Gieliaden Sohia
Gielaiden Sohia was one of the last trans-system ships of the Terran Expanse, and certainly the last one to reach its final destination.
According to available records, the Gieliaden Sohia departed from the [Star Systems](/macropedia/star-systems)/Acentam system during the waning years of the Terran Expanse, heading to the [Star Systems](/macropedia/star-systems)/Waudbect system. In other times, it would have been a routine mission, but with the mounting problems with Soup travel, such trips were more rare and risky. During those dimming days, people sought to return to their native systems. Trans-system ships were having more difficult times travelling. The Gielaiden Sohia was but one of such ships filled with returnees.
Communication between systems was based on such voyages, and knowing when a ship was due was based on assumptions of how long it would normally take for a round-trip, including bumper time for when the ship would be in a port of the other system. So, the assumed three years for the ship’s return was not considered unusual. After seven years, hope was finally abandoned, and the ship recorded as lost. By that time, Soup travel had halted. Families mourned their losses, or hoped that the ship never left the other system–how were they to know differently?
That was a difficult time for most Terrans. A very dark time. Most systems lacked connection with others, and most of those assumed they were alone and cut-off from the rest of civilization. History records the few systems that were able to maintain spotty ties during the Decline.
Of course, the Sohia Family was not to forget the loss of their ship, regardless of its official status. The family kept the book open on the ship, firmly convinced that its captain obeyed orders to bring the ship back with its valuable cargo.
Two-hundred eighty-five years before the Imperium, Gieliaden Sohia materialized in the [Star System](/macropedia/star-system)/Waudbect system. Sohia Family reported the ship 729 years over-due. Some of the ship’s passengers and crew were alive, only about a decade older than they had been when they left. They told harrowing tales of survival, but the various books written by survivors contradicted one another. It was this ship’s return that breathed new life into the Sohia Family and led to the establishment of the Waudbect Society–the pre-Imperium oligarchy. Other families in this society included the future Dabrian Dynasty and Tawmerik Dynasty