The Definitive Country Almanac: Homeguard Command — Part 2#

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

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: proposal throughout, except what Part 1 lists as established in earlier files.

Section 5: Government, Law & Politics#

Constitutional Framework#

Command#

How it really works. The Warden-General may order any contingent to move. The contingent's state may, "in war", recall it. Every Warden-General since Abernathy has known which of those two powers is real, and every Chief of Staff has planned around it. The register's Homeguard wants "realistic objectives", and its private fear is exact: "political appearances can demand victories our forces cannot buy at an acceptable cost."

The Split: Frontline, Survivors and Headquarters#

The register's line is that "frontline leaders, occupation survivors and headquarters judge acceptable losses differently." In 2314 the three are the Guard's three parties, and the question between them is the Seam.

Kirkland's first decision, on taking the turn, will be whether to send two hulls and a frame company to the Seam's edge. The Line ports, his own state, oppose the Bill and want no Assembly squadron anywhere near a harbour of theirs; the Seam is not a harbour.

The Judiciary#

• Homeguard commands; the member disciplines. A lent soldier is tried under their own state's military law, at their own state's court, for anything done on Homeguard service. Homeguard's own, the guard and the staff, are tried under the Accord Tribunals' rules by a Warden's Court of three contingent officers.
• Accord crimes by Homeguard personnel go to the Accord Tribunals like anyone else's: black sockets three times, twice in the picket and once, in 2262, in a Corridor Regiment officer seconded to headquarters; nothing else in 164 years.
• No execution, because the Assembly has none; a member may execute its own under its own law after a Homeguard conviction, and the Imperium did, once, in 2262, for that officer.

Foreign Relations & Defence#

Standing#

Homeguard has no foreign relations; it has an Assembly, fourteen lending states, one partner, and the powers it watches.

Relations#

The Assembly and Coalition rows follow the relationship register, in both directions.

Defence: the forces#

The Reserve (2309–2316): 60 frames and 6 hulls, Homeguard's own, from the Coalition's yards: Cr 15 billion. Delivered so far: none.

Doctrine. A hand on every blade; lent, not owned; the Accords first. Homeguard's tasks: enforce the Accords (the guard, the picket); keep the Quiet Sky; escort what the Assembly sends (the Monitors, the Commission, the Grain Flag when asked); and "planetary defence" (Chapter II), which for 164 years has meant nothing anyone has had to define, and which the Standing Order defines in a sealed page.

Section 6: Economy, Infrastructure & Industry#

Macroeconomics#

Homeguard has no economy. It has a budget from the Assembly and fourteen lending states who pay their own.

Working. 4.0 + 2.5 + 2.1 + 1.8 + 1.5 + 1.2 + 0.9 = 14.0. The members spend about Cr 21 billion a year more on the units they lend, most of it the Crown's and the Imperium's.

Procurement#

Infrastructure#

Communications#

• The Turn: Homeguard's own sheet, published at each Warden-General's handover and otherwise not at all.
• Vesper hears everything (chapter 11). Homeguard's orders to the picket and the escort pass through Compact relays, and the Assembly's request for the relays in an emergency has been refused since 2150 (the Vesper almanac).
• The Corridor Regiment is reached through the Imperial Legation in Aletheia, by letter.

Section 7: Culture, Arts & Daily Life#

Holidays & Celebrations#

Culinary Traditions#

The Homeguard mess serves each contingent's food by rota: Crown fish on one day, Orethi gorge bread and Bonded-style wild bread the next (the Vardane almanac), Hedge stew, coast oysters, Line rice, Stair mutton. The Field Ration on Sentinel Day is the Iron Winter's: hard bread, dried dray-meat is refused (the frontier never eats the dray: the Introduction), so salt fish, and black tea.

Arts & Literature#

• The Corridor March, in five languages.
• The Field Wall at the Sentinel Field: the pilots of 2146, by flag.
• Literature:
  • The Sentinel Field (2160): Ansel Harrow's account (the Assembly almanac);
  • Lent (2201): a Staff College study of the Contingent Rules, still the College's set text;
  • The Watchers (2288): a picket officer's account of 2284, published anonymously and never withdrawn;
  • Thirty-One (2295): the Grain Convoys, by their surviving commodore.

Sports & Recreation#

Social Norms & Etiquette#

• The hand, on meeting and parting: palm flat on the chest.
• Two flags, one order. A lent soldier never says which flag they would choose. Asking is the Guard's one rudeness.
• Never say "the Watchers" to a picket veteran. They say it of themselves.
• Never joke about the Sentinels (the Vardane almanac), in any company.
• Cold iron is not touched. The wrecks at the Sentinel Field are left where they fell.
• A pilot's socket is private. Do not look at it, and never touch it.

Section 8: Appendices & Reference Materials#

Statistical Tables#

Gazetteer#

Every place below is on the interactive Atlas. The generated Register of Homeguard Command lists them.

Bibliography#

In-world sources#

• The Charter of Aletheia, Article VII (2150); the Contingent Rules (2151); the Abernathy Order (2279); the Reserve Act (2309)
• The Sentinel Field (2160), Lent (2201), The Watchers (2288), Thirty-One (2295)
• The Turn (at each handover)
• The Corridor March (five texts, one tune)

Development sources#

• 00 - Spine and Status · Chapter I · Chapter II · Chapter III · Chapter IV · Chapter V · Chapter VI
• The Homeworld Assembly almanac, which this almanac follows for the contingents, the Warden-Generals, the budget and the Requisition Bill
• The Caldren Crown almanac (the Royal Frame Corps, the Orbital Squadron, the contribution); the Vardane Imperium almanac (the Sentinels, the Imperial Frame Corps, the Day of the Hand); the Lesser Crowns almanac (the Stair Accord Frame Company, Arven broadcloth); the Ilyr almanac (the Order as partner, the Deepwell detachment); the Rovessa almanac (the Grain Flag); the Kronos colony almanac (the Fuel Monitors); the Vesper almanac (the picket, the relays); the Coalition almanac (priority production); chapter 11
• 10 - Who's Who (the flag)
• The faction roster and the relationship register: Homeguard's objective, fear, leverage and split, and its positions towards the Homeworld Assembly and the Cinderbelt Coalition, and theirs towards it. The register's Zhorak entry (removed from canon) is not used.
• Almanac structure supplied by Briana.

Guidance for AI actors#

• Homeguard owns nothing. Every Homeguard unit in a scene belongs to a member state, and can be recalled "in war". A Homeguard officer commands people who have another flag.
• It has fought once, an escort action, and lost 31. Its people know this, and the belt reminds them.
• The Watchers. Hearthport's people in the Guard hold it to 2284. Do not let a Homeguard character forget it, and do not let a belt character let them.
• The Seam question is open: whether Kirkland sends escorts to the Seam's edge in 2314. Do not settle it in a scene.
• The Standing Order is sealed. Nobody knows what it says. Do not open it.
• Never joke about the Sentinels.
• This almanac is approved. Briana approved the whole almanac on 19 September 2026 (the Almanac Approval Decision).