The origins of the Cestelle Alliance lie on the world of Regulus in the Hazeroth Abyss. Regulus was an agri-world run by the Administratum, but when their adepts were all killed by a meteor impact, the small feudal kingdoms took over the management of their world. By the time contact with the Imperium was re-established, it was clear that the alliance of indigenous peoples was running the agri-world more efficiently than the Administratum, and the natives of Regulus were left to their own devices as long as their tithe of food was met. From this string of events was born the Cestelle Alliance, the unified people of Regulus, who sent members to other, less promising worlds and transformed them over the following decades into fertile agri-worlds in their own rights, passing on enormous tithes to Sector Governor Hax’s government. Slowly, almost without the other Great Houses knowing, the Cestelle Alliance amassed the wealth and power to make them the equal of the other sector houses.
The Cestelle Alliance now controls many agri-worlds in the Calixis Sector. It has not escaped the notice of Lord Sector Hax that the Alliance, if it wished, could cut off food supplies to the Sector’s most populated worlds and create a crisis of famine to hold the sector to ransom. To keep the Alliance firmly on the Imperial l side, Hax has appointed Egoyan Cestelle as the governor of the Adrantis Nebula and continues to permit the Alliance rights to its agri—worlds. The members of the Alliance must walk a curious tight rope between maintaining the traditions of their home worlds and kingdoms, and acting like fully recognized nobles of the Calixis Sector. The traditions of Regulus include facial tattooing (with the higher- ranking nobles sporting extraordinarily intricate scrollwork), incinerating the house’s dead on funeral pyres and praying to the Emperor in the raucous manner first taught to the people of Regulus by Imperial missionaries.
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Skaelen-Har is a massive corporation founded on a set of comprehensive philosophical principles known as the Concordium. The Skaelen-Har Hegemony is a very powerful and efficient heavy manufacturing corporation with concerns across the Calixis Sector, including hundreds of factoria in Hive Sibelius and Gunmetal City. One of its major products is spaceship parts and the Battlefleet Calixis in particular relies on Skaelen-Har to keep its warships in space. The connection between the Imperial Navy and the Hegemony is strong, since without the Hegemony the Battlefleet Calixis would be completely grounded.
