09-21-2016, 08:50 PM
//Any and all details on this page may be out of date or subject to change. The purpose of this page is not absolute accuracy, but to provide a guide to Unioner roleplay.
Die Arbeitsgesellschaft der Alster,
Die Rheinland Arbeiterbewegung
Von den internationalen Syndikatligen der unabhängigen Welten
und der Landwirttrechtbewegung
THE SYNDICATE LEAGUES
Die Rheinland Arbeiterbewegung
Von den internationalen Syndikatligen der unabhängigen Welten
und der Landwirttrechtbewegung
THE SYNDICATE LEAGUES
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We Choose to Live Free
"I know not a finer collection of men and women in all of Sirius. Your will to survived, despite greed, despite avarice, despite the profligates telling you again and again that the stars are not yours, by hammer, by fire. You survive, you thrive, not just amongst the bones of space but within its Heart. You are Rheinland. You are as old as planet fall, as enduring as the principles of freedom and solidarity you iconise. Though we may be light years divided and of different accents, languages, and tongues, in the cradle of the Unions you will forever be family. I love you as only a Solidaritat can know, as we move, in Unity, towards salvation."
-Arbeitsdirektor Petra Abendroth, 810 AS.
'The Unioners' are a series of large, stateless underworld organisations of itinerat populations and unregistered citizens, descended from Rheinland's shipwright's and Spacer Unions. Responsible for many of Rheinland's great industrial and humanitarian achievements under the Rheinland Empire, the Unioners were outlawed after the end of the 80 years war and the dawn of the Republic. Unioners seized ships in protest, gradually resorting to piracy and even terrorism against their former employers. Over two hundred years the Unioners have become a subculture in their own right - a society with its own creole language, a unique economic system based on syndicalist values and black market manufacturing, and a terse, earthly worldview. Each Unioner group is divided into 'Unions', although without an employer they are functionally they are closer to democratic tribes, sharing resources for common profit. Unioners regularly break the law, some violently, but a strong Anarchist and Nationist streak has prevented the Unioners from ever trusting with the Red Hessians or the Coalition. Unioners are responsible for most of Rheinland's urban working class culture, and are highly respected, and notorious, in Hamburg. Unioners are fiercely protective of their people and highly independent in diplomacy. Unioners have avoided picking any side in the Outcast - Corsair Hispanic Civil War, and regard all foreign unlawful as potential customers unless attacked first. Unioner ships and engineering is legendary, and frequently sold on the black market in return for raw resources.
The largest Union is the Alster Union - named after a historic Imperial trade Union of the same name that agitated against Republican shipping. The Umbrella organisation that administrates resources between the Unions, is the League of Syndicates - a large network that ensures a fair distribution of labour between each cell.
Unioners will violently attack shipping and smuggle for profit, hoping to undermine enterprises they see as stealing from workers, or in simple historical revenge. Unioners will prefer to attack civilian targets over Military targets for this reason. However, some, but not all, unioners dream for a day where they will be able to return to society, just as their ancestors did, two hundred years ago.
Unioners do not believe in a violent revolution against the government, but instead a violent revolution against uncontrollable corporatocracy. They distrust the military-industrial complex heavily and despise paramilitary armies and stateless corporations as unaccountable. However, they do admire the self-sufficiency of Zoners, Junkers, and Hogosha. Unioners consider the Coalition to be simply trading one form of oppression for another, and will actively fight any red faction elements seen in Rheinland.
Institution Philosophy
The Centaurearesistenz is the formal philosophy of the modern syndicate leagues. Known literally as 'The Cornflower Resistance', the movement espouses that the working class should be able to extra-govermentally, and, in the case of an oppressive government, extra-judicially organise its social, residential, and economic sub-units to strip power away from consumer industries if said industries no longer represent the wealth generation of both the employed, and the consumer.
Centaurearesistenz philosophy blames the use of capital, trade, and the fate of employees as a political weapon rather than the existence of industry itself. It considers itself the alternative to the Hessian's so-called 'Volksrevolution' which advocates for the complete destruction of factories and shipyards with little regard for the workers left unemployed. Centaurearesistenz believers would rather build alternative, underworld industries to devalue corporate monopolies, pirate shipping on route, and abduct executives, and kill high-ranking corporate crew members, than permenantly destroy stationary space factories. The Centaurearesistenz philosophy is vastly more popular with those workers still employed by Rheinland industries, and has even won favour inside the executive board of Kruger Minerals, who sees the Centaurearesistenz movement as a means of regaining lost competitiveness against DHC and foreign extractors.
The Centaurearesistenz philosophy blends socialist and anarchist principles of personal liberation, state protection and individualism, with a sensitivity for local culture, history, and smaller social units rather than a gigantic revolutionary aggregate. The Coalition regards the Centaurearesistenz as a fifth column in the underworld. Contrariwise, the Unionists see the Coalition as totalitarian and ultimately hypocritical.
Faction Description and Activities
Unioners are a notorious sub-society based upon the tenets of planned economy market Syndicalism with anarchist persuasions. They are the effective mafia, underworld, arms and spacecraft suppliers of the Rheinland Underworld. Unioners engage in acts of for-profit piracy, targeted anti-corporate terrorism, smuggling, credit laundering, and racketeering.
The majority of these proceeds are then funneled back into charitable organisations, local 'Unions' of Unioner Syndicates that divide underworld labour, and unknown, on and offworld habitats and hideouts that contain ever increasing numbers of Unioner sympathisers and their families. The Unioners do not control entire star systems, preferring to work within the boundaries of civilised space and the independent worlds, and disdains any organisation that attempts territorial conquest, especially of civilian systems.
Unioners are extremely diverse in quality of life, education, and motivations. Uniting all Unioners is a strong distaste for Military government (although not for individual soldiers), a distrust of Sirius's largest monopolies (whilst supporting smaller companies), and a respect for history. Approximately seventy percent of Unioners are born with some degree of familial connections to other Unioners.
Unioners claim to fight to restore the legal status of trade unions within Rheinland, the only house where worker's representation is entirely outlawed. In practice Unioner cells operate as discreet criminal enterprises involved in the distribution of every service that the law will not provide. In some regions of space, the Unioners consider themselves the legitimate substitute for law enforcement, in systems such as Bering.
All Unioners are gifted engineers, and are far more likely to offer services to unknown parties than most pirate organisations. The Unioners are also rumoured to maintain a large stockpile of Libertonian and Rheinlandic war wrecks, although the extent of their usefulness to the Unioners remains largely unknown.
Unioner technology is best described as opportunistic. The Unioners will make best use of any hull they acquire regardless of origin. Often the Unioners will blend current-generation Civilian line technology with sophisticated redesigns of Rheinland lawful architectures. Unioner engineering is known to be extremely competent, dating from their historical roots as shipyard workers and spacecraft designers under legitimate corporate entities.
The closest allies of the Unioners are underworld organisations from other houses, such as the Gaians, Liberty Rogues, Mollys, Junkers, Corsairs and Hogosha, whom the Unioners territoriality respect.
The Unioners closest enemies are historical rivals such as Republican shipping, Agiera, and military pretender organisations. The Unioners dismiss of the anti-industrial Volksrevolution espoused by the Hessians and advocated by the Coalition.
Unioners view one another as social equals, regardless of meritocratic rank. The Unioner central command appears to be only loosely governed by a semi-democratic Noocracy, elected by an oligarchy of cell administrators. This 'Direktorate' brings order to the general anarchic autonomy of Unioner societies by providing a common vision. Unlike the majority of Unioners, Direktors can be engaged in political theory, and are expected to maintain a social vision for the improvement of Unioner society as a whole. Direktors are usually elected to solve a specific problem or threat to the Unioners at large, and are kept, or replaced, depending upon their ability to resolve the threat at hand.
Most Unioners are apolitical and mostly interested in enriching themselves and their cells. Those that are political follow the Centaurearesistenz brand of Syndicalism. All Unioners identify as Syndics (or as part of their syndicate), irrespective as to if they have any real political beliefs or not, over general anarchy.
Unioners are most commonly seen in fighters, transports, freighters, salvage extractors, and gunboats, although Unioner vessels of up to battleship size have been spotted in remote regions of space.
The majority of these proceeds are then funneled back into charitable organisations, local 'Unions' of Unioner Syndicates that divide underworld labour, and unknown, on and offworld habitats and hideouts that contain ever increasing numbers of Unioner sympathisers and their families. The Unioners do not control entire star systems, preferring to work within the boundaries of civilised space and the independent worlds, and disdains any organisation that attempts territorial conquest, especially of civilian systems.
