Given below are some of the most prominent powers in the Hope system, along with a generous helping of interesting groups with their own motivations and agendas. There are a lot of factions outlined on this page, but it’s not an exhaustive list of every interesting group in the system. Feel free to add your own factions to your game if some group that isn’t described here becomes important to the story.
Table of Contents
Institutions
| Name | Tier | Hold |
| Xanadian Defence Force | V | strong |
| Foundation Navy | IV | strong |
| Xanadian Public Service | IV | strong |
| The Bureau | III | strong |
| Foundry Collective | III | strong |
| Kaiping Outpost | III | strong |
| Black Hills Council | III | weak |
| Apogee Group | II | strong |
| The Lancers | II | strong |
| Horizon Commission | II | weak |
| One Hope | II | weak |
| Church of the Founder | I | strong |
| Stargazer Society | I | strong |
Apogee Group: A loose association of traders, merchants and mercenaries - the only entry requirement is to have a ship equipped with a Llewellyn Drive. They operate throughout the Rim where megacorps can’t muscle in on their profits, and often have strange jobs to offer adventurers.
Black Hills Council: The triumvirate “pirate council” that rules Black Hills, the rogue spaceport located in Xanadu’s frigid Serenity Highlands. It’s a tense arrangement, marked by three strong personalities united against the constant threat that one day the Xanadian Defence Force will simply stop tolerating their existence.
The Bureau: Also known as “The Bureau of Interstellar Affairs, Intelligence and Investigation”. They control the Foundation’s spy networks and intelligence apparatus out in the Incorporated Territories and the Rim. They have at their disposal significant funding, an excessively broad mandate and a distinct lack of interest in local laws or questions of conscience.
Church of the Founder: The corporate entity that represents the Foundation’s official religion. Out on the Rim, their missionaries are often more of a welcome and “real” presence than the Foundation itself. Their primary goal is the reunification of the Foundation’s diaspora of Christian sects and denominations into the Founderist umbrella.
Foundation Navy: The naval forces of the Foundation; they are the instrument of its will, and the stick that is always moments behind the carrot. Out in the Rim, many have never even seen a Foundation gunship. Nonetheless, those that invoke the Foundation’s wrath are soon taught the error of their ways.
Foundry Collective: The faction which runs the Foundry, the asteroid base which serves as the Hope Belt’s focal point. A hodgepodge of prominent groups and forces led by the Personnel Union, their primary agenda is to keep the Foundry neutral and keep trouble on the outside of the station’s walls. They could be a major player in the politics of Hope, but their authority comes from the goodwill of the populace and they are rarely moved to drastic action.
Horizon Commission: An official charter from the Foundation for knowledge-sharing and cooperation between scholars, academics and researchers. Though it’s a Foundation institution, it was designed for outreach. Even out on the Rim, you’ll find people working with the Commission for access to their information and resources. Commission scholars are often given funds to contract mercenary adventurers when organising a scientific expedition through proper channels isn’t feasible.
Kaiping Outpost: The engineers and other workers of Kaiping, the moonbase that provides Hope with its supply of fuel for starships and fusion reactors. No one has the expertise to run the aerostats and fuel refineries but them, and for a long time this comfortable niche has been enough to keep the outpost afloat and out of the limelight.
The Lancers: A spacefaring group of vigilantes and freelancers who operate in chapters throughout the Rim. Funded by donations and unlicensed privateering, they patrol the spacelanes for pirates and will escort your ship across a system for a fee. They tend to be unpopular with legitimate authorities, who consider them to be cowboys at best and racketeers at worst.
One Hope: A reformist offshoot of the Anti-Foundation Front, which believes that the Hope Belt should unite into a single federation led by the Foundry and fight for equal footing in the system. Their members are mostly diplomats and leaders from smaller colonies within Hope, and their power is mostly soft power. They hope to build up more influence by supporting workers on asteroid colonies who want to overthrow their employers and declare independence.
Stargazer Society: An officially recognised guild of independently owned exploratory and scientific vessels, whose mandate is to find and colonise new systems for the sake of humanity. They receive resources and funding from the Foundation to explore the limits of known space, but are expected to share the navkeys and data they generate or risk the Foundation’s wrath.
