In spite of the impositions the prison brings to the Shortoran ecology, Golgotha is a fully functioning ecosystem all its own, possessed of a functioning on-site lab/med-bay, a garrison house (complete with an armory) and a mag lev rail system that directly connects to the capital of House Canamos colony. Further below ground one finds the massive apparatus designed to haul mining equipment and penal laborers up-Prison to hack away at the various flora above-ground.
And again, far below that lies the prison-ghetto, a hub of "wrongly" convicted, wrongly convicted and, until recently, principles that have turned the prison-economy towards more lofty designs that the fullfillment of prison quotas. Rising up. The ghetto itself is built in three tiers into the side of a vast crevasse, extensively mined through via workers perilously strung or lashed to the cliffside where paths havent been carved for the deployment of large scale mining frames. A long rumoured jamming device mitigates what can truly be printed by the prisoners, but as Lancers and prospective heroes-to-be you've managed to cicrumvent that. It'll definitley have to go first if your to make any substantial progress to above-ground.
Below are some of the major figures found in Golgotha, allies and notable enemies:
Spoiler: NPCs: The Revolution
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Commander Emil Karst, Father of the Revolution: Karst is ex-Albatross, and it’s the remnant of forces still loyal to him that form the hardened core of your burgeoning revolution. Emil is an old man in his late fifties, always clad in some sort of military apparel that typically favors black as a color. It has been a long, long time since he’s been in the cockpit of his Nelson-the Last Call-but if the scraped together pilot simulators found underneath Golgotha’s surface are any indication time apart has done nothing to dull the betrayed Commander’s skills as a pilot.
While the Commander personally divulges little regarding his imprisonment, its still relatively easy to piece together what happened to the former Albatross member. Karst’s wing arrived to Shortora in answer to an alleged distress signal. What followed were a gradual series of concession-betrayals which culminated in the Commander’s imprisonment and the ascension of Commander Gorth’s father to the head of the “Loyal” Wing remnants that would go on to form a nominal Baronic Free Company under Governor Cannamos’ purview. Many wonder what will happen when Emil meets his former friend’s son in battle.
Karst’s role in the revolution is twofold: while Kareftis might have a mind for politics and Liz for engineering, it is the Old Man alone who knows how to command a war. The second feature is that, aside from the aforementioned Albatross veterans he brings with him, Karst has been able to scuttle, import and steal a sizable amount of munitions and armaments for you and the revolution to use, all the more impressive for how he did so from the bowels of Golgotha. He’s seen a great deal many weapons on a greatsame many worlds in his time as a cosmopolitan, which has made the unforeseen betrayal of his former comrades sting all the more. Worse than any warpike’s bite.
Lady Irimloza Kareftis: The lady Kareftis is far from home. Raised on the icy sepulcher of Begum, Irimloza was provided with an education classical to the House of Remembrance: a mix of genetic education and the sort of cutthroat political acumen sorely missing from the revolution. Its these two pillars that the exiles and former noble members of Klataua have subsequently flocked to, deferring to the noblewoman for her her superior ranking amongst them as much as for her scientific acumen in the field of biology.
It was this very same skill that saw Irimloza to Shortora, ostensibly on a survey mission investigating remnants of genetic diversity in the Long Rim. What she discovered was a truth known to some but not all: Karrakis was late to arriving on Shotora first. Naturally, Governor Cannamos could not let such an idea propagate amongst the lower rungs of Klatauan society. Public censure did little to curtail Lady Kareftis’ research into prior colonial elements and, undisuadid by threat or promise of reward, the Lady kept looking. Too high within her the House of Moments to risk the fallout of a death abroad, Governor Cannamos instead opted to “reassign” Irimloza to the depths of Golgotha.
Now amongst the lowborn (and a few sympathetic nobles), Kareftis acts as the informal head of the Revolutions intelligentsia, having accrued intellectuals and thinkers the way a sponge sops up water. While Karst might have a mind for war and Liz for machines, it is the Lady and her thinkers that are concerned not only with maintaining the haleness of the prison’s population (as she’s keen to remind other Karrakin nobles technically it is Doctor Kareftis) but with their education in the political as well. Irimloza, like Karst has seen what the rest of Union space contains in terms of its peoples and their myriad outlooks. Time will tell if her work yields something entirely new in terms of thought or if it is the genesis of Shotorans thinking like a more established entity.
Liz & SLATE: The laborers of Golgotha are an informal bunch, much more inclined to their work then they are to socialize with the prior to factions of the Revolution. Publically, their representatives are a wizard of an engineer and her hulking guardian of an NHP. The dyad of woman and artifice (Throne only knows where and how she cycles it below ground) have been instrumental in ensuring not only that Golgotha’s quotas are met via the repair of essential mining tools, but that the bare minimum of provided habitation technology that allows for work underground is maintained so as to preserve the prison-community’s “ecosystem”.
