Lore:Gorlex

FACTION

Gorlex	Other Names: Marauders Related Lore: Lore:Syndicate Languages: CodespeakSyndicate operatives can use a series of codewords to convey complex information, while sounding like random concepts and drinks to anyone listening in. Contributors: GreytideSkyeUser:GreytideSkye, also known as Extramrdo. Contactable at Discord @extramrdo, preferably through opening a Staff Ticket if it's staff related.

Gorlex

The Gorlex are dead. Killed by humiliation, by logistics, by dilution of ideals. Once a mere band of like-minded Marauders, unrestricted growth forced three crippling realities to the light: Relentless murder does not scale smoothly. An ideology cannot remain pure without organized effort to orient new voices. Leadership is a skill to be learned, not a crown to be stolen. When the murderous brand of maraudering attracted new voices emulating what they perceived Gorlex to be, their visions of the hype and mythos started feeding on itself, cannibalizing what made the Gorlex unmatched; a fate expected from a more corporate environment.

Modern Gorlex operate with brutality, sure, but are as fallible and nuanced as most villains, except that they alone have chosen to claim the name Gorlex, with all the expectations and assumptions, burdens and boons that the title of Marauder holds.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to...

claim their crimes.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to claim their crimes as your own. For thirty years, the Gorlex Marauders terrorized the Sol Federation unmatched. If your family tree has blood, some drops have been spilt through Gorlex action. Starting as an antisocial force of killing, the first known Gorlex Marauders were vicious pirates, iteratively filtering out the weakest until all that remained were single-minded killers. Every raid, a means to an end.

The early Marauders were unique in their focus, purposing the comforts and luxuries they pillage into more death. To claim they were a death cult is to assign higher motive where none exist; the death they brought served no purpose but to end lives. For thirty years, death rode the bluespace waves on Gorlex tides, unrelenting against even the strongest of bastions and tenacious of causes.

claim their infamy.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to claim their infamy as your own. There will be no safe harbor, no casual conversation with coworkers, no hope of peace, and no terms of surrender. You will be hunted at all times. Gorlex offers no honor to their victims, and your death will come equally honorless: in your sleep, immolated in a slippery puddle of beer, gasping at the last breaths of an empty oxygen tank.

Murder for murder's sake cannot scale; faced with sheer irrelevance from humanity growing faster than the Gorlex can kill, less-focused villains reaccumulated into their ranks, used as fodder and pawns, managed through vice and wage. To the outside galaxy, the Gorlex returned to piracy and mercenary work, taking coin for favor, but their focused savagery still drives the Gorlex spirit.

claim their failures.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to claim their failures as your own. Every skirmish against the Sol Federation's Marshals is your shame, every fleet ambushed is your tactical blunder, their great campaigns to exterminate your ilk your personal catastrophe. Even taking the name "Gorlex" is a mistake, giving your foes a banner to unify against and a target to exterminate.

The Gorlex grew too large. Logistics networks and weak-minded crew became weaknesses that the Sol Federation was too keen to exploit. In a prolonged campaign of attrition, the very mythos of the Gorlex organization crumbled under tactics and unity. The Omegacron Superfortress' obliteration echoed across the holonet as proof that the Gorlex were fallible, that the fear they brought was not absolute. Nevermind that the Superfortress was a stage, cardboard and plaster and slight of hand. The first decisive blow against the Gorlex was dealt in the hearts and minds of the galaxy, shattering their iron fist of despair.

In the wake of that surge of hope, physical battles seem a historical footnote. Long, drawn out attrition and quiet interceptions of arms shipments. Loud, bombastic wins against the Gorlex menace and hushed, censored losses when they happen.

serve no masters.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to serve no masters, for better or for worse. The dilution of the Gorlex ideals with fresh mercenaries, rife with aspirations and codes and morals, can be seen as counter-productive. Some saw the overhead of managing the less dedicated as unproductive, as more cost than benefit. Organizations necessarily have a chain of command, and the cutthroat nature of even the most pedestrian mercenaries seeped this rot into Gorlex itself. Infighting and struggles for power over others gave rise to numerous attempts at structure, with individuals rising up with cringe-inducing titles and claims to power. At the end of the Gorlex, the reigning powers were calling themselves Pirate Lords, mere months after the age of the Shogunate, themselves built upon the corpses of the Triumvirate, themselves atop the antiquated Octagon of Morality. With unscripted, ever-shifting structure comes weakness and fragility.

If you would believe the propaganda, SolFed infiltration dug so deep, that an alleged last-ditch meeting of the Pirate Lords had three out of twelve present under the direct command of the SolFed Marshals. In the ensuing power struggle and fights for succession, the last surviving Pirate Lord held allegiance only to the Sol Federation. In fear that this may have disbanded the Gorlex, allowing them to be reformed elsewhere, he instead holds the title of The Last True Gorlex, bearing their sins and wielding their name, crushing those who would dare try to usurp him as a Gorlex.

be convenient to your enemies.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to be convenient to those you work against. To act against SolFed is to draw cause for funding, to spark unity. While none in the Sol Federation would ever dare directly hire a Gorlex Marauder, they have the leeway to be picky about which Gorlex operations they stop, and which would be convenient talking points at an upcoming budget meeting. Likewise, any non-Gorlex movement can be discredited by simply blaming the galactic boogeyman instead of the folk with legitimate grievances.

be wielded.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to be wielded, a force of nature domesticated through guile. Like a claymore: indiscriminately lethal, but "THIS END TOWARDS ENEMY". While the notion of indiscriminate death seems pure, the simple logistics of physics imply that one can only kill what one can reach. When the Syndicate cannot offer straight coin, there's often a trail of lightly-guarded Cybersun cargo ships with insured weapons and inexplicable blueprints of a corporate partner's stronghold, clearly some misplaced security audit report highlighting weaknesses that need to be addressed.

stand against the universe.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to stand against the universe, to reject all of its good and all of its evil. The Gorlex are known for their fabled sociopathy, but contradictorily their need for coin. Not of greed, but necessity. The Gorlex detachment from morality ironically yields them as supreme mercenaries: only pragmatism might stop a Gorlex from accepting coin for killing an ally. Desperate Gorlex may even turn on other Gorlex; if they couldn't stop you, they weren't Gorlex enough to begin with.

die.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to die. To live by the sword is to die by the sword. There can be no peace for a soul stained with the sins of Gorlex, no calm retirement in a spurned galaxy, no forgiveness possible. In rejecting the universe, the Gorlex Marauder rejects their own life, expending it as just another resource. Where death is an acceptable outcome, the impossible happens routinely.

