Nessus

The Nessus Defense Force was the planet's military organization. The planet was served by a medical officer named Doctor Elkan, who performed surgical procedures including finger regrowth and shoulder reconstruction at Maddalo House. Maddalo House's long-term staff included a cook named Anju.

Nessus was formerly governed by Magnarch Karol Venantian, Magnarch of Centaurus, described as rapier-thin and stooped, with white hair, a pointed chin, and a seamed face. Emperor William had visited Nessus aboard his gilded frigate Radiant Dawn, diverting his fleet five years off course. During that visit, Venantian delivered reports on the planet's shipyards and troop cubicula to the Emperor, and the Emperor subsequently departed on a tour of some thirty frontier worlds beginning from Nessus, including Vanaheim, Aulos, Carteia, and Perfugium. Venantian had kept Hadrian confined at Maddalo House for approximately seventy years, and deliberately held Valka at Maddalo House during Hadrian's Eikana mission. The Cielcin Prophet Syriani Dorayaica had sent Lorian Aristedes to Nessus as an emissary to proclaim the Cielcin's dominion; Lorian was retrieved by the Nessus Defense Force from an escape pod and held at Fort Horn. After the events at Eue, Hadrian had been directed by Imperial order to travel to Nessus to report to Magnarch Venantian, a voyage of approximately sixteen years from Colchis. Nessus was among the worlds whose location Hadrian revealed to Syriani under torture. The planet was a major Imperial strategic base with the Nessus Defense Force, Fort Horn, shipyards, and orbital facilities. MINOS had designated Nessus as a target for deployment of the LTH-81 retrovirus, alongside Ares, Renaissance, Forum, and Delos. During Hadrian's exile in Jadd spanning more than two hundred years, the Cielcin attacked Nessus with thirty-two worldships, burning the planet. The Jaddian navy intervened in the defense, losing nine hundred ships in the engagement. Jaddian fleets also intercepted and vaporized objects suspected to be plague canisters intended for the planet. Commander Oliva stood against the Cielcin on Nessus when all was lost.

Maddalo House was a villa on Nessus described architecturally as Cid Arthurian fordgron, identifiable by its round arches and window style. It had an upper hall with Valka's study (with phototypes pinned to plaster walls), a garden, an English Garden with pencil cypresses, and a gymnasium with ancient fencing automata and a polished glass floor. The villa connected via freight lift cable to an orbital anchorage station. Fort Horn was an Imperial military installation on Nessus where Lorian Aristedes had been held for approximately twenty years as a security risk. The planet also had shipyards, troop cubicula, a space dock capable of outfitting warships, and an orbital anchorage station. The ultimate fate of these structures following the Cielcin assault is not recorded.