Caraphex

Overview

The Caraphex are four-armed insect people with hard shells. They are the miners, dock workers and ship-breakers of the Drift. They live and work in clades, which are big family crews that share bunks, meals, tools and debts. A clade backs its members in every fight, from a pay dispute to a bar brawl. Their homeworld is Ravel.

Many ports could not run a day without Caraphex workers. Big companies know this and keep trying to replace them with machines that cannot strike. Syndicates know it too and keep trying to take over the hiring halls.

History and Worlds

Caraphex work habits started in deep hive tunnels and quarries, where one bad tunnel or one lazy shift could kill a whole family. Those habits turned into rules, then into union deals, and finally into the Clade Council.

The Caraphex constellation has four main worlds.

• Ravel is the homeworld and the training yard for tunnel crews.

• Shardplain is a flat, dusty world of open-pit mines and tool factories.

• Pitchmire is a world of tar swamps where clades pump fuel out of dangerous ground.

• Mandible Reach is the ship-breaking world. Dead ships are towed in and cut apart for scrap. Its union hall hears pay fights and salvage fights, and clades across the Drift accept its rulings.

When syndicates and crooked officials tried to take workers' pay through debt courts after "accidents", the clades pooled their money, blacklisted the bosses, and hired Free Company guards for their convoys. That is still how they fight today.

Body

Caraphex have segmented shells in brown, black or dull metal colors. Most have four arms. The two heavy arms lift and hold. The two fine arms work welders and small tools. Their compound eyes handle dust and low light well. They can take a short stretch of vacuum better than most species, which is why so many of them work in ship-breaking yards.

They are heavy. A Caraphex will break a cheap cot on the first night, so they sleep in reinforced bunks. They eat a lot of protein, mostly paste, roasted fungus and anything fried.

Culture and Daily Life

The clade is the center of Caraphex life. Members share housing, meals and debts. A clade's name follows every worker, so they keep each other in line. Arguments happen at home, never in front of outsiders.

After a shift, crews wash off the dust, eat together, fix their tools and play loud card games. Borrowing a Caraphex tool without asking counts as theft. When a clade finishes a job, it pays off its shared debts first and sends part of the pay to injured workers and widows.

Young Caraphex learn the clade's history, how to fix every tool they carry, and first aid for crush injuries and dust burns.

Dealing with a Caraphex is simple. Pay on time. Do not touch their tools. If a Caraphex worker says a tunnel is unsafe, stop work until it is fixed. Crews that follow these rules get the same clade back for every job. Crews that do not will find no Caraphex willing to work for them at the next port.

Politics and Law

The Clade Council is the Caraphex labor union. It has no capital. Its leaders meet in strongholds, and the most important one is Hivecarve, a hollowed-out asteroid. Foreleads, the heads of the clades, sit on the Council and vote. Tribunes hear fights and give rulings. Inspectors walk worksites looking for bad tunnels and unpaid shifts. Enforcers deal with anyone who cheats a clade.

A fair job carries a Council mark. The Council calls strikes, keeps a blacklist of bad bosses, and settles fights over mines, tunnels and salvage. Every clade backs every other clade. Cross one Caraphex crew and every clade on the dock hears about it.

In the Core the Council is respected but undercut. In the Mid it is strongest. On the Rim, syndicates fight it for the hiring halls, and clades answer with strikes.

Work and Risk

Caraphex run mines, scrapyards, tunnel repair, ship-breaking and ore convoys. They build good tools out of junk and keep working when a port's supplies run out. When a mine dries up, whole clades pack up and move to the next job.

The dangers are cave-ins, dust, toxic tar, and bosses who skip the safety work. Syndicates steal tool shipments and sell "protection" to worksites. Some Rim debt courts try to lock injured workers into lifetime contracts. Free Companies get hired to guard Caraphex convoys, get stolen tools back, or deal with a loan shark who pushed a clade too far.

How Others See Them

Most people see the Caraphex as blunt, reliable hard workers. They expect fair pay, safe tunnels and their tools left alone. Port bosses who want jobs done on time love them. Bosses who want cheap labor with no rules hate them.

• Talarq respect Caraphex strength and sometimes compete with them for mining work. They often share crews on big builds.

• Keth work well with Caraphex on salvage claims, because both want a clear deal.

• Humans hire Caraphex for everything and argue with them about pay.

• Vellari hire clades to cut up the ice they tow in.

• Sereans hire Caraphex to reinforce the hulls of their storm ships.

• Synthborn often keep the pay records on Caraphex jobs, and clades trust them to do it straight.