Hafn

The **Hafn** are a heretical regime outside the hexarchate. They appear in Raven Stratagem and are mentioned in Ninefox Gambit and Revenant Gun.

## Geography

Hafn space is adjacent to hexarchate space along the borders of the Entangled and Crescendo Marches. A border skirmish shifted a significant stretch of hexarchate space to the Hafn, including the planet Eshpatan. The Hafn also made inroads on former hexarchate space after the broadcast of the revised calendar.

## Government

The Hafn government's emblem is an archaic shield with a plain gold chief and the rest of its field charged with a hectic tangle of insects, fruits, and vines overlaid with gold curlicues. General Kel Khiruev considers it bad graphic design.

Hafn aristocrats participate in cultural exchanges with other polities.

## Culture

The Andan provided the Kel with treatises on Hafn reverence for agragarianism and pastoral poetry, including poetry about milking machines. Their reverence for homeworlds and unclaimed worlds was reflected in their technology. General Khiruev doubted whether intuition would serve against a polity capable of using children to construct outriders.

Use of world-reverence to channel phantom terrain: –RS p.85-6

Shuos Shenner knows a language used by the Hafn. She once met a Hafn aristocrat who disparaged her accent in his tongue, and has hated the Hafn ever since. An archaic form of Hafn script is used in engravings on the lids of outrider caskets.

A Hafn prisoner-of-war captured over two hundred years before the invasion had yellow hair and green eyes.

## Technology

The Hafn calendar was entirely alien to that of the hexarchate. During the invasion, Hafn exotic technology was shown to operate under the hexarchate's high calendar with no apparent effect on the high calendar's terrain gradient, an unprecedented issue found to be due to scattered outrider caskets serving as power sources.

The Andan cultural exchange reported only pre-sentient technology, no servitors. As it would have been easy for them to steal invariant technology from the hexarchate, Jedao speculated that they might have some cultural prejudice against sapient machines.

Hafn warmoths were classified as "Lilacs" and "Magnolias" by Kel Command. Their mothdrives were foreign enough to make it difficult for Kel scan to read their formants coherently. The moths were equipped with web-mines which could be scattered behind them during retreat. Hafn weapons took action at short range in previous engagements. A Hafn unit of distance used by mothdrive vessels was called an “ayyan.”

Auxiliary power sources?

### Formations

Hafn moths assemble into petal formations for travel and often use dish formations for defenses or attacks. Hafn formations, unlike Kel formations, do not seem to have consistent effects. The Hafn integer keys were known to Kel Command, which briefed General Khiruev on them before the scrambling of the Swanknot swarm.

Formations observed during the invasion include:

* A three-petaled flower whose petals elongated as an opposing swarm approached, turning into concave dishes which channel various effects. Petal formations were known to have been used against General Kel Cherkad.

* A rough dumbbell shape with an outward-facing concave dish on each end, its bar able to bend and aim one dish toward a power source and one toward an opposing swarm. Capable of funneling energy from phantom terrain and using that energy to attack.

* A half-shell formation to protect units inside the shell, flattening as tactically necessary.

* Splitting a swarm diagonally into two lattices headed by projecting spikes, causing opposing moths to veer away from the spikes' projected point of intersection and be hit by the traitor's lance, a secondary formation concealed in the spikes.

* A jump formation, characterized by a crisscrossed web of light around the objects to be moved and taking a short but significant time to achieve its effect. Moths arriving after executing a jump formation appear to blink into existence out of nowhere. If the formation is interrupted before effecting departure, the jump can be spiked.

The Hafn were also familiar with the geometrical appearance and effects of various Kel formations, notably Wildfire Over the Aerie and Thunder of Horses, adjusting their swarm's movements accordingly. They could also read the placement of component formations which could modulate to create formation effects such as kinetic lances. Outriders, however, could not react intelligently to Kel formations.

### Jump

The Hafn ability to "jump" their moths across vast distances relies on its jump formation, which translates moths into a signal that passes through a space only loosely connected to invariant space. Since the signal takes a significant amount of travel time, observations of the barely detectable scan anomalies representing the mothdrive formants it contains may be analyzed to locate the jump's target area.

If a moth jumps into an already-occupied space, the two objects will annihilate one another and torch or damage those immediately nearby.

The jump can be spiked if the formation is disrupted by a sufficient number of opposing moths with sufficiently powerful mothdrives, a suicidal tactic made possible by the short window between the formation's activation and the jump itself. Spiking a jump corrupts the jump signal beyond Hafn ability to correct it and destroys the formants of all vessels involved, leaving them visible in invariant space as statuelike scan-dead forms frozen at the moment of the spike.

### Auxiliaries

Vessels with two types of unfamiliar Hafn mothdrive formants were involved in the battle near Minang Tower, having jumped into hexarchate space with Hafn Swarm Two but been anticipated by a trap laid by the Swanknot swarm. Slow-moving and placed behind the more familiar Hafn combat moths, they were classed as auxiliaries of unknown purpose by the Kel. Other Hafn warmoths protectively englobed the auxiliaries as more Hafn arrived to engage the Kel, despite the detachment of a Kel tactical group using Kiora's Stab to harry them.

Thwarted in their attempt to sneak the auxiliaries into hexarchate space, the Hafn attempted to jump them out of danger. Sixteen Kel bannermoths spiked the jump, destroying their own formants and those of all Hafn moths in the jump formation.

After the engagement, Doctrine and Engineering worked together on disassembling salvage, trying to discover what the auxiliaries had been. Cheris believed that the auxiliaries, if left to their own devices, could have allowed the Hafn to establish a foothold deep within hexarchate space.

