The Eta Carina Hegemony is an alliance of fourteen different worlds in eleven star systems that reside near the beautiful and brilliant Carina Nebula. One of the few "imperial" governments made up of multiple races and species, the ECH operates on a set of fundamental basic laws, within which each member state can craft its own internal laws and regulations. There are no fewer than twenty-nine different races in the ECH, including Human states, and an authoritarian central government maintains order and stability. An interesting facet of ECH life is that some member planets only partially belong to the Hegemony; the planet of Vineturria IIIc, for instance, is two-thirds occupied by ECH member states, while the rest of the planet is divided up by a dozen independant, non-aligned nations.

The ECH actively seeks to grow through diplomacy, but is not afraid to use force to push back boundary lines it considers inconvenient. The ECH economy is robust and thriving, mostly owing to a business climate that enforces contracts but doesn't prohibit any type of business that doesn't explicitly break ECH laws; thus, one can find large and active organizations that deal in "corporeal" trades -- slavery, prostitution, cadaver recycling, bioengineering, and other forms of commerce that the social and religious mores of other nations may deem undesirable. These disagreements in philosophy have led to violent clashes between the ECH and some other nations, most notably the Xri'ta, who have no tolerance for slavery in any form. A huge black market has opened up in light of these perpendicular moralities, with those from non-slaving nations coming to ECH ports to sell slaves illegally siezed without their controlling authorities being any the wiser.

The ECH maintains a solid but relatively low military budget, preferring to sink money into building existing ships rather than R&D. Because of this, many potential gains in integrative research have not been realized, except in the field of weapon fabrication; ECH scientists have been adept at making potent weapons smaller and less massive than their counterparts in other parts of explored space. ECH naval doctrine also relies heavily on semi-intelligent drones, leaving the capital ships back where they can engage from long range. Ships engaging an ECH force will often find themselves flying into a cloud of missiles, and the ECH word for this kind of warfare translates roughly into "the million small deaths".

All ECH ships are owned by the central government, but individual nation-states will occasionally maintain their own "home" fleets as well. This leads to some redundancy in design and ship coverage, but also allows central naval planners to organize assets without having to worry about stripping those systems bare of protection. The only other active ship-owning forces in ECH space are the massive corporations, which may occasionally field their own small fleets of warships in support of off-world operations.

Hegemony politics are vibrant and sometimes violent, and the laws are strictly enforced for all who are in ECH space, whether citizens or not. No civil war has yet been fought, although a few political squabbles have come close to inciting such. The Hegemony feels like a delicately and dangerously balanced spinning top; one unsure move could send the whole thing crashing down and light up the Carina Nebula in internecine warfare.

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Alpha-class Patrol Boat
The Alpha is the in-system security workhorse of the ECH.  Armed with long-range, rapid-firing lasor cannons and protected by ionic shields, the Alpha is able to handle most low-intensity problem within a star system, such as piracy and inter-corporate warfare.  Its lack of a hyperdrive prevents it from straying too far from the systems it protects, however, so pirates have been known to hover just a few light-years outside an ECH system, where the short arm of the law cannot reach them easily.

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Beta-class Frigate
The Beta is an older design inherited from the predecessor of what is today known as the ECH.  The Beta sacrifices multiple gun batteries for only two batteries of power repeating grasers, plus a small complement of drones.  While the Beta would be unable to hold its own against a ship of similar size but different armament, ECH doctrine calls for ships to operate in triads -- usually a heavier ship paired with two lighter ships -- so the odds of finding a Beta in deep space by itself are very slim.

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Gamma-class Heavy Cruiser
The Gamma is a newer hull commissioned by the Hegemony State of Aurora VI, which has been adopted throughout much of the Hegemony navy as the workhorse of its non-capital fleet.  Armed with shorter-ranged weapons than most heavy cruisers, the Gamma is still able to wreak terrible damage to enemy ships' onboard systems because of its use of highly radioactive solid projectiles, which, once they penetrate the hull, fry electronics and optronics alike.  The ship also carries a compliment of drones which can occupy the enemy's attention while the ship closes to direct-fire range.

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Delta-class Battleship
A recurring theme in the Hegemony is the "me too" adoption of new or proven designs. One such example is the Delta-class battleship, a ship that is packed with drones, carries a heavy shield, and can bruise most opponents badly with its singularity torpedoes.  Built on technology stolen from non-Hegemony sources by the member state of Neue Keineleben, the Delta has quickly become the darling of many member navies. Able to fill space with clouds of drones, the Delta can also use the harmonics of an enemy's shields against it, as its "singularity torpedoes" use a spatial-distortion effect to overload the target's shield capacitors and cause them to burn the hull from within.

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Epsilon-class Troop Ship
The ECH is not shy about pushing back international boundaries that it finds inconvenient, but this often requires the fielding of ground forces to enforce its will.  The legendary invasion of Penelope Prime, for example, involved no fewer than thirty million ground troops.  There is no shortage of manpower in the ECH, and moving it from one end of the Hegemony to the other is the job of ships like the Epsilon. Short on amenities but packed to the gills with passenger berths, the Epsilon can deliver a brigade of infantry to wherever its needed in short time.  For defense, it mounts a single universal turret housing a Rheinmetall Gauss autocannon, a formidable defense.