Unioners are extremely diverse in quality of life, education, and motivations. Uniting all Unioners is a strong distaste for Military government (although not for individual soldiers), a distrust of Sirius's largest monopolies (whilst supporting smaller companies), and a respect for history. Approximately seventy percent of Unioners are born with some degree of familial connections to other Unioners.
Unioners claim to fight to restore the legal status of trade unions within Rheinland, the only house where worker's representation is entirely outlawed. In practice Unioner cells operate as discreet criminal enterprises involved in the distribution of every service that the law will not provide. In some regions of space, the Unioners consider themselves the legitimate substitute for law enforcement, in systems such as Bering.
All Unioners are gifted engineers, and are far more likely to offer services to unknown parties than most pirate organisations. The Unioners are also rumoured to maintain a large stockpile of Libertonian and Rheinlandic war wrecks, although the extent of their usefulness to the Unioners remains largely unknown.
Unioner technology is best described as opportunistic. The Unioners will make best use of any hull they acquire regardless of origin. Often the Unioners will blend current-generation Civilian line technology with sophisticated redesigns of Rheinland lawful architectures. Unioner engineering is known to be extremely competent, dating from their historical roots as shipyard workers and spacecraft designers under legitimate corporate entities.
The closest allies of the Unioners are underworld organisations from other houses, such as the Gaians, Liberty Rogues, Mollys, Junkers, Corsairs and Hogosha, whom the Unioners territoriality respect.
The Unioners closest enemies are historical rivals such as Republican shipping, Agiera, and military pretender organisations. The Unioners dismiss of the anti-industrial Volksrevolution espoused by the Hessians and advocated by the Coalition.
Unioners view one another as social equals, regardless of meritocratic rank. The Unioner central command appears to be only loosely governed by a semi-democratic Noocracy, elected by an oligarchy of cell administrators. This 'Direktorate' brings order to the general anarchic autonomy of Unioner societies by providing a common vision. Unlike the majority of Unioners, Direktors can be engaged in political theory, and are expected to maintain a social vision for the improvement of Unioner society as a whole. Direktors are usually elected to solve a specific problem or threat to the Unioners at large, and are kept, or replaced, depending upon their ability to resolve the threat at hand.
Most Unioners are apolitical and mostly interested in enriching themselves and their cells. Those that are political follow the Centaurearesistenz brand of Syndicalism. All Unioners identify as Syndics (or as part of their syndicate), irrespective as to if they have any real political beliefs or not, over general anarchy.
Unioners are most commonly seen in fighters, transports, freighters, salvage extractors, and gunboats, although Unioner vessels of up to battleship size have been spotted in remote regions of space.
Sypnosis
The Unioners are an unusually influential criminal syndicate of political agitators, Rheinlandic and Libertonian Separatists, pirates, and gangsters, descended from displaced Republican shipping workers from the fall of the Rheinland Empire. The Unioners wish to return Rhineland to the hardline protectionist labour policies of before and during the eighty years war, whilst manipulating the predominantly anarchist popular revolution to their own syndicalist objectives. They attempt to undermine monopolist influences in the trade corridors between Rheinland, Liberty and Kusari, profiteering for both personal advantage and to change the corporate culture of the parent industries through forced disruption.
Unioners smuggle, commit acts of terror against foreigners and rival political institutions, and pirate traders. Unioners have only a few, closely-held allies, but many neutral trading partners with the entire inter-house Underworld, and will build ships for nearly anyone not hostile to them with their remarkable shipbuilding abilities. Unioners are hostile to all Rheinland lawfuls, but will abstain from engaging Rheinland military when necessary (due to their nationalist beliefs), and Kruger Mineralien when not carrying critical cargo (due to Kruger’s status as another post-Imperial institution).
The Unioners are politically abstract, leaning to the far left in social and labour policies, but they may ally themselves with imperialists who support the old Imperial trade union endorsements, and are generally authoritarian in regards to defending their way of life. Despite some political alignments with the Red Hessians, the Unioners are rigidly hostile to the modern Hessian movement, seen them as militarists. The Unioners are also the only unlawful faction in Rheinland to collaborate with the corsairs, and remain explicitly neutral within the wider war between the Outcasts and the Corsairs, frequently trading with both sides, and have even managed to remain impartial in the conflict between the Junkers and the Hogosha, regarding both as allies.
The Unioners are presently locked in a wider conflict with the Liberty security force and the Liberty Navy, for the preservation of the Bering system's status as an independent world. Whilst originating in Rheinland, the Unioners are functionally an inter-house group as they are known to operate as deep into liberty as the gate-lane connection from Texas to New York.
The Unioners are thought to have historical, love-hate ties to the Bering contingent of the Liberty Seperatists.
Unioners smuggle, commit acts of terror against foreigners and rival political institutions, and pirate traders. Unioners have only a few, closely-held allies, but many neutral trading partners with the entire inter-house Underworld, and will build ships for nearly anyone not hostile to them with their remarkable shipbuilding abilities. Unioners are hostile to all Rheinland lawfuls, but will abstain from engaging Rheinland military when necessary (due to their nationalist beliefs), and Kruger Mineralien when not carrying critical cargo (due to Kruger’s status as another post-Imperial institution).
The Unioners are politically abstract, leaning to the far left in social and labour policies, but they may ally themselves with imperialists who support the old Imperial trade union endorsements, and are generally authoritarian in regards to defending their way of life. Despite some political alignments with the Red Hessians, the Unioners are rigidly hostile to the modern Hessian movement, seen them as militarists. The Unioners are also the only unlawful faction in Rheinland to collaborate with the corsairs, and remain explicitly neutral within the wider war between the Outcasts and the Corsairs, frequently trading with both sides, and have even managed to remain impartial in the conflict between the Junkers and the Hogosha, regarding both as allies.
The Unioners are presently locked in a wider conflict with the Liberty security force and the Liberty Navy, for the preservation of the Bering system's status as an independent world. Whilst originating in Rheinland, the Unioners are functionally an inter-house group as they are known to operate as deep into liberty as the gate-lane connection from Texas to New York.
The Unioners are thought to have historical, love-hate ties to the Bering contingent of the Liberty Seperatists.
Humble beginnings
Founded over 300 years ago in the system of Hamburg, seventy years before the Eighty Years War, the Alster Union movement was created from dispossessed Alster shipyard workers, formed in 512 A.S due to a catastrophic accident aboard Rheinland’s biggest shipyard that cost the lives of several hundred shipyard workers. Imperial Shipping, Republican Shipping's direct ancestor and the shipyard's owner, concerned itself little with such trifling details as worker health and safety, rationalizing that the occasional life pension or widow's compensation was nothing compared to the sum to be made from constant productivity, with little opportunity for career advancement. Initially, the ALU front was a purely sociopolitical movement - a unification of Rhineland’s trade unionists into a single, coherent entity. The Imperial goverment, eager to stave off republican ideals infiltrating Rheinland politics from Liberty, embraced the organisation, and granted the trade unionists a number of significant labour concessions. To be a “Unioner” was a source of pride, and the first major guarantee of post-colonial labour rights at which Rhineland lead the colonies.
The Unioner movement was formed to improve working conditions for the citizens of Hamburg aboard Alster, and, later on, the neighbouring Altona station. The skills required to work aboard either station were highly specialized and quite esoteric at the time, and so the Union rapidly established dominance over its employers - benefits, bonuses and employee mobillity poured in, and Hamburg's industry began to change.
However, the Unioners, as the Sigma crises broiled into war, became a victim of their own successes; attaining so many government subsidies and concessions from Imperial Shipping that labor and production aboard the Hamburg shipyard and aboard Altona was no longer viable. 'They simply could no longer compete with the (significantly inferior) labour wages of the Kusari shipbuilding giants of Samura and Kishiro, and plummeted into financial deficits. Though the Eighty Years War's onset led to a dramatic increase in spacecraft demand, slowly pushing the Unioner movement from moderate leftism to a cool, protective nationalism, its conclusion, not to mention the Rheinwehr's shattering defeat at the Battle of the Yanagi Cloud, meant that Imperial (rechristened Republican after the Rheinland government was vanquished) was paying for a colossal worker horde without producing anything at marketable prices. Ironically, the Unioner’s well-intentioned efforts to improve the lot of the Rheinland people had backfired - Rhineland employment rights were so far ahead of the other houses, that Rhineland buisnesses had become woefully uncompetitive before their foreign analogues.
