The Revolutionaries are still around. The President's chief of staff that died in a (Canonized) bombing killed her master in the bath when the Revolution on Broken Chains started...
While I think I knew that Ordey had been replaced, I actually... didn't know that her dying in that bombing was confirmed, though rereading the text it was certainly heavily implied.
As far as I know Oneiros is operating from the outlines that @Iron Wolf and I developed based on ideas from @Amorous Intent .(Though her ideas also leaves the Old Empire with more big scale orbitals along the lines of Gundam sides). The Syndicate starting as like space.... space-x and then the Empress of Hypercorps is her idea too.
If you're referring to the O'Neill cylinder that shows up in the holoMMO Sins of a Galactic Empire (or was it a McKendree cylinder?), that was the Orion equivalent of alternate history/space opera/transhuman scifi, not a statement on the habits of the Orion Empire.
She drew it up mostly because she wanted a background for her Orion character that didn't have to rely on the sketchy details of canon or the ludicrously sexist/Misogynist/racists/bigoted picture that forms from the EU stuff.
So IIRC I think she curated what was left that wasn't offensive and then added the cyberpunk angle because that was cool and a "hat" no one in Trek uses.
There honestly wasn't much left after I got rid of all the ridiculous Chinese gypsy Baen villain nonsense; it might as well have been from scratch, less the Orion foods. The crap stayed in as a "THIS IS WHAT FEDERATIONISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE" shot at Star Trek's tendency to turn alien species into racial stereotypes. The idea had been that back in the 23rd century*, if you'd squinted really hard, you could actually see the racial stereotypes that the Federation developed and the canon episodes could have actually happened, if not been remotely representative of the species. Think lurid tales of exotic Orient trickling back to the sole seat of civilization, England, in the 19th century, and you'll have the right idea of it.
The cyberpunk "hat" actually came from the tiny hints we got of how Orion culture progressed in DS9. I heard "Orion Syndicate" and instead of imagining the singular, monolithic, "criminal" empire** that Trek probably meant, because fuck all notions of scale, common sense, and rationality, amirite, I imagined just one syndicate out of many, vying for economic dominance, that wouldn't be out of place in the Syndicate remake. Combine that with the cybernetics you see the Syndicate fielding, and my predilection for all things cyberpunk and transhuman, and there you go.
Since all Trek races need to be stereotyped into a "hat" (humans are diplomatic, Romulans are space Romans, klinks are warmongers, et al), Orions got the cyberpunk hat instead of the thieving gypsy slaver hat.
*Canon date in the game @Iron Wolf runs is 2416. This game just moves up the century and a half of cultural and technological development to match.
**If the Orion Syndicate is their government, it's not criminal. At most it's an unrecognized government.
So where did you guys draw your ideas for the Orions?
It's an interesting case of convergent evolution.
I'm tempted to try my hand at writing a pre-Orion Empire omake. One of the things I really liked about the Orions in FASA Trek was they were an example of why the Prime Directive is as much a thing to protect the advanced races interfering with the primitives.
We spitballed a lot together to come up with an Orion Union everyone in Iron Wolf's game could live with, but personally, I drew a lot from cyberpunk and postcyberpunk fiction, particularly Ghost in the Shell, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Remember Me's fashion. The rest was filled in with historical references (e.g., the Orion Syndicate or its predecessor being likened to the East India Trading Company) and a clean room reverse engineering of the FASA content. It went a lot like this:
IW: So, before the current laissez-faire Orion government came about, they were an Empire, fighting a war against the Gorn.
AI: Right, the empire is now the UNSC, complete with hiding the real homeworld and having every major colony label itself the homeworld, to prevent the Gorn from being able to pull a decapitation strike.
IW: Which is why there's fifty fucking homeworlds including places that make zero sense, like fucking Rigel.
AI: Exactly!
IW: I refuse to make the Gorn into the Covenant.
AI: Fuck no! The Gorn are totally a peer empire that won through having more established industrial might and the Orions' obsession with wunder waffen.
AI: About the formation of the Orion Empire, though... [15 minutes of babbling about plausible expansion into interplanetary colonization through early fusion drives and bootstrapping space industry through 3D printers and robotic assembly, that basically boils down to accidentally mimicking Gundam's setting.]
