There are two sides to law enforcement in Liberty. Officially, there are the Liberty Police, theoretically a private company paid to stop piracy, smuggling and criminal activity in the Republic. Actually, corrupted mouthbreathers spending their corporate salaries on donuts and coffee, sitting in Illinois counting bribe money. Then, unofficially, there are Vigilantes.
Rich kids with guns, that's what they really are. Kids, who instead of taking the usual path, of going through college and then having guarantee of a job behind a desk in their parents' company decided to pick up swords and go slay dragons. Armed to teeth, without any kind of moral compass, they accidentally point in the right direction.
They do what they do for one reason, one reason only: because they like it.
-- Origins:
For most kids the path of easily gained wealth and fake respect is the dream. When whatever they want can just materialise before them. But once they realise that it's a boring life, of zero enjoyment, when all you have to do is play along of what your parents destined you to do, they start rebelling, doing drugs, going into the so-called 'bad company'.
Or alternatively, what a lot fewer people do, you can go the other way. In a world where there's nothing to aspire to, no maidens to rescue, no vampires to stake, you can leave that world and go back to reality. Do exactly the same, but from the other side of the barricade.
That's the path Cathy chose to follow. 'Cathy', or Seraph, the nickname her friends gave her in the college and it stuck. IT college in Varience City of Manhattan, one of the most prestigious but also one of the most hard-hitting in Liberty, with most of the money coming from Ageira Technologies. She passed, obviously, as one of the best-ranking graduates. Even the rector told her she would achieve great things, working for Ageira, as though he had no doubt she would go there right away and apply for a job.
Yeah, right.
She made great friends in the college. Seth, got kicked out after the first year. When he left the campus, he told her he didn't fit there. He went to West Point after that. His father was a Navy officer, he had aspirations for a career in the military. Tori, a freshman who was admitted into the college when she was in senior year. Smart, romantic, wealthy, absolutely generic upper-class guy. She would be ashamed if he went down.
-- Plans:
Fast forwarding a few years later, the college friends reunited at Manhattan. Seraph, after a short and turbulent adventure within Lane Hackers was a freelance bounty hunter, working for whoever got to her first. Lionel, as he was usually known now when someone gave him a cheesy nickname on West Point, piloting a battlecruiser by day, shooting pirates in New York and Texas by night. And Zettsu, travelling musician and rescuer of damsels in distress across the Sirius.
They met in some expensive club in Varience, talking and drinking, not paying attention to anyone else around. Then the idea sprung up. They didn't care to conceal it at all, so began loudly talking about how Police do nothing to protect their citizens. They wanted to change it. They didn't notice one old man sitting at the table next to them. He listened carefully.
-- Victory Rush:
The old guy was someone later known as Bolshack. A renegade officer from the Navy. This career military man spent most of his years watching his government try - and generally fail - in its self-appointed role of Sirius cop while its own territory burned and its own citizens died getting shot by Rogues, Hackers, Outcast and Xenos, all alike. Better to first start setting your own house in order, he figured. During one of the missions in Hudson his squad, consisting of a few fighters, a siege cruiser 'Independence' and his own dreadnought 'Victory Rush', was ambushed by three Rheinland battleships.
If Victory Rush didn't have cloaking device, the outcome would probably be very predictable. Yet, he somehow managed to get the cloaking rig working under the constant fire of Rheinland battleships and escaped to Texas. He figured this was a perfect occasion to break out from the Navy and start setting things in order within Liberty. There was a problem though - the ship was significantly damaged and a big chunk of the crew were killed during the fight. He himself took a blast of fire to one half of his face when a fuel tank breached. The remainder of the crew managed to anchor the ship near South Dallas debris field, where they managed to repair most of the damage caused by Rheinlanders. It took quite a long while, during which Bolshack was informed that he is being pursued for treason and theft of a Liberty Navy battleship, so was his crew. He passed the sad news to his men.
He issued a long speech to the crew of Victory Rush, talking about how Liberty is being destroyed from the inside by all manner of criminal element and they need to take care of them. Most of it he didn't believe in himself, but he couldn't afford a riot on board.
-- Meeting:
Bolshack rose from his seat in the club, dragging attention of the three friends sitting near. He walked up to them and said quietly 'You're doing something that I've been doing for over five years now. I can help you. But you shouldn't stupidly talk about that in public. Here.' He gave a small piece of paper to Seraph and left the room.
