To talk about the factions we have to talk about the settlers. It’s the common fable for how The Wreck (12.WRK) came to exist, but in contrast to my earlier caveat, there’s no real evidence this is actually what happened. But hey, this would not be the first time an entire society has desperately wrapped itself around a made-up story.

It goes like this: In the early days of exile a conglomerate of separatists banded together around the idea that something better must be out there. There wasn’t a ton of common purpose among them other than “let’s go that way.” So they did. They pointed all their ships towards the penumbra and off they went.

Months later a weak distress signal makes its way back to the center and next thing you know scavengers are setting up camp in the inexplicably shredded remains of a hundred ships. The “shredded” part is included in the lore, for flavor, I guess to emphasize the unusual way in which the ships were broken apart.

Regardless, it was an incredible amount of debris to process and a lot of money on the table. Scavenger ships became scavenger camps, which in turn attracted all the usual bits of civilizations that cling to potential profit, like the wet saliva of the universe shaping into a little shitty space pearl.

Any faction worth anything claims lineage from the early days of the salvage operation. Some of them even pretend to have ties to the original caravan, but no one takes that seriously.

PAGANS

All sinners need their saints. It didn’t take long for missionaries to show up to minister to the growing crowd of profiteers. But,as the story goes, rather than bringing faith to the faithless, the ministers were themselves converted.

Now what’s left of that organization calls themselves Pagans in a twisted homage to the faith they sold out.

Pagans are arguably the most powerful faction on the station. Their transition to a life of crime was aided by the bones they stripped to create it. A strong proclivity towards hierarchy. An easy inclination towards loyalty and blind faith. They are based out of the remains of the missionary ship but have since extended so far and so deep into both the physical and mental infrastructure of the station that the only way to describe the direction you go to get to their turf is to say “head Parish-side until you get to Parish.”

Taking “opiate of the masses” to a more literal level – Pagans control most of the drug trade on The Wreck. With a few other notable exceptions (to be detailed in forthcoming reports), Pagans are one of the rare factions that have a pretty sizeable influence outside the pirate “paradise.” Their near unassailable position on the station has allowed them to use it as a major shipping hub for illicit consumables they push throughout the galaxy. As the colonies have ascended, so have Pagans, riding the wake the idle rich always create in the drug trade.

GRAVE MEN

The power balance on the station is evened out by the Grave Men, who occupy what residents call the catacombs – a haphazard collection of what were smaller ships and shipping containers that have become an inescapable maze.

Their origin story is as impossible to navigate as their territory. What they do now, however, is very clear: If it’s illegal and it involves a human body, living or dead, the Grave Men have their hands all over it (literally, probably). Organs, cellular prosthetics, prostitution – and as a result of the previous – blackmail and extortion. If you’ve been to a brothel on The Wreck or had an off-world escort visit you on Olympus, Grave Men have probably seen the video and made jokes about the size of your dick. Fortunately for the hoi polloi like myself, we rarely rate high enough to merit that sort of attention from the gang.