IW: Mhm.
AI: And since I really like the idea of Orions being transhumanistic in contrast to humans, I'm thinking instead of discussion of transhumanism inevitably coming back to fears of the Augments and Nazi eugenics, they fall back to their own history of the Empire fielding nearly mythological super soldiers, supposedly able to defeat entire battalions singlehandedly. But in reality, they were a wunder waffen boondoggle that individually cost as much as a cruiser to crank out in a war where the enemy maintains space denial, and by the standards of the 25th century, were incredibly using incredibly primitive augmentation and powered armor. Call them DEVATA, maybe.
IW: We're not having ancient SPARTAN IIs.
AI: Aw.
@Iron Wolf and @AKuz will have to answer how they modified our Orions for the 23rd century, as I wasn't involved in that.
Furthermore, the Union government itself is a new thing that was founded in large part after a revolutionary movement that legally abolished slavery in much if not all of Orion space, and greatly diminished the power of corporations. Hence a planet getting renamed 'Broken Chains,' and this planet being seen as important enough to justify housing the capital there four months out of the year. Since the Syndicate is still aligned with pro-slavery interests in Orion society, the Union government has another excellent reason to oppose it.
Technically in my original omake -- which is in-universe a decade+ old now -- it was a major part of Congressional Alliance's agenda to finally end all forms of indentured servitude, so at the start of the quest there was a form of slavery. Their big achievement was ending chattel-style slaving. I imagine they ended all forms of slavery right around the time they affiliated, which would explain why in the update Wolfe is concerned about a possible backslide.
On the 'revolutionary' angle, there's degrees to how much of a revolutionary bent particular planets had. As per the original omake:
1.3 The Union
A relatively new player in the region, the Orion Union is an amalgamation of the Free Orion Republic, the Orion People's Collective and a smattering of independent worlds that have banded together in an attempt to resist the criminal effects of the Syndicate, form a mutual defense bloc, and establish bulwark for Orions on the galactic stage rather than lose planets piecemeal to the Federation, Klingons or Romulans. They have banned and controlled a variety of substances and criminal activities that the Syndicate had previously ignored, and formed a monetary union based around cryptocurrencies. While the Union still practices wide-scale indentured servitude, they have banned the chattel slavery used by the Syndicate and outlawed the use of abduction as a source of slaves. The Federation Council is optimistic that the Union can be pushed further along to a goal of complete criminalization of indentured servitude.
Orion's People's Collective seems fairly obvious on where they rank on the 'revolutionary' scale. I haven't really had too much thought on how exactly the Free Orion Republic formed, but I think it was a revolution with more limited ends and more buy-in from Hypercorps who had become sick of the Syndicate's shit. The tension between these 'moderate' revolutionaries and the 'hardcore' runs through the Orion political landscape, right up to the top levels of the Congressional Alliance. Oyana was seen as a uniter because she had credibility with the corporatist, free-market factions of her party and the more dramatically revolutionary parts of it. She was friends with a Revolutionary who no-joke killed a former slaveowner and was responsible for organizing resistance cells, and ran with a male on the VP ticket which would be normally unheard of. She somehow convinced a Vulcan to leave safety and come to the Union in a cabinet role. At the same time she's very much born silver latinum spoon in hand. If you go through the omakes you'll notice after being bombed Oyana lifts someone bodily off the ground -- it's because she's auged to shit with the best money could buy.
To be feared is not just the Syndicate installing their own puppet, but they will find ways to try and drive a wedge between these two political groups in Orion society. TuP probably has this split in a different form, seen through a nationalist lens.
But seriously though, here's a quick run of inspirations for me, personally:
Titanfall
Narcos (TV series)
Domestic politics of Brazil and Colombia
Domestic politics of India
Domestic politics of the United States
Gilded Age of America The Accidental Guerrilla
Mexican Drug War
Atlas Shrugged [really] The Forever War [not the Haldeman version]
Probably a bunch of other stuff
New or unstable democracies in general are a good touchstone for the Union. Directly relevant to our interests, in India there's actually a significant proportion of MP's who are either convicted criminals or under investigation. And what's more, in some cases they have a better chance of winning because they are seen as community leaders who know how to get things done. EDIT: and have a lot of money, I deffos read the community thing in a different article.