Lionel and Zettsu sat quietly while Seraph was trying to make sense of the writing on the paper. She figured it out in a moment, these were coordinates. Pointing to... somewhere. She'd guess this is the place where he wanted to meet them. 'Well, nothing to lose, I suppose. Let's go there tomorrow.' she said. She and Zettsu left the club while Lionel stayed to pay the bill.
The next day Seraph, Lionel and Zettsu flew towards the coordinates they were given. Seraph in her Sunrider fighter with blinding purple lights, Zettsu and Lionel each in his own Waran bomber. The location where the coordinates pointed was between California and Pennsylvania jump gates in New York, just at the edge of the Badlands. They found it, but it seemed nobody was there. Suddenly, just when they started to think the old man made fun of them, they saw a ship uncloaking. A big ship. A Liberty battleship. Victory Rush.
'Hello fellas, I hope you're not too intimidated, but I had to make sure you weren't followed. Docking bays are open, I will see you on board.'
-- Terms:
'So, here's the deal.' Bolshack continued after everyone introduced themselves. 'You're rich kids with no experience. I'm a poor man with a lot of experience. And I've got a battleship. So you stay absolutely quiet and discreet about the existence of this ship and in exchange you have an ultimately safe haven and a base of operations to stay anytime you need to. Deal?'
Seraph, Zettsu and Lionel looked at one another, then they looked at Bolshack.
'Deal.' said Seraph and brightened up. In a few short days Vigilantes were formed. A group that would bring peace to Liberty once and for all. Having a lot fun in the process.
-- Structure:
-- Overview:
Vigilantes use callsigns for comfort and better communications, and generally don't mind revealing their real names, most of the time it's not even necessary. They don't accept titles, "sirs", "misters" and so on among themselves. Everybody is equal and has their right to decide on the matters within the group. Captains only focus on organisation, such as calling targets during the fight, and settling disputes.
-- Founders:
[b]Seraph
Name: Catherine Ranes
Age: 26
Ship: Civilian 'Sunrider' Very Heavy Fighter
Origin: Planet Manhattan, New York
Lionel
Name: Seth Archer
Age: 27
Ship: Civilian 'Waran' Heavy Bomber, Liberty Assault Battlecruiser 'Kosciusko'
Origin: Planet Manhattan, New York
Zettsu
Name: Tori Kago
Age: 22
Ship: Civilian 'Waran' Heavy Bomber
Origin: Planet Kyushu, Kyushu
Bolshack
Name: Samuel Leader
Age: Above 60
Ship: Liberty Dreadnought 'Victory Rush'
Origin: Planet Houston, Texas
-- Zone of Influence:
-- Reputation:
Allied:
-- 5th Liberty Navy Fleet -- Tinker & Transport -- Liberty Corporations
Friendly:
-- Faze Mercenaries -- Liberty Security Force -- Liberty Navy -- Bretonia Corporations -- Kusari Corporations -- Bounty Hunters Guild
Neutral:
-- Zoners -- Kusari Unlawfuls -- Kusari Authorities -- Bretonia Authorities -- The Council -- Colonial Republic -- Gas Miners Guild -- Independent Miners Guild -- ALG Waste Disposal -- Everyone not listed
Unfriendly:
-- Liberty Police, Inc. -- Junkers -- Independent Neuralnet Division -- Unione Corse -- The Maquis
The Vigilantes are a tightly-knit, quasi-lawful faction based in Liberty. Their primary goal is to serve as a paramilitary force inside Liberty, enforcing law upon criminals, pirates and smugglers. Secondary goals include defense of Libertonian borders against trespassers and fighting alongside Liberty Navy. Vigilantes' methods are often considered overvigorous and brutal, and destruction of law-breaking ships without excuse is not unheard of.
Nutshell:
ID: Liberty Police, Inc.*
IFF: Liberty Police, Inc.
Bases of operations:
Planet Manhattan, New York
Victory Rush Carrier
*(Vigilante capital ship, Victory Rush, currently uses Navy ID because of limitations. This will be hopefully resolved some time in the future after submitting SRP request).
History: The beginning of Vigilantes is not very clear, but some of the information about their creation was found inside Commander Leader's personal log. The log doesn't contain any dates and was heavily encrypted, so assigning a date to the events written is not possible. The following fragment is the only one available publicly.
