Lore:Syndicate

FACTION

Syndicate	Other Names: Syndicate of Common Interest Related Lore: Nova Sector

The Syndicate is the most common group of evil you'll encounter in the Nova Sector. Wherever there is greed, profit, or idealism to be gained from lashing out against the system, the Syndicate will be there. Comprised of numerous groups with varying goals, they cooperate to spread their reign of terror farther than light itself. Much of the Syndicate hates the Sol Federation. Some of the Syndicate hates Nanotrasen directly. Some of the Syndicate hates Nanotrasen for being a member state in SolFed. Regardless of their overarching desires, the Syndicate is actively haunting your station, looking for the slightest hint of weakness or profit to exploit.

by god this is not great writing but hey it's getting organized

On the Origins of the Syndicate

Spiritual researchers would have you believe that evil began at the dawn of time, predating the concept of Good by several millenniaThese "researchers" cite the evolution of Terran Sharks and Terran Trees as evidence of morality before immorality.. The Curated Holonet News MediaA volunteer organization of news-minded individuals, curating a collection of regional happenings into a cohesive galactic narrative, which is distributed across the Holonet. would have you believe that evil began July 21st, 236545 years after the FTL upgrades marking the Second Migration., at the Summit of Sin. Several documentaries have sensationalized this proverbial meeting, hyping it as the moment that changed the galaxy for the worse, as the one moment any self-respecting Time Traveler would disrupt to save the entire future from the immortal reign of the Syndicate. In truth, time travel isn't real, and in truth, this meeting was barely a logistical formality, formalizing the existing relationships between the Plasma Runners, the original Gorlex, several Anti-Librean Activist Fronts, and the Roseus Galactic Actors Guild.

At the time, the Plasma Runners were having a tough time finding a foothold in galactic plasma distribution, and so would routinely contract or point the Gorlex at prominent Plasma Clique operations. Conversely, the Anti-Librean Activist Fronts, operating outside the local law, could not simply purchase local plasma supplies, and were thus one of the Plasma Runners' steadiest customers. Roseus Galactic had capital and public image to wield, and detractors in need of circumventing. Either way, they're always down for a good shootDouble entendre, meaning both a film shoot and a gun shoot..

The July 21st 2365 meeting started as a group Holomail that should have been BCC'd, attempting to secure arrangements to smuggle a large plasma shipment through Librean space under the guise of film pyrotechnics. Over the course of twelve Reply-Alls, all four groups had negotiated a satisfactory chain of favors, turning what would typically be months of clandestine bargains into a simple.This typo comes directly from the third Holomail in the chain, sparking a running joke that further fostered cooperation and comradery in the evil community, but also prolonged the mail chain by an additional six messages. The July 21st meeting was called simply to establish communication protocols, but escalated. The name "Joint Smugglers of Librean Shoot" was proposed for this operationIncidentally, this operation was so successful, the faux film shoot won several major film awards., and referred to the union for around three further weeks.

On the Origin of "Syndicate"

You likely have not heard of the "Tarnoongan Reservoir, That Which Overfills With Malice," the "Ecliptical Affairs," the "Death Dealers," the "Honkmother Antitribu," the "Space Gunmen," the "Joint Smugglers of Librean Shoots," or the "Evil Club," but surely you know them by their proper name, the "Syndicate." The name "Syndicate" came from careful focus-testing, A-B terrorism, near-identical raids to determine the qualitatively best name for the Union of Evil. With empirical evidence, "Syndicate" is the perfect mix of arrogance, short length, and evil to mathematically strike the most terror in SolFed and the greater galaxy.

