Custom Faction: Pommetech Corp.

A Homebrew Faction for Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

INITIAL CONCEPT

The beginning of this concept was to design a faction that was, rather than a nation-state of people, a megacorporation that grew so large it consumed the government that spawned it. What kind of corporation would be able to get so large in the TI universe? It seemed like a weapons manufacturer was a clear choice. Thus, the Pommetech Corporation is born.

Image of the Orion Nebula, Credits: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

FACTION START

FLEET:

• 1 Carrier
• 1 Dreadnaught
• 1 Fighter
• 3 Infantry
• 1 PDS
• 1 Space Dock

PLANETS:

• Vide Pomme de Terre: 3r/3i
• Noyau Orbital Shipyard: 1r/0i

TECH: Magen Defense Grid

COMMODITIES: 3

FACTION ABILITIES

• Heavy Weapons Engineering: All units you control with SUSTAIN DAMAGE lose that ability and gain SPACE CANNON 7.
• Behind Closed Doors: At the start of the game, draw one secret objective.

FACTION PROMISSORY NOTE

Exchange Deep Space Sensor Data:

When any player activates a system:

• Units you control and units controlled by the Pommetech player with SPACE CANNON lose that ability and gain DEEP SPACE CANNON 6 until the end of the tactical action.

Then return this card to the Pommetech player.

FACTION TECHNOLOGIES

Inertial-Dampened Transport Cannon:

• Exhaust this card, for each PDS unit on a single planet you control, you may move up to 2 ground forces from that planet to any other adjacent planet you control.

Requires: R

War Profiteering:

• When an opponent uses the PRODUCTION ability of a unit in a system adjacent to a planet you control you may exhaust this card, gain trade goods equal to the number of non-fighter, non-infantry units produced.

Requires: RR

FLAGSHIP

Inter-System Supermassive Artillery Platform

• Cost: 8
• Combat: 9x9
• Move: 1
• Capacity: 1
• Space Cannon 7
• Trans-Atmospheric Sensor Array:
  During the bombardment step of your tactical actions, units you control may use their SPACE CANNON or DEEP SPACE CANNON ability to produce hits against opponents’ ground forces in this system. This ability can not produce hits against units on a planet with PLANETARY SHIELD.
• At the Limit:
  During space combat, dice rolled to produce hits from this unit cannot be improved by any means. (e.g. Morale Boost has no effect on this ship.)

LORE

Pommetech began its history as a private weapons design firm run out of a decrepid Jordian warehouse, founded by two married engineers under the name Hercule & Poire’s. Two years after the company’s founding, the Quann Crisis gave the fledgling firm the business it needed to rise, and rise it did.

With galactic war on the horizon, before the time known as the Twilight Wars was given its name, Hercule & Poire’s took out a multi-billion credit loan to purchase a titanium mine as a first step towards its vertical integration plans. A decade later they established themselves as the primary player in the Jordian weapons manufacturing oligopoly. From there the firm quickly developed into a global megacorporation. Their innovative designs played no small part in the success of the Federation’s special operations raids to unseat the Letnev occupation on Archon Tau.

A week after Letnev’s defeat in the Xxlak system, Hercule and Poire both passed away in a transport accident following a private business meeting. Rumors spread like wildfire that the meeting was with a group of Hylar representing Ibna Vel Syd and that the transport’s destruction was no accident, but no evidence was ever put forward. Two weeks later, the couple’s only son, Noyau Poire, became the CEO of the company. As his first act he ordered a rebranding of the entire organization and an immediate absorbtion of all its subsidiaries. In whole, they were now responsible for nearly a third of the planet’s weapons production. After passing along this decision to the company’s marketing team, the press were soon briefed of the decision and the new moniker was announced: The Pommetech Corporation.

This decision, while seemingly innocuous, marked a new era for of the company as a whole. Over the following years, Pommetech arms gained a reputation for shoddy craftsmanship, frequent malfunction, and over-hyped capabilities. In response to these critisims, Noyau himself responded via numerous data-net press briefings, each providing a platform for his increasingly wild displays of ire and ignorance. He claimed that the Federation’s reporters were commiting slander and filed seventeen separate lawsuits, none of which ended in Pommetech’s favor. The final straw for Noyau was when a massive balloon, depicting the Pommetech CEO as an infant, was paraded through the streets of the oldest and largest of Jord’s cities.

Following this insult, the corporation officially announced its separation from the Federation and withdrew to Noyau’s privately owned system, Epsilon-447. Simultaneously, the corporation offered current employees a substantial bonus should they choose to join the new faction. Jordian workers in the hundreds of thousands heeded the call in a mass emigration unheard of in their people’s history. Through the following millenia, this splinter colony of people-once-called-humans developed in silent isolation, biding their time and perfecting their war machines. Now, with an opening for the throne of the galaxy in sight, the Pommetech Corporation has unveiled its state-of-the-art ship designs and announced in no uncertain terms its goal: absolute ownership of Mecatol Rex.