User:Skrem 7

The Syndicate

Basic Information

Official Name:	The Syndicate Coalition
Other Names:	The Syndicate, Syndies
Headquarters:	N/A
Structure:	Coalition
Denonym(s):	Syndie
Founded:	FSC-???

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• Largely fragmented and clashing
• Wide-reaching across cultures and class
• Ever-present disgust for Nanotrasen

“It was one of those rare moments that called individuals across cultures, across fields, across beliefs: all to unite against the Company that had grown so large. Whether its participants were passive or radical, each must ask themselves in the aftermath: what now?”
— Excerpt from the Solarian novel, Nanotrasen's Rise and Fall, published FSC-499

The Syndicate is a coalition formed on one core tenet: Nanotrasen must fall. However, during the Inter-Corporate Wars, both Nanotrasen and the coalition fought to a catastrophic, bloody stalemate. With each side having exhausted themselves, they agreed to an uneasy ceasefire. In light of the Syndicate's major blow against Nanotrasen’s market capabilities, the coalition itself has nearly, but not quite, separated.

Though each member faction of the Syndicate has different ideas about how they should continue to pursue their ideological goals, all of them believe that Nanotrasen cannot be allowed to ever again grow too big or too powerful. With the ceasefire in place, such efforts have mostly halted, if not stagnated entirely. The methods and investment that each faction puts forward largely depends. It is better to think of each member of the Syndicate as its own entity in the current day, rather than consider them unified, for such an alliance is fleeting at best.

Where the coalition will go now remains to be seen, though each member faction has its own plan for moving forward, whether it involves the Syndicate or not.

Playing a member of this faction

• You are not violently hostile, or antagonists by default unlike on other servers. Not to Inteq, not to the Colonial Minutemen, and, despite latent hostility, not even to Nanotrasen. Due to how costly the Inter-Corporate Wars were for the Syndicate, they want to uphold the ceasefire with Nanotrasen. You are not a pirate faction (the Frontiersmen are). You should avoid dealings with Nanotrasen vessels and can voice your grievances with the Company, but you must uphold the delicate balance of power - and the server rules regarding antagonism. Please read the Relations section below for the nuances!
• The Syndicate is one of the most diverse factions in terms of specific group association. It is best to roleplay being part of one of the many factions and their respective ideology, showing a dislike towards others with clashing ideologies, while engaging in camaraderie or shoddy alliances with like-minded individuals.
• Your character's job, mentality and skills will vary wildly depending on the group they form a part of. A GEC engineer would not have the same combat training a Hardliner grunt would, nor would a Cybersun executive have the same ideology as an ACLF protestor.
• Syndicate ships are very often used exclusively by one specific branch of the Syndicate. Make sure you know who your character is working for, though do not be discouraged with mixing various factions on the same ship. Such differences can lead to unique and fascinating roleplay opportunities!

Structure

The Syndicate is far from a single organized entity - more often than not, the factions that make up the Syndicate will have squabbles of varying scales, with some going as far as to actively sabotage the operations of other members.

Present Members

The Anti-Corporation Liberation Front

What began as a hunger strike on a Nanotrasen station snowballed into their biggest opposition group: the Anti-Corporation Liberation Front. The ACLF is the founding member of the Syndicate and by far the largest, with conservative estimates of ACLF membership within the hundreds of millions.

• The ACLF is the closest thing the Syndicate have to a political party. With outward membership proclaimed by certain politicians, influencers, and cultural icons, their assets cover a wide range of civilization.
• Motivations and goals of individual members of the ACLF vary wildly, from passing simple anti-trust legislation to the total and complete dissolution of Nanotrasen. Various sub-factions exist within the ACLF, each often claiming regional supremacy, as distance leads different cells to develop alternative beliefs.
• Action taken by ACLF members varies wildly as well; most spread information and conduct research, while others participate in protests and demonstrations. However, radical ACLF members will go so far as to commit active sabotage or violence against Nanotrasen assets, officials, or employees.
  • The striking and often horrifying lengths that radical ACLF goes to has rendered party membership illegal in Nanotrasen colonies or settlements where the Company has significant influence.
• A Syndicate operative is most likely to be picked from the large volunteer pool of the ACLF. Whether it be a simple few lines of code given to an IT worker, a warehouse worker leaving a door open after hours, or a name for someone with nothing to lose, the ACLF's missions and breadth of individuals to choose from renders them effective, unpredictable, and insidious.