## History

Records relate that the Hafn did not understand what bannering meant during their initial contact with the Kel, and did not respond when the Kel swarm bannered. The Kel took this as an insult, with disastrous results. Once the Hafn understood bannering, their swarms used their government's emblem as a banner.

Around the year 950, after the death of General Shuos Jedao, the Hafn conquered Jedao's home planet, which passed out of the heptarchate's control.

In 981, Heptarch Nirai Kujen anchored Jedao's revenant to the body of a Hafn prisoner of war whose blonde hair and green eyes were unusual in the hexarchate.

After being quiescent for decades, the Hafn had a cultural exchange with the Andan. While the exchange was said to be affable and the Andan reported aristocratic delegates who valued etiquette, they otherwise shared only a few notes which Khiruev interpreted as baffled. Nothing is known of the nature of non-aristocratic Hafn. Brigadier General Kel Marish felt that the good relations between the Hafn and the Andan should have tipped the hexarchate off that something wasn't right.

Two years later, after successfully using an agent to seed a heretical takeover of the Fortress of Scattered Needles, the Hafn dispatched an invasion swarm into the Entangled March, heading for the Fortress of Spinshot Coins while trying to disguise its intent to reinforce the entrenched heretics. Kel Command concealed the invasion from Brevet General Kel Cheris and General Shuos Jedao when they were sent to retake the Fortress, but Brigadier General Kel Marish, believing that Cheris could not adequately complete her mission while kept in the dark, informed her of the invasion. Marish also explained that General Kel Cherkad was in charge of the Kel response to the invading swarm and that she herself had been pulled off sentry to assist near the Jeweled Systems. Although Cheris and Jedao retook the Fortress before the Hafn could reach it, the invading swarm destroyed Marish's Eyespike swarm and assassinated Cherkad.

In keeping with the scope of the threat, Kel Command assigned General Kel Khiruev of the Swanknot to combat the Hafn and allowed her to scramble a large swarm for the purpose.

The Hafn passed the Fortress of Scattered Needles and continued through the Entangled March. By eighteen days after Cherkad's assassination, the Hafn had destroyed the population centers of eight planets, including Crescendo 2 and 3 and Knifer, and advanced to the Severed March, still heading for the Fortress of Spinshot Coins and scattering an enormous number of outrider caskets throughout the region wherever the high calendar's gradient was strongest. The Swanknot swarm, subverted by General Shuos Jedao, followed and the first Kel contact with an outrider swarm eleven days later, destroying all but one, which was opened and examined by engineers on the bannermoth *Singe the Hour*.

Over the next twenty-two days, the Swanknot swarm detached its second tactical group to destroy several flocks of outriders and engaged the Hafn near the Fortress of Spinshot Coins. Though the Hafn swarm used a funnel formation to draw attack power from the Fortress's shields, it fled after the Kel swarm bannered the Deuce of Gears and put threshold winnowers in orbits around the Fortress. After the rout, Jedao distributed propaganda pointing out the Fortress's role in preventing him from immediately pursuing the Hafn.

Over the next sixteen days, the Swanknot swarm pursued the Hafn further into the Severed March. Meanwhile, Kel Command recalled General Kel Inesser from the other side of the hexarchate to take control of the swarm if Jedao could be ousted, and a swarm of Shuos shadowmoths moved into position to monitor the situation.

As the situation escalated, a moon-city and orbital station, afraid of the Hafn veering close to their system, transmitted the Deuce of Gears to warn them off despite the risk of excommunication.

The Hafn refused battle three times while zigzagging further into the hexarchate, passing Tercel 81-7178 without incident. Eight days later, the Hafn approached Minang System, but did not seed the area with outriders.

Hafn swarm feints toward Cobweb System, returns toward Minang Tower when Swanknot doesn't take the bait. Arrival of Swarm Two with vital auxiliaries; engagement with Kel swarm; Swarm One swipes at Minang Tower in passing. Swarm Two uses traitor's lance. The Kel spike Two's attempt to jump their auxiliaries out again.

Swarm One's movements became sluggish and, after being abandoned by Swarm Two, was destroyed by the Swanknot swarm's sixth tactical group. Swarm Two fled, but was destroyed by the rest of the Kel swarm.

Mikodez's faked evidence that the Hafn were planning a strike on the Aerie; false listening post reports of Hafn formants approaching four large mothyards, disappearing after three of the mothyards were destroyed.

Hafn subsequently chew chunks out of the hexarchate after the broadcast of the revised calendar but are distracted by internal conflict.

## Trivia

* In battle, the Hafn stayed sixty-four Hafn minutes out of range of Kel formation effects.

## References

1. ↑ Hexarchate Map
2. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
3. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
4. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
5. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
6. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 11
7. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
8. ↑ Revenant Gun
9. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
10. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1,6
11. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
12. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
13. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
14. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
15. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 21
16. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 19,20
17. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 21
18. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
19. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapters 15,21
20. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 19
21. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 21
22. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 21
23. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 24
24. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 21
25. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
26. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: Hexarchate (And Heptarchate) Timeline
27. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
28. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 3
29. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 14
30. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
31. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 14
32. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 20
33. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 14
34. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 20
35. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 17
36. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
37. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 17
38. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1,5
39. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
40. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 5
41. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6
42. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 17
43. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 10
44. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 7
45. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 17
46. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 19
47. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 21
48. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 26
49. ↑ Revenant Gun
50. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 6