THE RUMOR MILL
Ruseas Company is an information and media organization operating in Kanata and distributing across Kepler.
Its most recognizable publication is The Rumor Mill — a widely circulated publication known for its sensational stories, political commentary, rankings, rumors, and information gathered from seemingly impossible places.
And information travels.
Politics
Global affairs, political movements, diplomatic tensions, leadership changes, and the decisions shaping nations.
Economics
Markets, trade, industries, major corporations, economic trends, and the people influencing Kepler’s wealth.
Psinecraft
Ability notes, notable Psions, emerging abilities, classifications, and observations concerning the world’s most powerful individuals.
Entertainment
Celebrities, performers, public figures, cultural events, scandals, and everything else that captures the public’s attention.
The Rumor Mill is particularly famous for its ranked lists. Some are taken seriously. Others are debated endlessly.
Kepler’s Fab 50
The 50 Most Powerful and Influential Humans on Kepler.
Top 10 Richest People on Kepler
A ranking of Kepler’s wealthiest individuals.
Top 10 Most Dangerous
Individuals considered among the most dangerous people on Kepler.
25 Under 25
Young individuals making an impact across Kepler.
Rising Dawn
Details of a promising young Psion.
Others are debated endlessly.
That’s part of the appeal.
The Rumor Mill’s sources are everywhere. Information may come directly from the subject of a story — or from someone thousands of miles away.
No rumor is too distant to investigate.
And not every source is telling the truth.
Thoroughly Researched
Some stories are thoroughly researched and supported by multiple sources.
Incomplete Information
Some stories are based on information that is incomplete, contradictory, or difficult to verify.
Rumor
Some stories are little more than rumors that happened to reach the newsroom.
Deliberate Falsehood
Occasionally, information is deliberately published that is not true.
The Reader Decides
This uncertainty is part of what makes the publication so difficult to dismiss.
The Rumor Mill rarely presents speculation as absolute fact. Instead, its stories leave room for interpretation.
Maybe it’s true.
Maybe it isn’t.
And sometimes, the reader has to decide.
Sometimes bringing a topic to the public is the only point of an article.
Independence
Ruseas Company does not publicly belong to any particular political faction, nation, or ideology.
It works with a wide variety of people and organizations across Kepler — including those operating outside the boundaries of respectable society.
But Working With Someone…
Working with someone does not mean working for them.
The Company maintains its independence even from its own national government.
At least that’s what they say.
Its information may benefit one faction today and expose that same faction tomorrow.
The Rumor Mill’s greatest strength is also its greatest contradiction.
That means its publications can occasionally contradict one another.
One Story
One article may support a particular interpretation of an event.
Another Story
Another may suggest something entirely different.
Yet somewhere between the speculation, conflicting accounts, and sensationalism are genuine facts — and information that can prove extremely useful to anyone paying attention.
The Rumor Mill doesn’t necessarily tell its readers what happened.
It gives them pieces of what might have happened.
The rest is left to them.
Ruseas Company is not an organization seeking to reshape Kepler according to its own vision.
It is not trying to rule nations.
It is not trying to choose winners.
It is not trying to become the world’s moral authority.
And let everyone else deal with the consequences.
In a world where every nation has secrets and every powerful individual has something to hide, information can be more valuable than weapons.
Because a weapon can destroy a person.
INFORMATION CAN DESTROY EVERYTHING AROUND THEM.
Rumor Mill Articles
The Rumor Mill – Special Edition
March 1, 299 XE
Headline: “Moments In History”
Warden’s Maw has fallen. The Walking Calamity is free once more.
There are moments in history so profound that they burn themselves into memory. Moments where the world stops, where every detail— where you were, what you were doing, even the way the air felt— becomes crystal clear, seared into the mind forever.
Ask the old-timers, and they’ll speak of the Convergence War or the Irie Civil War, recounting them as if they had been there, as if history had left its mark on them personally even though it had been about 300 years since those events.
The scholars and explorers will whisper about the Great Blue Disappearance or the Echoes of the Future—events that defied understanding, that left behind more questions than answers.
The Echoes of the Future, in particular, was a phenomenon unlike any other—fragments of conversations, glimpses of events that had not yet occurred, bled into the present. At first, they were harmless: someone hearing themselves decide what to eat the next day or a conversation they would have a week later. Amusing. Strange. But manageable.
Then came the shift.
The echoes stopped speaking of the ordinary and began describing things that made no sense—places that didn’t exist, names never heard before. A man, alone in his home, heard his own voice say something he had never said before:
“They are already here.”
