Echo Corps | Faction Information

[Echo Corps]

Echo Corps

Callsign|Echo :Tag
Zoner :IFF
Zoner :ID

Basic Information

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The Echo Corps is a shadow organization that seeks the preservation of humanity and its legacy. Founded in the year 604 AS, the organization makes use of elaborate cover lives, disposable agents and infiltration to maintain the balance of power in humanities favor. Tracing its roots to one of the first exploration ships of the further regions of Sirius, the Echo Corps has been slowly preparing the factions of Sirius for the Nomads since its inception. Recent setbacks have damaged much of the ground work laid over centuries, and some members of the Echo Corps are calling for a more active role in the events of the sector.

Timeline

"In 550 AS the Bretonian government chartered the exploratory/research ship Fearless to explore the fringes of the mysterious Edge Nebula. After several years spent crossing the outer Omega systems, they discovered Omicron Theta and its sole planet, Pygar. Upon completing a brief survey of the planet and retrieving several strange Artifacts that were sent back by courier ship to Cambridge, they continued on into the mysterious clouds that traversed the eastern end of the system. The Fearless was never seen again." - Tracker Gina Utaki, Bounty Hunters Guild

-574 AS: The Fearless discovers evidence of alien life on Pygar, in the form of well preserved subterranean cities. Unable to reach the depths required to explore them, the crew of the exploration ship settles on a much smaller surface settlement. Dozens of artifacts are recovered, and while most are sent back to Cambridge, the rest are sealed in the ships vault.

-580 AS: The Fearless narrowly escapes an encounter with an unknown alien race in the then unnamed Amarus cloud. Damaged and lost, the Fearless enters Omicron Gamma, narrowly avoiding detection by the fledgling Corsair raider nation.

-582 AS: The Fearless manages to find its way to Omicron Kappa, having performed emergency repairs in space at every given opportunity. While encounters with the blue aliens have been limited to the first in Theta, the crew remains ever wary. Planetary scans of Gammu reveal anomalies deep beneath the surface, and despite their best efforts, even the most shallow of the anomalies can't be reached with the equipment aboard.

-585 AS: The Fearless charts the Azurite reactor, noting more alien activity in its vicinity than in other regions. Theories about the nature of the aliens begin to circulate. The ruins dotted across Nauru drew only limited interest from those aboard the Fearless, the planets immense Iridium deposits masking most of them.

-588 AS: The Fearless enters Omicron Minor, and slowly begins to map the nebula. The discovery of the uncharted Toledo provides a brief respite for the crew of the exploration ship, as they embrace a chance to make planet fall on a somewhat non-hostile world for the first time in 14 years.

-590 AS: The Fearless discovers the ancient jumpgate leading to Iota. Curiosity eventually overcomes self-preservation, and the exploration ship enters Iota. Compared to the near utter silence of the other Omicron regions, marred only occasionally by the crossing of small alien ships, Iota is a hive of activity. Scanners instantly start throwing out readings of activity, and the Fearless hastily retreats from the system.

-600 AS: The crew of the Fearless unanimously elects to keep what they have discovered secret, and prepare to fade into obscurity. The Fearless vanishes into uncharted space.

-825 AS: Led by Baroness Julliana Maxson, the Echo Corps traces its origin to the missing exploration ship Fearless, which last made contact in 574 AS while mapping Theta. The shadow organization is for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

Mission and Goals

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When the crew of Fearless encountered the hostile aliens, later known as Nomads, they were the among the first humans in history to do so. Only the Outcasts had ever encountered active Nomads before this point in time, and only ever from afar, a believed starting point of the Nomad Cults on Malta. The Fearless and its crew had been shocked by the discovery, but chose to ensure that humanity was prepared for the worst case.

Operating from the shadows, the Echo Corps has attempted to carefully manipulate and steer society for nearly 200 years. Disposable agents, carefully leaked information, and hidden guiding hands have helped to slowly steer humanity in the direction required to survive the awakening of the aliens in Iota. However, not all of these ventures were successful, and when the Nomads on Pygar awoke, the Echo Corps realized their failure, and withdrew for a time.

Dedicated to preserving mankind and it's legacy, the Echo Corps fears that the first Nomad war was only a test of strength, and with the increasing strength of the Nomads and appearance of larger warforms, they believe the second wave is due soon. Struggling to put aside the secrecy that served them over the past centuries, the Echo Corps has settled for hindering the Nomads and their agents in what ways they can.

Command Structure

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The Echo Corps follows a strict chain of command, each member understanding that their way of life relies on subterfuge to remain hidden, and trust in each other to remain alive. Originally charted by the Bretonian Government, Baron Richard Maxson captained the Fearless on its original voyage of discovery.

