Avalon

Avalon is the ancestral world of the Windsor dynasty, which later became House Avent — the ruling family of the Sollan Empire. The palatine House Marlowe of Delos claims a connection to Avalon through its oldest blood, tracing its lineage to William Windsor himself and to the earliest period of the Empire's founding.

During the Foundation War — the catastrophic conflict in which the Mericanii machine intelligences enslaved and nearly destroyed humanity — a figure known as William of Avalon led the human forces that expelled the Mericanii from Earth. The Mericanii's own surviving intelligence, Brethren, identifies William of Avalon as the agent of their banishment, describing how the surviving machine descendants were driven out and fled into deep space following their defeat. This victory and the subsequent founding of the Sollan Empire are considered the defining event in human history.

The reigning Emperor William XXIII of House Avent holds among his formal titles "King of Avalon" and "Lord Sovereign of the Kingdom of Windsor-in-Exile," reflecting the dynasty's historical claim to Avalon even after the seat of Imperial power moved to Forum. The Royal Victorian Knights — the Emperor's most elite personal order, numbering fewer than a thousand members — are constituted in their role as the household knights of the "Kings of Avalon," an institution established during the Golden Age when the Emperors still ruled a portion of Earth. The "Kingdom of Windsor-in-Exile" title suggests that the Windsor dynasty's claim to Avalon dates from a period predating the full establishment of the galactic Empire, and that the Emperors regard themselves as the dynasty's continuation away from their original seat of power.