2nd Battlegroup of the New Gorlex Republic

The 2nd Battlegroup represents the militant arm of the New Gorlex Republic, an authoritative state formed after the ICW's conclusion by a majority of who made up the Gorlex Marauders. The 2nd Battlegroup primarily offers security and mining operations to willing customers - complete with advanced hardware leftover from the conflict and a sizable portion of experienced veterans. Formal and cautious, the NGR operates loosely with previous Syndicate ties, worried about being scapegoated or dragged back into another debilitating conflict.

• The 2nd Battlegroup is an extension of a colonial power within the Frontier, though not under the jurisdiction of CLIP. It cover its economic interests first, which primarily involve aggressive expansion and construction of industrial infrastructure.
• Rank and formality are central to NGR culture. Respect and hierarchy are valued by any that are born or were incorporated into the colony. The command of a higher officer is to be ordered without question, in the name of the Republic.
  • The stripping of individuality combined with the elevation of the mission has ultimately led to a socialist meritocracy, concerned with utilitarianism over capitalist or feudal pursuits.
• The Republic's autocratic leader is President Kiirv-Waha, an elzuose and ex-quartermaster from Gorlex. Their intense diplomatic and logistical skills have paved the way for the state's quick expansion of resource colonies and the formation of a national identity.
  • Who presidency will pass to after their demise is unknown, nor is anyone willing to ask.
• Several 2nd Battlegroup members have seen the casualties and costs of war firsthand. While experienced, they're reluctant to start any conflict with any existing entity.

The Gorlex Hardliners

The Gorlex Hardliners represent a dissenting group that still continues their fight against the Company. Having loudly and publicly voiced their disapproval for the ceasefire issued during the ICW's conclusion, the Hardliners are made up of scattered individuals, ships, and equipment, all having quietly - or loudly, left what became the New Gorlex Republic. Now, they function as a disorganized navy, commissioned by Cybersun and radical ACLF to continue strikes against Nanotrasen assets.

• While disorganized, funding from Cybersun ensures the Hardliners' general continuance - though such a relationship isn't massively public. Each cell still performs other duties to fund their costs, such as mercenary work or asteroid mining.
  • Though the 2nd Battlegroup primarily conducts planetary excavation and construction, both of their expertise in resource collection stews even greater conflict between the two groups.
  • Mercenary work in particular puts the Hardliners at intense odds with Inteq. While most Syndicate consider Inteq a group of opportunistic deserters, Hardliners personally tend to believe the PMC represents Nanotrasen's corruptive greed infecting soldiers and equipment that could be theirs.
• Hardliners, while not outwardly aggressive toward Nanotrasen, are the most predisposed to hostility toward any Company-allied individuals or assets. Still, in the interest of public image, they very rarely take brazen public action.
• The group is mostly made up of radicals or younger Marauder members, as most older, moderate Gorlex colonists tended toward the formation of the New Gorlex Republic.
  • Those who believe Cybersun's yolk represents an evil too close to Nanotrasen left for the Ramzi Clique. A faint trickle to the pirate's ranks still continues as questions rise among discontented Hardliners.

Cybersun Industries

Most prominently known for Cybersun Virtual Solutions and Cybersun Biodynamics, Cybersun Industries is a corporation that specializes in cybernetics and digital security. It has a deep-rooted grudge against Nanotrasen for their implied involvement in a painful controversy that brought harsh regulation onto Cybersun's R&D division.

