Sednan Sleepers

"Let the Shattered Worlds pick up their pieces and sweep up their dust. Let the warren-born play heroes in the wreckage of their ancestors; let them wallow in their ambition of reclaiming Earth's former glory. Let them lie to themselves. It is no matter. A thousand other tongues still sing of the diamond in Kuiper's Ring - of Eris, Freeport for a dozen millennia. She will outlive them all." - Rilk Serphaam, 17º Morphean Regent of Sedna

The Sednan Sleepers are a faction that exist in the post-Aube Sol System, the only one of the major post-human offshoots extant at the time of Polaris that do not claim to be successors of the original root stock humanity from Earth. The true nature of the Sleepers is shrouded in mystery, due to the vast distance to their homeworld, and their insistence on using semi-real projections in all their dealings with others. Nevertheless, the Sednan Dominion - the Sleepers' sphere of influence - covers much of the outer reaches of the Sol System.

Overview
The true size of the Sednan Dominion is unknown due to its vast scale and distance, but the Sleepers lay claim to the entirety of Kuiper's Ring, and appear to have a presence in most of it. In addition, they control the two largest planetary bodies in the Ring, and have done so since long before the Aube.

Eris Freeport is the Sleepers' most important world, known as the Jewel of the Kuiper; the heart of the Dominion for as long as any can remember, it is both their de facto capital and the most open world shown to outsiders. Plouton, on the other hand, has remained veiled in secrecy by the Sleepers, despite being the second largest of the dwarf planets of the Ring. Little is known about it other than its status as an "Installation" of the Sleepers - and daring Bright who have sought to investigate have not returned.

Technology
Sednan technology and power projection as a whole is inexorably tied to the Null-space magic they draw from the void beyond the Ring; as Sedna is far further from mass of Sol than any other settled world, the fabric of reality is far thinner there, and the Sleepers seem able to manipulate the Null to varying degrees. Such power is almost wholly opaque to Neathers and those in-system, although the Sleepers in turn are said to have limited understanding of the Aurora and its limitations in spite of their disdain for it.

Sleeper ships are known to be significantly more ornate in their design than those of Earth or the Four Sisters, with intricate heraldry often only understandable to fellow Ring Parliamentarians.

Society & History
While nominally maintaining open relations with other factions, the Sleepers are secretive to most outsiders, in no small part due to the vast distances in space and time between the Sleepers and their ancestral home of Earth. This distance has also resulted in them being standoffish from the going-ons further in-system, unwilling to engage in more than transactional interactions with even fellow Bright or Sisterhood humans outside of the direst of circumstances. As such, information about their history is scarce; all that is commonly known is that their ancestors had reached and settled Sedna before the Shattering, although it was only long after it that they began expanding into the Ring and influencing events closer to Sol.

The main instruments of Sleeper leadership - if the loosely directed currents of scheming and intrigue can be called leadership - all reside on Eris. The Morphean Regent is nominally their head, assisted and opposed in equal measure by the Parliament of Ice, a seemingly random assortment of Sleepers with influence amongst the countless worldlets of the Kuiper Ring.

Polaris: The Dreaming Coup
The Sednan Dominion is in turmoil. Eris Freeport, jewel of the Kuiper, is reeling from unnaturally brief bouts of unspeakable violence; perhaps mere riots, perhaps the prelude to an attack. Half of the Parliament of Ice lie slain - their final, waking deaths - and the remainder are at one anothers' throats. The Morphean Regent himself is missing in the chaos.

The Dominion has always operated under a balance of powers; just as the Parliament set the Nobles against the Regent, the Freeport and its openness ensured that no faction of the Sol System would dare make more than a token move against the sleepers. And yet, now someone has.

You, Bright, are caught right in the eye of the storm.

The Dreaming Coup will see you drawn into intrigue that was old when the first Neather emerged onto the Earth's surface. It will see you delve down a rabbit hole, that has claimed many Bright before you. It will see you hunted, by friend and foe alike - through the sprawl of Eris Freeport, across the frozen desolation of Triton, between the fragments of rock and ice the Sleepers make their fiefdoms.