Panic set in when the echoes turned to screams—shrieks of terror, pleading voices, desperate cries for help. Not from the present, but from the future.
And then, one night, it all stopped. No explanation. No warning. The voices fell silent.
Whatever was coming… never came.
Or perhaps it did, and the world simply never realized it. Some whisper that the echoes were warnings, a desperate plea from a future that saw beings like the Walking Calamity rise.
That was long before even the Convergence War. A mystery, lost to time.
But ten years ago, the world had a similar moment.
The Calamity of Curia.
A single psion. An entire city, destroyed.
Its population, over 70,000 people—dead. Gone in a catastrophe so sudden, so absolute, that to this day, no one can explain it. Only 4 survived the incident.
The Walking Calamity himself and three others.
Now minutes ago, every person who just heard that news will remember where they were in that moment for as long as they lived. The tightening in their chest, the way the world seemed to still. A shopkeeper, mid-transaction, staring at the breaking report as a coin slipped through their fingers. A mother, spoon halfway to her child’s mouth, frozen as the words sank in. A soldier gripped his weapon just a little tighter, knowing what is to come.
This was one of those moments. The kind that would be remembered for generations.
A single escape. A world undone.
The most dangerous criminal ever was free again. Free from Warden’s Maw, the impregnable prison built to hold beings like him, and within it a fortress designed to suppress his very psine. And he had ten years to think of new ways to terrorize the world.
Now, the world will learn what happens when a storm remembers.
THE RUMOR MILL
Date: March 15, 299 XE |
TOP 10 MOST POWERFUL / DANGEROUS PSIONS ALIVE
Curated from whispers, recent records, and the measurements of psine signatures. The world is shifting, and these are the ten anomalies sitting at the epicenter of the chaos.
1. Tulburo Lume
The Walking Calamity. Escaped from Warden’s Maw fourteen days ago. Ability unconfirmed. Proximity has already led to collapsed towns, vanished squadrons, disintegrated structures, and the destruction of Curia ten years ago. Kill-on-sight order in effect.
2. Andrei Petofi
Formerly Andrei von Petofi. A disgraced nobleman from one of Sang’s five great houses who went completely rogue. He murdered two Kaisers and slaughtered his own bloodline before finally being subdued by the Continental Border Assault Regiment. Now? He is yet another terrifying variable, having escaped Warden’s Maw during the March 1st containment breach. The Scourge of Sang is loose.
3. General Vladimir von Millavir
The Shadow Emperor. The current General of the World Council’s elite military force. Reported to have ended a brewing war with a glance at a map. Feared even by allies.
4. Luke Alexander-Walker
The current Chancellor of Uttaria and former General of C-BAR. Infamous for his absolute hatred of anything that isn’t perfectly stable. A word to the wise: just don’t move too much around him. He will halt you dead in your tracks with his Pacifica.
5. Ragno
No title. No photo. No public record. The name surfaces only in aftermath. No direct battles. No known statements. And yet… rebellion. Collapse. Assassination. Somewhere behind them, there’s always Ragno.
Power classification: Unknown. Reach: Growing. Intent: Unclear.
6. The 7th Wanderer
Much like Ragno, nobody knows their true name or their exact ability, just the title and the spooky epithet: “The Boogeyman.”
It is said that they have the ability to peer into your mind and manifest your worst nightmares.
Does The Boogeyman truly exist? Pray you never find out.
7. Increase Mather III
The Tyrant of the Desert. The Sovereign of Holy Metzia has grown more powerful, and exponentially more power-hungry, as the years go by. The Sovereignty Code exists for a reason, but just when will the World Council finally decide that enough is enough and step in to save the people of Metzia?
8. Milica Paole
The Youngest Sovereign, Archon of Jureslavia. She keeps her borders permanently closed using her own awe-inspiring psinecraft, leaving the rest of the world absolutely no room for speculation on just how devastatingly powerful she truly is.
9. Miracles the Plant Walker
The youngest of the known Seven Great Wanderers, and someone who possessed the sheer potential to be one of the most powerful psions ever recorded.
Rumored to be living in exile since the Calamity of Curia, nobody has seen her since that fateful day ten years ago. The only thing we know for sure is that when the storm broke, she ran.
10. Dreyk Ignis — The Salamander
Another of the Seven Great Wanderers, and yet another highly dangerous escapee of the catastrophic Warden’s Maw breach.
