Consortium

Consortium
Origin
Alignment	Varies
Profile
Date of founding	Sometime prior to 615 A.S.
Founder(s)	unknown
Current leader(s)	Ironwatsas
Base of operations	Unknown, center of Consortium activity appears to be Northern Kusari and the Sigma border worlds
Primary role
Unknown
Secondary role
Combat operations against Kusari

The Consortium, more formally known as the Transhuman arm of the Consortium Legion is a shadowy and largely unknown organization, which is comprised largely of Transhuman, or Posthuman cyborgs. While their exact goals and activities are largely unknown, they are a heavily militarized organization possessing significant amounts of hardware, manpower, and connections to Sirius' criminal underworld. Most of the information collected thus far is based on outside observation, as the Consortium, by their cybernetic nature, are highly difficult to infiltrate or interrogate.

Synopsis

Based on study of their activities starting after 805 A.S., the Consortium appears to be a well equipped and organized, if relatively small, paramilitary. They do possess large amounts of military hardware and cybernetic and robotic troops, though they seem to be supplying other factions by acting as distributors of much of said equipment, while keeping the best and most useful weaponry for themselves. Their military appears to have a disproportionally large ground and planetary assault force with a relatively small Space Fleet. Most of their warships are smaller classes and appear to be disguised as civilian or other faction's ships.

Their ground forces are much less clandestine. They have been known to conduct various types of attacks, mainly on (but not limited to) Kusari, ranging from small scale bombing and sniper attacks to strategic level offensives. Their attacks appear to be well calculated and supported by their wide range of hardware. Though they still tend to prefer rapid strikes and shock offensives as opposed to take-and-hold operations.

Other Activities

Despite the apparent sophistication of their attacks, these are very rare and appear only conducted when necessary. Because of the generally secretive nature of the Consortium forces, their undisguised military operations are the only of their activities that are easily observed. Among their other activities, they appear to possess a number of merchant ships and transports for their own use, and likely have covert ties to both lawful and unlawful organizations. It is presumed that their merchant fleet is used both to provide mobility to their ground forces, trade with and supply allied factions, and provide an extra source of income.

More recently, the Consortium's space forces have begun to operate more actively. Most of their commonly used ships are stock Outcast or Zoner design, though other types such as Wrath class heavy fighters, Talarca cruisers, and modified Prison liners have been seen. Though, due to the fact that most of their ships' markings are disguised, it is difficult to identify Consortium ships outright.

Strangely, the Consortium also appears to be ferociously protective of the Golden Chrysanthemums, having conducted joint operations and deployed reinforcements to protect GC ships, even to the extent of sacrificing their own forces to allow the GC to escape. They do not seem to exhibit this protective behavior toward the Blood Dragons, Outcasts, or any other faction. The exact nature of GC-Consortium relations is unknown.

History

Little is known of the Consortium's history beyond their military activities. The first recorded mention of them comes from around 615 A.S., but they have only become active in the past decade. Their attacks have been on the increase in the wake of the Nomad war and have mainly targeted political and military targets. It appears that they are and have been trying to manipulate political events to their ends, which is suspected to have something to do with their overall goals and reason for their founding.

Several Theories as to their origin and purpose have been purposed by the few military analysts and members of the house intelligence agencies who are aware of them. Theories range from a breakaway group of the Outcasts, a Mercenary army backed by numerous foreign corporations, an extension of the Phantom Empire, Bretonian special forces, Nomad-infested and cybernetically upgraded shock troops, or something entirely different. Given, all of these theories are purely conjecture, as most of very little inside information on the Consortium is presumably an attempt to mislead the Public and House Governments.

Diplomacy

Allies

Golden Chrysanthemums

Blood Dragons

Outcasts

Unidentified 'Benefactors'

Enemies

Kusari

Colonial Remnant

Out of RP information

The Consortium is currently an unofficial player group founded by Ironwatsas and several other players. It is currently still in the early setup phases, but has done some operations and RP activities thus far.

It appears to be inspired by the Combine Empire from the Half-life, as evidenced by the 'Medical' newspeak code spoken by it's personnel and Watsas' use of combine stuff made in Garry's Mod to represent the Consortium. The latter is primarily out of convenience due to Gmod's ease of use and his lack of digital-editing skills and software.

The Consortium also adopts a sort of contemporary 'Mad Scientist/Evil Genius' theme, especially in regard to their scientific research and related activities. It also possess elements of hard military science-fiction, often using military terminology and using real-world navy hull classification symbols for it's warships.

Their official ingame tag is \CS\, which they have recently begun applying to their ships. Currently, they are in an 'Undercover' status, disguising their operations until the faction becomes more coherent, though joint /CS/ and GC fleets have been seen conducting commerce interdiction and trade as of late.