“I'm writing this just after the last fight with the Rheinlanders. The fight went well, we crushed their Turtles before they could escape, so I assume this will cause them to repair and give us more time before their counterattack. None of Rush's command was with me on the deck during the fight. Archer as usual left us and fought on his own Battlecruiser, while Cathy launched off Rush with her Sunrider. I had to get a replacement crew from Norfolk, but they did well and I even was thinking about getting them on board for longer.
The fights are common and I usually just give the Navy Command report, but this time something happened that worries me greatly and makes me think that Liberty went so mad about the war with Rheinland, they don't even care what's happening inside their borders.
While we were waiting for the fleet to assemble just outside Planet Houston, we saw a Junker Salvager. Nothing really was wrong at a first glance, so I left them alone. Victory Rush doesn't have proper scanners for checking insides of ships, this is just not our job. However, this Junker got very close to Archer's Kosciusko, who told me privately, that he was hauling Cardamine. I was surprised no one else from the fleet saw that, so I decided to tell the rest of the ships.
'We have a cardamine smuggler behind us. This Salvager. Someone should really do something about that. Kosciusko? Ranes? Over.'The Junker was approaching the mooring fixture of Houston, without saying a word to a huge Liberty Navy fleet. This must have been suspicious. I was hoping the CO of the mission was going to order some of the ships after the smuggler, and I saw Cathy eager to break out and go after the smuggler after my notice.
'Negative, Victory Rush. You and nobody else are allowed to chase this Salvager. We will have all of the ships ready in a few moments and you must not delay the fleet because of a puny cardamine smuggler. Over.'The words of CO were outrageous. I couldn't believe what we were hearing.
'Officer, sir, with all due respect, we mustn't let Junker smugglers get inside Liberty space and leave them out without any punishment. Ranes can take his ship down in a matter of seconds if he doesn't drop the contraband.'I was hoping to convince him, but I was losing my temper very rapidly.
'You had your orders. You are not allowed to go after the smuggler. All vessels, prepare cruise engines. Our fleet is complete, we will be heading into Bering any second now. CO out,'
We hadn't had the time to discuss everything properly with Archer and Cathy, but this is definitely incongruous. If the Police don't get their duties in order, we soon will become a smuggler heaven. This has to stop.”
Leadership:
Samuel 'Bolshack' Leader is the founder and current Commander of the Vigilantes. Information about his childhood and youth is not available. Seeing what was happening to the Liberty law enforcement, decided to desert from Liberty Navy after over twenty years of service. During an encounter with Rheinland Military, after his squad was destroyed, he managed to escape the battlefield with Navy assault carrier Victory Rush. Currently, Victory Rush is serving as a mobile base of operations for the Vigilante forces. During his training, he had half of his face burned by accidentally fired tachyon projectile. Because of this, he doesn't like showing on video, doesn't have any photos taken and prefers having positron shields on his ship.
Seth 'Lionel' Archer is one of the closest friends of Bolshack. Similarly to Rush's commander, Archer joined Liberty Navy after finishing college. Being a child of a wealthy family and having talent to economics, Seth managed to privately own an Assault Battlecruiser by the name of LNS-Kosciusko. After finishing his training, Seth was expecting a busy life of a Navy soldier, but instead found his service to be incredibly boring. In his free time, he usually spent time patrolling New York tradelanes with hopes of finding pirates and smugglers. During one of these encounters, he met his future girlfriend and later an officer on Victory Rush - Cathy Ranes. After hearing that Leader had deserted the Navy to form the Vigilantes, Archer decided to leave active service as well. Surprisingly, his superiors weren't causing him any problems. Having many friends at Norfolk, he usually keeps Kosciusko over at the shipyard, currently spending more time on Victory Rush.
Catherine 'Seraph' Ranes is the second captain of Victory Rush and Lionel's girlfriend. She is an ex-Lane Hacker, who was bored of camping lanes and waiting eternities for transports to be caught, more often than not finding Liberty lawful ships instead. During one of these encounters she met Archer, who instead of shooting at her as any other Liberty Cruiser, engaged into a conversation. She made her way on board of Kosciusko and stayed there for longer. There she learned about TLAGSNET and went into her way to hack the system and bring it on Kosciusko. After Archer left the Navy, she decided to go onto Victory Rush as well. After advancing to the captain's rank on Vigilante carrier, her old Hacker ways came back and she spent more time patrolling the lanes in Sunrider rather than spending all the time on the carrier. During her days as a Hacker, in her boredom she read a lot of books, and now never leaves the base without having some on her fighter.