Republican's decision
The fledgeling Republican goverment, alarmed at the slow tanking of Rheinland’s space commerce, swiftly nationalised Republican. Desperate to show signs of economic improvement, the federal republic instituted legally mandated layoffs to the entirety of Rheinland’s shipbuilding industries, pledging to cut eighty-seven percent of Republican’s labour surplus within five years. Republican no longer needed its workers - their highly specialized skills had initially led to the Alster Union's great strength - and so it callously disposed of them. Thousands of labourers were cast out to starve to death, any and all concessions to employees were immediately repealed, and the dockworkers of Hamburg were sold into slavery by the corporation they'd once had by the throat, in similar, if not worse, conditions as two hundred years previously. Even worse was the loss to Rheinland shipbuilding, traditionally competitive to Libertonian designs, as Rheinland’s displaced intellectual capital flooded up the adolescent jumpgate networks into the arms of Samura and DSE. Rheinland, previously a pinnacle of ship design, had become house shipwrights visit to die. Rather than improving the economy, Rheinland stalled.
At the turn of the 6th century, Hamburg's unemployment rate had topped 30%, a ridiculous figure even by the standards of the corrupted Rheinland government. A more radically-minded contingent of the unemployed shipyard workers resolved that, if the soulless Imperial suits had left them to die, and if the impotent Rheinland cabinet would let the corporation do as it pleased, they'd simply alter their fates themselves. Armed with the wealth of engineering knowledge of a Rheinland long past and a series of refuges amidst shipyards and refineries abandoned by the Cooporations amidst the economic crash, the Unioners were amply equipped to initiate warfare against the economic system that had betrayed them. Thus the Unioners as we know them at this time were created from the ash of the old - strikes, rallys and riots would evolve from political tools into the basis of geurilla war. The legal front of the Unioners would survive; as the Sunrise Labour Rheinland or SLR, a radically antiestablishment, pro-origins platform that rose off the general bitterness in Rheinland over the faliure of the Eighty Years War. Why couldn't Rheinland blend a new republic with Imperial era labour protection? The party asked, and kept asking. Why couldn’t Rheinland corporations own Rheinland land? Why do Libertonian companies ensure our trade lanes? Why does most of Rheinland’s mineral wealth get exported outside Rheinland? Why can’t we have wage labour? How do we stop foreigners from diluting our society, controlling our goverment, undermining our security? How can we combat the wealth divide?
Though initially a small organization of a few thousand, similar to the beginnings of the LWB six hundred years later, the Unioners rapidly won minds, hearts and manpower as the Republic became increasingly oppressive. Whilst initially covert in their sabotage, the Unioners gained tactical accumen to match their technical accumen through the grind of experience against the Rheinland Federal Police. Their numbers skyrocketed after the Popular Revolt of 703 A.S., during which Rheinland's industrial heart made its last beat after years of weakening. Many more downtrodden throughout Rheinland realized their government's incompetence and incapability and their employers' Orwellian dictatorships - all for the sake of profit - and cast off their shackles to fight for independence. Yet again, ex-Republican employees, particularly Alster and Altona shipyard workers, formed the majority of the new Unioner recruits. Many Daumann and Kruger miners, for example, left to the newly formed Red Hessians to whom the Unioners exported combat vessels, whilst disgruntled academics at the New Berlin university created the Bundschuh. Every industrial and economic sector in Rheinland had its revolters - the ranks of the nationalists, romanticising the old labour privilges of the Empire, swelled, and the Unioners grew mightier.
Idealistic Fighters
When the first cell of Unioners rebelled and left Hamburg with a fiery farewell (in the form of a series of gravimetric mines planted in the Alster docking bays), they needed a semi-permanent base of operations to launch their (remarkably brutal) reprisals against Republican and others. Freeport 2 in Bering tempted them (Freeport 2 had originally been a Republican supply depot, a fact many Unioners found amusing), and there they went. After twenty years of residence there, Freeport 2's Zoner owners had had enough - they issued the Unioners an ultimatum to get off their base. The Unioners, having grown comfortable in Bering, decided to leave the base, but not the system - they carved their own base, Pacifica, out of a sizeable asteroid in the western Tanner Field. Pacifica counts as one of Sirius' most well-hidden pirate bases; though located in a comparatively small system, it's out-of-the-way enough to remain completely invisible at long range, and is concealed among hundreds and hundreds of similar asteroids, as the Tanner Field covers all of Bering. The system's moody lighting, due to its yellow sun, lends Pacifica a tranquil, untroubled setting - quite at odds with its murderous inhabitants.
The Unioners are vicious, yet principled - they are profoundly reluctant to kill Rheinlanders in institutions traditionally associated with the nationalist right wing, expecially the military. They launch terrorist strikes of unparalleled brutality, even by Rheinland pirates' generous standards, against targets of opportunity throughout Rheinland. Whilst their infrastructure is less established than the Hessians and their diplomatic ties less intricate than the Bundschuh, the Unioners are capable of considerable havoc due to the general technical excellence amongst their organisation. Most Unioners can service their own ships, deconstruct a lock or plant a bomb, which makes incarcerating Unioners expecially difficult and one of the founding motivations for the construction of the Virlande supermax. Their arch-nemesis Republican Shipping and their points of origin, Alster Shipyard and Altona Station in Hamburg, are the Unioner’s favorite victims, matched only by their xenophobia for foreign shipping. The Unioners are also exceptionally vindicative towards the GMG, Interspace Commerce, DSE and Synth Foods, who it views as reprehensible.
The Unioners finance themselves, outside of the aggressive piracy and theft they're notorious for, by dominating Liberty-Rheinland Diamond smuggling - they run said Diamonds from Kreuzberg to Dawson, occasionally even further. The Xenos have been trying to encroach on Unioner routes for years and years, without any success to speak of. The Unioners have come into frequent shadow conflict with the Red Hessians over Diamond supremacy throughout the years - their relations, whilst historically strong due to Unioner assistance to the Hessians in their founding years, has always been a precarious one at best due to the extreme political differences between them, and occasional Unioner incursions into Dresden to pilfer Diamonds off the books has been met by savage Hessian attack. Most of the time, however, the Hessians tolerate the Unioners for the trade, shipbuilding prowess and logistical competence they provide, whilst the Unioners avoid antagonising the Hessians overtly out of fear of attracting Hessian firepower and antagonising their cosmic neighbours, the LWB.
Though the Unioners remain dominant in the eastern Independent Worlds smuggling trade, they do so with caution; preferring not to antagonise the local Liberty Rogues or to draw attention to their divergences from the Coalition narrative of the Rheinland Popular Revolution. Unioner provisions are primarily pilfered off of trade convoys (as always, preferably those of Republican) throughout their zone of influence, although Kreuzberg in New Berlin is a reliable supplier of H-Fuel and Side Arms. The Unioners also put their hereditary ship-building skills to work for them, producing Basic Alloys and maintaining ships of factions Sirius wide. Much of the Unioners imported income comes from the fabrication of ships for foreign agencies (even if they are despised). It is generally accepted that if you can give the Unioners a ship design, something that they desire, and the materials to build it with, they will build you anything.
After the Nomad War (801 AS, to 815 AS)
The years that have passed since the Nomad War have marked a time of tribulation and change for the Unioner movement. Though originally idealists and terrorists, some Unioners have degenerated into nothing more than pirates, hijacking shipments in the Independent Worlds and Rheinland indiscriminately. Membership hadn't been on the rise since the years after the Popular Revolt; Rheinland's government, though still corrupt, had stabilized somewhat and had begun to crack down on its pirate problems. Republican and similar corporations also began to flourish again, with the exception of Kruger Minerals, which was slowly being pushed out by Daumann. Events came to a head after the Nomad War - though this time of confusion presented a golden opportunity for recruitment, chaos and incompetent leadership within the faction, as well as the average Unioner losing sight of the organization's initial goal (however destructively implemented), led to the Unioners failing to take advantage of Rheinland's situation and to its subsequent weakening to enforce their ultmate political aims. The notorious Outcast and Corsair Alliances throughout Sirius also dealt the organization a severe blow - initially betraying all its fellow Rheinland pirate factions, excepting the LWB, who distanced themselves from the conflict, by covertly joining the Corsairs, the Unioners were consistently beaten back by its fellow unlawfuls with hardly any allied intervention. Unhappy with these results, the Unioners steadily cooled the Corsair Alliance, thus stepping their erstwhile compatriots, and retreated from the war, attempting to maintain a position of distinct neutrality between the Hessians and the Corsairs. This diplomatic bungling is also to be attributed, primarily, to lack of solid leadership.
