The Definitive Country Almanac: Homeguard Command — Part 1#

Kethra Almanac • Approved 19 September 2026 • drafted 18 September 2026 • Sections 1–4 (Sections 5–8 are in Part 2)

Status: approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision). Where this file calls something a proposal, read it as approved, except the open points that decision lists.

Status before approval:

• Established in earlier files, and taken as given here (proposals there too, unless the spine's canon table covers them):
  • The name Homeguard Command, approved by Briana: "the Assembly's joint defence command" (the spine); "the Assembly's joint defence command, built from national contingents" (the Who's Who).
  • "A joint defence command built from national contingents. Its mandate is planetary defence and enforcing the Accords. Its commander, the Warden-General, rotates among member states every four years." (Chapter II.) Its headquarters stand in the Assembly Precinct on Step 6 of Aletheia (Chapter III). "Orbital defence is the responsibility of Homeguard Command and the Crown's Orbital Squadron" (Chapter III).
  • The Frame Accord (AL 2150): "No frame without a hand." Autonomous weapons, and weapons controlled remotely beyond line of sight, are banned (Chapter II). The moral behind it: "A human hand on every blade. Only a person may kill. Machines that kill by themselves are an abomination (the Iron Winter)." (Chapter V.)
  • The Iron Winter, AL 2141–2146: the Imperium's Sentinels (deployed 2131) killed about 1.3 million people after their control network failed; "piloted frames from every nation destroyed them"; the Crown's Royal Frame Corps "formed the first mixed-nation frame companies"; Ansel Harrow "led the first mixed-nation frame company into the corridor provinces" and is revered by "the military; the Assembly". "Joking about the Sentinels is unforgivable" in the Imperium. (Chapter IV; the Crown and Vardane almanacs.)
  • The quiet star, "a star drawn without rays", is the sign of "the Quiet Sky: humanity kept hidden", used by "Homeguard Command; the Accord Inspectorate" (Chapter IV). Homeguard's flag is a gold star on slate grey between two gold bars (the Who's Who figure, as the Assembly almanac describes it). Its uniform cloth is Arven broadcloth (the Lesser Crowns almanac).
  • What the members lend: the Crown's "one frame brigade and naval and orbital units assigned to the Assembly", and its Orbital Squadron of 22 craft, which "operates within Homeguard Command arrangements" (the Crown almanac); the Lesser Crowns' Stair Accord Frame Company (2152; 3,400 people and 96 frames in all) (the Lesser Crowns almanac); the Order of the Veiled Sun, "an exceptional partner" whose "separate obligations limit availability" and which wants "specialist deployments, and honest operational limits" (the Ilyr almanac). The Homeguard orbital picket enforces the Quiet Sky on orbit's transmitters (the Vesper almanac). Homeguard "wants priority production" from the Coalition's yards (the Coalition almanac).
  • The Assembly almanac's account of Homeguard: about 50,000 lent by the members, 322 frames, 48 hulls, 6 craft; the Assembly pays only for the Inspectorate guard; Homeguard stood aside in the Corridor War and "did nothing" at Hearthport; it escorted the Grain Convoys and the Fuel Monitors; the Requisition Bill (2313); the Assembly's fear of "emergency powers becoming permanent military government". (The Homeworld Assembly almanac.)
  • From the register: its objective is to defend people and territory with the forces it can actually supply; its fear is orders that sacrifice troops for appearances or abandon civilians; its leverage is defensive forces, local intelligence and emergency logistics; its split is that frontline leaders, occupation survivors and headquarters judge acceptable losses differently. Its positions towards the Homeworld Assembly and the Cinderbelt Coalition, and theirs towards it, are used throughout. The register describes Homeguard in a later war; the character it describes is already visible in AL 2314.
• Proposal: everything else. It is built on the spine, Chapters I–VI, the Who's Who, the Homeworld Assembly almanac and the members' almanacs.

Reading note. Homeguard is an army that owns nothing. Every frame, hull and soldier in it belongs to a member state and is lent to the Assembly for a term, which is exactly how the fifteen states wanted it in 2150 and exactly why Homeguard has fought one battle in 164 years. Every Homeguard post named here is on the interactive Atlas. The full list is the generated Register of Homeguard Command.

Section 1: National Overview & Identity#

Official Name & Etymology#

• Formal name: The Homeguard Command of the Homeworld Assembly, under Article VII of the Charter of Aletheia, "the Guard".
• Short names: Homeguard; the Guard.
• People: the lent (the contingents, who say it of themselves); the Guard's own (the Inspectorate guard and the staff); the Watchers (the picket's people, and the Demeter escort, from 2284). The adjective is Homeguard.

