Syndicate

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...The Syndicate? You mean the wannabe NT guys with the fancy gear and obsession for red? Listen. When it's corporate, ethics take a back seat. They have no higher cause, they're just jealous that they can't be NT. So like a bunch of man-children they don their scary suits and go shoot innocent people in the name of justice. Feh. Assholes. - USDF SGT First Class Steven Phillips in an interview with Sol Times Press about the past conflicts between NT and the Syndicate, Circa 2557

About

History

To understand the Syndicate, we first must understand NanoTrasen. NanoTrasen was founded in 2479 as a small mars company. It wouldn't be until about 30 years later, shortly after the turn of the 26th centenary that plasma, later renamed to phoron, was discovered and with it NanoTrasen and it's competitors began their race to claim and study as much of the resource as possible. NanoTrasen, naturally, was by far the most successful in this race, and by 2534 the company was considered an intergalactic mega-corporation. Having steamrolled it's competition, NanoTrasen of course made many enemies while also becoming a local government and authority in some regions of space, such as the modern day situation in Virgo-Erigone. Upset with how much power their rival had, several other major companies and industries banded together to form what is known as The Syndicate Paramilitary Coalition. While the official date of the Syndicate's birth is unknown to most. The first official executive meeting would have taken place April 14th, 2544.

Creation

The Syndicate Paramilitary Coalition, or simply just the Syndicate, was created as loosely joined alliance of Mega-Corporations and Private Militaries with one goal: Destroy NanoTrasen. As such the Syndicate remains neutral to any and all other factions so long as those factions are not helping NanoTrasen. However, the Syndicate wasn't created with a noble cause behind it. Sure they'll publicly call NT "Corporate Devils" or other negatives about how large industries are destroying smaller ones or tyranny in general, but the truth of this is: The Syndicate only wants that power for themselves. As such organizations within the alliance have been known to turn on each other on a whim. The Syndicate was created as a pool of sorts, where resources could be donated to assist in the cause of destroying NT, with the largest of donors being the ones in charge.

Hierarchy & Structure

Much like NanoTrasen, the Syndicate operates in a military style chain of command. The highest on this chain is the Chairman of the Board. Who is elected by the Board of Directors every year on the 14th of April. The 5 members of the board and the Chairman will discuss and vote on issues, and regulate the flow of resources to the rest of the Syndicate as needed. The 6 members in total are 6 executives from the foundation meeting, all of whom have spent billions on this operation. The Chairman, however, has more or less always been the largest contributor to the alliance in recent times. The Board of Directors consists of: Phil McMurphy of Cybersun Industries, Jonathan Miles of Blast Co. Jared Scythe of The Gorlex Marauders, Rachel Heimsdale of the S.E.L.F organization, Duke Wise of Waffle Co. and finally Janet White of White Pharmaceuticals. Beneath these six, the Syndicate is composed of several commanders: The Recruitment Overseer, Military Commanding Officer, Director of Medicine, Director of Research and Development, and finally the Chief of Resources. While all equals, perhaps the most important of these men and women would be the Recruitment Overseer and Military Commanding Officer, who deal in the two largest aspects of the alliance: Warfare and recruitment. In the field the Syndicate, much like NanoTrasen, runs a variety of ships and stations. Syndicate facilities are not directly tied to the companies that founded them, I.E: A Syndicate Hospital ship has no direct connection to White Pharmaceuticals. However because it is a medical vessel, it would fall under the authority of the Director of Medicine and would likely use technology related to the White Pharmaceuticals. Aboard the ship and stations themselves the Chain of Command would follow as normal. With a Captain or Commander given total authority, followed by his chosen command staff, followed by rank. The Syndicate is a military organization, and uses a system nearly identical to the USDF in terms of the rankings of its troops. All the Captains or Commanders of a region would give report and take orders from a local head base, which would then give reports and take orders from the relevant Head Commander; usually Military Commanding Officer.

Units

Agents

One of the most common ways the Syndicate would run operations would be to plant agents inside of NanoTrasen facilities. Disguised as normal staff members they would usually be tasked to steal NanoTrasen corporate secrets, high grade technology, or simply large amounts of Phoron. Other times they would be tasked with the assassination or kidnapping of important people such as Heads of Staff or in a few cases would even be tasked with destroying the facility. Agents are often implanted from already long standing employees through either blackmail, bribery, or simple coercion to the cause. One way or another, Agents found their way onto NanoTrasen facilities and usually operating alone, most of the time the Syndicate didn't care how something got done, as long as it was. Failure is not tolerated, and if an agent could not complete their mission and came back alive, they'd often be met with torture as punishment.

Operatives

When stealth either wasn't an option or the Syndicate felt a matter needed a much larger threat, there was the Syndicate Operatives. The operatives were highly trained men and women and their equipment is top of the line. They specialized in a variety of things including general slaughter, raiding parties, and ship to ship boarding parties. If a particularly high value target presented itself, these people would be the ones sent in to destroy or steal it. They are the bulk of the Syndicate force, the front line combatants. Sometimes Agents would be promoted to this position, but most of the time they would actually be hired in from PMCs.

Commandos

Considered to be among the best Agents available, the Syndicate Commandos were lone Operatives, usually sent to smaller facilities where a loud assault was called for, but a full team would be overkill. Given top of the line weapons and equipment, a Syndicate Commando could cause massive damage on his own, but otherwise is identical to an Operative.

Major Operations

NSS Dawn Incident

Within the Syndicate this would be known as Operation Dusk, the NSS Dawn was a small NanoTrasen orbital station with a population of 20 staff mostly composed of scientists and laborers. This small station was studying the use of Phoron in firearms in hopes of creating a new era of combat. However in 2548 the facility was assaulted by a 6 man Syndicate Strike Team with top of the line military equipment. The humble security staff could do little against the invaders and after about 25 minutes of conflict the invaders had managed to breach the facility vault, steal the sensitive information within, and destroy the facility entirely with a D-Class nuclear fission device. Officially, the incident was declared a major workplace accident relating to a Phoron explosion and was pushed under the table. NanoTrasen Asset Protection funding was tripled from this point and on to ensure such an incident could never occur again.