• Arrogance: "Syndicate" is a generic term, like "Gang" or "Police," and so to say "The Syndicate" is to say they are prominent enough to be the sole entity that the generic term represents. Even adding a small specifier, e.g. "Saturnal Syndicate" suggests a lack of confidence and is harder to remember; according to focus groups, "Saturnal Syndicate" and "Syndicate of Sin" both appeared 30% less often in PTSD flashbacks from survivors than "Syndicate."
• Length: Extrapolating the "Rule of Three" into linguistics leads to the conclusion that a catchy name is a short name, but long enough to be unique. A single syllable is indistinguishable from background noise; the pattern-matching aptitude of most human-adjacent sapients will confuse any sort of disruption to background ambiance, e.g. a slight grinding noise from a whirring fan, with a short spoken word. Therefore, a memorable name must have at least two plosive consonants. "Syndicate" matches a three-syllable, two mid-word plosive pattern, and is 45% more audible in the dying gasps of victims than other tested candidates.
• Evil: Much research went into analyzing the simplicity of words versus their emotional impact. While "Evil" is readily understandable, its simplicity undercuts the intended serious tone. Conversely, extravagantly verbose monikers strain the filters of perception, numbing the mind to see it only as nonsense. "Syndicate" is well-known but sophisticated enough to inflict quantifiable psychoparadigm scarring.

(It should be noted that the Syndicate holds no more affiliation with any named places in unused name candidates than with any other place in the galaxy; plans were allegedly drafted to forge evidence to retrocausally associate the Syndicate with those locations if the name struck more terror in testing, but thankfully this was found to not be the case and the Syndicate as an overarching institution remains location-agnostic.)

CyberSun is pulling away from "disgraced company who fucked up by raising the alarm about silicon rights being bad too early" and moving more towards the Legitimate Company, the Lex Luthor of the Legion of Doom. Evil, smart, and powerful, but a public figure. Any Syndicate who attacks you and says they're with CyberSun is clearly actually an anticorpo lunatic trying to frame the benevolent face of Mars Independence and fine supplier of... whatever gadgets they sell.

Plasma Runners

It's simple: The Plasma Clique wants to control the flow of Plasma. Folk want to buy more Plasma than they're allotted. Thus, there's profit in smuggling Plasma. And once you've started doing crime, you need to do crime to keep your crime going. The market's content and nobody's buying the surplus of your Plasma? Whoops, their stockpiles caught fire. What a shame that Plasma's so flammable.

The Biker Gang aesthetic came because biker gangs are cool and the uniforms are cheap.

Attacks the station to steal their plasma, or disrupt their cargo supply, or make in-roads with other groups, or because someone paid enough.

Cyberpunk Protagonists

There's cyberpunk dystopian groups in SolFed, e.g. the Librean Federation. Anyone who opposes SolFed en masse must be evil, must be the Syndicate. Thus, the Syndicate has a bunch of Cyberpunk Protagonists. Widely used as a generic term for anti-corporate hopefuls riding the edge of edginess, "Anti-Librean Activist Fronts" refer to any movement of self-proclaimed protagonists "resisting" a corporation or government. The term is very much one of those "know it when you see it" phrases.

With the nature of underground movements, finding a solitary leader, or even primary group, is an exercise in futility. Each group that rises up has some heroic name, some mishmash of ideological justice, and a zeal for revolution against the oppressor of the hourNotably, the Rogue Streets megatower sees a complete political turnover, mayor ousted and executed, almost twice a day..

The Herbellion claims no involvement within the Librean Federation, even behind closed doors, as the ever-shifting nature of megacorporations and resistance are, in their words, "bad soil in a warzone."

As much as the Cyberpunk Protagonists tend to hate hegemonicReport: the word 'hegemonic' holds noospheric power, causing authors to hallucinate its presence over numerous editing sessions. To combat this, the word has been inserted. megacorporations, they're not too proud to reject a pallet of Cybersun-built MODsuits.

Tiger Collective

The Cathedral of the True Angels.

The Tiger Cooperative is more of a nickname or secondary name. Tiger is centered and based on the fact that they fanatically worship Changelingss, to the point of believing that the ultimate show of devotion is allowing yourself to be consumed by a Changeling, dubbed True Angels. Tiger focuses on finding Changelings and either capturing or inviting them to join the Cathedral so that they may be worshiped alongside other "True Angels." Tiger is likely to partake in many kidnappings of people from all over so that they can sacrifice and feed these victims to Changelings.

