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Energy Wars — VESSELBORN Codex

Energy Wars

Era of Shadow Rule to Modern Geba

Alias: None

Era: Era of Shadow Rule to Modern Geba

Primary Actors: Joxi Industrial Holdings, Sentinel Division, Haavu Works and Weapons Systems, Zhikhan Manufacturing Collective, Solarn Legacy Engineering, Brena Propulsion Designs

The Energy Wars began during the Era of Shadow Rule as the global economy expanded and manufacturers required new markets for commoners in territories beyond established relay coverage. A corridor opens into contested ground, a relay goes up, and if it holds long enough to anchor, that relay becomes a hub. A hub draws trade. Trade draws civilians seeking work and opportunity. Clearings form around the infrastructure, requiring services, security, housing, and supply lines of their own—and what begins as a skirmish over an energy source becomes an economic anchor for generations. The conflicts generate revenue, provide opportunity for those lifting themselves out of poverty, and allow the manufactories to reach objectives that would otherwise require formal wars. They have never stopped.

Joxi and Sentinel control over seventy percent of all accessible energy on Geba. The remaining thirty percent is ground for constant covert conflict between Haavu and Zhikhan, who fight openly over sources even near established energy centers—clashes both attribute to terrorists or criminal warlords regardless of evidence. Where Joxi and Sentinel may operate under Solarn in the same region, their contractors sharing objectives at different rates, Haavu and Zhikhan are almost never seen working together for any reason, even when cooperation would benefit infrastructure they both use.

A corridor in contested territory is a temporary foothold built from chained relays and small outposts, opened long enough to move crews, cargo, and power into black zones. If the corridor holds, the relay anchors and the region shifts permanently. Many operations focus less on building new relays and more on reactivating ancient mega spines from the Era of Absolute Expansion. These structures cannot be rebuilt in the modern era, making them the most valuable infrastructure on the planet. Control of a spine determines whether a territory becomes a stable hub or a pressure point used to restrict movement and dictate trade.

The same boards posting one corridor may be bankrolling the crew across from it. Syndicate crews, independent mercenary companies, and criminal warlords operate throughout contested zones—groups like the Jerhit Syndicate, the Children of Kharan, and Teytan, alongside scattered independents and small Engineered crews capable of taking a relay outright if they choose.

Contractor culture does not recognize permanent sides. A protection detail for a new resource one month becomes a relay capture the next. The crew defending an outpost may be asked to destroy one on the following contract. The person who tried to kill you last tour might be standing in line next to you waiting to sign for the same detail, and by the end of that detail you might be working together as if nothing happened. Loyalty extends to the contract, not the banner. When the rates shift, the corridor flips, and everyone adjusts.

Experience required and difficulty range greatly by region. Contracts on the Geban continent are almost always light—security for a farm, watching clearing materials against thieves—paying five Daer (50,000 Varen) or less. Inland Thazvaar runs on syndicates with private relays, criminal warlords feeding on smuggling lanes and relay gaps, and imperial law stretched so thin it does not reach. Kela contracts focus on expansion into the uncharted and locating new energy sources, regardless of northern Kela remaining a mostly unknown black zone. Manalheim is resource rich, but the environment reclaims everything—nature takes back infrastructure almost immediately, making anything beyond small outposts and hubs impossible to maintain without a super spine that cannot be built in the modern era. Contracts reaching Ukhaalstaag are almost always engineer protection details against Ukhaal Walkers, paying extremely well but expecting contractors to arrive with their own teams and vehicles. A completed inland contract may yield 400 Auren (40 million Varen).

Solarn hires only highly experienced veterans to escort relay engineers on protection details—work that is among the most dangerous available, and among the most consequential, as every corridor that holds expands the reach of the grid and the economy it carries. Imperia Research issues no contracts directly but is indirectly responsible for roughly ninety percent of the intelligence shaping operations across all factions.

VESSELBORN Codex — Energy Wars

About Vesselborn

Vesselborn is the story of Geba — a world that has carried an empire for six thousand years.

It begins with Vaer’karesh, who unites five nations into the first empire and fixes a common language and law. Across the ages, the empire fights and finally breaks Thazvaar, welcomes Jeyrha through engineering and diplomacy, and liberates Berinu by choice. In Ngorrhal, the people of the mountain passes lose their ancestral name and are permanently renamed the Frost Sentinels, whose strength helps secure imperial rule. The Haavu cannon systems cement that dominance.

At its height, the empire spans continents and raises relay towers that bind cities, coasts, and passes into one network. Assassinations and civil wars follow — the Fracture — but the answer is not a vacuum. The Shadow Rule forms from imperial networks and manufactures peace, ending the warlord broadcasts and taking the world back from collapse. They are the empire made quiet: continuity without ceremony.

Today, the Shadow Rulers still govern from the background while the Energy Wars — covert struggles over power grids and relays in uncivilized regions — decide who controls energy, transport, and culture.

Stories range from relay-field defenses and inland recoveries to city governance and frontier resettlement; from rail lines and air programs that stitch regions together to festivals and work crews where culture and politics collide; from Frost Sentinel memory to families choosing the safety of hub clearings or the risk beyond the grid.

This is Geba.
It began in silence.
It has not yet ended.