A lot of people mention how horrible the Syndicate is, and don't get me wrong, they are. But in a society as divided along class lines, where equality seems an impossible dream, and where many are still living in slums while the oligrarchs rule from a distant, dark tower and promise change that never comes -- well, the Syndicate pays. The Syndicate will take care of your family (or kill it, but you don't think about that). Like many of the most insidious criminal and terrorist groups, the Syndicate steps in where the government fails and gives people the illusion of better.
I think what makes the Union so effective as a setting is because it represents a sort of space-future that's really common, the cyberpunk dystopia future. In some ways, it's also a mirror to our own anxieties and issues in the 21st century regarding gender, inequality, and unease over the effectiveness of capitalist while being aware of it's human cost. Dealing with the Union in many ways forces the Federation to deal with a past they thought they left behind, in the way Cardassians force them to deal with the familiar twists and turns of a technocratic authoritarian regime.
While I think I knew that Ordey had been replaced, I actually... didn't know that her dying in that bombing was confirmed, though rereading the text it was certainly heavily implied.
Technically in my original omake -- which is in-universe a decade+ old now -- it was a major part of Congressional Alliance's agenda to finally end all forms of indentured servitude, so at the start of the quest there was a form of slavery. Their big achievement was ending chattel-style slaving. I imagine they ended all forms of slavery right around the time they affiliated, which would explain why in the update Wolfe is concerned about a possible backslide.
I drew a distinction between indentured servitude and 'slavery' as in chattel slavery; while both raise massive human rights issues, the issues with chattel slavery are much worse.
Chattel slaves don't have contracts restricting what you can and cannot do to them. Indentured servants generally do.
[FACTOID: My favorite provision on an indentured servitude contract!
Some indentured servants in America had a provision in their contract limiting the number of times per week the contract-holder was allowed to feed them lobster. I swear I am not making this up. Of course, it was because in those days lobster was like the absolute rock bottom of the prestige ladder in terms of foodstuffs, like one step up from eating fried buzzard, but still. ]
To be feared is not just the Syndicate installing their own puppet, but they will find ways to try and drive a wedge between these two political groups in Orion society. TuP probably has this split in a different form, seen through a nationalist lens.
Yes; I've been sort of mentioning that in my own assessments of your material, although in a more generic form: "the rise of a government willing to tolerate the Syndicate in the name of national independence."
Which I suppose should be extended to include things like "in the name of bringing down the hypercorps" or "in the name of transorionism" or whatever agenda any given faction within Orion politics might consider to be worth putting up with the Syndicate.
There was supposed to be an omake about her fate but I got too busy to write it and now I'm worried it's too late to.
...although maybe if I just changed some things...
Nah it's less ideas problems and more the obvious place for her to jump back in was a while ago. I kind of think it also fits well if she's out of the picture [for whatever reason] -- it might explain why the Orion Government has been so harsh because I viewed her as sort of a moderating influence on Oyana.
Which I suppose should be extended to include things like "in the name of bringing down the hypercorps" or "in the name of transorionism" or whatever agenda any given faction within Orion politics might consider to be worth putting up with the Syndicate.
Oyana waved her hand in assent, "Agreed. Computer, restart media clip. Full volume."
The media on the screen was an interview pulled from a newscast. The male was identified in block caps below: MOHYANA RASZ, ASCENSION PARTY REPRESENTATIVE GARVIM-COLO-PORCHAN ON THE BAY.
"-- of course we accepted help from the Syndicate," Rasz said to the interviewer "The revolution needed arms, and they supplied."
"But, Representative Rasz, I am sure you can see why people would find it hypocritical that a revolution with the beliefs yours had would so easily turn to slaving, profit-seeking criminals."
"I acknowledge that. But we were -- are -- in a fight against the larger corporate authoritarianism that holds billions in bondage. To use the tools of your oppressors to destroy them is, indeed, a hallmark of many revolutions. The Romanovs of Earth were executed with Imperial rifles, the Viscountess of Vol'Skana run over by her own luxury groundcar. If the Syndicate is willing to sell us the weapons to end the system they benefit, that is not my concern."