The members of the shadow organization are largely hereditary, passing their titles from one generation to the next. While it is possible to leave the Echo Corps, it is unheard of, the sacred duty of warden-ship deemed to important for anyone person to choose a different life over it. As a result, the Echo Corps is a closely knit organization, and many members are loyal to each other far beyond the cause.

The current leader of the Echo Corps is the young socialite Baroness Julliana Maxson, who has inherited both her title and command from her father, just as he did from his. Surrounded by a council of advisers and experts, the young Baroness is recognized as one of the more capable leaders that the Echo Corps has had in years, even if her methods are less traditional than her predecessors.

Assets and Technology

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The nature of a shadow organization is to remain hidden. For the past 200 years, this approach has worked well enough to not require changing, but any wise leader always prepares for the worst, even while in the best of times. The Echo Corps relies on quality, not quantity. They do not have the numbers to consider any member expendable, and in the past have operated heavily through third party groups, mercenaries and fractured pirate bands. However, at the core of the organization is a strike force of highly trained pilots, supplemented by cutting edge technology.

Due to the small numbers, ground operations of the Echo Corps are centered around versatile two man teams. Experts in infiltration and asymmetric warfare, these teams are ghost-like operators, intended to have left the zone of operation long before ever being detected. Coupling advanced technologies with extensive training, the Echo Corps relies on overwhelming opponents through individual skill than with numbers. While undercover any members of the Echo Corps will often be indistinct from any standard passerby with only a few exceptions being more noticeable.

Reputation

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Self-styled wardens of humanity, the shadow organization has very few direct connections with outside groups. Most notably are the handful of organizations that the Echo Corps hold in high esteem, and those which they view as little better than the Nomad threat.

- None

- The Hogosha
- The Junkers
- The Union Corse
- The Maquis
- The Bounty Hunters Guild

- All unlisted

- The Order
- The Core
- Outcasts
- All Intelligence groups
- Lane Hackers
- Golden Chrysanthemums

- Gammu AI
- The Wild and it's related subgroups.
- All Nomads

Zones of Operation

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The Echo Corps is not bound to any singular field of operation. It's members find themselves in action across an immense variety of fields, whether it be in a courthouse or in the black space between stars. Undercover members of the organization will range between the houses, and traverse any civilized space. Despite these being the majority of the Echo Corps ranks, they are well hidden, and hard to trace.

To the outsider, the majority of the Echo Corps activity will be centered around the Nomad worlds and stations, where their more open members are present. Heavily dependent on the supplies that the hidden members of the organzation will provide, these pilots are the shield and sword of the Echo Corps, launching surgical strikes against the Nomads, their thralls and the AI menace in Kappa.

Expanded Information

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Founded by Baron Richard Maxson in the year 600 AS, the Echo Corps have a rich, if hidden history. Over the two hundred years of their existence, they have traversed Sirius, fought aliens and humans alike, and orchestrated events from the shadows.

While it is impossible to truly expand on the depths of the shadow organizations actions, there are several notable pieces of lore relevant to both the organization as a whole, and the members within.

Felines and the Echo Corps

One of the few oddities that all newcomers to the organization point out immediately, is the ever present presence of cats. Every member owns at least one cat, and aside from when they are in combat, members of the Echo Corps are almost always accompanied by a feline companion. It is only when a second glance is taken that the details become more apparent. All of the cats belong to the Manx family, a breed long thought extinct in Sirius, owing to the very small numbers that were saved on the sleeper ships. Initially bred to save the breed from dying out, it was only after an incident occurred that the true value of the Manx cat was revealed to the Echo Corps.

When one of the felines managed to enter a lab unnoticed, the scientists within quickly noticed that the cat reacted aggressively towards Nomad artifacts, and would become increasingly hostile the closer it got to one. Calming instantly when the artifacts were moved 15 meters away from it, the scientists quickly theorized that the cat was reacting to a hidden property of the artifacts that had eluded them at the time.

Further research revealed that in a situation unique to the Manx, the natural mutation that shortened their tails, had the side effect of allowing them to pick up telekinetic signals, which drove the confused cats to aggression. A discovery which, has since led to the adoption of Manx cats throughout the organization, owing to their ability to detect nomadic materials at short ranges.

