- This is an NPC faction. For the affiliated player faction, see Unioners (player faction). For the rules for this particular faction, see Unioners ID.
The Unioners are the oldest continuous activist movement in Sirius, along with the longest surviving terrorist faction in Rheinland. Formed from dispossessed Rheinland shipyard workers cast from employment following the end of the Eighty Years War, the Unioners are known to stage brutal attacks against Republican shipping, the GMG, and other parties seen impedimentary to their views, the Unioners blend a curious mixture of ideological nationalism and trade unionism. Functionally, the average Unioner is loyal to nothing but profit however, and the reality remains that the Unioners will do anything for anyone in the underworld, provided that they're willing to pay their way. Whilst disorganised and factional in structure, the Unioners preserve a reputation as excellent engineers, and reap the majority of their profits from the unlawful manufacture, sale and salvage, of pirate spaceships. One repercussion of their innate factionalism is that Unioner cells can be found anywhere in Rheinland - from Hamburg, to Frankfurt, to Munich - even within the lower Sigmas and as far to the cosmic west as Texas and New Hampshire, attacking Synth Food convoys. Anywhere, that is, that their longtime ideological rivals, the Red Hessians, are not. Despite the widening ideological split in the Volksrevolution, the Unioners preserve near-inseparable ties to their longtime friends, the LWB, and despite close trading ties to the Corsairs, the Unioners show little interest in picking sides in the Hispanic civil war, either.
| Unioners
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| Origin
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 Federal Republic of Rheinland
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| Alignment
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Unlawful
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| Profile
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| Date of founding
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512 A.S.
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| Founder(s)
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unknown
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| Base of operations
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Pacifica Base, Bering
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| Primary role
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| Return Rheinland to its pre-80 Years War social conditions, bankrupt Republican Shipping.
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| Secondary role
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| Attacking foreign and domestic shipping, removing Xenos from Bering and Hudson, maintain control of the Rheinland underworld.
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Synopsis
The Unioners is an umbrella term for a collective of large, loosely-organised group of terrorists, smugglers and gangsters composed of dispossessed Rheinland shipyard workers who engage in brutal reprisals chiefly against Republican Shipping, the GMG, and other neoliberal enterprises, although they prefer foreign targets. Once the lawful apparatus of Imperial Rheinland's crown-funded trade Unions, the Unioners of the present day largely fulfil the same role they did under the crown - preserving the social rights of Rheinland's blue collar workforce, albeit through considerably more violent means. Blending Syndicalist ideology with a keen sense of historical nationalism, the Unioners are one of the few remaining unlawful powers in Rheinland that views the memory of the pre-democratic Imperial Rheinland even remotely favourably. The Unioners are keen allies of LWB, ideological rivals of the Hessians and the Bundschuh, and are known to control most of Rheinland's smuggling blackmarket. They are the second largest criminal group to operate primarily in Rheinland, next to the Red Hessians, and the largest unlawful power operating in the Liberty-Rheinland borderworlds. It is rumoured that the Unioners have a certain amount of lawful backing amongst Rheinlandic conservatives, although nothing is proven yet.
Despite heavy trading ties with the Corsairs, the Unioners have long refused to intervene in the hispanic civil war, maintaining ties with both malta and crete wherever possible. The exact size of the Unioner movement is difficult to estimate without any existing census, but they are known to be the second largest pirate faction to operate in Rheinland, after the Red Hessians themselves.
Political Affiliation
National Syndicalism.
National syndicalism is an adaptation of syndicalism to suit the social agenda of integral nationalism. In the real world, National syndicalism developed in France, and then spread to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. National syndicalists believe in a confederated state with a state-enforced consolitation of resources and interests between corporations and their employed workers, creating a form of meritocratic society with a keen potential for social mobility for the employed, at the expense of democratic freedom. National Syndicalists tend to be protectionist, and oppose neoliberal entities (such as the GMG, Interspace Commerce and Bundschuh), and do not support potentially state-destructive inter-house revolutions (such as those proposed by the Hessians and the Coalition). Despite being inherently opposed to the destruction of the government, Syndicalists still celebrate the Von Rohe's day riots. In Rheinland at least, National Syndicalists are keenly allied with aristocratic resurgence movements, due to the massive endorsement of the Syndicalist agenda during the twilight years of the Empire. In the real world, Syndicalists are sceptical of Monarchists.
History
13 AS = Establishment of the first formal bill of blue-collar labour rights within the protogenic Rheinland colony by ranking officers of the Bundesmarine. The first protogenic trade union is created to both enforce and protect the rights enshrined within the bill.
512 AS = (Centralisation of the Unions under Emperor Valentin).
589 AS = (Unions granted wartime guaranteed employment contracts under Empress Leicht).
668 AS = (Emergency contracts receded unlawfully as part of the Yanagi Accord. Start of armed revolt).
Diplomacy
Unioner Ships
The Unioners-shipline are mix of Rheinland eighty years war shipbuilding prowess and civilian ship technology, and are known to operate off Thorium MOX fuel imported from the Corsairs, as opposed to the standard MOX mix found in most Rheinland vessels. The Hel is part of the Rheinland unlawful shared line, with both the Hessians, LWB and Unioners having access to the blueprints - the original design of the vessel lost to history with both the Unioners and the Hessians claiming to possess the original design. The Unioners are known to sell these vessels for export as a subsidiary income, constructing their own Hel models at Pacifica Base, Bering system. Unioner fighters and bombers tend to be significantly larger than is normal for their weightclass, trading expansive surface area for massive powergrids and concerningly able weapons grids.
80 Years War Ships
These ships are restricted to the Unioner Offical Faction ID.
Occasionally, the most powerful Unioner cells have been known to deploy even larger and more able vessels than their usual (already impressive) fare, including cobbled together retrofits of military craft, dating from the Eighty Year War and the fall of the shipbuilding unions into exile. Whilst internally antiquated, they are functionally inseperable to their sisterships still in service with the Rheinland navy.
Known Bases
Federal Republic of Rheinland