Xanadian Defence Force: The naval and armed forces of Xanadu, the Hope system’s primary colony. The sovereign protectors of Xanadian space, the custodians of Xanadu’s moonbases and an impressive arsenal of military weaponry and defensive platforms. The army is riddled with corruption, and the navy has become distrustful of the the planetary government and keeps them at arm’s length.
Xanadian Public Service: The government and bureaucracy of Xanadu, the Hope system’s primary colony. Though sovereign in theory, it’s surprisingly impotent in practice. It’s an open secret that the government is plagued by inefficiency and corruption, and that certain projects drown in red tape if AFF leaders don’t like the sound of them. Nonetheless, there are still civil servants dedicated to making Xanadu a better place despite the corruption of their superiors.
Megacorps
| Name | Tier | Hold |
| Xerxes Corporation | IV | strong |
| Mjolnir Dynamics | II | weak |
Mjolnir Dynamics. Known to most as a weapons manufacturer, but also deeply interested in exploiting the distant Rim systems where other megacorps won’t go. They used to be prominent in Hope, but were almost run out of the system after the failure of the Foundry, their biggest investment. These days, Mjolnir only maintains a foothold in Xanadu City - though they still have enough resources and influence to be a problem, if provoked.
Xerxes Corporation. The megacorporate bugbear of Hope, and the only megacorp with a strong hold over the system. They have made themselves indispensable to interstellar travellers with the Xerxes Refuelling Station, and in doing so have cut the locals out of the profits. They appear untouchable, but they are very reliant on the rest of the system to replenish their supplies of food and starship fuel.
Clandestine & Subversive Groups
| Name | Tier | Hold |
| Anti-Foundation Front | IV | strong |
| Lilac Syndicate | III | strong |
| Void Hounds | III | strong |
| Wolf Squadron | III | weak |
| Argent Company | II | strong |
| Finder’s Network | II | strong |
| The Scream | II | strong |
| Blue Rose | II | weak |
| Morrow Sisters | I | strong |
| Viriditas | I | strong |
| Ghost Union | I | weak |
| Upright Gang | I | weak |
Anti-Foundation Front: The bogeyman of the Foundation; a terrorist organisation with little internal structure, composed of disparate cells vehemently opposed to the “incompetence, brutality and corruption” of the Foundation. Despite their loose organisation, they are potent enough to make Foundation officers fear to set foot in certain colonies. Though depicted by the media as being under the control of a shadowy cabal of hidden leaders, most chapters of the AFF are made up of several prominent factions with their own ideas about how to fight the good fight.
Argent Company: A group of war veterans based in Hope that first formed after the War of Pacification, almost a century ago. The first generation is long dead, but their organisation has outlived them. The Company has deep connections in the corrupt Xanadian military, and are arms dealers and smugglers that sell to whoever can afford their prices.
Blue Rose: A legendary group of elusive, expensive assassins that specialise in “bespoke work”. If you hire them to kill someone, they’ll take care of every step from target acquisition and initial reconnaissance to sealing the deed itself. Every job takes as long as it needs and they can’t be rushed, but have a reputation for being reliable and cautious. Their presence in Hope is not as strong as elsewhere, but a number of their assassins have chose to “retire” here to get away from the Foundation.
Finder’s Network: Despite their legitimate front as private investigators and researchers who specialise in lost and stolen artworks, they are a group of professional thieves. They work with rich collectors to locate and obtain specific items, and they don’t limit themselves to legal means of doing so. Their most lucrative contracts involve securing Artificer relics for their clients.
Ghost Union: A secret collective of disenfranchised workers in the employ of megacorps, or any who don’t dare to openly organise for collective action and better conditions. They undertake illegal and risky missions to improve the welfare of workers, but they’re not above a little miscellaneous crime to cover costs.
Lilac Syndicate: One of the Foundation’s oldest and most prominent organised crime groups, whose members are marked by a four-petal lilac tattoo. The syndicate prefers to stick to vice and smuggling in the big cities and space stations, and leave piracy to the pirates. The organisation is divided up into local “branches” that operate in different star systems, largely disconnected except by shared roots and family ties. They have elaborate rituals that recruits must fulfil in order to prove themselves and attain full membership.
