House Goddard

The House Goddard is a minor faction of Naev.

The Facts
Many people in Empire space and its surroundings have heard of House Goddard, and when asked they will often be able to tell you that it is a minor House responsible for manufacturing the massive Goddard battlecruisers. What they will usually not be able to tell you, however, is that House Goddard has an interesting history.

It all began in the early days of the Old Empire, mere decades after the end of the Faction Wars. On planet Zhiru, on the fringe of Empire space, a boy was born to the name of Eduard Manuel Goddard, son of Nancy and Halix Goddard. Though by no means poor, the Goddard family had little in the ways of luxury, and young Eduard was only given a basic education. His parents expected him to become a factory laborer, just like them.

However, it soon became apparent that Eduard was different from other people. He thought in different ways, saw things differently, had different preconceptions. For some time this caused nothing but social difficulties, but Eduard would not, or could not change the person he was. He secluded himself from society, pondering, scribbling, tinkering. He started coming up with all sorts of unusual devices, designing them and sometimes crafting them by hand, only to forget about them and leaving the designs and prototypes lying around his apartment. Those who knew him sometimes jokingly compared him to Leonardo da Vinci.

Ingenious though some of his inventions were, most people largely ignored Eduard Goddard. He was, after all, a known eccentric, and therefore best avoided. This changed abruptly when Eduard designed a spacefaring vessel. It was not just any other spaceship. It was huge. It dwarfed any other vessel commissioned in those times, and if it were ever to fly, it would surely become an unstoppable force. And, against all odds, the design was sound. It could be built, right there on Zhiru. It would work. Imperial intelligence did not take long to learn of this revolutionary development, and soon Eduard found himself in a position to sell his plans to the Imperial navy, the biggest opportunity he had ever had in his life.

Eduard declined. He would not see one of his creations usurped by the war machine of the Empire. The Empire argued, raised their price, even threatened. But Eduard stubbornly withheld his design. Finally, exasperated, the Empire settled for a compromise. Eduard and his family would be elevated to a minor House, given appropriate status and autonomous control over their world, in return for allegiance to the Empire and a supply of the battlecruiser warships. This was acceptable to Eduard, and so House Goddard was created.

With the revenues from the Goddard Battlecruiser, more commonly known simply as Goddard, House Goddard secured its hold over Zhiru, and gained fame throughout the Old Empire. Eduard himself, however, was not nearly so prosperous. He had no interest in running House Goddard, and left it in the hands of his closest family. Even after the inception of his House, he stayed cooped up in his home - albeit now a rather luxurious villa. He never even left Zhiru during his lifetime, despite repeated appeals from his family and associates to visit other worlds and increase the number of his horizons. He eventually died at a respectable age, amidst his mind-children and his machinations. Details of his passing are strangely sketchy. Though there is a modest monument in his honor somewhere in the capital of Zhiru, he left no grave. It is rumored that Eduard's body is now floating somewhere in space, entombed in the space ship that bears his name, surrounded by many of his other inventions.