The First Civil War of the Volksrevolution Particularists (813 AS)
The gradual divide between the Hessian and the Unioners was less of a result of ideology influencing practicality, as both the Unioner and Hessian movements had degraded over one century of coexistence from their original extreme stances on social wealthfare and labour protection, but an escalation of common grievances, rivalries, and trysts common to neighbouring massive criminal enterprise. Whilst the wider narrative of the revolution encouraged collaboration between the Hesse and the Unionisten, cracks were beginning to appear in the narrative due to the Revolution’s very success; as the possibility of confronting the federalists on their own terms through violent anarchy moved from delusion to pragmatism, a separation appeared in the end-goals of the respective movements. Whilst the Hessians had no obligation to historical past, the Unioners maintained that the house itself was not the source of Rheinland’s decay, but simply the biproduct of globalist economic forces. Whilst the financial sector remained responsible, Rheinlandic industry was not only a perpetrator of the people’s betrayal, but also a victim, and could be coaxed to change its own system into a manner more consistent with the revolutionary idyll, given the sufficient wholesale murder of bourgeoise democratic profiteers. The Hessians, by contrast, held the conservative element of the Rhein entirely reprehensible and found its root in the spirit of the student-led Von Rohe’s day uprising, and not the fairly utopian social contracts in existence within Rheinland during the Eighty Years War. The “History Issue”, as it came to be known, had become progressively alarming to the Unioners in the years immediately following the Nomad War. Did the newer Hessian movement, with their swelling numbers and transnational propaganda, seek to block out all memory of Unioner resistance entirely? To worsen matters, the Hessians frequently used the Unioners as pawns for strategic objectives that the Hesse could not handle alone, acting as though the older movement was simply a subsidiary to the Hessian present, one that was ripe for replacement.
Equally troubling was the differences in organisational types within the Unioners and the Hessians. Whilst the Hessians retained access to the mineral resources of the Omegas and could derive the majority of their income from general pillage, the Unioners, bound to more frequently patrolled regions of space and without natural resources of their own, lacked the same freedom to expand exponentially as the Hessians did, and instead relied on their massive control of the Rheinlandic mob underworld to profiteer from the world of interstellar smuggling, a field in which the Unioners excel. The Unioners remained afraid that the Hessians would attempt to cut out the middle man and sell their blood diamonds directly on the Libertonian market, undermining decades of Unioner collaboration with the Liberty Rogues to bring the well-to-do of Liberty prime access to edge world products and artifacts. In addition, the Unioner participation in the Corsair artefact trade, remained a thorn in the Hessian’s side, as the Hessians could not adequately hamper the economy of the Corsair Empire in Rheinland if the Unioners were fencing artefacts on their behalf.
In 813 AS, the tensions exploded. No-one is quite certain when the first Unioner vessel attacked the first Hessian patrol, but it appears that the first war broke out sporadically, without the direct sanction of the command structures of either side. Whilst the Hessians remained surprised, however, the Unioner Arbeitsdirektor embraced the conflict, herself a skeptic of the Hessian’s true intentions for her people. Despite a lack of preparedness, the conflict went relatively well for the Unioners, successfully disrupting Hessian shipments of blood diamonds to Liberty and proportionately skyrocketing the price. The scarcity of blood diamonds however had the impact of damaging the entire market – buyers were driven away, damaging the Liberty Rogues’ will to obtain the product from the Unioners, who were no longer able to buy from the Hessians due to the hostilities. In danger of the blackmarket collapsing from under them, The Unioner cells who had initiated the conflict found themselves under fire from the Unioners who had benefited from the trade. Consumed by inter-cell infighting, organised Unioner assaults on the Hessians became negligible in their impact, yet the market still tanked. The conflict abruptly halted within the fall of the year, when a Liberty Rogue assassin, supposedly after a massive bribe from the Hessians, assassinated the Unioner Arbeitsdirektor during negotiations aboard Pacfica. Whilst peace begrudgingly returned with her successors, the Unioners have remained privately incensed towards the Hessians ever since, a process of “de-hessianisation” that has proven something of a second wind for the Unioners, slowly driving up their political backing within both the Bundestag and abroad, whilst rallying conservatives and Imperialists to the Unioners who would usually be deterred by their radical syndicalist ideology. Peace remained the status quo for the next ten years whilst the Unioners privately weaponized and the Hessians went from strength to strength with the discovery of yet more Omega systems. The underlying schisms remained unresolved.
The Reconstruction Era of the Second Alster Union (814 - 823).
The reconstruction era featured the largest blossoming of post-Nomad-War Unioner influence, and affluence, in their history. With radicals decapitated from the Arbeitsdirektorate, the Unioner cells blossomed in their autonomy, budding off into smaller groups as fresh habitats were constructed in the outlying systems. The Cologne cell of Krefeld base became increasingly independent from their Hamburg brothers as trade between the Hessians to the South-West and the LWB to the South-East lined the pockets of the Unioner warbands, who soon found smuggling to be not only more lucrative an enterprise, but means to make gainful strides in underworld control without firing a single shot. Successful Unioner cells, such as those upon Krefeld Base in the Koeln System, became increasingly autonomous, trading with the Hessians, whilst the Leipheim Unioners leveraged their trade connections with the Corsairs to profiteer from both sides, both black market routes conjoining within the Hamburg system for open, brazen shipment through the Tanner asteroid belt and into the heart of the Liberty black market. Forging strong ties with the Lane Hackers and the Rogues, the Unioners successfully ingratiated themselves into the Libertonian blackmarket - becoming something of a fact of life within the region. Even the development of the Rheinland-Liberty war did not slow Unioner expansion or operations – as the war drove the strongest xeno holdouts from the Tanner belt, along with all of the trade traffic, Pacifica switched its primary industry from piracy to the manufacture of weapons and spacecraft to be sold all over the Sirian sector – even to the Vespucci triurmivate of the western independent worlds. Closer ties were formed with the Zoners, ending the centuries of mistrust following the Unioner ouster from Freeport Two.
Depots were opened across the sector – most notoriously within the depths of the Frankfurt system, Granting the Unioners formerly unheard of logistical control throughout the Rheinlandic colonies – much to the dismay of the Bundschuh who feared being overwhelmed in their own heartland by the Mafioso juggernaut of the Unioner smuggler syndicates. A new age of Unioner shipbuilding and technical enlightenment began, that has continued until the present day, resulting in the repressurisation and re-activation of many of the Union’s so-called ‘Hammerday Hulls’ repossessed by the Union nearly three centuries prior during the Hamburg riots. The post nomad war population boom, already threatening overstressed life support systems throughout the Unioner subculture, quadrupled its exponents, pushing more and more Unioners into permanent, spaceborne occupancy. A sense of community and commonality of purpose developed between Unioners who viewed themselves as Syndics first, Volksrevolutionaries second, whilst the lack of an Arbeitsdirektorate lead to zero penalisation for those Unioners outcompeted the Hessians within Rheinland’s south.
The violent emergence of Gallia into the Sirius sector barely impacted the Union, who regarded the conflict as vague and distant, unimpactful to the everyday lives of the Unions and their sympathisers, with the sole exception of the suddenly ready availability of formerly unheard-of commodities and contraband riding the Jetstream of the Gallic war machine. The exceptionally rare narcotic NOX became increasingly popular amongst the Unioners wealthy or dependent enough to lay down assets for the drug, due to its allegedly cardamine-like effects without the physiological dependency. Its depressive elements – near-essential for a recreational drug habit in habitats where living space is a luxury. There are rumours that a handful of naturalised Gauls can be found within the modern Alster Union, drawn in part by the NOX trade, and by parties investigating the NOX trade.
