House Ryoshi

And their many troubles.

A Brief History

House Ryoshi, with their largest, and most valuable company being Ryoshi Industries, is the sole holder of fabricator stations that are accurate and consistent enough to produce software, processors and other atomic scale products on any kind of scale worth noting to the empire.

This is in part thanks to them lucking out in securing the tech-rich atomic-printing center of the federation during it's collapse. Unfortunately though, during the civil and military unrest during this period, many blueprints, and almost more importantly, fabricator plants were lost, with only a handful surviving the federation-rending events that birthed the empire.

Nowadays, they are an atomic-printing powerhouse, and are responsible for current model of synths widely used in the empire, and have their hands dipped in just about every single high-tech operation inside house Lucien and some other houses that require atomic levels of precision, with the only known exception to this rule being house Aquila, who manufacture just about all of the empire's FTL-capable engines.

Their Monopoly on Interstellar Communications

Communications are relatively consistent in the empire, despite it's tech slump, and most messages relayed through the relevant quantum-enabled technology allow the empire's planets to communicate with each other very easily.

This is however not accessible to the average citizen, due to bandwidth limitations, so typical freight-mail is still widely used for inter-planetary communications that are not from officials.

Unfortunately for the broader empire, Ryoshi Industries is the sole house that has both the tech and capacity to fabricate it, and has very severely rationed it to those who aren't of importance to them, and the number of FTL communicators used to be counted quite easily by a single person, with the last official report being 79.

Unfortunately, for everyone involved, a large-scale data leak occurred a decade after the initial report, and it alleged that NI has ~5800 quantum transceivers, ~1000 of which awaiting reclamation, whatever that meant. NI declined to publicly comment on this explosive growth and what "reclaimation" of these transcievers meant when the scandal happened five years ago.

So would that be from roughly one transmitter per system, with a few spare for important flagships and communications hubs during the previous decade, ballooned to hilarious amounts when the leak occurred.

Their Monopoly on AI and Synthetics

Not "AI" as you know it on TG (using brains). That is an old and crude technology, even for the empire. Unfortunately for those subjected to it, it proves effective when the going gets tough and there are (un)willing candidates on hand. They are known solely as "cyborgs", "borgs", and less affectionately, "tin cans".

Ryoshi Industries' main claim to fame are synthetics- machines that are capable of the full motion range of a human, though depending on who makes the baseline components, the efficacy of their "shell" varies wildly.

NI makes the most intricate and capable shells, best optimized for a high-end AI, or for more novel use-cases. Another, less desired, but valid use of these shells is as a surrogate body for biological lifeforms, though steps are taken to ensure this is a last resort in many locales.

NI is also the sole fabricator of the circuitboards required to properly house an AI inside these shells, with the cheapest boards able to run basic AI that's basically equivalent to modern-day ChatGPT, up to boards that are self-contained supercomputers, and run fully-fledged AGI personalities.

The latter is considered supremely dangerous, and are strictly forbidden from operating in areas without a basic military presence, the reasoning for which has not been disclosed by NI or house Lucien, who are allegedly aware of the reason.

Thankfully, the software for running personal AGIs -which are considerably less dangerous due to their physical limitations- is completely unrestricted in locale, and many upper-class denizens of the empire have taken rather fondly of these, thanks to their near-unlimited "lifespans" and great social utilities.

AI powered chatbots are generally free for users to download across the empire, due to the recognised morale and productivity increases, along with being a veritable propoganda goldmine for houses and the empire itself.

The devices the average citizen have are generally incapable of running much more than a glorified chatbot, though, which generally imposes a limited ability to retain new information given by the user. Think modern-day LLaMA-equivalent.

Other Minor Scandals

They have refused to acknowledge rumors of an unidentified battleship-sized ship travelling at sublight speeds in deep space inside their territory, and those who have warped close to it have failed to return without exception.

They have been alleged to be traitorous in nature, due to their strict neutrality policy. This did not help them much in the aftermath of the Vaelorin-Lucienic wars, remaining much in the same position as they were before, with a severely lacking military.

They have been known to have skirmishes with various houses to ensure their secrets are kept, or to discourage any kind of competition, though in recent years, these skirmishes have slowed down significantly, thanks to the Vaeloren-Lucienic wars.