• Cybersun operates as coldly as Nanotrasen does, if not worse. While its products are top of the line, its pursuit of quality over quantity comes at the cost of the bottom line. After Nanotrasen was forced to implement stronger employee retention initiatives after the ICW, Cybersun ranks as one of the worst companies to work for among galactic journals.
  • While this would normally put it at odds with the ACLF and the GEC, Cybersun’s advanced equipment and rapid prototype-to-production rollout gives them strong leverage with the ACLF and a strange, uncomfortable relationship with the GEC. Connections made during the ICW mean GEC internships can yield reasonable promises of less-traditional designs being reviewed, accepted, and mass-produced for the market.
• Not only does Cybersun seek to debilitate Nanotrasen's affordable, mass-production industry, but acquire several of the Company's previous holdings through hostile takeovers or outright sabotage. The latter see it sponsoring Hardliner crews to detonate infrastructure, install malware, or whatever best progresses its ambitions.
• The extravagance of its products draws in significant levels of wealthy, speculative investors that is turned around into nigh unaffordable research projects, sold at ludicrous prices that are unobtainable for the common urbanite - never mind the usual spacer.
• While its practical goods are top-of-the-line, rumors circulate of backdoors that are placed in both antiviruses and cybernetic firmware - options for exploitation, should it choose to leverage them. Few informal investigations have covered the topic and found nothing, yet word of such vulnerabilities hovers around its public face.

The Galactic Engineer’s Concordat

Formed initially as a unionization effort for engineers, the Galactic Engineer’s Concordat has evolved into a large political-activist group, advocating for worker-controlled organizations and workplace democracy. The GEC joined the Syndicate to protest against Nanotrasen in a more direct way, though this ultimately turned into them being one of the main designers of what would become the Syndicate's fleet of various ships. Regardless, they still represent cooperation across a wide range of engineering societies and sectors, such as civil, electrical, mechanical, cybernetic, biomedical, aerospace, data, and more.

• The GEC, while primarily interested in having laborers make decision about labor, have two central cultures amidst their ranks: moderatism and eccentricity.
  • Moderates strongly believe in an established hierarchy of workers that favors said workers. They advocate for a similar hierarchy in the workplace to that of NT stations, with a chief engineer overseeing projects. Their main targets include Nanotrasen stations, Cybersun facilities, and Donk! factories.
  • Eccentrics believe in allowing intellectual laborers the freedom to pursuit their projects. A largely syndicalist movement, they believe that workers should manage their own tools with little regard to hierarchy in order to output products of bizarre and awe. They often find internships working alongside Cybersun to develop various new technologies.
• Despite the two cultures having conflicting interests, they still work together to ultimately seek better protections for workers and their projects. Specific protests organized by GEC have forced better conditions in both Nanotrasen and Cybersun workplaces.
• Chief engineers aboard Concordat-controlled vessels are elected by the crew to enforce labor standards and are often required to answer to the workers aboard the vessel.
• GEC membership, unlike ACLF membership, is widely respected. The group's ultimate focus on the bottom rung renders them popular amongst working classes and large civil populations, and their means tend toward far more legality than that of other Syndicate members.

The Student-Union Association of Naturalistic Sciences

Also known as the "Naturalienwissenschaftlicher Studentenverbindungs-Verband" in Swiss German, SUNS is a loose coalition of several academic unions from prestigious, Solarian universities, all united in the pursuit of knowledge in the natural sciences. After several squabbles regarding Nanotrasen and its aggressive exploitation of intellectual property rights, SUNS has called for a hold on internal conflicts to address the growing threat to scientific progress.

