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  1. Drift💫A Space Odyssey
  3. Lore

The Clade Council

The Clade Council

Overview

The Clade Council is the Caraphex labor union. Caraphex live and work in clades, which are big family crews that share bunks, meals, tools and debts. The Council speaks for all of them. It sets fair pay and safe work, calls strikes, and settles fights over mines, tunnels and salvage. Caraphex do most of the mining, dock work and ship-breaking in the Drift, so companies listen when the Council talks.

Where it meets

  • The Council has no capital. Its leaders meet in strongholds on the main Caraphex worlds.

  • The most important one is Hivecarve, a hollowed-out asteroid full of tunnels, union halls and cheap canteens.

  • Its records are kept in several places, so no single raid can wipe them out.

Who runs it

  • Foreleads are the heads of the clades. They sit on the Council and vote.

  • Tribunes hear fights between clades, companies and syndicates, and give the ruling.

  • Inspectors visit worksites and look for bad tunnels, broken gear and unpaid shifts.

  • Enforcers are tough crews who protect clades and deal with anyone who cheats one.

How it holds power

  • The Council mark. A fair job with Caraphex workers carries a Council mark. A job without one gets no Caraphex workers.

  • Strikes. When a boss cheats a clade, the Council can stop every Caraphex worker on the dock. Most ports cannot run a day without them.

  • The blacklist. A boss who cheats a clade goes on the list. No clade will work for that boss again.

  • Sticking together. Clades back each other. Pick a fight with one Caraphex and you find out how many cousins she has.

Across the Drift

  • Core. The Council is respected. Companies try to get around it with bribes and non-union crews.

  • Mid. This is its strongest ground. Ravel, Shardplain, Pitchmire and Mandible Reach all run on clade labor.

  • Rim. Syndicates fight the Council for control of the hiring halls. Clades answer with strikes and, now and then, with crowbars.

Weak spots

  • Unity. Everything depends on the clades sticking together. When one clade breaks a strike, the others do not forget.

  • Machines. Big companies keep trying to replace clades with robots that cannot strike.

  • Syndicates. Gangs threaten foreleads, beat up inspectors and sell fake protection to worksites.

  • Slow votes. Big rulings need many foreleads to agree, and that takes time in a crisis.

What it means for a crew

  • Hire a clade and pay on time, and the job gets done fast and nobody dies.

  • Pay late and the whole dock knows it by the next shift.

  • Hurt a Caraphex worker and expect a visit from the enforcers.

Reputation

Most people call the Clade Council strict but fair. Workers of every species respect it. Companies see it as a cost, and syndicates hate it because it keeps them out of the hiring halls. It is one of the hardest groups in the Drift to break.