The space above Omin is not empty. It is a layered realm of debris, danger, and opportunity—a vertical frontier where the desperate and the ambitious carve out their territories in the void. To look up from the hive is to see not stars, but wreckage, and beyond that, the bleeding wound of the Rictus Borealis.
Most citizens of Omin live and die without ever leaving the hive's gravity well. For them, Supra Urbem is a distant abstraction, a realm of smugglers and naval officers that has no bearing on their daily grind. But for those who operate in the shadows—or who seek to escape them—the skies above Omin are a battlefield, a marketplace, and a way out.
For those who live and work in the scrap-cloud, life is a constant gamble. Scavengers pick through the debris, searching for valuable salvage—intact components, rare metals, functional weapons—that can be sold to the Adeptus Mechanicus, smuggled off-world, or traded to other gangs. The work is dangerous; decompression, collisions, and ambushes are all common hazards. But the potential rewards are great, and for those with nowhere else to go, the scrap-cloud offers a kind of freedom that does not exist in the hive below.
The scrap-cloud is also home to a small population of permanent residents—outcasts, fugitives, and those who have simply given up on life planetside. These "cloud-dwellers" live in repurposed hulks and makeshift stations, eking out a living through scavenging, smuggling, or providing services to passing ships. They are a hard, paranoid lot, suspicious of outsiders and fiercely protective of their territory. The Oneohtrix and the Headless both recruit from the cloud-dwellers, but most prefer to remain independent, trusting neither gang to have their best interests at heart.
Despite its dangers, the scrap-cloud has a certain appeal. There are no Arbites here, no Tech-Priests demanding tithes, no Ministorum priests preaching about sin and salvation. In the scrap-cloud, a person can disappear—reinvent themselves, start over, or simply fade into the wreckage and be forgotten. For some, that is worth any price.
The Rictus Borealis is a warp rift that hangs above Omin like a vast, suppurating gash in reality. It is crimson red at all times, pulsing with a sickly, unnatural light that bathes the hive in shades of blood and shadow. At times, the rift glows quite brightly—flaring with sudden, terrible luminosity that makes the night sky as bright as day and sends the faithful scrambling to their shrines to pray for deliverance.
The rift is not stable. It ebbs and flows, contracting and expanding in cycles that the Adeptus Astra Telepathica has attempted (and failed) to predict. When the rift swells, strange phenomena manifest across the system: vox-channels fill with static and whispers, astropaths scream in their sanctums, and citizens report dreams of impossible geometries and voices that speak in languages no human throat could produce. When the rift contracts, the system breathes a collective sigh of relief—but the relief is always temporary. The Rictus Borealis is always there, always waiting.
The Adeptus Ministorum preaches that the rift is a test of faith, a reminder that the Emperor's Light must be vigilantly maintained lest darkness consume all. The Tech-Priests of Mars regard it as a scientific anomaly, worthy of study but ultimately irrelevant to the practical business of extracting resources from Sethis Major. The common citizens of Omin have a simpler view: the rift is a bad omen, and the sooner you stop looking at it, the better.
House Janis-Voss (from Voidport Yspiax on Sethis Minor): House Janis-Voss maintains a vigilant watch over the Rictus Borealis from their stronghold on Sethis Minor. The Knight House has deployed a network of augur stations and void-sensors throughout the region, monitoring the rift for any sign of daemonic incursion or warp-spawned abominations. So far, the rift has remained quiescent—a wound in reality, but not an active threat. House Janis-Voss does not trust this quiescence. They have stationed the Astral Treader and two lesser god-engines in a state of permanent readiness, their reactors idling, their pilots ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
The relationship between House Janis-Voss and the other powers in the system is defined by this vigil. The Knights regard themselves as the first and last line of defense against whatever horrors the rift might unleash, and they expect appropriate deference from the lesser factions. The Lords Leeran resent this attitude but cannot afford to challenge it; the Adeptus Mechanicus tolerates it because the Knights' presence ensures the manufactorums are not overrun by daemons; the Navis Imperialis cooperates with the Knights because navigating near the rift is dangerous enough without making enemies of the people who might save you if things go wrong.
House Janis-Voss does not patrol the scrap-clouds or intervene in the petty squabbles of smugglers and gangers. Their concern is the rift, and the rift alone. This single-minded focus has made them both respected and isolated—a powerful force that looms over the system but rarely touches it directly.