The Tiger Cooperative is the public face of the shadowy Church of the True Angels, a frontier‐born cult that blends militant zeal with forbidden biotech. Purportedly a Syndicate‐aligned logistics and pharmaceutical outfit, Tiger Co-op’s chemical weapons, combat stimulants, and hallucinogenic “Ritual Wine” conceal its true purpose: the worship, cultivation, and weaponization of Changelings as living divinities. Feared even by fellow Syndicate factions, who whisper of cannibalism and blood-soaked ceremonies- Tiger Cooperative cells operate with brutal autonomy across the SolFed Frontier, answering only to their unseen Prophet, the Exarch.

Herbellion

On the surface level, the Herbellion is easily the most approachable Syndicate faction. Most known members are simply folk who picked a cause, any cause, and declared themselves part of the Herbellion. <few lines about the various causes> But a random group of almost-contradictory activists does not make a terror organization. The truth at the heart of the Herbellion, the organization, the logistics? The only cause they serve is the Syndicate. Steering a hundred different ideologies and wannabe martyrs into a smokescreen of seemingly random attacks takes effort, but for the Visionaries, the social landscape is their canvas, and disorder their paint.

Pitch

That's a mighty awful tree next to your yard, hogging all the sunlight, those thick roots choking out your plants. Choking out everyone's plants. None'd stop you from taking an axe next door and just swingin', none except the owner and his gun and the police. You could do it, but you'd be going big when you should be going wide.

They tell you to make sure your plants have enough light, but y'wanna know the secret? Gardening's all about the soil. It's about recomposition after y'get the nutrients mixed back in. Easy way's dumping a whole sack o' shit and smearing it around, but then y'got a yard fulla shit and the tree's eatin' most of it anyways. No, y'need that tree to start rottin', break off pieces of root so far down y'can't even see, let the worms churn that back into nitrates for yer own garden, fer the good plants, fer th' good of all plantkind.

Y'gotta start with good soil. Some of this, the rocky clay sorta shit, y'got a stronger hope of SolFed votin' unanimouslike on anythin' than y'do growin' a flower on a boulder. High quality soil, all y'do is sprinkle a single seed and y'got harvests for life. But with that tree and that neighbor, y'ain't gonna keep that high quality soil fer long. So you look. You dig a little. You find where the soil's just ripe enough, where th' tree's roots ain't the strongest, and that's where you pour your heart and soul.

Yer addin' the seeds of rebellion to the mix, you're sprinklin' a little water in -- not a big ol' Cybersun Automated Irrigation Tray, mind you, you'll get noticed -- but a midnight waterin' or two, a sympathetic union tech lettin' a few switchblades fall off a truck, someone lettin' slip when a Blueshield's away from their Captain, hype up an officer's jilted lover a lil', and then you wait. Y'ain't gonna see the fierce battle underground yourself, as yer plant's roots snake out and strangle the tree, and the tree ain't gonna notice, not right away, not one battle. When yer wagin' a quiet war against a tree, you're seedin' and feedin' the whole pasture.

And then there's yer choice of plant. Y'just plop a tree saplin' down, y'ain't gettin' that t' outgrow outta the shadows of giants. Y'start with underbrush and y'work up. Y'gotta know yer soil and yer plants; ain't growin' a cactus in marsh, after all. Y'got the upstarts, the ones that sprout up on their own. The weeds. Everyone knows a dandelion when y'see one, fightin' for itself no matter who's around, no matter the consequences. A dandelion ain't got forethought, it ain't got subtlety, and it's mighty easy t' pluck outta the ground. Yer fight ain't with the dandelion, and a lesser gardner'd just pluck and burn 'em, but y'gotta take the big picture in. Prop 'em up, hold 'em up, and with a single puff, there's a hundred of 'em in yer neighbor's yard. Again, betting on 'em ain't a winning strategy, but if yer enemy's glarin' at bright yellow weeds, spendin' on surface-level herbicide, they ain't clawin' at the heartier underbrush, the fights worth winnin'.

