Rheinland is one of the four Houses of the Sirius Sector, alongside Liberty, Bretonia, and Kusari. During the first war, Rheinland is headed by Chancellor Florian Gustav Niemann. Two years before its arrival in the Sirius Sector, the captain of the German sleeper ship Rheinland was awakened from hypersleep to begin preparations for planetfall. He and his officers spent weeks studying the long-range sensor logs in an effort to determine the best location for their new home. Much to their surprise, the Rheinlander officers found that the Liberty already had arrived in the sector and had made planetfall within a clutch of worlds near the center. The officers decided to give the Liberty colonists their space, as it were, and instead concentrated on an area close to the Walker Nebula and rich in natural resources. The Rheinland joined theAlliance of Nations.