Jodes Nation
“The sky is home. The ground is where we crash.”
What the Corps Call Them: Sky-Pirates, Atmos-Thieves, The Un-Grounded.
What They Call Themselves: The Free-Flow, Keepers of the High Path.
Motto: “The sky is home. The ground is where we crash.”
Core Identity: The Nomads of the Sky-Lanes
Emerging from the chaos of post-Collapse America, the Jodes Nation are the sovereign people of the sky—a decentralized coalition of aviators, engineers, smugglers, and mercenaries who turned decommissioned aircraft carriers, zeppelins, and freight haulers into massive flying convoys. Unlike ground-bound nomads, the Jodes carved their lives from the stratosphere. Their culture is a unique blend of old-world aviation brotherhoods and digital spirituality; pilots tattoo their flight paths on their skin, and their AI copilots are revered as ancestral spirits.
Nimbus-7: The Beating Heart of the Nation
Their flagship city, Nimbus-7, is a kilometer-long airborne platform and the capital of their roaming nation. It is powered by Helios Mark IV "Prometheus" Prototype Fusion Engines—stolen from Helios Orbital in a legendary heist that cemented their identity as rebels. This engine provides near-limitless power, allowing Nimbus-7 to remain aloft indefinitely and serve as a mobile power station for the Jodes fleet.
The vessel is a breathtaking fusion of old tech and miracle engineering. Its deck is a forest of sensor masts and hydroponic domes, while its hull is a warren of hangars and workshops. At its center lies the Sky-Bazaar, a permanent, sprawling market where one can trade anything from salvaged satellite parts to stolen corporate data, making it a neutral hub for anyone beyond the reach of corporate control.
Operations: The Gray Market of the Sky
Jodes fleets drift between continents, trading oxygen, tech, and contraband between Earth, orbital elevators, and lunar outposts. They operate as both merchants and pirates, depending on who’s asking. They are the primary movers of goods that corporations won't touch, serving isolated communities and fringe factions. But when an opportunity arises, a Jodes convoy can swiftly switch off its transponder and descend from the clouds like a storm, masters of "salvage rights" and logistical re-appropriation.
Alliances & Rivalries: A Delicate Balance
Alliance with The Lazarus Group: A Pact of Necessity.
The Jodes maintain an uneasy alliance with the Lazarus Group, who fund their sky convoys in exchange for covert logistics and stealth drop operations. The Jodes provide Lazarus with utterly deniable global transport for clones, cyber-zombies, and agents, moving them across borders without a trace.Rivalry with Helios Orbital & Militech: The Theft That Defined Them.
Their rivalry with Helios Orbital runs deep—the theft of the Prometheus engine made it personal. For Helios, the destruction of Nimbus-7 is a corporate holy grail. Militech, in turn, sees the Jodes as an uncontrollable rogue variable and has tried (and failed) to ground them permanently with aerial ambushes and EMP warfare. Both corps have learned that the Jodes' decentralized, mobile nature makes them a frustratingly elusive target.Conflict with White Tiger Inc: The Antithesis.
The Jodes are the living refutation of White Tiger Inc's orbital monopoly. They are the unsanctioned competition, proving that WTI's "indispensable" infrastructure is, in fact, dispensable. This is a cold war of ideologies: centralized control versus decentralized freedom.
In summary, the Jodes Nation are smugglers, freedom fighters, and ghosts in the sky—bridging Earth’s dying cities and the cold machine colonies above. They are a splinter in the thumb of every major power, proof that the sky remains an untamable frontier.
As they say in Jodes slang:
“If you can see us, you’re already too close.”