With the Gorlex effectively neutered, the ideologically-minded members of the Syndicate struggled in impotence, lacking a bite to back their bark. Sure, surgical strikes and lone operatives still plagued the galaxy, making headway against justice, but the Syndicate lacked sustaining power, and gains could be lost as easily. As antithetical to positive change as they are, Gorlex is necessary to serve as the Syndicate's wrath, the foundation upon which change could be built.

be many.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to be many, alone with a unified vision of death. Every Gorlex Marauder has their own motivations for their societal exile, their own dreams and visions and willpower. Even within a close-knit unit, trust and assumptions of motive are impossible, unpredictable, unreliable. Numerous factions of the Syndicate have invested dearly into expanding the Gorlex, from hiring unaffiliated mercenaries to fly the Gorlex flag to fielding aggressive recruitment pitches in the wet depths of maintenance mid-operation.

Recent events with the Rimward War have seen the aggressive Void Imperium and their massive numbers of Voidgrown soldiers restrained by enforced nonaggression treaties and cession of vital systems to their war effort, rendering large populations unable to openly renew their unrest. Already persona non grata in SolFed, these artificially grown killers lose nothing by accepting the mantle of Gorlex and the Syndicate support that comes with. Countless Voidgrown have used their time marauding as a stepping stone to a greater career in other aspects of the Syndicate, their resume written in blood, their cover letter in results.

live forever.

To claim the name "Gorlex" is to live forever. The name "Gorlex Marauder" will never cease to inspire fear, will never stop haunting the Sol Federation and whatever comes after. Starships are built defensively with the Gorlex in mind, bastions fortified specifically against ruthless frontal assaults, even in times of apparent peace. News of a Gorlex attack will always get views, political speeches, vigils, and scars. The idea of Gorlex is so basic, so fundamental, that it is impossible to kill without ironically fulfilling it entirely.

The first Gorlex are dead, in flesh and in spirit. Ruthless, indiscriminate murder is no longer pragmatic, incapable of self-sustaining or even serving as a viable goal. The days of being able to send a battle cruiser against SolFed and have it survive the week have long since passed. We are even nearing the end of being able to just shoot someone and have it stick.

Present Gorlex, though lesser in wrath, wield their legacy as a tool, veiling their intents in a cloud of mythos. Gil Jerrod, the man who deorbited the Kanna 5 system and later wrote the "Gorlex: A Tell-All" series of novels, clearly is an imposter in the public's eye, for if they truly were Gorlex, they would have been killed the moment they attempted to retire, for their crimes or betrayal. His continued survival only further proves his innocence in the court of public opinion, and he currently serves as a prominent political figure in the Slipstream CliqueA lesser Clique, focused on controlling the path of trade routes and assorted FTL travels.. Since then, numerous copycat attention-seekers have also attempted to claim Gorlex membership in retirement, each just as dubiously regarded and ignored.

The anti-SolFed bias of their recent Voidgrown population comes across as the historic anti-societal Gorlex rage, but bars them far less from cooperation with other Syndicate forces. Alleged Gorlex Maruaders have allegedly been spotted allegedly cohabitating with mixed Syndicate affiliates, allegedly, without alleged incident or betrayal. While the Voidgrown can usually pass as natural humans, the general SolFed populace is starting to associate them with Gorlex and brutality, which isn't helping any peaceful negotiations or legitimate integration. With political tensions high, SolFed is forced to acknowledge this trend as disgruntled individuals, and legally not a concentrated effort on the part of the Void Imperium.

Work in Progress: Footer subject to change at a moment's notice. Do not take a red link's presence, struck-through or otherwise, as confirmation (or denial) of their canonicity.

Nova Sector Lore
	Common Species	Humans, Tiziran, Unathi, Moths, Ethereals, Azulae, Slime Hybrids, Teshari, Synthetic Humanoids (and assorted robots), Pod Persons, Hemophages, Xenomorphic Hybrid,
	Other Species	Genemodders (Felinids, Ice Walkers, Dwarf), Ashwalkers, Snailpersons, Ordoht (Formerly Skrell), Plasmamen, Flypeople, Vox (Primalis et al), Tajaran, Vulpkanin, Rouges (Abductorkin), Miscellaneous Species, Dullahans, Employee Golems, Changelings
	Nanotrasen	Nanotrasen, Central Command, Emergency Response Corps
	External Groups	The Syndicate (Gorlex, Tiger Cooperative, DS-2, Syndicate Manifestos), Interdyne Pharmaceutics, Cargo, The Spider Clan, Heliostatic Coalition, The Void Imperium
	Nova	The Nova Sector, IndecipheresLavaland, volcanic mining place., FreyjaIcebox and Snowglobe station frozen moon., BoletusSerenity Mushroomoon.
	Concepts	Bluespace, Plasma, Faster Than Light Travel, Resonance ("Souls"), Death
	SolFed	SolFed, Sol in 2565, The SolFed Armed Forces