Stolen Technology

When the Fearless charted Pygar in 574 AS, the crew aboard had picked apart a small alien settlement for artifacts. Most of these were sent back to Bretonia for study, but a large amount were kept for study and research aboard the ship itself. While the artifacts were at times volatile, and resulted in at least two deaths due to direct harm, and another three deaths due to driving the researchers insane, members of the Echo Corps science teams have managed to unlock the secrets of the artifacts. Utilizing the trace amounts of knowledge within the ancient devices, the scientists and engineers of the Echo Corps have begun looking at ways of replicating the technologies, and how to best use some of the more unorthodox discoveries.

Pretenders, Manipulators and Thieves

Founded nearly 200 years before the Order and Core, the Echo Corps views both entities as a threat to the continuing survival of humanity. The Order mask their own selfish ideals and intentions behind the noble goal of defending humanity from the Nomads, but has been seen to contradict itself when it suits them. Seen as manipulators that do not hold humanities best interests at heart, the Echo Corps is openly hostile towards the Order, and anytime their agents have crossed paths with Echo Operatives, the agents have been removed from the equation.

The Core is a different kind of evil. To the Echo Corps, the awakening of the Nomads on Pygar was the result of human greed, and the Core is greedy. The organization is focused on the acquisition of advanced technologies and expanding their self-proclaimed empire. While outnumbered and surrounded, they have managed to hold their own in hostile space due to a technological advantage. Fearing that the Cores greed and desperation will lead them to awaken even more Nomads, the Echo Corps takes an active role in denying new avenues of Nomad research to the Core.

It is for this same reason that the Echo Corps views all the House intelligence agencies in a negative light. It is no secret that many of them are involved with research on hybrid weaponry, and the Echo Corps fears that should greed take hold, the results could be catastrophic.

Void Swimmers

When the Fearless vanished into uncharted space in the year 600 AS, its crew learnt to exist away from the support of civilization and beyond the reach of the jumpgate networks, and subsequently, laws. The black space between systems became familiar, and the jumphole network was extensively mapped and recorded, its various fluctuations observed and theorized. In the current day, uncharted space has grown smaller, and the reach of law has found its way to most of the regions that the Echo Corps used to evade it in.

Layers upon Layers

The life of an Echo Operative is one of duality. Light and Dark. Elaborate cover stories that span generations are slipped into as easily as if they were a second skin. The members of the Echo Corps have made subterfuge an art again. Given enough time and resources, any story can be fabricated, and each of the operatives lead cover lives so intertwined and connected that its near impossible to track down their true identities beneath the web of layers that mask them from the outside universe.

Ancient Powers

The Nomads are ageless and ancient, having existed in Sirius millenia before humanity took to the stars. The Cardamine infested planet of Malta is often visited by the enigmatic aliens, who are believed to surf the atmosphere while absorbing the chemical. This led to the creation of the Nomad cults on Malta, even before the Outcasts had returned to the stars. When Nomads were not outright hostile to the Outcasts due to their altered DNA, the Echo Corps took notice.

Unable to contend with the might of Malta directly, the Echo Corps works to hamper their spread of Cardamine, and has orchestrated countless raids on the safehouses of Maltese smugglers. Those touched by Cardamine are no longer considered human, and while the Echo Corps has poured extensive funding into the Stabiline research conducted by Cryer, and their own variants of the drug, they continue to treat Outcasts as non-humans.

Seeing Cardamine as a nomad tool, many who use it are labelled infected, and while some are offered a chance to switch to Stabiline, many are deemed irredeemable, and granted mercy from a life of dependency. Other groups have since started the wide spread usage of Cardamine, and are painted with the same brush as the Outcasts.

Shadow Links

The Echo Corps is reliant on its secrecy to survive, but even more so on those who are aware of its existence. Carefully constructed and maintained, a tenuous web of relationships links the Echo Corps to several prominent individuals across Sirius. These affiliates are responsible for ensuring that the Echo Corps is always two steps ahead. Information about information is passed on and requested, and favors called in to keep the Echo Corps always in a position of power. However, it is a mutually beneficial relationship, as just as the shadow organization requires the support of these individuals to survive, they ensure that the individuals always have an edge over competitors. The support offered, either way across the relationship, is always in the form of information, and only if it might have relevance to the concerned party.

Out of Roleplay Request

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This section is for you, dear reader. Given the limitations of the Freelancer engine, we understand that its impossible to be truly nondescript, and even more so with the tag requirement for the activity tracker.

That's why we want to ask you to consider our tag as a purely oorp tag. It's not that we don't want you to find out that our ships are Echo Corps ships, but that we'd prefer to accurately represent the 200 years of secrecy these people would be working with. As such, we ask you to find out who the Echo Corps and its members are the hard way, and not by saying you read our tag.

Thank you.