Nah, th' fights worth winnin' are the ones there, just achin' fer y'to water 'em. Th' plants that belong there, th' wildflowers, th' local herbiage. Hell, y'search long enough, y'find the law protectin' some of th' plants, th' endangered folk, th' noble causes and th' underdogs th' public loves t' root for. Th' ones already gettin' choked by th' tree, who y'can come in and save an' prop up 'till they propagate even further. Some y'need t' keep an eye on, groom an' curate an' prune t' th' best them they can be, but y'casionally find a few jus' needin' a tiny kindle, a single drop o' water t' turn th' tides.

Oh sure, once'n a blue moon y'fin' an exposed root thick 'nuff t' call yer cousin over with 'is glowin' axe and 'is C90s, an' y'let 'im fight with th' neighbor, but t'ain't you, yer just a humble farmer, ain't harm none never, ain't raise yer voice out loud, ain't more aggressive than passive, ain't yer fault when that tree finally done rots an' falls on th' neighbor's Cadillac.

And yet, the tree is dead and the ground is planted according to your design. The future of the pasture is entirely your vision, not because you attacked the tree, but because you planted spite in the right spots and grew malice. There are a lot of trees in the universe, and the Syndicate has a lot of pasture to reclaim. If you were just a plant, this conversation would have ended halfway through the rustic farmer metaphor. You have the talent to be a gardener, a Visionary, and we want you to help build the largest homestead ever seen, continuing with the Nova Sector.

Welcome to the Herbellion.

The Name

The name "Herbellion" comes from careful focus study, of something that sounds united enough that half-hearted folk with a cause will rise up to join, strange enough to be passed off as a rumor or bupkis, and uplifting enough to not immediately inspire disgust, invoking the foot-in-the-door phenomenon to prompt further dialogue with "good" folk.

That, and given the vast quantity of Colonial Seed Vaults in various states of rediscovery and oppression, a good 1/3rd of the Herbellion's earliest cases were supporting freshly grown Podpeople in fighting back against their technologically advanced capitalist oppressors. Even though that era has come and gone, having a good chunk of people (partially) owing you their freedom is something strong enough to build a Brand around. Plus, it's deflective; it sounds like a Podperson-run initiative, but looking there for them gets you nothing but pissed off plantfolk.

This plays into my favorite phrase, "This would reinforce the themes of treating Pod People as incidental and disposable tools, ignoring their sapience."

Summary

So there's your character study for the Herbellion. The arm of the Syndicate who scouts for brewing conflicts and feeds the ones that'll hurt Nanotrasen, that'll hurt SolFed. More directed than "mysterious chaos giving random people guns," but less traceable than a dedicated military strategy. You should go play the game, Heat Signature.

If your Syndicate is in the Herbellion, they've got their ear to the ground, listening for brewing trouble and making sure it happens. You're telling people what they don't want to hear, you're being honest when the truth hurts and lying when it'll cause tragedy. You're likely not on-station doing the actual terrorism, but you're possibly scouting for it.

If your Syndicate is helped by the Herbellion, they've got some radical cause that puts them against the status quo, anything from a single-issue dispute to a confirmed source of oppression they want ousted. As long as championing your cause hurts the Syndicate's enemies, directly or otherwise, you might just find yourself with 20 telecrystals and a Sears catalogue in your PDA. You'll also be told you're "In The Herbellion now," if hearing that makes you feel confident enough to go forth.

If your Syndicate is helped by the Herbellion and proves very useful, you might be asked to come back for a second audition. You might get on some farmer's speed-dial, you might get yourself a desk in a Gorlex CyberSun-leased office building with an apartment and a phone that rings and tells you where your next... babysitting appointment is.

I feel like the Herbellion is taking a bit of the secret espionage cues from MI13, the whole Men In Black idea, the whole "we are behind the conspiracy" haughty vibe. I played a fair bit of The Secret World as it was dying, and I love those vibes too.

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.

