Old Families

The Old Families were the dynastic ruling houses of Tarsonis and, through it, the Terran Confederacy. Descended from the commanders of the colony ship Nagglfar, they were the wealthiest and most powerful terrans in the Koprulu sector, and they had run the affairs of Tarsonis from the year "naught." Distinguished by a characteristic drawl, they held businesses and representation across multiple worlds, knew the secrets of the Confederate Council, and were largely immune to all but the most important laws. The houses included the Calabas, Kusinis, Duke, Terra, and Tygore families, and the Mengsk family had once been among their number before Arcturus Mengsk turned against them.

Origins and structure#

The Old Families traced their descent to the original commanders of the Nagglfar, one of the colony ships that had carried humanity's exiles into the Koprulu sector. Upon settling on Tarsonis they made law and order a priority, establishing a police force and building its headquarters out of the remains of the Nagglfar itself. When Moria and Umoja refused to join a conglomerated government, the Old Families responded by expanding their military and colonizing more aggressively, and in doing so they formed the Terran Confederacy.

The families maintained businesses and representation on multiple worlds and were largely immune to all but the most important laws. They held the formal "right" to advise the democratically elected Confederate government on a range of issues, advice the government could accept or reject. Many members married into other families to forge stronger genetic and financial unions. As these were rarely love matches, both spouses generally kept mistresses and "jigs," and offspring were often produced through artificial insemination. Gender roles were strictly divided, with the wife serving as "head of the household" and the husband placed in charge of security and referred to in political matters as a "father." Each year the families held a "Reunion," an interplanetary summit at which their representatives discussed the economy and governance with the Confederate government; the 2488 Reunion was held in the Hall of Reason in Tarsonis City.

Economic dominance and corruption#

The Old Families sustained their position through a combination of force, guile, and corruption, controlling both the media and the economy. A favoured business tactic was to form "loss-leading" companies on fringe worlds, drive their competitors out of business, and then raise prices on necessities. They both competed and cooperated with one another to preserve their collective grip on the Confederate government and its citizens.

In the decades leading up to the Guild Wars, the Confederate Armed Forces were repeatedly used to strip mining claims from prospectors affiliated with the Kel-Morian Combine, after which the claims were transferred to Old Family companies. Many of the families grew still wealthier supplying the Confederate military during the Guild Wars, a period in which the war's coverage left fewer resources for investigating their dealings. As they amassed their fortunes and vied for greater power, the Old Families became more avaricious and more violent in suppressing discontent across the Confederacy. This culminated in the nuclear decimation of Korhal when that world attempted to secede, an atrocity that drove Arcturus Mengsk, himself the son of a family that had once belonged among them, into open rebellion.

The Great War and the flight of the scions#

After the fall of the Sara system at the opening of the Great War, with fear of the zerg and protoss running high and terrorism increasing, the head of the Calabas family, Arturro Calabas, proposed a plan to safeguard the families' children. Under the public pretense of a vacation, the scions of the Old Families were sent aboard the yacht Padraig to a resort on Tyrador IX, in reality to shield them from rebel and alien attacks. Their departure reduced the casualties when the families were later struck by the terrorist Cliff Nadaner. The exception was the Terra family, whose household had been infiltrated by a spy; the heads of the family and their son were killed alongside several servants, though the attackers were in turn destroyed by a psionic outburst from the family's youngest daughter, November.

During the Fall of Tarsonis the Old Families were largely wiped out. Sons of Korhal forces impeded the protoss from attacking the zerg, and the Swarm in turn destroyed the families' power base. As the world fell, Arturro Calabas contacted the scions sheltering on Tyrador IX and ordered them to activate "Plan Razor," which sent them to Shi, the fourth world of a string of mining planets known as "The Baker's Dozen" that Calabas owned.

The Baker's Dozen and the executed heirs#

On Shi the plan unravelled. A secretive transport dropped a zerg drone onto the world, and the resulting infestation overwhelmed the scions' security contingent. The Padraig fled and left the children behind. They tried to defend themselves with mining lasers but were nearly all killed; only four scions survived, Morgan Calabas, Antonia Tygore, and the twins Bess and Rockham Kusinis. In 2501, around the anniversary of the Fall of Tarsonis and the rise of Arcturus Mengsk as emperor of the Terran Dominion, a ghost training team that included Nova Terra and Gabriel Tosh intercepted the survivors' distress call, defeated the zerg, and rescued the heirs.

The rescue did not save them. Arcturus Mengsk personally ordered the ghost team memory-wiped of the incident and the heirs handed over to the marines to be secretly executed, after which their deaths were "confirmed" as having occurred on Tarsonis. Only an injured Gabriel Tosh escaped the memory wipe. With the deaths of the last scions, the Old Families that had ruled the Terran Confederacy for generations were effectively extinguished, their place taken by the Mengsk dynasty they had once counted among their own.