Yet as the Unioners found themselves drawn into the production and exchange of goods within the underworld, claiming much of the Rheinlandic underworld economy for themselves – the Unions found themselves revisiting the ancient literature of the Concord of Unionisation, that had defined the Unioners as a people until the regicidal reign of Kaiserin Leicht and the destruction of their former imperial hosts. A clamour filled the Union for the appointment of of a new Arbeitsdirektor – one that would preserve and aid the old Imperial organisations of the Unionised Rhein, including Kruger, and would take the fight to Republican itself. Emboldened by co-operation with the Hellfire Legion within Hamburg and Hudson, and by successful raids against headquarters of Republican Shipping itself, the Unioners appointed a succession of new Arbeitsdirektors. The first, the enigmatic half-Molly known as VonBoyle expanded the horizons of the Unioner people, stretching their operational zones from the very edge of the Omicrons to the Walker Nebulae’s fringe, first to the delight of the Hessians who traded with them, and then, with suspicion and panic that the old cause that the Hessians had claimed to have replaced was very much alive and thriving. As pressure to elect an increasingly extreme Direktorate clamoured through the Union, Pacifica native and self-styled messiah, Hansel Garen VonHimmel, replaced Boyle in the spring of 823. Garen pledged to bring the emboldened Union to strength against their enemies; to enact the restoration of the Concord of Unionisation throughout the Rheinland, or to die in the attempt. Millions of Unioners flocked to Garen’s banner – the institutionalisation of the exiled Unions had begun.
Goals
- Bias the Popular Revolution away from Volksrevolution Positions. Advance Cornflower Resistance theories and Syndicalist sentiment.
- Elect Unioner-sympathetic politicians on both the left and right wings to the Bundestag through targeted payments.
- Free Virlande prison station in Hamburg's own equivalent of Bastille Day.
- Prevent a renewed Liberty-Rheinland war at any cost.
- Control smuggling and the Underworld within Rheinland's systems and surrounding independent worlds.
- Create independent worlds manufacturies to counter monopolistic interests. Steal, pirate, and distribute monopolist technology and wealth where possible.
- Prevent the foothold of any edge world unlawfuls within Rheinland space.
Diplomacy
Allied
Junkers (Independents and Congress) – “Seat-of-the-Pants smugglers and shipbuilders think alike.”
Corsairs – “Tensions have been strained since the Krefeld Massacre."
Liberty Rogues - “Where do you think Ashcroft got his stones?”
Lane Hackers – “Reliable guys, noble cause, but boy do they have a pole axe in their suited arses.”
The Gaians - "We're both part of the green movement. We've got our sympathies for one another. You came to our aid in our hour of need. We're both culturally sharing the remnants of the LWB."
Friendly
Kruger – “It’s totally hush-hush that we help each other out, right?”
FreeLancing Escorts & Repairs – “We don’t run this place, but we have an understanding with the people who do.”
The Hansa - "Friends that support our Military Salvage Market by offering a more "Lawfull" sellplace."
The Hyperspace People - "These guys can appear everywhere."
Battlegroup Harmony – “We used to be brothers, despite our differences in worldviews. Then you came for us with a hatchet. Brothers fight, brothers forgive, but brothers don't forget.”
Neutral
Daumann – “Likes the corsairs? Check. Rheinlandic employer? Check. Now just stop sellin’ guns to the police.”
Freelancers – “Alpha one dash one.”
The Outcasts – “Cardamine, Cardamine, it's what everybody wants. If you're willing to work with us as intermediaries, we'll sell it on."
Das Wilde – “We don't know if you are everything the overworld says you are.”
Junker Marauders - "Shady, but not a threat."
The Bundschuh, Die Weiße Rose – “We have some old trouble with the 'Schuh, and historically? We've been everywhere from working together tho scratching out eyes. But we keep out of each other's business nowadays. There's room enough for both causes.”
Gallia – “You're a fact of life now. Besides, Charles hasn't disrespected the wealthfare of his own people.”
Bretonia – “We support you kicking the crap out of interhouse profiteers.”
Mistrustful
The Order – “We know what you do and why you do it. We respect what you do. We don't always respect the people you run over to do it.
The Sirius Coalition (All groups) - "We aspire to the Von Rohe's day Idyll. Do you? Or has power gone to your head?"
Red Hessians – “We just had a one-year war with ya’ll. You’re like… that lil’ brother ya’ll used to raise and now tries to poison us at Christmas. We want to work with you, but you keep pushing north. Pushing, over and over. Some of us want to push back.”
Unfriendly
House Lawful Strangers – “Stranger danger."
Cryer – “Buncha’ drug-pushers laming out the cardi’ market.”
Liberty infected – “I don’t care if you’ve got a tentacle in your mouth. If you’re wearin’ navy blue, I’ll shoot ya’ through.”
Nomads – “Now, I’ll accept weird. I’ll accept it if it makes me a Mark. But these guys? Bad trip waiting to happen.”
Hostile
Unmentioned Foreign Lawfuls – “Get off my lawn! Or outta’ my gravity well.”
Xenos – “You may hate what I hate, but you hate me for hating what I hate.”
Bounty Hunters - “Traitor!”
IMG – “A big load of wallop that doesn’t end up in the hands of the taxpayer. Tax it on the taxman’s behalf.”
Total Insurgency
GMG – “All that gas, just needs one flame. Without you, we would have jobs, homes, lives, an empire. You? You deserve all the cain that’s coming to you.”
ALG – “Collaborates with GMG, does most of its business offshore to avoid payin’ Rheinlandic cooperate tax. Pays its workers well then claims that’s evidence the corruption they built, works.”
BDM – “Misguided spies who are tryin’ to overthrow the government and replace it with a shadow state.”
Interspace Commerce – “The moneylenders in the temple.”
Independent Neutralnet Division – “The fat cats in the cathouse.”
Liberty corporations and lawfuls – “Drainin’ Rheinland like it’s the federal reserve.”
Junkers (Independents and Congress) – “Seat-of-the-Pants smugglers and shipbuilders think alike.”
Corsairs – “Tensions have been strained since the Krefeld Massacre."
Liberty Rogues - “Where do you think Ashcroft got his stones?”
Lane Hackers – “Reliable guys, noble cause, but boy do they have a pole axe in their suited arses.”
The Gaians - "We're both part of the green movement. We've got our sympathies for one another. You came to our aid in our hour of need. We're both culturally sharing the remnants of the LWB."
Friendly
Kruger – “It’s totally hush-hush that we help each other out, right?”
FreeLancing Escorts & Repairs – “We don’t run this place, but we have an understanding with the people who do.”
The Hansa - "Friends that support our Military Salvage Market by offering a more "Lawfull" sellplace."
The Hyperspace People - "These guys can appear everywhere."
Battlegroup Harmony – “We used to be brothers, despite our differences in worldviews. Then you came for us with a hatchet. Brothers fight, brothers forgive, but brothers don't forget.”
Neutral
Daumann – “Likes the corsairs? Check. Rheinlandic employer? Check. Now just stop sellin’ guns to the police.”
Freelancers – “Alpha one dash one.”
The Outcasts – “Cardamine, Cardamine, it's what everybody wants. If you're willing to work with us as intermediaries, we'll sell it on."
Das Wilde – “We don't know if you are everything the overworld says you are.”
Junker Marauders - "Shady, but not a threat."
The Bundschuh, Die Weiße Rose – “We have some old trouble with the 'Schuh, and historically? We've been everywhere from working together tho scratching out eyes. But we keep out of each other's business nowadays. There's room enough for both causes.”
Gallia – “You're a fact of life now. Besides, Charles hasn't disrespected the wealthfare of his own people.”
Bretonia – “We support you kicking the crap out of interhouse profiteers.”
Mistrustful
The Order – “We know what you do and why you do it. We respect what you do. We don't always respect the people you run over to do it.
The Sirius Coalition (All groups) - "We aspire to the Von Rohe's day Idyll. Do you? Or has power gone to your head?"
Red Hessians – “We just had a one-year war with ya’ll. You’re like… that lil’ brother ya’ll used to raise and now tries to poison us at Christmas. We want to work with you, but you keep pushing north. Pushing, over and over. Some of us want to push back.”
Unfriendly
House Lawful Strangers – “Stranger danger."
Cryer – “Buncha’ drug-pushers laming out the cardi’ market.”
Liberty infected – “I don’t care if you’ve got a tentacle in your mouth. If you’re wearin’ navy blue, I’ll shoot ya’ through.”
Nomads – “Now, I’ll accept weird. I’ll accept it if it makes me a Mark. But these guys? Bad trip waiting to happen.”
Hostile
Unmentioned Foreign Lawfuls – “Get off my lawn! Or outta’ my gravity well.”
Xenos – “You may hate what I hate, but you hate me for hating what I hate.”
Bounty Hunters - “Traitor!”