Morrow Sisters: Athena and Minerva Morrow are a local fixture in the Hope Belt, a pair of information brokers who operate out of the Foundry and run a free repository of stolen and copyrighted data called “The Black Library”. They have a “no questions asked” policy about disseminating information brought to them by anonymous parties. The sisters are interested in any opportunity to get their hands on pirated software or data to add to their open partition.
The Scream: An informal “guild” of pirates that operates in the Hope Belt, considered a rumour by many. Membership is by invitation only, extended to crews who manage to pull off particularly skilled or ruthless scores. They share tips and jobs amongst themselves, and work together to squeeze out the competition and demand tribute from up-and-coming crews.
Upright Gang: An old Hope gang, once prominent but now small-time. Their members are mostly a loose conglomeration of pirates and cowboys that have seen better days. The gang used to be a much bigger deal, and they have a lot of friends from the old days knocking around the Hope system.
Viriditas: A network of ecoterrorists and anti-corporate subversives, though they would call themselves the only champions of the downtrodden and discarded indigenous life of the Foundation. Their home turf is the Samarkand system, but they are constantly moving their operatives to and from the Phoenix system to “fight the good fight”. Hope is between the two, so they have a presence here.
Void Hounds: An old pirate crew that grew big and powerful enough to become one of the major players in the Hope System. It’s led by Ivan Friendly, the “pirate baron” of the Hope Belt. Their days as simple pirates are far behind them; these days, the Void Hounds are one of the most powerful factions within the Anti-Foundation Front. They’ve been pushing the Hope chapter of the AFF towards open warfare with the Foundation.
Wolf Squadron: An entire Foundation gunship and its escort, which was sent on a mission deep into the Rim and never returned. The whole squadron defected, and they’ve been working as guns for hire ever since. They offer their training and firepower to warlords and movements to turn the tide of conflicts, but never stick around too long when the fighting’s done. They’re constantly on the move to evade the Foundation’s reprisal.
Fringe Groups
| Name | Tier | Hold |
| The Interstice | II | strong |
| Machine Shintoists | II | strong |
| La Montagne | II | weak |
| Firewalkers | I | strong |
| Apeiron Collective | I | weak |
| The Archivists | I | weak |
Apeiron Collective: A transhumanist movement that is very popular in the Incorporated Territories; they’re not as big out here on the Rim, but their message of freedom from limitations is appealing to many. They believe that each person has a “true soul”, and has a duty to reshape their physical form to achieve harmony with it. They believe that humanity must shed its evolutionary limitations, and members often have dramatic modifications. Out on the Rim, they’re most interested in modifying the human body to survive dangerous environments.
The Archivists: A loose secret society of scholars, explorers and scientists who trace their mission back to Dr. Lucia Moretta, one of the original crew of the Beyonder. They view the cause of preserving and protecting knowledge against future catastrophes as a sacred one, and are willing to push it in radical directions - particularly against governments and corporations that hoard secrets and knowledge from the public view.
Firewalkers: A cabal of occultists that genuinely believes in the existence of demons, spirits and otherworldly beings. They pay large sums to get their hands on texts of demonology and witchcraft from the Old Earth, and have a cordial relationship with La Montagne as a result. Many Firewalkers believe that the Artificers were not aliens but gods, and are very interested in exploring their ruins and doing strange rituals in them.
The Interstice: A psionic cult that believes that God can be found in otherspace, and that he shows his face to those with the courage to look. They try to hire people to let them do spacewalks during otherspace voyages, which most travellers consider to be extremely bad luck. Because of the effects of direct exposure to the otherspace envelope, most are at least a little unhinged.
La Montagne: A group of revolutionary philosophers who trade secretly in old and forbidden texts and literature from the Old Earth. Although they’re not particularly hostile to the Foundation, they are happy to help disseminate banned material - and so they have some connections with the AFF. A lot of their sympathisers are academics and scholars in universities and research institutes.
Machine Shintoists: A sect which believes that the kami of Old Earth came with humanity to the stars and were transformed, coming to inhabit the machines and devices which surround humans. They observe elaborate rituals to appease the machine kami, and believe that the kami can influence machines or even cause them to move on their own if pleased or displeased by humans. The more complex and advanced the machine, the more powerful the kami it houses is thought to be.