House of Sheshuq’um
“The rumors? Curious minds will always invent ghosts where they can’t see clearly. What I can confirm is that our work continues to be essential to the Pan-Solar Consortium’s future—quietly, precisely, and without the need for unnecessary... spectacle.”
From Shoreline Labs to Subsurface Thrones
House Sheshuq’um traces its lineage not to ancient noble bloodlines or martial conquest, but to a corporate bio-research team operating during the waning days of the Reformed Solar Commonwealth. Originally a coastal biotech firm on Earth’s western seaboard, Sheshuq’um Labs focused on biosphere mapping and post-collapse ecological salvage, studying the strange legacies left behind by the First Terran Empire. Their breakthrough came unintentionally—an Uplift protocol meant for chimpanzees that resulted in hereditary sentience, rather than temporary cognitive augmentation. This discovery, kept secret as the Cozine Disaster unraveled the Commonwealth, was preserved when the research team escaped to their oceanic fallback installation, waiting out the chaos in the deep. When they emerged in Year 87, their reappearance marked the unveiling of a new force in post-crisis reconstruction: Tankbrains, Uplifted cephalopods biologically engineered as sentient wetware to power systems, crunch logistics, and serve as elite organic processors. Their contribution earned them elevation to Great House status—though their past remains, deliberately, murky.
Uplifted Allies and the Europan Bastion
House Sheshuq’um is unique among the Great Houses for its unwavering advocacy of Uplifted rights and for accepting nonhuman sapients as full House members. While the original human researchers and their descendants form the House’s inner nobility, a large majority of their vassal houses, scholars, security forces, and Men-at-Arms are composed of Uplifted chimpanzees, orangutans, corvids, and cephalopods. Their headquarters lie in the subsurface oceans of Europa, where enormous domed complexes line the seafloor like modern coral cities—capable of supporting both air-breathers and aquatic intellects in close proximity. Here, humans collaborate with their octopoid Tankbrain counterparts in projects that blur the line between biology and code. House Sheshuq’um’s military and logistical strategies frequently integrate organic computational units, making them both unpredictable and deeply insular. To outsiders, the Europan enclaves are as mysterious as they are efficient—sealed ecosystems of silence and sentience.
Whispers from the Abyss
Despite their public focus on biotech, cybernetic integration, and the ethical treatment of Uplifts, House Sheshuq’um is persistently shadowed by rumor. Conspiracy theorists claim the House is far older than records suggest, and that their cephalopods are not merely Uplifted, but remnants of a prehuman sentient race—beings from Earth’s deep past who orchestrated their “discovery” via the Uplift program. Their House motto, "In Silence, We Endure," does little to dispel such suspicions. Likewise, the cryptic design of their House crest—a checkerboard of abyssal black and bio-luminescent blue—is interpreted by some as symbolic of hidden depths and dual identities. Officially, their research programs are listed as "secure civil logistics and interspecies protocol optimization," but whispers abound of memory engineering, neogenetic resurrections, and even contact experiments with nonlocal entities. Whatever the truth, House Sheshuq’um thrives where others drown—in the quiet dark, beneath crushing pressure, watching and waiting.
In Silence, We Endure
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