IMG – “A big load of wallop that doesn’t end up in the hands of the taxpayer. Tax it on the taxman’s behalf.”
Total Insurgency
GMG – “All that gas, just needs one flame. Without you, we would have jobs, homes, lives, an empire. You? You deserve all the cain that’s coming to you.”
ALG – “Collaborates with GMG, does most of its business offshore to avoid payin’ Rheinlandic cooperate tax. Pays its workers well then claims that’s evidence the corruption they built, works.”
BDM – “Misguided spies who are tryin’ to overthrow the government and replace it with a shadow state.”
Interspace Commerce – “The moneylenders in the temple.”
Independent Neutralnet Division – “The fat cats in the cathouse.”
Liberty corporations and lawfuls – “Drainin’ Rheinland like it’s the federal reserve.”
Historical Nemesis
Republican Shipping – “You're responsible for us being thrown into the underworld. It's been near two centuries and you're still sticking in the knife. There's some signs you'll change, but you won't change till you wear the Imperial flag again. If you do that, we'll talk. If not? Bombs and bullets."
Rheinland Federal Police – “You use your prisons to assassinate inmates on taxpayer's credits. You shake people down and won't respond to murders without bribes. You're not fit to serve."
Unmentioned groups are to be confronted situationally.
Arbeiter - Worker
May fly any snubcraft of Unioner and Rheinland Origin available to him, without restriction. The Arbeiter is a member of the Unioner’s movement, but does not represent it’s aims. Any actions taken by an arbeiter may be discounted by the movement, due to their brash, young nature.
“A Unioner is an Arbeiter as soon as they’re a member of the Union. It’s not a badge (although most have one). It’s not a job description. It’s a state of mind. You’re in the Union because you want to work towards something. Be it revenge; against the state, globalists, some sucker who shivved you in an alley, the capitalist conspiracy, your ex, whatever. You’re a worker. You’re here to go to work on Sirius and the big, steaming pile of piss it’s presented you with. It’s not a rank thing, neither – some damn powerful Unioners are Arbeiters only. Transport captains, for example; the people leadin’ the big hauls, sometimes, they’re only Arbeiters too. Not everyone has to be a Von Rohe to keep the cause ticking.”
“A Unioner is an Arbeiter as soon as they’re a member of the Union. It’s not a badge (although most have one). It’s not a job description. It’s a state of mind. You’re in the Union because you want to work towards something. Be it revenge; against the state, globalists, some sucker who shivved you in an alley, the capitalist conspiracy, your ex, whatever. You’re a worker. You’re here to go to work on Sirius and the big, steaming pile of piss it’s presented you with. It’s not a rank thing, neither – some damn powerful Unioners are Arbeiters only. Transport captains, for example; the people leadin’ the big hauls, sometimes, they’re only Arbeiters too. Not everyone has to be a Von Rohe to keep the cause ticking.”
Oberarbeiter - Senior Worker
May fly any craft available to him, without restriction, up to the Gunboat level. The Oberarbeiter is a trusted and known member of the Unioner’s movemement. Oberarbeiters are the great mass of the Unioner movement.
“Oberarbeiters are a rarer breed. Everyone is an Arbeiter, maybe one in ten are Oberarbeiters, although nobody’s got the numbers to go countin’ them out like marbles from a pot of fake-ass flowers. Oberarbeiters are usually the little more older, little more cut, little more influential types who know the score and have made a stack offa’ it. They’re what they are because they’ve done somethin’, at some point in their lives, to impress one of the bigger suits. It’s not too hard to make Oberarbeiter if you’re a flight partisan who laces his boots, kills convoy escorts, and doesn’t end up in Virlande in less than twenty four hours. Keep champing the bit, and you can make Oberarbeiter. It’s nice n’ easy.
“Oberarbeiters are a rarer breed. Everyone is an Arbeiter, maybe one in ten are Oberarbeiters, although nobody’s got the numbers to go countin’ them out like marbles from a pot of fake-ass flowers. Oberarbeiters are usually the little more older, little more cut, little more influential types who know the score and have made a stack offa’ it. They’re what they are because they’ve done somethin’, at some point in their lives, to impress one of the bigger suits. It’s not too hard to make Oberarbeiter if you’re a flight partisan who laces his boots, kills convoy escorts, and doesn’t end up in Virlande in less than twenty four hours. Keep champing the bit, and you can make Oberarbeiter. It’s nice n’ easy.
Gefreiter - Freedman
May fly any craft available to them without restriction, up to the Gunboat level, and may request the command of a custom commissioned ‘Hel’ class cruiser, for necessary defensive purposes of Unioner installations and skirmishes against hard targets.
“Gefreiters are called Freedmen because they’re free of all the responsibilities that would usually come from being the occasional booby of those higher up in the chain. This doesn’t mean much for most people apart from being the centre of attention and occasional rakin’ up free drinks at the smugglers bar, and a general ease at procuring tale from a few Arbeiters who aren’t partial slaves up in Wedel. Gefrieters are expected to think for themselves and outsmart whoever they’re matching up against, be they in a suit or at a flight stick. If you’re a police officer and you’ve just blundered into a Gefreiter in an alley, you want your gun, not your breathalyser. Some of these men are damned powerful – minor mob organisation strata. Sure, there’s always a bigger thug, but this is the kind of guy who gets namechecked in a dive.”
“Gefreiters are called Freedmen because they’re free of all the responsibilities that would usually come from being the occasional booby of those higher up in the chain. This doesn’t mean much for most people apart from being the centre of attention and occasional rakin’ up free drinks at the smugglers bar, and a general ease at procuring tale from a few Arbeiters who aren’t partial slaves up in Wedel. Gefrieters are expected to think for themselves and outsmart whoever they’re matching up against, be they in a suit or at a flight stick. If you’re a police officer and you’ve just blundered into a Gefreiter in an alley, you want your gun, not your breathalyser. Some of these men are damned powerful – minor mob organisation strata. Sure, there’s always a bigger thug, but this is the kind of guy who gets namechecked in a dive.”
Vorarbeiter - Foreman
May fly any craft available to him, including a ‘Hel’ class cruiser, for any and all Unioner activities, as a full and trusted member of the movement. Considered a veteran in terms of political and military operations, their words should be heeded.
“Vorarbeiters are the kind of people who, when you’re a young-ass Arbeiter fresh from the womb-jelly, havin’ them come and chat to ya’ in the creche is gonna’ be one of the founding memories of your childhood. These people might be so poor that they’re starving in a corner – don’t matter. What matters is that Garen probably knows their surnames and has a potential kill list on ‘em just in case they attempt to take a potshot at the big man or a cell lord. Some of these people are even cell lords. They’re the people who get to mess around with a term not usually in the lexicon – strategy. They are… well. Some are more equal than others. These are the most equal motherpluckers I’ve ever seen. Breathe the same air as them? It’s an honour, comrade.”
“Vorarbeiters are the kind of people who, when you’re a young-ass Arbeiter fresh from the womb-jelly, havin’ them come and chat to ya’ in the creche is gonna’ be one of the founding memories of your childhood. These people might be so poor that they’re starving in a corner – don’t matter. What matters is that Garen probably knows their surnames and has a potential kill list on ‘em just in case they attempt to take a potshot at the big man or a cell lord. Some of these people are even cell lords. They’re the people who get to mess around with a term not usually in the lexicon – strategy. They are… well. Some are more equal than others. These are the most equal motherpluckers I’ve ever seen. Breathe the same air as them? It’s an honour, comrade.”
Oberstarbeiter - Highest Worker
A senior member of the movement, they may fly any craft without restrictions. Representing the higher echelons of the movement, their words are to be followed by all other Unioners.
“Oberstarbeiters are the kind of people who end up on motivational posters where you can’t see their face under the flight helmet because that would present ‘em with a security risk, but they still need you to grab a rifle and come shoot-to-shill for them if they get in a bad way. That’s the kind of power we’re talking here. They’re Garen’s inner circle. Nobody screws with ‘em.”
Current:“Oberstarbeiters are the kind of people who end up on motivational posters where you can’t see their face under the flight helmet because that would present ‘em with a security risk, but they still need you to grab a rifle and come shoot-to-shill for them if they get in a bad way. That’s the kind of power we’re talking here. They’re Garen’s inner circle. Nobody screws with ‘em.”
- Mary Annelise Dross - m.i.a
- Alise von Ravensberg - deserted
- Sofia Zelinski - dead?