Structure: Vigilantes use real names to contact with the authorities or in other necessary purposes, but for communication between each other they prefer to use callsigns. Callsigns can be chosen by the vigilantes themselves or by the Command based on the achievements. The Vigilantes during actions are grouped into wings of different kinds of ships meant to fulfill one another's weaknesses and enhance their strengths.
Ranks:
Commander: Only one vigilante bearing this rank, the commander of Vigilante flagship, Carrier Victory Rush, is considered the leader.
Captain: Captain of Victory Rush takes command in temporary absence of the Commander. Should the Commander pass away or go missing, Captains will be the ones choosing the next leader.
Wing Commander: An officer of a wing of ships during a mission, his job is to call targets and coordinate the mission plan. This rank is given temporarily to one of the Vigilantes at the beginning of a mission.
Vigilante: An ordinary and full-fledged member of the Vigilantes. Can be temporarily selected as a Wing Commander for one mission.
Newcomer: Newcomers are the newest members who have yet to become full-fledged Vigilantes. They cannot be selected as the Wing Commanders or fly a capital ship.
Equipment:
Ships:
CTE Line (Griffin, Falcon, Eagle, Roc, Condor)
Renzu Corp Line (Saishi, Sutinga, Touketsu, Anki)
Shukensha Liner and any other transport with more than 3600 cargo may be used by authorised vessels only.
Liberty Line (Liberator, Guardian, Executioner, Avenger, Upholder, Mamooth)
Liberty Siege Cruiser and Liberty Assault Battlecruiser may be used by autorised vessels only.
Liberty Dreadnought and Liberty Assault Carrier may not be used outside the Command.
Equipment:
Civilian Line
Liberty Line
Codenames
Zone of Influence:
Primary (Green): This is the main zone of operations for Vigilante forces. You will be able to see most of our ships inside the systems marked green. Activity in Texas and Minnesota systems is mostly targeted at enforcing Rheinland embargo.
Secondary (Orange): Secondary Zone of Influence will is not to be frequently visited by Vigilantes. We will be seen there only during detours caused by any other event. Shikoku system is considered Secondary ZoI up to Deshima Station because of frequently reported Rogue presence in the system.
Hostile (Red): These are systems that Vigilantes consider dangerous and are to be avoided at all costs.
Naming:
This naming convention is used on all ships regardless of class.
The premise is pretty neat, a "proper" vigilante faction has always been kind of a cool idea, to stand in contrast with all the unlawful "mercenary" type groups and such.
Anyway, the current info-page looks pretty well organized, and like the idea was well thought out, and I think I've seen you guys in game a couple times since I've returned.
It'll be interesting to see just how the vigilante interpretation of "law enforcement" sees you interacting with the authority groups in some instances though.
You painted Shikoku yellow on your ZoI map. What do you plan to do there as a Libertonian law-enforcement faction?
On an other note, the term 'vigilante' itself describes "a member of a self-appointed group that undertakes law enforcement without legal authority", the kind of guy who rather acts by his own sense of right than by the law itself, often becoming law-breakers themselves. From the faction description you indeed seem to aim for taking law enforcement into your hands, and with that I'd expect such faction to be quasi-lawful at most, but surely having some tension with the LPI and the Navy. And then I see that the founder of the group has deserted from the Navy, and took no less than an Atlantis-class Liberty Assault Carrier with himself. For an act of that magnitude I'd expect the Navy to hunt Bolshack's head until either they catch him and put him to court-martial or he ends up dead. How do you intend to fit this whole into the LPI (and Navy) ID? How do you plan to maintain this particular set of diplomatic relations with this kind of roleplay?
Quote:You painted Shikoku yellow on your ZoI map. What do you plan to do there as a Libertonian law-enforcement faction?
I forgot to put description to the map. Generally Shikoku is secondary ZoI up until Deshima, we aren't going any further than this station. Because of the Rogues that sometimes are in this system, we decided to include it in secondary ZoI as well.
