Port Aquila - Port Aquila: Located in the Diomedea Stella System along the far edge of the Cyclopia Sub-sector, Port Aquila is one of the major hubs for trade in the Askellon Sector and acts as a launching point for goods entering from the coreward and spinward systems of the sector. Getting there is not, however, a journey for those without skill or courage. The passages to Port Aquila are treacherous, due less to the lashing tendrils of the Pandaemonium than to the shadow cast from it. For those who make it through, however, opportunity abounds. Diomedea Stella is a blue supergiant surrounded by a huge asteroid field, the size and scope of which far surpasses any known logical parameters. It forms an almost perfect ribbon, with narrow bands of denser formations in different areas that cannot yet be explained, making this a source of inquiry for the Askellian Mechanicum. Individual asteroids also seem to relocate, causing havoc as the belt seems different every time it is mapped -- to this day no one has a complete or accurate map of the field.Port Aquila is not a single world, but a belt of asteroids orbiting the star Diomedea Stella. The largest of the rocks are almost planets in their own right, and many host a wide range of shipyards, void docks, and storage facilities. Many smaller asteroids are also inhabited, forming the private fiefdoms of numerous trading concerns, Chartist Captains, shipwrights, and others. While many of these groups compete against one another, they are surprisingly adept at cooperating for the mutual benefit of all. It is common for the different bodies to ally with one another in the defence of Port Aquila, but their cooperation goes much further than self-preservation. When acting in concert, this Greater Askellon Trade Combine has interests in markets across the length and breadth of the sector, and has of late cast its acquisitive eyes still farther afield.While Port Aquila has existed for many centuries, it has not always been the centre of commerce it is today. In earlier times, when grand Terminus ruled commerce across Askellon, the system served as a den of pirates, slavers, and Renegades. Some claim that the stain of recidivism still lurks, and that any who settle there soon succumb to sin and damnation. Certainly, even the many outwardly respectable trade concerns that have sprung up in recent solar decades are especially brutal in their dealings with those outside of the Combine, employing mercenaries and assassins at whim. Newly-minted merchant princelings along the belt adorn their strongholds with crude grandeur in an effort to emulate how they imagine the palaces of the great houses of Terminus might have appeared in ages past. They amass signifiers of their imagined status, quaff rare amasec vintages, and hunt xenos species to extinction, all to prove their newfound pedigree.Many of Askellon's noble houses, especially those claiming descent from the original settlers, regard the commerce-lords of Port Aquila with undisguised disgust. They refuse to deal with them openly, though with the decline of the great houses of Terminus, they increasingly have little choice but to do so. It is now said that the majority of vessels plying the trade routes within the sector do so under the flag of the Combine, the power of Port Aquila insinuating itself into ever more markets. Other factions, including the House of Roth, have insinuated themselves into the Combine, joining the numerous princelings who have enjoyed a meteoric rise to wealth and power thanks to membership. Amongst these are several secret pleasure sects and xenos-worshipping cults, as well as a great many individuals willing to use such groups to grow unfathomably wealthy. The latter use their new connections to gain access to the Faceless Trade in smuggled alien artefacts, selling on what they can to those members of the Imperial nobility with illicit and unconventional tastes.