Procurator - First Agent
There can only ever be one. The Procurator is the formal second in command of the Unioner movement, the chieftain of the organisation when the Arbeitsdirektor is in exile and the guiding hand of the Arbeitsdirektor's will as his spymaster. Only the Procurator bears ownership of the remaining Imperial legislature artefacts preserved from destruction by the federals. It is his purpose to defend them from contamination, onto death.
“Nobody knows who the procurator is. That alone should scare the crap out of everyone, everywhere. He could be me, she could be you. And they are the right hand of God.
Say yer’ prayers.”
“Nobody knows who the procurator is. That alone should scare the crap out of everyone, everywhere. He could be me, she could be you. And they are the right hand of God.
Say yer’ prayers.”
Arbeitsdirektor - Work Director
The director and engineer of the Unioner movement, this individuals holds the highest authority within the movement. As the head and face of the Unioners, the Arbeitsdirektor may freely operate any vessel of installtion of the Unioners movement. Any orders given by the Arbeitsdirektor must be followed, unless a ⅔ Majority of the Arbeiters Council speak against it. The Arbeitsdirektor is the powerhouse behind the Union - charismatic, protective, shrewd, yet ruthless in action. The Arbeitsdirektor can be considered by the virtue to be one of the most dangerous man in Rheinland - or one of the most virtuous, depending which side of the political isle you are.
“Strange, isn’t it? The Highest position in the Union is also the one with the statistical highest likelihood of dying on the job. True definition of a job for life. You bind all the cells together as their one unifying spine and they’re gonna’ twease and tweak you and at any sign of weakness? They’ll swap you out with silent bullets and cold, dry, vacuum. Arbeitdirektors are not public figures. They are wanted in life and reviled in death. Those few who live to retire, such as Von Boyle, are the cream. It’s the strictest meritocracy in the Sirius sector; only the crazies survive – and Garen? He’s the craziest of them all.”
“Fear the man who sees all the cards.”
“Strange, isn’t it? The Highest position in the Union is also the one with the statistical highest likelihood of dying on the job. True definition of a job for life. You bind all the cells together as their one unifying spine and they’re gonna’ twease and tweak you and at any sign of weakness? They’ll swap you out with silent bullets and cold, dry, vacuum. Arbeitdirektors are not public figures. They are wanted in life and reviled in death. Those few who live to retire, such as Von Boyle, are the cream. It’s the strictest meritocracy in the Sirius sector; only the crazies survive – and Garen? He’s the craziest of them all.”
“Fear the man who sees all the cards.”
Current: Current no glue.
Known bases:
Speyer Base
Speyer was established as a small outpost in the obsfucating Sudnebel of Southern Frankfurt in 822 AS. Though it presently is of bare-bones construction and built far beyond their typical territory, the Unioner Syndicate launches raids here against the nearby trade lanes and uses the base as a checkpoint for all sorts of smuggling - Diamonds especially. The station may only prove to be a temporary supply depot, as its cheap and comparatively simple internal structure suggests a desire to linger in the unfriendly region only as long as necessary before either their foes the Bundschuh or the Federal Authorities catch wind of their activities here.
Krefeld Base
Krefeld is a small Unioner controlled base within one of the many asteroid fields in the Koeln system. The base serves mainly as a guard point for the nearby Duesseldorf jump hole, with the majority of its traffic consisting of diamond smugglers and supply ships. Placed well on the outskirts of the system, Krefeld is regarded as a safe haven from lawful activity, and is an important place of contact between Unioners and Red Hessians in Rheinland, right after Kreuzberg Depot in New Berlin.
Leipheim Base
Secretly constructed in 762 A.S., Leipheim Base lies in the south eastern reaches of the Alps Cloud. Carved out of a large asteroid within the nebula, the base is home to a large number of Unioners, many of whom prefer the seclusion that Leipheim offers, compared to the more well known Pacifica Base in Bering.
The base has seen a considerable surge of activity as the Unioners rekindled their ties to the Corsairs. Artifact smuggling out of the Sigma systems often passes by Leipheim, and Corsair raiders have begun to use the base to stage attacks on the lanes. Surprisingly, the Unioners do not seem too concerned with this intrusion on their turf.
The base has seen a considerable surge of activity as the Unioners rekindled their ties to the Corsairs. Artifact smuggling out of the Sigma systems often passes by Leipheim, and Corsair raiders have begun to use the base to stage attacks on the lanes. Surprisingly, the Unioners do not seem too concerned with this intrusion on their turf.
Pacifica base
The history of the Unioners is intimately tied to Alster.
The shipyard opened in 412 AS, specializing in commercial transports and heavy lifters. Conditions were appalling in the yards, worker safety being merely a tertiary concern of the owners. Coupled with the excessively long spaceside rotations, the workers' morale gradually deteriorated until a major accident killed several hundred workers in 512 AS.
Three months later, the workers formed the Alster Union. Because of their highly specialized skills, the management had no choice but to capitulate to their demands. During the next century the union gradually strengthened and eventually included the dockworkers on the Altona Station above Hamburg. By the end of the 80-Years War, the union demanded increasingly high wages and progressively fewer annual hours. The system was out of balance. Republican was no longer competitive with Kusari shipbuilders.
With the war over, demand for ships plummeted. The bloated headcount of Alster was now a sore point for Republican Shipping, desperately trying to restore profitablity. Management was now back in the driver's seat after almost 200 years of acceding to union demands. They fired tens of thousands and won major concessions from the remaining workers, who lost centuries of gains in a matter of days.
As unemployment rocketed towards 30 percent in Hamburg, a radicalized version of the union reformed -- more of a revolutionary cell than advocacy organisation, the Unioners gradually moved towards the opinion that if the government was going to cynically criminalise its failures out of the newly formed democratic process, then the Unioners would work towards democracy’s destruction. Eeking out a meagre living amongst the half-complete hulls that they had scuttled, the Unioners built a chain of meagre habitats to house the dispossessed scattered across the Rhein, salvaged together from ship components, planetesimal asteroids, abandoned mining sites, and bankrolled by grey and blackmarket provision of their time-honed skillsets to the fledgeling Rheinlandic mob, Junkers, and independent pirates. The presence of Freeport 2 in Bering proved alluring to the nascent Unioner movement of Rheinland during the unsettled times, and was regarded with a sense of nostalgia for many of the Hamburg-orginated Unioners who had arrived there; the emblems of Imperial Shipping still embossed in every pressure-plate. Freeport Two rapidly turned into a mecca for the fledgeling Rheinlandic diaspora as the Unioners turned the Freeport into a hotspot of overt revolutionary sentiment and not-so-overt racketeering and piracy. Following the popular uprising of 702, the station's population exploded. In 720 the Zoners, realising that their archology was in major danger of house reprisals as a veritable pirate den, laid down the ultimatum to the Unioner occupiers: Take your criminal activities somewhere else, or have the Rheinland Police take you to Viernheim. They would sell basic supplies to the rebels, but no more. Suprisingly, the Unioners, agreed to all terms, vacating the station peacably. Out of the largest planitesimals in the Tanner belt, the Unioners carved their Pacifica base, named after the largest ocean on the old Earth, representative of the idea that the Unioners had become a people of true spacefarers, bound only to be free within to the void of space, till the day may come when they could regain their lost citizenship. Over the years, the base received various upgrades, including a small shipyard module modeled as a miniturized Alster to build and maintain spacecraft. Pacifica, to this day, continues to grow and evolve, and remains the largest, most heavily populated archology within the independent worlds, filling a comparable role to Coronado’s own Barrier Gate.
The Unioners today are known as some of the most brutal pirates in Rheinland, ranging from the upper Omegas even as far as Texas to the stellar North. Most of their attacks are focused on the Alster Shipyard in Hamburg, which has alienated them from some of their still employed brethren. The bulk of their Trade Lane raids are directed against Republican ships in New Berlin. Historically their Syndicate is infamous for holding little loyalty to anything but profit, with rumours suggesting that they have proven quite adept at smuggling a vast variety of goods and acting as middlemen for many groups, even those in conflict with each other. Evidence of this can be seen in the Unioner tendency to avoid participation in affairs that do not directly concern them – they take little interest in the wider narrative of the K’haran infection, for example, and only directly hunt down members of the bounty hunters guild when they are known to be hunting Unioners specifically. The Unioners have even managed to bridge the gap between the Hispanias, retaining basic trade connections with the Maltese whilst remaining firm partners-in-crime with the Corsairs against the Bundschuh and for the artefact trade. Indeed, the Unioners have even succeeded in bridging the blood feud between the Junkers and the Hogosha, preserving key trading ties to the Junkers as cosmic neighbours and a source of protection, and to the Hogosha through the far-reaching diplomatic manifesto of the artefact trade. The only place where the Unioners stand to lose diplomatic face is in their dealings with other Rheinlandic unlawfuls; Unioners do not approve of the the
The shipyard opened in 412 AS, specializing in commercial transports and heavy lifters. Conditions were appalling in the yards, worker safety being merely a tertiary concern of the owners. Coupled with the excessively long spaceside rotations, the workers' morale gradually deteriorated until a major accident killed several hundred workers in 512 AS.
