Mother Ship

=Overview=
 * Mother Ships are incredibly massive craft that are capable of operating at up to ten miles below the surface of the water. They are a reflection of the generational seed ships that first took to the stars, eons ago.
 * Rather than operate alone, they are often followed by an assorted fleet, or 'shoal' of craft, ranging in every size, whose sole duty is to protect, scout and provide for the Mother Ship. 'Shoalers' tend to have a slightly different culture than the pods, the latter of which are often on their own for years.
 * It has been the tradition for hundred of years, that with the exception of some female members (who essentially act as full time crew), young Naians are expected to leave and join a pod soon after maturity.
 * Except in rare cases or times of war, pods are not allowed to return to the Mother Ship, unless they bring both enough supplies for themselves and two more besides.
 * The Naian Mother Ship is governed by a Home Council and an Exarch who serves for life and is elected among their number. The Home Council is usually made up of mariners that have been invited to return after amassing great renown.
 * Mother Ships make extensive use of aquaculture and hydrophonic farming.
 * Mother Ships have highly advanced recyling and refining capacities, able to 'filter' metal particles from the ocean, which are then used in production.
 * Built correctly, Mother Ships are very nearly unsinkable. Of the original eleven surviving Mother Ships, none of the nine that were subsequently lost was solely due to technical malfunction.
 * The Naian Mother Ship is known as the Empryean Peregrine. It has always been the largest, and is thought to have been built with the best parts of the original hull that belonged to the generational seed ship.
 * By contrast, the Mantean Mother Ship was the smallest of its kind. It is still vastly larger than any other craft, and is capable of far greater depths than the Empryean Peregrine. It has not been visited by non-Manteans for many years.
 * The destruction of the Syren Mother Ship a little over thirty years ago remains a cataclysmic loss that the Syrens have still not emotionally recovered from. It is at the heart of why many have sought to either be assimilated by the Naians or turn renegade.
 * A faction of Syren dispossessed who both resent the Naians and are too proud to turn renegade, wish to reclaim the wreck of their Mother Ship, which had fallen into the Little RIft. This puts them at violent odds with the Manteans, who claim both the Great and Little Rift, as well as the wreck of the Syren Mother Ship, as their own.
 * There are rumors that the Syren Mother Ship may not be irrepairably wrecked as originally believed, and that this is why the Manteans are so brutally determined to keep it to themselves.