You will be far from the Aurora's glow; far from light, or help, or hope. You will search for the truths behind the Sednan Sleepers and their Dominion of shrouded worlds, behind the dreamers and the waking, behind what lies hidden on Plouton.

Perhaps you'll even find some.

 There's a momentary jolt as your flitter approaches Eris, the dwarf world's surface looming large before you. Perhaps it was merely a moment of untempered realspace deceleration pulling at your body, but you can't help but feel like something was tugging at you on a deeper level - and out here, this far from the Aurora's glow, one would do well to keep their soul clutched tight to them. At least, that's what you hear the Oracles claim. What you think you heard the Oracles claim. But even memories grow hazy at the cusp of this world of uncertainty, of carefully-balanced chaos.

Eris is not the homeworld of the Sleepers, of course; nor is it even the second world that they claimed. But the third of the dwarf planets of the Sednan Domain is the most important, and the only one where they show themselves openly - at least, as openly as the Sleepers ever get. Eris is the only worldlet in the Kuiper, perhaps even in the Oort, where Sleeper cities lie in the open; where their spindly towers and bulbous domes are on show for every eye to see rather than lying veiled by null-space.

In your moment of distraction, a pair of Sleeper ships have pulled themselves up alongside yours, their running lights pulsing through the Kuiper gloom in a strange symmetry with one another. The vessels are beautifully designed, for sure, yet strikingly different from anything you've ever seen this side of Kronus - decorative, ornate, ceremonial even. They're a far cry from the sleek graceful lines of Earther ships, or the slab-sided brutality of anything from the Four Sisters, yet something about them feels oddly, vaguely familiar - and, in spite of their much larger size, the two vessels seem featherweight as they match you step-for-step, guiding you in towards the city.

Ahead, their fellows - comrades, compatriots? - weave through the skies, darting back and forth in seemingly thoughtless patterns reminiscent of Earthen insects. They dance. They shimmer. You blink, and they are gone. A frown creases your thoughts, but you turn your attention below, down to the city where your contact lives. Or perhaps you should say - where they reside. Perhaps to live may be too strong of a word out in these parts. Either way, the streets below are abuzz with movement - and, restless as you await your landing guidance, you reach out with your Glow. The Freeport draws people in from every corner of Sol, and there are faces from a dozen worlds down there. Here is a Neather trading with craftsmen from the Four Sisters; there, a pair of Aphroditan diamond-farmers seeks a touch of null-space magic. There are the Dominion's Yeomen, keeping watch over all, and here...

...here is a voice, quietly yet firmly requesting that you mind your manners.

It stings.

You flinch, briefly; it takes a moment to refocus yourself, to look back - but now you see no bodies, no faces, only a shimmering heat-haze hanging by streets and windows, above balconies and bridges. You frown, looking up, your gaze now meeting towers that distort and warp. The sky is full of false-stars, points of dead light against a canvas that twists and folds; your eyes glance over to your escort, but your Glow senses nothing more than hollow shells crewed by walking husks. Your navicomp spits curses at you, and when you look down its words and symbols melt off of the display. The world flickers-

. ..

. ..

"-welcomes you, Bright; the Morphean Regent himself welcomes you."

Your eyes flutter open.

"Excuse me? Are you well?"

You're standing on a raised platform, your flitter resting on its pads behind you. A sharply dressed Sednan dignitary stands beside you, one eyebrow raised mere millimetres in an ounce of concern. How did you get here? How long have you been here? Did-

He continues. "As I said, if the Cobalt Marquise herself seeks the counsel of an inworlder, I imagine that this is a rather sensitive matter." He looks you in the eye; but his own are glassy, empty. They carry no more life than your flitter's running lights.

"Tread carefully. I'm sure you need no reminder how thin your vaunted Aurora grows out here." The intent of his words - assurance, mockery, perhaps even a threat - is utterly unreadable.

"You would not be the first Bright that Eris has swallowed whole."