Okay. This goes for anyone else here who doesn't read every post and every Omake (We've got like half a million words of Threadmarked posts so I don't totally blame you) This should be everything currently Omaked about the Orions. When in doubt assume that details more recent entries override older ones. The -Recent tag indicates that the Omake is too new to know if it will be used for canon in any way.
From Oldest to most recent:
Enterprise & the Orion Trade Deal - AKuz
This is where the Orions first popped up in the quest (Other than Enterprise's CMO) I used AI's More Cyberpunky ideas here, not Totally Canon in the details, the Hypercorps had more power and there was no elected government yet. Other than that the broad strokes seem to be accepted.
Ensign Wolfe Talks About Orion - IronWolf
The second post about the Orions and where a lot of the details were set in place over the general worldbuilding I had done earlier. There are a few bits that are directly non-canon, such as the Homeworld still being under Syndicate control (Though that can be read as "They control the orbitals of a dead world because reasons") Where it disagrees with later Omakes accept the details of the newer ones. Still a good starting place. READ THIS
Orion Persuasion - AKuz
Not directly dealing with the Union, but the Syndicate when they were still in Criminal Profit Mode.
Orion Relations - IronWolf
An explanation of how the recent Biophage Crisis affect the Orion Union and how it helped our Federation Friendly government come to power. Seems canon. READ THIS
Executive Meeting - random_npc
Not De-Canonized, not Properly Canonized either. One of the last gasps of the Syndicate as Criminal Profit Organization as our actions radicalized them as accidental guerillas shortly afterwards and probably removed the layer of characters here from the equations.
FBS News Service - BriefVoice
Federation News Talking heads discuss the Syndicate and our recent opting to crack down on them. The first real appearance of "Syndicate as Cultural/Religious force". Any errors can be chalked up to pundit not having the full picture. First Warnings of difficulty. And important to show the Federation feelings going into this. READ THIS
A Lesson in Orion Culture - AKuz
A talk between Nash and her CMO, continuing the theme of the Syndicate being more than a regular criminal organization. A deeper cut into the cultural mindset of the union and where the fault lines are. Asurva tells Nash that the crack will be a civil war for the Orions. This has been born out so far. Seems fairly canon so far though it is nowhere near my best work. READ THIS
Romulan Reactions - AKuz
Not directly related to the Orions, but rather the Romulan view of the whole situation. The specifics actions taken here are probably non canon, but in general the Romulan feelings of smug superiority is always canon. > : V
Another Average Orion Cabinet Meeting - Iron wolf
Huge, a deep cut into the workings of the current Union government at the highest levels. The assassination attempt on the president is canon. In general a lot of this seems important. There is a post below the omake that names the Orion Cabinet of the time (Though it may have been shuffled since then). READ THIS
Insertion - IronWolf
Not a brief, but a ground level view of the start of the liaison operations. Mostly an action/thriller series. Sadly unfinished.
Today is the First Day - Night
Not Directly Orion. This is about Caitian Frontier Police Units deploying to the Union to assist.
Union Law Enforcement - IronWolf
Do you want an important deep cut into the Orion Union executive branch that I am certain that Oneiros uses some form of? This tells you everything you need to know about the forces at play on "Our" side of the conflict with the Syndicate. READ THIS
Drop - Night
Orion Union operations during the attempt to invest Duaba -Recent
Fairy Tales - Pt 3 - Simon_Jester
Not A Direct Orion Omake, but it details the Amarki history with the Old Empire and that they were occasionally enslaved as "Pretty Savages" by the Orion Empire. -Recent
But seriously though, here's a quick run of inspirations for me, personally:
Titanfall
Narcos (TV series)
Domestic politics of Brazil and Colombia
Domestic politics of India
Domestic politics of the United States
Gilded Age of America The Accidental Guerrilla
Mexican Drug War
Atlas Shrugged [really] The Forever War [not the Haldeman version]
Probably a bunch of other stuff
Okay. This goes for anyone else here who doesn't read every post and every Omake (We've got like half a million words of Threadmarked posts so I don't totally blame you) This should be everything currently Omaked about the Orions. When in doubt assume that details more recent entries override older ones. The -Recent tag indicates that the Omake is too new to know if it will be used for canon in any way.