Where the name comes from. The Charter of 2150 called Kethra the homeworld and its states' common defence the guard of it: the Homeguard. The word was chosen against the alternative, Assembly Army, which the Imperium refused to sign and the Lesser Crowns refused to pay for. A guard defends what is behind it and goes nowhere; that was the promise, and the members have held Homeguard to it.

What others call it:

The salute is the hand: the right palm flat on the chest, over the heart, where a pilot's hand rests on the frame's control. It is Chapter V's "human hand on every blade", made into a gesture, and it is returned by Imperial and Crown pilots alike.

National Symbols#

The State Profile#

Chronological Timeline#

Section 2: Geography & Environment#

Physical Geography#

Homeguard holds no ground. It holds posts, and the right to stand at its members' stations.

Where Homeguard is not#

• The belt. Homeguard has never had a post in the Cinderbelt. The Crown has none either (chapter 11), and the Coalition has never invited one.
• Hearthport. Homeguard's presence at Kronos is two hulls and the Monitors they carry.
• The Line's harbours. The ports want "no Assembly squadron in their harbours" (the Assembly almanac); the Commission cutters are the Armistice Commission's own (the Assembly almanac), lent by the ports.

"Climate"#

Homeguard's year is the Assembly's: the sitting and the recess. Its seasons are the turn (a Warden-General's four years), the muster (Sentinel Day, when every contingent sends a company to the Sentinel Field), and the passing-out at the Frame School on Harrow's Day.

Life and Resources#

Section 3: History & Chronology#

The mixed-nation companies (2141–2150)#

The Sentinels were built "to guard the corridor without soldiers" (the Vardane almanac), and for five winters after their control network failed they killed anything that moved (Chapter IV). What destroyed them was not an army but companies: piloted frames from every nation, formed by the Crown's Royal Frame Corps into the first mixed-nation frame companies (the Crown almanac), with Crown, Cordalese, coast and even Imperial pilots in one line. Ansel Harrow led the first of them into the corridor provinces (Chapter IV). At the Sentinel Field outside Tolvard, in 2146, pilots of five flags cut down the last machines and stood in the wreckage together. Homeguard is the attempt to keep them standing there.

Lent, not owned (2150–2160)#

The Charter's Article VII made Homeguard "a joint defence command built from national contingents" (Chapter II), and the Contingent Rules of 2151 said what that meant: lent, not owned. No member would pay for an army it did not command, and no member would let another command its frames for longer than a term. So every Homeguard unit is its state's, lent for four years and returned. The Warden-General "rotates among member states every four years" (Chapter II) for the same reason. Ansel Harrow, the first, accepted the Rules and wrote in the margin of his copy: "An army that is lent will be lent back."

The Frame School at Thessane (2160) is Homeguard's answer: if the units are lent, the pilots at least can be trained together, as the Iron Winter's companies fought together.

The Guard of the Accords (2160–2279)#

For its first century Homeguard was the Inspectorate's escort and the Quiet Sky's picket. The Sethe drones (2171) and the Marrach broadcaster (2205) are the Assembly almanac's cases; that Homeguard's guard seized the drones and stood in the Marrach house's yard while the inspectors worked is this almanac's proposal. It carried the quarantine inspectors through Vesper Fever. It has never been refused a door.

It did nothing about the belt, because it had no post there and the Council deferred every belt question (2188); and nothing about the First Dark (2247), because a dues dispute is not an Accord.

The Abernathy Order and the Watchers (2279–2286)#

When the Corridor War came, Warden-General Callum Abernathy of Cordale faced the Charter's silence: nothing in Article VII said what Homeguard should do when two members fought. His Chief of Staff, Ulf Moreno, wrote the Abernathy Order (2279): every contingent returns to its state; the Inspectorate guard escorts the inspectors to both fronts; the picket keeps the Quiet Sky. Homeguard stood aside (the Assembly almanac). Its Warden-Generals through the war were Lesser Crowns officers, some of whose states were sending frames to the Crown (the Lesser Crowns almanac), and the Order kept them out of it.

In 2284 the picket's crews watched the Taking of Hearthport on Vesper's relays, with the Kronos link 34 to 52 minutes behind (chapter 11), and had no orders. The belt has called Homeguard the Watchers ever since.