Quote:And then I see that the founder of the group has deserted from the Navy, and took no less than an Atlantis-class Liberty Assault Carrier with himself. For an act of that magnitude I'd expect the Navy to hunt Bolshack's head until either they catch him and put him to court-martial or he ends up dead. How do you intend to fit this whole into the LPI (and Navy) ID? How do you plan to maintain this particular set of diplomatic relations with this kind of roleplay?
Victory Rush in and of itself is supposed to be a mobile base of operations hanging around Liberty space, but not showing on radars. We intend on supplying it through transports rather than docking it on bases. Bolshack is a person who escaped the battlefield with no Libertonian witnesses, and nobody was there to deliver the message to LN command, so they assumed everyone got wrecked.
For this exact moment, Victory Rush is but a hanging concept of roleplay, and we plan to use it in larger scale after the faction gets a bit more steam.
Also please keep in mind, that the faction name is completely arbitrary.
If you intend to uphold the law in Liberty, why do you care about what Rogues do in Kusari? As long as they are there they won't cause trouble back home.
If the status of the Victory Rush is unknown to the Navy, or rather presumed KIA/MIA (or the proper naval version of this term for ships), the charge of desertion won't be an issue at first, but I expect the Navy to find out sooner or later that it was not shot into tiny little pieces during combat (e.g. lack of wreck/debris found to be identifiable as the Victory Rush, etc.), and will actively look for it. Of course whether they find it or not, or when, that part is entirely up to you to play out. In this case however Bolshack not showing up in public can help you a lot to maintain the shroud around your mobile HQ capital vessel.
Arbitrary name or not, the name 'Vigilantes' apparently correlates with your faction description. The faction seems to want to take law enforcement into it's own hands, through it's own means, regardless of whether other legal authorities agree upon it or not (the only difference from the actual meaning of the word is that since it's an LPI/lawful "spinoff" faction, it has some legal authority to start with). As I already said this can easily create tensions between the Vigilantes and the LPI or the Navy. If you want to start out with the current rep sheet, it's all fine, but don't be surprised upon seeing it changed drastically after some LPI and/or Navy personnel witnesses and questions/reports the actions, methods, decisions of your faction.
Interestingly you mentioned Corsairs in your diplomacy sheet, but not Kusari authorities. I believe, since Liberty is outside of Corsair ZoI, but you included Shikoku, a Kusari system in yours, you most probably will have more encounters with the KNF and KPT than with Corsairs. (At least inRP, sadly it's still okay to expect random indies bringing their Corsair caps where they shouldn't be.)
In your primary ZoI, you mention activity in Texas and Minnesota to be centered around enforcing the embargo, but as far as I know it is only to prevent unauthorized vessels to carry certain cargo into Rheinland. I myself have some trade routes to both Freeport 2 and Cold Bay Depot used by various characters, in the light of this, wouldn't it be better to enforce the embargo past those stations only? Will you escort traders without proper authorization to said stations to make sure they are not lying, or will you deny them even approaching these stations?
And it's Mammoth, not Mamooth.... can't think of anything else right now...
Quote:If you intend to uphold the law in Liberty, why do you care about what Rogues do in Kusari? As long as they are there they won't cause trouble back home.
Shikoku is in Secondary ZoI, this means we will go there for example while chasing a smuggler or a pirate. As you can read in the description (that has been added), we are not actively enforcing law inside orange systems.
Quote:If you want to start out with the current rep sheet, it's all fine, but don't be surprised upon seeing it changed drastically after some LPI and/or Navy personnel witnesses and questions/reports the actions, methods, decisions of your faction.
We know this can happen and this is why the reputation sheet for the faction isn't set in stone.
Quote:Interestingly you mentioned Corsairs in your diplomacy sheet, but not Kusari authorities. I believe, since Liberty is outside of Corsair ZoI, but you included Shikoku, a Kusari system in yours, you most probably will have more encounters with the KNF and KPT than with Corsairs. (At least inRP, sadly it's still okay to expect random indies bringing their Corsair caps where they shouldn't be.)
This is sadly the point, we are seeing Corsair caps inside Liberty, which is incredilbly annoying. Such cap can sometimes ruin a day of many players and we would attempt to stop him should such situation happen.
In regards to Kusari lawfuls, I honestly think we can get away with chasing a pirate or a smuggling transport if they find us there, and if so, then we can just pass the buck to them. Also, since they are under "everyone not listed", they're considered neutral to us.
Quote:Will you escort traders without proper authorization to said stations to make sure they are not lying
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