Much more cagey than Kareftis in the origins of her incarceration, it’s a matter of hotbutton conjecture the prison over just what Liz did to land themselves in Golgotha, to say nothing of how it’s a topic of frequent good-natured debate between the Revolution’s Laborers and Intelligentsia. There's even a small betting pool going on. There's an unspoken expectation that the reveal and conclusion of the betting will be timed to coincide with the “Big Push” as Karst puts it, no doubt blared out via whatever speakers Liz’s NHP has been able to suborn.
While not an active combatant, Liz and SLATE bring the full technical expertise of the laborers and their engineers to the revolution’s cause. This is displayed is a strange knack for improvisation, a talent which plays no small part in their ability to maintain the many work machines the laborers use for mining Shotora’s flesh. It was only natural that this technical acumen could be further applied to the mech frames that made the revolution a feasible option for Liz and her NHP. Rumors abound that the young Shotoran native is working on converting SLATE’s chassis into a mech-frame of their own
Spoiler: NPCs: Antagonists (Golgotha)
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Warden Rhosyane-Ludra: a governor writ-small against the backdrop of the would-be kingdom that is Golgotha, the warden is a brutal individual. She sees the prisoners under her thumb as little more than economic units, numbers that run up and down alongside other tallies. It is an earned cynicism, accumulated like so many layers of sediment after a long and storied career abroad in the House of Stone’s Paragon Company. The brutality of this outfit-and the commanding position she held within it-made her well suited to controlling mining interests far away from the Capital.
This totalitarian haigography is all fueled by a common, well known origin in the Long-Rim putting down pirates on various satellite planetoids in defense of the House of Stone’s economic holdings abroad. It was during this service to the House that Rhosane-Ludra was injured against a paracausal entity. The wound has since permeated her body, leaving the austere woman unable to leave the confines of her mecha, The Gavel.
Something of a careerist, its never personal with the Warden. Its just business. Well. Sort of. When the Warden came to Golgotha they came with family. A son, the result of some sort of dalliance on an off-planet colony during her time in service. Bashir-her progeny-is the only person in all the prison who does not call her Warden.
Security Chief Harkon: A big bull of a man on an extended leave from the Capital, Harkon is the much more public facing middleman between the Warden and Golgotha’s prisoners. Where the Warden is a careerist who sees herself as the head cog in the prison machine, Harkon has something arguably more dangerous than duty: ambition. Not for some petty position lording over the condemned but a return to the sunshine and leisure of the capital.
in keeping with his role as the Warden’s presence, Harkon’s reasons for exile from the capital are unknown, though whatever nobility might have been involved in the Security Chief’s departure has long since be eroded away by the confines of his current environment. Now he acts as a bully first and head of security second, readily abusing his authority in a manner that’s seen Golgotha take a remarkable turn towards corruption under the Warden’s current tenure.
In this sense, Harkon fills a vital niche in the prison’s economy: he’s the go to person for acquiring things not readily available from the surface. Karst has had to take great pains to circumvent Harkon’s parasitic stranglehold on Golgotha’s prison economy. This has played a large part in the decision to excise the Security Chief as a part of the Revolution, to say nothing of the fact that Golgotha boasts a readily available complement of security personnel, many of them hand-chosen from the Warden’s former unit. It galls the Security Chief all the more that these veterans recognize that he’s never served and so afford him the requisite amount of respect.
The OVERSEER: While the Warden secures Golgotha’s place in the greater planetary ecosystem and Harkon sees to order at the end of a gun barrel, the actual administration of the prison has been given over to an NHP given the simple designation of the OVERSEER. The being is responsible for ensuring that the quotas stripped from Shotora’s flesh are processed and melted down into something more suitable for transport to the capital.
Much like the Warden, the OVERSEER is a dispassionate worker, largely framing itself as an ally when the reality of its cognition is that it is incapable of feeling things like cruelty, joy or contempt for those around it. This dissmemination has a flaw insofar as the OVERSEER has a prime unit it typically occupies close to the upper levels of the prison, but many more of its RPVs and subalterns can be found in the prison's depths proper.
Typically, the OVERSEER occupies a number of RPV chassis, haunting the various work crews and prisoner mining outfits with a ghoulish sort of indifference. Beyond the filling of quotas that is. Thus, the OVERSEER stands as a sort of mocking reminder: Golgotha could be wholly capable of mechanizing its production and focusing on the reform of its prisoner elements. But it hasn’t.