A Lesson in Orion Culture - AKuz
A talk between Nash and her CMO, continuing the theme of the Syndicate being more than a regular criminal organization. A deeper cut into the cultural mindset of the union and where the fault lines are. Asurva tells Nash that the crack will be a civil war for the Orions. This has been born out so far. Seems fairly canon so far though it is nowhere near my best work. READ THIS
"No, just that we need to expect legitimate, legal Hypercorps to interfere to stop us. And that the Orion Union will be spending just as much time taking on the Corps in a moment of weakness as they will fighting the Syndicate. I don't know if Starfleet really understands that this is essentially an Orion Civil War that they are starting," she grimaces. "Don't get me wrong, there won't be much street fighting, but it is a civil war. One where the combatants are armed with ballots instead of bullets and fought in boardrooms instead of on battlefields." She smiles slightly, hopefully. "With the Federation's help, we can win, and I think I can do the most good letting them know exactly how vital they are to Orionkind and how exactly this war can and should be won."
Oh Doctor Asurva, you thought you were taking a sober, realistic look at the difficulties and even then you vastly underestimated how violent things would get. How far the Syndicate would be willing to go. 'Won't be much street fighting' indeed.
Also, it is CRITICAL that we get Intelligence to spill not only about the Cardassian "Zimmerman telegram" to the Orion Opposition AND the Cardassian involvement in the attack on the Amarkian ratification.
Because if we want to demolish the opposition:
Syndicate works for Cardassians
AND
Politicians work for and are sympathetic to the Syndicate
THEREFOR
Politicians work for the Cardassians
AND
Cardassians "ask" Politicians to work for them for rewards
THEN
Politicians are traitors to the nation who should be kicked out of politics.
This is a way to drive the nationalist elements absolutely bonkers and set them off balance during a time of reorganization. And other Patriotic elements on our side will be galvanized/loose their goddamn minds.
The Klingon 'janissary revolt' almost HAS to have been something that really happened, and really accomplished more or less what the Klingons say it did. Because it's more or less the only way to explain how the Klingons could have been in space for centuries without having conquered the quadrant in the absence of the Hur'q. If they got that technology by rebelling against the Hur'q, then for most of that time they were the Alpha/Beta Quadrant equivalent of the Kazon: big and tough and dangerous to cross if they got their act sorted out and acted together, but prone to internal factionalism, and with most of their power coming from having disproportionate access to a lot of legacy technology they didn't fully understand and weren't quite... savvy... enough to duplicate.
The vision of Klingons dragging themselves up from being made of fail like the Kazon to become the savvy dangerous foes by TOS, before losing much of it when Praxis blows...
Strike Corporal Valara Nalaya is experiencing a familiar gut churning feeling. The same nausea seasoned with panic that always comes before a drop.
Her Union Navy Aerocommando unit has fought nonstop since being reconstituted in the aftermath of the assault on Vessia Transtellar. It's been an interesting ride. And they've taken a hell of a chunk out of the Syndicate; arrested or killed a dozen for every one of her comrades killed.
And today those Aerocommandos are seeking to take another bite out of the Syndicate as part of the Union's big push on Dauba. A direct space to ground assault on an arsenal staffed by some of the most trusted and experienced Syndicate fighters on the planet and armed with the best smuggled Romulan weapons money could buy ten years ago.
The briefings are over, the training and familiarization is over, now all there is to do is wait nervously for shuttles' shadows to pass over Syndics' heads.
That and listen to a junior officer who thinks she inspiring instead of a discount Maxime Sierre.
"Citizens!" Begins Lieutenant Auras, "Comrades! Today we begin the liberation of Duaba from the Syndicate butchers!"
Nalaya tunes out the Lieutenant. The speech is intended for the newest Commando recruits anyway; not ancient veterans such as herself. Lieutenant Auras is a bit too political for her tastes anyway.
Instead Valara watches the night sky fall away beneath the shuttle as it streaks towards the ground; the horizon becoming thick with the twinkling stars of city lights.
