Flag of the Great Houses of Xie
The Great Houses of Xie, more properly known as the Xie no Daikei, reside primarily on their homeworld, Xie, with Takayamanomachi as their capitol. Having migrated away from the over-populated Earth a couple of centuries ago, the Great Houses refer to Xie as simply, "the homeworld." The Great Houses are composed of the following Great Houses: Xie, Mori, Furude, Tokugawa, Oda, Sonozaki, Uesugi, Takeda, Meiji, and AI.
Xie, the Great Houses' homeworld
The Great Houses' demonym is Housemates.
Having adopted Xie as their homeworld, in accordance with these continuing dangerous times, the Great Houses have heavily fortified the Xie system. The entire system is surrounded and permeated by a complex network of FTL interdictors to prevent unwanted intrusions via FTL. Unmanned weapons' platforms of varying weapons' types and sizes permeate the system. The system is regularly patrolled by Destroyer and Cruiser Squadrons, as well as secretly patrolled by Black Fleets.
Immediately ringing the homeworld is the immense solar powered array. Held securely in place by four space elevators, the immense array provides much of the power that goes towards military-grade anti-matter production. As the array is a vital military asset, the elevators are heavily armored, as are the arrays themselves, being able to cover the more vulnerable arrays with protective armors in an emergency. Weapons' emplacements permeate the structure and are able to draw from the immense energies produced by the solar arrays.
Once, there were shipyards that orbited above the polar regions of Xie, known as the Primary Shipyards. However, following the invention of the Fold Cores, the Primary Shipyards house the Fold Cores and play host to the immense Fold Core Combined Fleet.
The heart of Takayamanomachi, capitol city of Xie
The Great Houses are a socio-economical-political entity. Each Great House represents a vertical mega-corporation, each with their own particular specialty. The leaders of the Great Houses are the House Heads, who are freely elected by their respective Great Houses. The primary negotiator and recognized "leader" of the Great Houses is the Office of the Governor General. The Governor General is elected by the Great Houses as a whole. Traditionally, the Governor General was always elected from the Great House of Xie. Lately, however, due to a strongly maintained lead, the Great House of Meiji is now the unchallenged incumbent.
The Colony Fleets, Fleets charged with keeping the Great Houses alive in the event of an unforeseen disaster of unprecedented scale, wander the local galactic cluster. Previously, they had simply stayed within the Milky Way Galaxy. However, in accordance with the Great House of Meiji's more imperialist designs, the Colony Fleets have been charged with more bolder goals and they boldly stray ever farther from the homeworld. The Fleets are largely autonomous of the Great Houses, having their own mini-versions of the Great Houses and the House Heads, known as Colonial Councils.
In order to retain regular contact and maintain regular trading routes, the Great Houses maintain the Miyako Embassy and the Miyako Shipyards that hover above the Embassy in geo-synchronous orbit.
The Great Houses' military force is known as EDOC (Elite Democratic Officer Corps). The acronym was spawned during the time when the Great Houses first moved to Miyako as the jumping point into space. EDOC was small and had to be an "elite" force, formed of officers from the democratic Great Houses. Considering the Great Houses only ever needed an effective naval force for protection, EDOC does not incorporate a standing ground army. EDOC is composed solely of the "navy" with ship-bound marines. After the Great Houses' settlement in space, EDOC is entirely a space-bourne navy.