The Salamander was defeated in battle against his now-retired contemporary, Giovanni Mari, eleven years ago—which subsequently led to his arrest and imprisonment at Warden’s Maw.
Ignis is one of the few escapees that even the World Council has not been able to track since the breach.
Just what could he be planning?
NOTABLE ABSENCE: Giovanni Mari
Vice President of the World Council. Prime Minister of Atteria.
Once dominated the list at #1 for years. Has not used his psinecraft, Atom Genesis, publicly since the Calamity of Curia, ten years ago.
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People of the Rumor Mill
The Rumor Mill has never maintained a conventional newsroom. Some of its writers are known to the public, others use pseudonyms, and a few have connections to the organization that are difficult to establish with certainty.
Some write about what they know. Others write about what they suspect. And some seem to know considerably more than they should.
Scoop Malone
A recurring sensationalist writer who claims to have been born in Teranua and to have a background at Ashura Grando University.
Whether Scoop Malone is his real name is unknown. He always ends his articles with “Scoop Malone”, seemingly acknowledging that he is using a pseudonym rather than attempting to conceal the fact.
It is almost as if he wants readers to wonder who he really is.
Even at Ashura Grando University, academics have taken a peculiar liking to him. Scoop has a talent for taking complicated discoveries, academic disputes, and emerging theories and presenting them in a way that is intelligible to almost anyone.
His articles are filtered through his own seemingly tame opinions, making them appear relatively harmless at first glance. Those who understand the underlying research, however, can sometimes recognize how far he has twisted the interpretation of a finding while technically never stating something completely false.
More concerning is how often Scoop appears to know things before other people do. On several occasions, he has been ahead of even the brightest students and scientists on Kepler.
As a result, many academics have little choice but to take his work seriously, even when they dislike the way he presents it.
Others read everything he publishes.
Some have stopped asking how he knows.
Cassandra “Cass” Polo
Originating from Evelyn, Cassandra “Cass” Polo represents the Rumor Mill’s more grounded style of journalism.
Cass does not typically break major stories, make wild predictions, or present herself as an academic insider. Her articles tend to focus on information that is already available and mostly true.
What makes her writing distinctive is what she does with that information.
Cass has a talent for taking an ordinary event or relatively straightforward subject and presenting it in a way that leaves the reader questioning what it might mean.
She doesn’t necessarily tell readers what to think.
She makes them think.
She has never claimed the academic credentials of someone like Scoop, nor does she have a reputation for breaking news before anyone else. Nevertheless, longtime Rumor Mill readers appreciate her for the depth and thoughtfulness of her writing.
The Teller
Almost nothing is known about the Teller.
The Teller is rumored to be the Chief Executive Officer of Ruseas Company, although neither the identity nor even the existence of such a person has ever been publicly established.
Nobody knows where the Teller originally came from, what their personal goals are, or whether the name even refers to a single individual.
What keeps the mystery alive is the apparent influence of the Teller’s philosophy throughout the Rumor Mill.
Numerous named opinion pieces—and even some anonymously written articles—contain references to something the Teller has supposedly said or done. Many of these references seem to revolve around the same guiding principle: information should be pursued regardless of who it threatens.
Some articles have even implied that the Teller would not personally object to being questioned, criticized, or attacked if doing so helped uncover the truth.
Whether these ideas actually originated with the Teller is impossible to establish.
One particularly persistent theory among Rumor Mill readers claims that the Teller is secretly one of the Seven Great Wanderers.
Ruseas Company has never confirmed or denied the theory.
Linnea Robbespierre
Linnea Robbespierre, the Executive Chief of Kanata, is one of the more unusual figures associated with the Rumor Mill.
Robbespierre has commissioned and contributed to several opinion pieces published by the organization, using the Rumor Mill as a platform to broadcast her views.
Her position and repeated appearances in the publication have inevitably led to speculation about the relationship between herself and Ruseas Company.
Some readers have wondered whether the company works for her. Others have gone further and suggested that Robbespierre herself could secretly be the person known as the Teller.
The Official Explanation
Both Robbespierre and Ruseas Company have gone out of their way to reject the idea that they have a special relationship with one another.
According to both parties, Robbespierre is simply one of many public figures who have chosen to use the Rumor Mill as a tool for broadcasting her opinions.
Working with the Rumor Mill, they insist, does not mean working for Ruseas Company.
Then again, that’s exactly what Ruseas says about almost everyone who works with them.
Writers come and go. Sources disappear. Associates deny associations.
And the Rumor Mill keeps publishing.