The Grain Convoys (2287–2290)#

Homeguard's only battle was an escort. Through the Lean Years, Rovessa carriers under the Grain Flag carried Holds grain north (the Crown almanac), "food and medicine for every side and no troops or munitions for any" (the Rovessa almanac), and from 2287 Warden-General Reva Fairlie of Hastholm put Homeguard hulls beside them. Forty convoys sailed. Two were attacked in the Girdle Sea by raiders who flew no flag and whom the Imperium disowned; 31 Homeguard sailors died, and no grain was lost. They are Homeguard's only dead, and their names are read on Convoy Day.

The Monitors' escort (2291–2314)#

The Armistice gave the Assembly the fuel clauses and the Fuel Monitors, and Homeguard the duty of carrying them: two hulls at Demeter, the Demeter escort, whose crews have watched the Cold Strike (2296) and everything since, with "no mandate over people" (the Kronos colony almanac). Many of them are Hearthport's escapers and deportees who enlisted in the Crown's navy to be lent to the Guard, and stand where the Watchers stood. They are the register's occupation survivors, and they judge Homeguard's losses by what it did not do in 2284.

The Reserve and the Bill (2309–2314)#

In 2309 the Assembly funded Homeguard's first frames of its own: the Reserve Programme, 60 frames and 6 hulls from the Coalition's yards, Cr 15 billion over seven years. The Coalition's Council of Yards signed and its Assembly of Crews demanded worker protection (this almanac's proposal; the Coalition almanac records only that Homeguard "wants priority production"), and the first frames are late at Brightspan Yard. The register gives both sides: Homeguard wants "reliable schedules and honest capacity estimates" and knows that "pushing exhausted yards harder can cost more"; the Coalition says "we support defence without pretending capacity is limitless".

In 2313 Warden-General Zeno Nordqvist and Chief of Staff Beatriz Haugen put the Requisition Bill before the Floor (the Assembly almanac): the power to requisition production and docks in a declared emergency. Homeguard's case is the register's own: it must "defend people and territory with the forces it can actually supply", and it can supply none. The Assembly's fear is also the register's: "emergency powers becoming permanent military government". Amadi Kirkland of the Line ports takes the turn on 19 Blaze 2314, from a state that opposes the Bill.

Historical Rulers & Leaders#

Warden-Generals#

The 42 Warden-Generals since 2150, Ansel Harrow the first, are listed in full, with their states in the Charter's rotation, in the Homeworld Assembly almanac.

Chiefs of Staff (complete)#

21 Chiefs of Staff since 2150: the permanent professional head under the rotating Warden-General, appointed by the Accord Council for eight years. By convention no Chief has come from the Imperium, which keeps its officers at home. (All proposal. Generated from a fixed seed with mixed name pools; see the naming principles.) The current Chief is in bold.

Figures every Homeguard recruit knows#

Section 4: Demographics & Society#

Population Metrics#

Homeguard has no population. It has about 50,000 people on loan, and 3,800 of its own.

The lent#

• A lent soldier has two flags, and answers to Homeguard only while assigned. The Contingent Rules forbid a Homeguard officer to take orders from their own state's officers during a turn, and forbid their state to recall them before it ends, "except in war", which is the clause the Abernathy Order used.
• Pilots carry link-sockets with Accord registration numbers (Chapter II). Chapter I's phantom frame, "the lingering sense of the frame's body", is the veterans' mark; long hours linked cause fatigue and headaches (Chapter I). Homeguard's pilots fly less than any others on Kethra, and know it.
• The Watchers' children. About a tenth of the picket and the whole Demeter escort are Hearthport's people: deportees, escapers and their children, who enlisted in the Crown's navy and asked to be lent to the Guard, to stand where it stood in 2284.

Language#

• Hallspeech for orders (Chapter IV), because it is the one register every contingent's officers were taught.
• Link-cant, the pilots' speech: linked (in the frame), hand (a pilot: "a good hand"), the blade (a frame's weapon, or the frame), cold (unlinked; also a Sentinel: "cold iron"), the field (the Sentinel Field, and any battle), lent (assigned; also, by irony, useless: "lent as a lent hull").
• The Corridor March is sung in five languages at once, each contingent in its own, which is the point.

Religion & Belief Systems#

Homeguard has no faith and, like the Assembly, observes all of them. Its people, by declaration: the Cantorate 41%, Plain Reckoners 22%, the Roll of Service 20% (the Corridor Regiment, counted), no affiliation 12%, the Wolf Rite 4% (the Hedge companies), other 1%.

Sentinel Day (4 Thaw), the Imperium's Day of the Hand (the Vardane almanac), is Homeguard's holy day: the parade at the Sentinel Field, "every pilot's hand raised in the canopy" (the Vardane almanac), with the Imperial Frame Corps. It is the one day the Corridor Regiment stands beside the Guard.

Public Health#

Education#