-Lefts, they are more centred on the Political Spectrum as they fully support usual rates of colonisation but not terraforming.

### Ideology

The Sons of Hephaestus are focused on a planet's identity and colonisation in a way that does not impact the overall identity of a moon or planet. This is a good ideology on paper but they are a terrorist organisation for a reason. Most of their attacks are focused on Venus but you will find them anywhere where terraforming is a heavy subject. The Gold Party are sometimes nicknamed the peaceful version of the Sons of Hephaestus. The Sons believe however that the government will never listen and the public will never truly take in the impact of terraforming unless they do something about it. The message has been lost with time but the overall principles stay the same.

### Misconceptions

- Many people thought the terrorist organisation 'Star Eaters' were a sub-group of the sons, the Blue Skies of Basao even being blamed on the Sons of Hephaestus before the government were made aware of the eaters.

- Many believe the group is both anti-colonist and anti-terraforming, this is, however, not the truth as the sons have no opinion on colonisation and seem to only focus their attacks on terraformed targets, targets for terraforming or organisations that are on the left of the political spectrum.

## History

### Te Hau Arataki

Regarded as a bright woman, Arataki was a woman of many words, opinionated and could call a room to attention. She spoke so passionately and so bluntly. People who listened to her said it was like a reality check. She believed and said in many speeches how Planets are pure and have a character, for example, Earth has a different character than Mars. She believed terraforming was inherently wrong as all it did was make exact copies of Earth. She went for Space Minister under the Gold Party in the 2710 elections but lost to the Red Party candidate. She would then realise she needed another way to try to project her ideas.

### The Arataki Era

Arataki formed the Sons of Hephaestus in 2720 with close friends and family, this was a group meant to spread awareness. More and more would join this group, activities including peaceful protests on streets, posters being put up on planet identities and their TV shows. The government had to let this happen because of the Freedom of Speech Act. Arataki would live to be 199 years old, born in 2698 and dying in 2897. This makes her the fifth oldest person to live. She always had the soul of that young woman, the one who wanted change and had a belief in changing the world. Eventually, she would die and the Jansson era would begin.

### Terrorism

With Rex Jansson taking power, he realised peaceful campaigning would never work, people ignored them and the government did nothing. He decided to make them notice and so began the terrorist attacks and the fear the Sons would inflict on the populations of the empire. They would attack the Venusian town of Acroset in 2892, blowing up five cars in the area and killing 6 innocents with 23 injured. Other attacks would happen, the Sons never being caught, but one attack to put them on the radar was in 2924, they set dynamite up in certain buildings and below the ground of the Venusian city of Oxard. In the 2924 Attacks on Oxard, all that dynamite blew up. The city itself was believed to of housed the Green Party leader at the time, however, he had left earlier that day. Over 102 were killed and 218 injured. It was the worst terrorist attack ever at that point. Another major attack was the Okrith Bombings of 2976 which not only killed 235 people and injured 674, but also killed the woman who had found a cure for early stages of dementia, Flóra Jovanovski. They were also almost blamed for the crash of the IPS Space Falcon until voice recordings and evidence proved otherwise.