Signet Coalition

The **Signet Coalition** is a mercantile confederation of seven star systems that collectively form the Signet Constellation, and one of the two formally recognized nations in the Rim, alongside the Axius Alliance.

Its capital is the planet Rosetta in the Briar System, famous for being the first colony founded in the region and home to a lucrative shipping business run by Blairkite Industrial.

## History

The Coalition started out as a group of Axius Alliance colonies, established as part of the colonisation rush into the western Rim during the late 0180s AUC. The seven systems of the Signet Constellation were specifically chosen by the Alliance's notoriously meticulous colonial selection committee due to their habitability and resource availability, with the exception of the Valera System, which was settled later by local colonial authorities after the discovery of extensive rare metal deposits across the system's asteroid belts.

It was only a few years after the settling of the colonies, however, that problems began to arise in the form of growing piracy, preying upon mining ships and freighters laden with valuable ores, which, due to the distance of the Constellation from the core of Alliance space - being long before the formation of the Alstatan Verge - was difficult for the Alliance Navy to curtail, and as time went on, became increasingly impossible to meaningfully counter. To make matters worse, the Alliance colonial charter forbade the colonies from operating their own defence forces, forcing them to rely on the private security forces of large freighter lines, hired mercenary groups and the occasional good samaritan to safeguard their systems.

As time went on, the colonies devised ways to circumvent the restrictions of the charter, such as armed merchant clippers and courier ships, the latter evolving into the ubiquitous corsair, but as Alliance support continued to prove essentially useless, and the Senate continually refused to allocate a permanent naval garrison to the region, the various administrations gathered and unilaterally decided to take matters into their own hands. In 0257 AUC, in an address sent out across the Constellation from the capital city of Rosetta, representatives of the colonial governments of the seven systems declared their intent to break away from the Alliance under the flag of a new power: the Signet Coalition.

The declaration was met initially by uproar from the more conservative factions of the Alliance Senate, but seeing as neither side wanted conflict - and that by this point the Alliance relied so heavily on the wealth brought from the Constellation that open war would only serve to obliterate its economy - the newly-formed Coalition was able to split off on decent terms, maintaining a strong trade relationship with the Alliance as they grew into the Rim's preeminent mercantile superpower.

## Foreign relations and military

The Coalition enjoys a stable trade relationship with the Axius Alliance, born from the Alliance's dependency on the wealth the region brings, as its own economy is heavily supported on the back of the Coalition's impressive mercantile acumen, a matter of great pride - and smugness - for the Coalition government.

The military arm of the Coalition is the Coalition Navy, an organized force which evolved from the various armed merchant ships and civilian vessels operated by the pre-Coalition colonial governments. Its primary purpose is maintaining security across Coalition space, and policing operations of the various corporate interests and commercial shipping lines that operate in the region. Also acting in a military capacity is the Signet Militia, an unofficial force of civilian volunteers that protect the trade routes and escort merchant convoys, sometimes even working in conjunction with the navy to hunt down pirates and smugglers.

## Territory

The Coalition controls all seven systems that make up the Signet Constellation, a star constellation in the western Rim, which is connected to Alliance space in the eastern Rim by the Alstatan Verge. It also holds ownership over several mining outposts and civilian installations in both local and far-flung systems, such as the Farris Observer in the Edge-ward IG-446 System.