On the Continued Erosion of the Rot Infesting The Orion Spur: Sol Federation

Complacent. Describing the Syndicate in T-50 years can really only be done in one way: Complacent. Stagnant. So far up their own ass they taste food twice before it hits their stomach. The Syndicate wanted to be the antithesis of the Sol Federation, as such: Big government? Clearly, we must prove that No Government is superior. What the Syndicate saw as an overbearing government, ruthlessly sinking hooks into its captive vassals to coerce them into being friendly enough to not obliterate each other immediately, they thought should be countered by a passive leadership, fostering the cooperation and individual freedoms of its members to cooperate and achieve lofty mutual goals.

So when the Gorlex wanted to have a hands-off, low-contribution approach to the Syndicate, little more than "here's our business card, maybe have an employee discount," the Syndicate accepted that openly. After all, having The Gorlex on your side in any capacity is an incredible power, and who with any form of survival instinct would dare correct any of the fiercest Marauders, fresh in their 30th year of omnipresent malevolence? When the Sol Federation mocked up a small moon as a Superfortress and obliterated it into dust, who could quanify how that even affects the bottom line? When the Gorlex went from feared to mocked to hunted, what power did the Syndicate have to save them?

When the Roseus Galactic Actors Guild thought it could profit off a screenplay outing deep Syndicate secrets, where was the heavy hand to bring that treason in line? Right, being slapped around the galaxy for being too proud to establish supply lines and secure communications, decimated through starvation and humiliation, and without a redundant force with any sustaining power at all. And when the other members saw they could openly betray the Syndicate for profit? For once, the galaxy slept soundly.

Despite the humiliation, falling out of the spotlight saved the Syndicate. The Rimward Wars spooled up into full force, and the reactionary SolFed overcommitted forces in an attempt to establish an overwhelming and immediate victory. As neither came, mischief within SolFed could thrive once more. While Gorlex was a lost cause, the Plasma Runners [made a lot of money]. With a steady source of financial backing, Syndicate agents no longer had to prostrate themselves to sponsors and politicks, sacrificing efficiency for profit. Though the surge in profit threatened to steer the entire Syndicate towards plasma smuggling, the renewed stubbornness of a younger ally, the Cathedral of True Angels, ironically strongarmed the Syndicate back into a diverse portfolio of terror. Even amongst the Syndicate, rumors whisper that the Cathedral successfully contacted a large Hive around this time, trading transit for terror, bombs for blessings. Truth or otherwise, Syndicate stations have since held a 40% lesser rate of hostile shapeshifter infiltration.

And thus, the Syndicate was stable again. Stalwart. Sturdy. Steadfast. Stagnant. When money flows and there's a safe bed to sleep in, it's easy to fall into the same routine of nominal assaults and lavish parties. Despite their miraculous recovery with the Federation's attention elsewhere, the Syndicate stood exactly where it stood before: just a petty den of villainy, another band of pirates, target practice to an ever-adapting military powerhouse the moment the war ends. With this harrowing realization, a small group of radical Syndicates splintered off, vanishing for ten years as the Syndicate bloated back to harmlessness.

The Sacking of Sigulon 9 sent two messages: To the Sol Federation, the Syndicate were back to Enemy Number One. To the Syndicate, Gorlex was under new management, unwilling to bend to the stale complacency of other members' whims. Sigulon 9, at the time, had been strongly infested by an overwhelming Changeling hive, practically a holy site to the Cathedral of True Angels, who themselves infested the Syndicate with dominant desires and increasingly counter-intuitive demands. Now, not even a single spiderling twitched, the entire system rendered incompatible with life. Gorlex's new masters showed they would not bend to the zealots of the Church, and that they held no mercy for obstacles to the Syndicate. These masters, the Visionaries, held true to the Syndicate's hatreds, charting SolFed's demise with infernal insight and perilous precision.

It matters not what the SolFed claims its government is, what posters it hangs over the festering mildew inherent to the Federation, what boasts it bellows through rotten telegraph lines. The antithesis of SolFed is not countering their words, validating their lies with earnestness, respecting the unrespectable. The antithesis of the Sol Federation is success.

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