"The Syndicate is the rotten hand of a dead and decaying past reaching up to strangle the life out of a new generation of Citizens that desire peace and liberty!", The Lieutenant is oblivious to the Corporal's inattention as she stands with a hand on the ceiling rails in the rear of the Assault Shuttle, her voice strident and her eyes shining with Patriotic zeal.
Though the Corporal has grown to agree with radical views more and more since Vessia, she's still put off by the officer's enthusiasm. The young officer seems almost happy to be risking her life in a direct assault on an urban Syndicate HQ. Ones in the wilderness could be surrounded, isolated, slowly squeezed. But in the city there were many escape routes.
"The Orion Union's one great fervent wish is to bring her people out into a Galaxy free of degradation and predation!"
Nalaya looks up. The Lieutenant borrowed that line from Madam Sierre. Valara once thought the uncompromising radical Legislator was mad, but after Vessia and especially after Kearsarge she's come to realize that Sierre isn't mad; the only way to stop Syndicate butchers is with uncompromising justice and a refusal to abandon principal.
"And Citizens! We! We Are The Union's Sword!" The Lieutenant activates her faceplate; the dulled transparent metal sliding into place, "And we will win through!" Her voice is coming over the unit tactical net now; made slightly tinny by encoding, "No matter the cost."
Nalaya appreciates the sentiment, but she's still a bit leery of the Lieutenant's zeal. And of her overt politics. But then the entire Aerocommando Corps itself has become too… political in the recent years spent fighting the Syndicate.
Valara wasn't sure she liked that. The Corps had always been apolitical. When it served some tiny half continent country on the homeworld it was apolitical. When it served the Empire it was apolitical. When it served Alukk as a mercenary company it was apolitical. And up 'til now while serving the Union it was apolitical.
Still. Whatever politics had crept in hadn't changed the Corps' professionalism, thinks the Strike Corporal to herself as she begins to recognize buildings and terrain on the external shuttle feed given to her over the Tactical net. The Corps still spent its transit time memorizing layouts and drills instead of getting indoctrinated or... whatever.
Numbers count down on Nalaya's display as a trio of Aerocommando shuttles close in on an unassuming concrete building. It's cracked and dirty facade belying a reinforced interior stocked with heavy weapons capable of even shooting down a shuttle.
Or so Intelligence believes.
A moment later Intelligence is proved true as a green streak attached to something fast moving flashes by her shuttle. Valara feels her whole body shift as the pilot weaves through the air missing an aerial to keep them alive. Someone down there is certainly on the ball.
Valara checks the charge on her phase disruptor, slightly heartened. This scattered fire meant no ambush today; otherwise the Syndics would have waited until they were closer or launched a hundred missiles at them instead.
The Aerocommando takes a breath as her stomach finally settles down. It's time to fight now.
Strike Corporal Nalaya drops off the side of the hovering shuttle in perfect sync with the rest of her team. She charges across an aged and cracked street kicking up loose cobblestones as she takes cover in a doorway and bringing her rifle to bear on the target as she covers the Aerocommandos off the second shuttle.
Someone from the third shuttle is setting up a charge against a racked grey wall when Syndicate finally gets their act together.
A missile streaks by the hovering third shuttle causing it to start lifting away from inhabited city; instead it catches a coordinated blast from two heavy disruptors.
Valara doesn't watch the shuttle stutter in the air or gawk at the unfolding spectacle as the shuttle losses power and begins to tip downwards. Instead she takes cover against the inevitable result of gravity reasserting itself.
There is a rumble in the ground and hot groaning in the air as the shuttle smashes inelegantly through the wall where moments before a surprised Aerocommando sapper had been setting a charge.
The Aerocommandos waste no time recovering from the shock.
Lieutenant Auras has charged out from cover and is waving her rifle in the air. She's already marked the "BREACH COMPOUND!" objective completed and is yelling into the net for her soldiers to exploit the newly formed gap in the wall.
Valara is through in an instant.
Armoured boots crunch over semi-melted and shattered rebar and broken concrete chunks as the Aerocommando Corporal steps through the breach into a fiery hell. There must have been some sort of fuel in here that the shuttle crash set on fire.
The Aerocommando's armour shrugs off the heat as she steps over a rapidly charring body clutching at a rifle and stacks up in a door with a pair of her comrades.