• The SUNS is dedicated to the pursuit of the natural sciences: biology, chemistry, and physics to name some. However, much like the general Solarian population, its members have an aversion for cybernetics and other biomechanical technology. This yields little cooperation between the union and Cybersun Industries.
• It is composed of several small academic and student unions. The largest groups are the Terrestrial General Medicine Corps (or Terrestische Generalmedizinischer Corps) and the Aestuum Agricultural Association (or Aestische Agronomium).
  • The Terrestrial General Medicine Corps specialize in researching medical applications of newly discovered organisms as well as the various interactions between different biologies.
  • The Aestuum Agricultural Association focuses on researching the effects of plasma and bluespace on plant life and terraforming, hoping to explore potential colonist applications.
  • These two groups in harbor a deep-rooted rivalry for a number of arbitrary issues, despite their related fields of xenobiology, medicine, and chemistry.
• Rumors abound of SUNS' involvement in various, deeply disturbing projects during the Inter-Corporate Wars, such as the creation of biological weapons and a hivemind lifeform capable of assimilating and impersonating other sapients.
  • Conspiracy journalists believe these supposed projects were designed to aid ACLF in scorched earth and subterfuge respectively, though no investigation has even been entertained in Solarian political chambers.
• The SUNS shares a stringent moral ruleset with all other SolGov Student Associations, requiring members to uphold and defend their honor in duels if challenged or slighted. SUNS members are rarely seen without a blade and are well-drilled in the sport of fencing.

Past Members

The Gorlex Marauders

Famous for their professionalism, skill, and efficiency, the Gorlex Marauders were a militant group of former colonists who resorted to targeted piracy when the Nanotrasen-established colony of Gorlex was left without supplies for months, managing to seize or raze several Nanotrasen assets. Catching the eye of Cybersun, they were inducted into the Syndicate not soon before the breakout of the ICW, where their expertise and improvisational skills combined splendidly with Cybersun hardware and funding. Acting as the elite body of the Syndicate's forces during the conflict, they suffered heavy losses, though inflicting great casualties of their own through specialist ground deployments, spatial boarding-and-scuttle missions, and other underhanded tactics or operations. The Marauder's linkage to devastating attacks on Nanotrasen offices in civilian areas of the Pan-Genezan Federation has led to the group being labeled as a terrorist organization by one major galactic power, their infamy having fallen onto the shoulders of the faction's successors. The Children of Gorlex colloquially refers to the three factions that spawned from this one in the wake of the ICW; the New Gorlex Republic, the Gorlex Hardliners, and the Ramzi Clique.

The Ramzi Clique

While never technically a member of the Syndicate, the Ramzi Clique is a small group of Gorlex Hardliners deserters who now practice piracy - much like the Marauders did before they were commissioned by Cybersun. Believing the Hardliners fully under the yolk of Cybersun and concerned about being sold out to cover the company's interests, the Clique, under the leadership of Ramzi-41, deserted at the same time that the Hardliners split off from New Gorlex Republic settlements, failing to rendezvous at pre-determined locations. Instead, they set out in ships once well-maintained, now scarcely pulling along. The Clique's possession of significant military hardware and battle-tried veterans makes them one of the most dangerous enemies one could face in the Frontier.

• Ultimately places strength and independence on a pedestal; Ramzi pirates are violent, cunning anarchists, uncaring for those too weak to defend their supplies and remorseless for those defending corporate or national interests.
• While highly lethal, Ramzi pirates are very low in quantity, massively disorganized, and suffer from an inability to fully maintain their high-grade gear. Because of this, the Frontiersmen are considered a much bigger threat to overall Frontier peace.
• There tends to be very little empathy extended between members of a Ramzi cell. With a very loose hierarchy of "warlords" that often earn their command through feats of battle (or killing anyone else who would challenge their command), camaraderie is stiff at best.
  • That being said, Ramzi pirates understand strength in numbers, and while they would prefer not to be tied down by trust in a weak link, they do not unnecessarily cull their own.
• Trust is scarce between Ramzi cells. Due to the near-absence of communication between them, neither side knows if the other has turncoated, or plots to pilfer the other's supplies.
  • Their paranoia is so high that some members of a cell even undergo surgery to install post-mortem explosives, rendering their corpse unrevivable as to prevent interrogation and betrayal in the case of capture.
• Ramzi herself is said to be one of the oldest Gorlex citizens, having sacrificed her organic body for an untiring metal frame in order to gain her ticket to the planet. When the colony was left to starve, she was supposedly one of the first to organize the Marauders, leading raid after raid with precise intent. She claims to be responsible for the failure of Nanotrasen's "Gateway Project", though this is largely denied amongst both Republic and Hardliners members.