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Zeta-class Space Station
A visitor to an ECH member system will usually find themselves greeted by a Zeta-class battlestation. While smaller than a battleship in actual displacement, the Zeta has no need to mount a hyperdrive system and can therefore pack its hull with a huge drone compliment, as well as 360º coverage from its enormous "vorpal cannons", which are known for their shield-penetration abilities. While the Zeta has medical and science facilities on board, its primary purpose is to discourage hostile action against the system.</r>

The Polamaras Free-Trade Cartel has its roots on the planet of Hettsia, located in the Finnegan star cluster.  Hettsia is a huge terrestrial planet that is home to over five hundred separate and distinct nations, including about one hundred twenty city-states and a few “anarchy zones” where no government has sway.  The planet has become a popular trading spot, as the immense number of political and apolitical entities that cover its surface took a very liberal approach to the regulation of commerce very early on – minimal regulation, no duties or tariffs on goods moving across borders, few “morality” laws to restrict products, and protectionist-oriented policies concerning the extradition of people or data to other systems.

Where the law does have teeth is the enforcement of contracts, without which no capitalist system can exist.  This legal environment has led to very wealthy local governments (thanks to income and payroll taxes), extremely successful international corporations, and vibrant trades in commodities outlawed in other systems – slavery, prostitution, mind-altering substances, weapons, industrial espionage, stolen goods, genetic engineering, and labor racketeering.  If organized crime could have founded its own paradise, it would have looked like Hettsia.

Since a great deal of money can be made by providing illicit goods and services to those who cannot otherwise obtain them, a large number of the Hettsian corporations do the bulk of their business off-world.  These include mercenary companies, smuggling concerns, pharmaceuticals manufacturers, flesh peddlers, weapons dealers, and many more “niche” corporations that deal in narrowly defined industries. 

The need for ships, then, is extremely high, and especially for those ships that can move cargo to places where it may not necessarily be welcomed by local authorities.  Shipping cartels such as Polamaras can therefore make an excellent living simply by helping other companies smuggle their goods into other star systems.  From small, extremely swift courier boats to blockade runners, Polamaras has a number of solutions to fit the shipping needs of its neighbors.

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Zephyr-class Blockade Runner
The Zephyr is basically a huge engine attached to a cargo block, with small living facilities attached. Designed to move highly valuable cargo to places where stealth and subterfuge are necessary, the Zephyr is equipped with stealth and ECM systems, security teams to resist customs agents, and redundant hyperdrive systems to prevent the ship from being trapped in-system due to its FTL drive being damaged or disabled in battle.

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Zobeir Pasha-class Slave Ship
The Zobeir Pasha is a newer design purchased from the Kerry Shipyards on New Ravenna. Although originally intended to capture pirates, the Polamaras Cartel has outfitted the ship to capture slaves instead. The ship carries ten squads of raiders and assault shuttles, and its particle cannons are designed to hammer a victim into submission quickly enough that the crews will surrender rather than risk destruction.

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Skorpion-class Commerce Raider
The Skorpion was commissioned to answer the call of smaller companies that were being beaten soundly by their larger competitors' economies of scale. Rather than try to outperform their competitors' products in the marketplace, a number of smaller firms have chosen to remove their competitors' products from the marketplace, by destroying or capturing competing transport ships and their cargoes. Polamaras is willing to undertake such missions for a fee, and thus fields the Skorpion-class commerce raider, a specially-commissioned hull from the slips at Mannheim Kraftwerke. Protected not by shields but a sophisticated point-defense system and sporting very heavy firepower and full compliments of drones and marines, if the Skorpion can't capture the enemy ship, it will certainly destroy it.

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Merkur-class Fast Courier
The Merkur-class courier boat is one of the fastest available ships on the free market. Designed and built by the Llamellik Consortium Shipwrights specifically for the Polamaras Cartel, the Merkur has no weaponry on board, but its speed, stealth, cloaking, and point-defense capabilities are generally able to keep the courier out of reach of those who might want whatever data it is transporting. Needless to say, hiring a Merkur is expensive, but given the power of data in a technology-driven universe, it's often well worth it to the customer.

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Thistle-class Mine/Countermine Operations Ship
One request that has been occurring with increasing frequency is that for Polamaras to disrupt shipping lanes, either of rival corporations or after the client company has already used it. To that end, Polamaras bought and refitted a number of older battlecruisers, removing most of the offensive weaponry in exchange for huge racks of semi-intelligent mines, a minesweeping array, and cloaking systems. The result, dubbed the Thistle, is a fast ship that can keep up with most freighters, seeding the shipping lane behind them with mines to prevent a rival company from bringing their goods to the same market through the same route. The Thistle is also able to sweep mines to prevent someone else from doing the same thing to Polamaras's clients.

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Waypoint-class Space Station
While there is little call from clients for stationary space installations, Polamaras marketing studies showed a need for a transfer point, preferably a remote and well-defended transfer point, where smugglers can meet up and hand off goods, engage in some R&R, and refresh themselves for another round of serving those markets which owe their existence to local regulation. The Waypoint-class is a small facility, being only slightly larger than a naval cruiser, but since most cargo transfers happen in deep space anyway, the internal space did not need to be wasted on such. Instead the Waypoint mounts six heavy batteries of meson guns – which leave hulls intact while killing crewmen – and onboard defensive measures. The internal space also houses a number of restaurants, casinos, and a huge brothel able to accommodate three hundred customers at a time. The Polamaras Cartel has deployed two Waypoint stations with plans for a third in the near future.

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Busy Bee-class Light Fighter Carrier
The impetus behind the development of the Busy Bee was the realization that a lot of freighters and cargo vessels carry anti-ship weaponry but few if any carry defenses against fighters; thus, Polamaras stepped in and offered an inexpensive option for those companies seeking to interdict their competitors' shipping. A tiny ship, the Busy Bee is built on a frigate hull, with its offensive weaponry removed and external fighter berths added along the outside of its superstructure. While still armed with light mass drivers for close defense, the Busy Bee is really intended simply to carry its fighters into a system and then withdraw to a safe location.</r>