Three months later, the workers formed the Alster Union. Because of their highly specialized skills, the management had no choice but to capitulate to their demands. During the next century the union gradually strengthened and eventually included the dockworkers on the Altona Station above Hamburg. By the end of the 80-Years War, the union demanded increasingly high wages and progressively fewer annual hours. The system was out of balance. Republican was no longer competitive with Kusari shipbuilders.
With the war over, demand for ships plummeted. The bloated headcount of Alster was now a sore point for Republican Shipping, desperately trying to restore profitablity. Management was now back in the driver's seat after almost 200 years of acceding to union demands. They fired tens of thousands and won major concessions from the remaining workers, who lost centuries of gains in a matter of days.
As unemployment rocketed towards 30 percent in Hamburg, a radicalized version of the union reformed -- more of a revolutionary cell than advocacy organisation, the Unioners gradually moved towards the opinion that if the government was going to cynically criminalise its failures out of the newly formed democratic process, then the Unioners would work towards democracy’s destruction. Eeking out a meagre living amongst the half-complete hulls that they had scuttled, the Unioners built a chain of meagre habitats to house the dispossessed scattered across the Rhein, salvaged together from ship components, planetesimal asteroids, abandoned mining sites, and bankrolled by grey and blackmarket provision of their time-honed skillsets to the fledgeling Rheinlandic mob, Junkers, and independent pirates. The presence of Freeport 2 in Bering proved alluring to the nascent Unioner movement of Rheinland during the unsettled times, and was regarded with a sense of nostalgia for many of the Hamburg-orginated Unioners who had arrived there; the emblems of Imperial Shipping still embossed in every pressure-plate. Freeport Two rapidly turned into a mecca for the fledgeling Rheinlandic diaspora as the Unioners turned the Freeport into a hotspot of overt revolutionary sentiment and not-so-overt racketeering and piracy. Following the popular uprising of 702, the station's population exploded. In 720 the Zoners, realising that their archology was in major danger of house reprisals as a veritable pirate den, laid down the ultimatum to the Unioner occupiers: Take your criminal activities somewhere else, or have the Rheinland Police take you to Viernheim. They would sell basic supplies to the rebels, but no more. Suprisingly, the Unioners, agreed to all terms, vacating the station peacably. Out of the largest planitesimals in the Tanner belt, the Unioners carved their Pacifica base, named after the largest ocean on the old Earth, representative of the idea that the Unioners had become a people of true spacefarers, bound only to be free within to the void of space, till the day may come when they could regain their lost citizenship. Over the years, the base received various upgrades, including a small shipyard module modeled as a miniturized Alster to build and maintain spacecraft. Pacifica, to this day, continues to grow and evolve, and remains the largest, most heavily populated archology within the independent worlds, filling a comparable role to Coronado’s own Barrier Gate.
The Unioners today are known as some of the most brutal pirates in Rheinland, ranging from the upper Omegas even as far as Texas to the stellar North. Most of their attacks are focused on the Alster Shipyard in Hamburg, which has alienated them from some of their still employed brethren. The bulk of their Trade Lane raids are directed against Republican ships in New Berlin. Historically their Syndicate is infamous for holding little loyalty to anything but profit, with rumours suggesting that they have proven quite adept at smuggling a vast variety of goods and acting as middlemen for many groups, even those in conflict with each other. Evidence of this can be seen in the Unioner tendency to avoid participation in affairs that do not directly concern them – they take little interest in the wider narrative of the K’haran infection, for example, and only directly hunt down members of the bounty hunters guild when they are known to be hunting Unioners specifically. The Unioners have even managed to bridge the gap between the Hispanias, retaining basic trade connections with the Maltese whilst remaining firm partners-in-crime with the Corsairs against the Bundschuh and for the artefact trade. Indeed, the Unioners have even succeeded in bridging the blood feud between the Junkers and the Hogosha, preserving key trading ties to the Junkers as cosmic neighbours and a source of protection, and to the Hogosha through the far-reaching diplomatic manifesto of the artefact trade. The only place where the Unioners stand to lose diplomatic face is in their dealings with other Rheinlandic unlawfuls; Unioners do not approve of the the
Wedel Mining Facility
Wedel is a Unioner base in Hamburg. Originally a Kruger mining facility, it was abandoned when resources in the Alsterfeld became too scarce to mine in 631 A.S., and lay abandoned for several decades. In the wake of their revolt, the Alster Unioners repopulated the base and partially restored it in 676 A.S., and started launching raids at Altona and Alster from it.
Wedel is a dangerous station. Many sections are still decompressed, and the Unioners seem in no hurry to repair them. The station is used as a waystation for smugglers heading into Liberty with Blood Diamonds and Artifacts. The Unioners skirt a dangerous road in dealing with both the Corsairs and Hessians to obtain these, but they and their Liberty Rogue partners benefit considerably from the trade.
Wedel remains the first space station repurposed by the Unioners, once it had become clear that the local Hamburg goverment showed little interest in acquiescing to the demands of its alienated working class. Since the existence of the station is a matter of public record, the Unioners have worked diligently to maintain the station’s sense of general disarray and disrepair without allowing for Wedel to degrade to the point that its habitation would remain unacceptably dangerous. However, Wedel is still an extremely dangerous station due to the extremely poor quality of life experienced by those that call the station home, serving as an overcrowded handoff point for every artefact trader heading up to the Liberty borderworlds, and every gunrunner taking the long road home. As the Unioners cannot viably add additional modules to the station without raising the suspicion of the law, the meagre habitable volume of Wedel remains highly contested by the embittered yet influential Unioner traditionalists who vie for breathing room. The station is simultaneously unexpandable yet indispensable, commanding the critical black market connection upon which both the eastern and North Western Unioner cells depend.
Wedel is a dangerous station. Many sections are still decompressed, and the Unioners seem in no hurry to repair them. The station is used as a waystation for smugglers heading into Liberty with Blood Diamonds and Artifacts. The Unioners skirt a dangerous road in dealing with both the Corsairs and Hessians to obtain these, but they and their Liberty Rogue partners benefit considerably from the trade.
Wedel remains the first space station repurposed by the Unioners, once it had become clear that the local Hamburg goverment showed little interest in acquiescing to the demands of its alienated working class. Since the existence of the station is a matter of public record, the Unioners have worked diligently to maintain the station’s sense of general disarray and disrepair without allowing for Wedel to degrade to the point that its habitation would remain unacceptably dangerous. However, Wedel is still an extremely dangerous station due to the extremely poor quality of life experienced by those that call the station home, serving as an overcrowded handoff point for every artefact trader heading up to the Liberty borderworlds, and every gunrunner taking the long road home. As the Unioners cannot viably add additional modules to the station without raising the suspicion of the law, the meagre habitable volume of Wedel remains highly contested by the embittered yet influential Unioner traditionalists who vie for breathing room. The station is simultaneously unexpandable yet indispensable, commanding the critical black market connection upon which both the eastern and North Western Unioner cells depend.
Zone of Operations
Primary: Bering, Hamburg, New Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne, Thuringia, Texas.
Secondary: Bremen, Puerto Rico, Hudson, Stuttgart, and the Triangle Sigmas (Sigmas 13, 21, 15), Kansas.
Tertiary: New Hampshire, Dresden, Omega 7, Omega 11, Omega 54, Omega 55, Omicron Xi, Vespucci.
Secondary: Bremen, Puerto Rico, Hudson, Stuttgart, and the Triangle Sigmas (Sigmas 13, 21, 15), Kansas.
Tertiary: New Hampshire, Dresden, Omega 7, Omega 11, Omega 54, Omega 55, Omicron Xi, Vespucci.