Noteworthy Allies

Donk! Corporation

Initially started as a logistics company, Donk! Co. is a rapidly expanding megacorporation. While not part of the Syndicate, their relationship to the coalition is considered tangential and mostly of the same interest in working with Cybersun. Donk! primarily operates as a parent company of a nigh-uncountable amount of subsidiary companies and shells - a common person may not purchase from Donk! directly, but they would be hard pressed to not end up giving them money through the sheer amount of shelf space they command. Despite this, most of their hedged interests in Cybersun's ventures have ended in failure or stalled out due to the ceasefire, and it now is heavily reconsidering its logistical backing of Cybersun and the Syndicate as a whole.

• Donk! takes unconventional approaches to many aspects of their business models - through almost total obfuscation of their namesake in most consumer products, even their most ardent opposition ends up purchasing from them one way or another.
• Donk! Corporation’s expansion was spurred on indirectly by the aftermath of the Inter-Corporate Wars, making a fortune through being one of the primary companies that operates trade routes and courier services in the Frontier.
  • Its public relations have fallen under scrutiny after the ICW fell into a ceasefire, but it has avoided economic consequences for their past association with the Gorlex Marauders. Several of its employees and subsidiaries have drastically different opinions, as they've benefited little from the megacorporation's expansion.
• Donk! Corporation, unlike Scarborough Armaments, works extensively with Nanotrasen in business endeavors. This cooperation is seen as a conflict of interests with many Syndicate members, making most uncomfortable with Donk!'s informal alliance. Despite this, its control of several warehouses and caravans are utilized extensively by organizations such as the New Gorlex Republic and the ACLF.

Scarborough Armaments

Most of the weapons the Syndicate use are made by Scarborough Armaments. They specialize in making ballistic weaponry.

Culture

The culture of the Syndicate varies depending on which faction one may be a member of.

• The ACLF, being the largest faction, has the largest differences of ideologies within members, with notable contrast between the least and most radical members.
• The Gorlex Maruders, being former pirates, are highly military in nature, and uphold such structure within their ranks.
• Donk! functions as a for-profit logistics and goods organization, and naturally falls into a corporate establishment. Members of Donk often are
• Cybersun is similar to Donk in that they follow a corporate hierarchy, with Cybersun operating with a focus on cybernetics product quality, sometimes disregarding worker conditions.
• The GEC works as a workers' movement advocating for better worker conditions and treatment. Members of the GEC are likely working in the frontier as engineers, architects, electricians, and other construction-related jobs.
• SUNS, as a students' union, represent SolGov's naturalistic and scientific values, while also inheriting some of the Syndicate's qualities. Members of SUNS consist of fauna researchers,

Relations

• Relations with other factions usually fall uneasy for the Syndicate, and are even at odds with themselves.
  • The GEC does not like Cybersun's practices, yet maintain a mutual agreement with Cybersun for their designs.
  • Each of the Gorlex Marauders' splinter groups highly dislike each other.
  • SUNS remain uncomfortable with Cybersun's biomechanical and cybernetic services.
  • Donk's dealing with NanoTrasen put them at odds with other Syndicate, but they are a core part of their logistical services.
• The most obvious example of awkward external relations is NanoTrasen. After a long and blood war with their competitors, they are not on friendly terms, but sparking another conflict is not on the table for either.
• Inteq Risk Management holds superficial tension with the Syndicate. A mercenary group composed of former Syndicate and NT members, Inteq upholds their grudge for both groups.
• Thoughts towards the Colonial Minutemen vary from supportive to troubled. This hinges on the Minutemen's relaxed attitude towards trade with NT, and their lawsuit against NT for attempted smuggling of alien fauna.
• In Solarian fashion, the Solarian Government leads a neutral perspective with the Syndicate.

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  CLIP
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  Inteq
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  Nanotrasen
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  PGF
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  SRM
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  SolCon
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  Syndicate