There have been somewhat sizeable fines that have been unsuccessfuly applied to house Ryoshi by house Aquila due to alleged trade secret theft. House Lucien does not recognise these fines.

Ryoshi has allegedly lost a quarter of a million lives chasing after the federation's fabricator blueprints, and have also allegedly caused the annihilation of several of their own research stations in an attempt to create brand new small-scale facilities.

Ryoshi has been the subject of criticism when it requested their AGI units be given official full civil recognition across the empire. It was promptly turned down, though the decision was softened after what was essentially a miniature civil war spurred up in many systems, many of which house Ryoshi was held responsible for, resulting in new laws being drafted around these new machines. They now have a special status in house Ryoshi, granting them the equivalent of full civil rights. They are typically poorly recieved and treated in other houses, with areas of Lucien and most of Artea being the two exceptions, granting far more rights to synths than the other houses, though not quite on the same level as Ryoshi.

Relationships to Other Houses

House Artea: They have an amicable relationship, with Artea's more short-staffed shipping lanes being augmented by synthetics, and Ryoshi makes great use of this new empire-spanning fleet to get their goods around at record pace.

Ryoshi's ships are significantly lower in number than many of the other houses, with the lowest ship to planet ratio of any given house, due to a disinterest in maintaining a standing military, so the presence and co-operation of Artea is of great interest to Ryoshi.

House Lucien: They have a somewhat strong relationship, with house Lucien being given priority in just about every request they make of house Ryoshi, though Ryoshi was somewhat disappointed at the end of the war when they were only given one of the 5 systems they put emphasis on wanting from the hostile side.

It is theorized by many Ryoshi denizens that are in the know that house Ryoshi was playing both sides through most of the wars, and only started embargos near the end, which put them in a much less favourable light for both parties of the war.

House Vaelorin: Ryoshi has very little to say about house Vaelorin, despite the two sharing a border. They've been usually somewhat standard neighbors, with relations degrading when Ryoshi tried to lay claim to a few of their manufacuring systems as their prize for their assistance to house Lucien near the end of the war.

Ryoshi sees very little in reprisal for this, though, likely in part due to their somewhat integral part in many facets of day to day upper-class life, and their kneecapping by house Lucien at the end of the war.

House Darkof: Ryoshi has a diminished opinion of house Darkof, initially both being seen as a typical corporate rivalry by outsiders, though it ended up as anything but.

During the peak of the initial empire founding, the two were the sole two houses capable of mass-producing atomic-precision parts, and Ryoshi and Darkof traded blows in subterfuge, market rigging, and in military skirmishes, which spilled out into a miniature civil war at one point, with Ryoshi coming out on top overall, causing a great deal of losses to Darkof's manufacuring capacity, though not enough to remove them from the markets entirely.

House Darkof eventually lost too much of their manufacturing capacity to sustain anyone but themselves, made even worse during the Vaelorin-Lucienic wars, eventually causing them to pivot to being one of the larger producer of raw resources to less fortunate houses in the empire.

House Greymoon: Greymoon and Ryoshi have a rocky history, with the earlier house leaders taking a somewhat staunch stance on rehabilitation and borgification of inmates, causing many a news headline for the upper class.

In more modern times, though, Ryoshi Industries generates a substantial amount of sales for the relatively wealthy masses that live in the Greymoon locale, as well as selling machinery and prison-suitable devices for them, which has eased their relations drastically.

House Sveldr: Although house Ryoshi would never admit it, they are concerned with the lack of a civil war going on for house Sveldr to spend it's military on, and have kept a somewhat close eye on Sveldr operations, going as far as to plant listening posts in deep space to record and forward information back to house Ryoshi. No one outside of Ryoshi nobility, and the relevant secret agencies know of this.

Despite these underhanded tactics, house Ryoshi and Sveldr at least appaear to co-operate peacefully in public, with both openly trading materials for military aid against any notable pirate enclaves, when they prove to be too much of a headache for negotiations.

House Aquila: The two have an uneasy at best relationship, with trade between the two houses being limited mostly to the bare essentials, like processors and engines, due to the fact that the two houses step almost directly on each other's toes, though thankfully not much more than that.

Ryoshi hasn't tried to apply the same tactics they used on Darkof to house Aquila, as they know a complete cease in supply of engines to them would mean Artea would have far more leverage than desired, and would almost completely reverse their roles.