An instant later they're through; scattered coruscating green beams from the defenders catch the first woman through and drop her, but Valara and her vanguard repay the Syndics in full, their own orange beams catching a good half dozen of the unarmoured and half dressed defenders.
Another green beam from close range lances out from the side of the room and catches Lieutenant Auras as she emerges into the room with the rest of the unit.
Valara dives for the cover of something heavy and metal, then pops up to return fire. She gets a surprise when a big Orion man grabs her rifle and tries to rip it from her grasp.
The Syndic man falls back in surprise when Valara not only lets her weapon go, she pushes it away, causing the man to stumble backwards awkwardly. In a flash she is on him with a stun baton; catching heavily with the business end.
The hit is strictly harder than the light tap required; but it works to drop the brute.
Nalaya looks up as the firing around her dies down and objectives on her HUD rapidly tick over to a solid green.
They've taken casualties, sure (Very light, though Lieutenant Auras in particular seems to have lost a hand) but the Aerocommandos have accomplished their task in record time.
Heavy weapons are out of play, transporter dampened have been taken offline, Syndicate bosses arrested, and some of the Syndicate's elite "Enforcers" taken out of play.
In the end It doesn't matter who the Syndicate call their best, the Aerocommandos are always better.
I've just had the horrible realisation that most of the ships that have been blown up or given 12-month repair jobs have had minority names for Captains <_<
I think what makes the Union so effective as a setting is because it represents a sort of space-future that's really common, the cyberpunk dystopia future. In some ways, it's also a mirror to our own anxieties and issues in the 21st century regarding gender, inequality, and unease over the effectiveness of capitalist while being aware of it's human cost. Dealing with the Union in many ways forces the Federation to deal with a past they thought they left behind, in the way Cardassians force them to deal with the familiar twists and turns of a technocratic authoritarian regime.
The Deep Space Nine writers said that they saw the Ferengi as a stand-in for modern humanity to contrast against the utopian "humans" of the show. I personally am not sure what they were smoking, because the DS9 Ferengi were even more of a one-note comic relief race than they were in TNG, with the one advantage that at least the show acknowledged they were a joke this time around.
TBG Orions, though? We nailed it. I wouldn't be nearly so invested in their fate if I didn't see so much of the modern west in them. And a bit of the modern east for that matter, given the rough parallels between the Accidental Guerilla era Syndicate and organizations like Al-Queda.
Add in Cardassia's role in all this, and, well. I don't know if the modern parallels were intentional, but they very clearly reflect the zeitgeist of the 2010's Anglosphere.
The Deep Space Nine writers said that they saw the Ferengi as a stand-in for modern humanity to contrast against the utopian "humans" of the show. I personally am not sure what they were smoking, because the DS9 Ferengi were even more of a one-note comic relief race than they were in TNG, with the one advantage that at least the show acknowledged they were a joke this time around.
TBG Orions, though? We nailed it. I wouldn't be nearly so invested in their fate if I didn't see so much of the modern west in them. And a bit of the modern east for that matter, given the rough parallels between the Accidental Guerilla era Syndicate and organizations like Al-Queda.
Add in Cardassia's role in all this, and, well. I don't know if the modern parallels were intentional, but they very clearly reflect the zeitgeist of the 2010's Anglosphere.
I do find it interesting that the players basically chose to stick their hand into the Space Afghanistan blender. It kinda surprised me how people acknowledged the difficulty of what Starfleet was getting into even as they pretty much called for a crusade against the Syndicate. (And I was one of those people.)
Faced with a situation that mirrors highly controversial interventions of recent memory we... Launch a controversial intervention!
LIRONH, AMARKIAN CONFEDERACY, DAY OF THE LIRONH ATTACK
Ensign Orran Auras still isn't entirely certain what he's doing here. Sure he's on leave from USS Salnas, sure he's with a half dozen friends, but he's still not exactly certain what he's doing in some ancient Amarki fortress on the outskirts of Lironh. Especially not right now.
Ensign Lance Arthur elbows him in the side, "Having fun yet?"
"Yup." Orran says looking plaintively at a large wooden shield with some sort of red emblem embossed on it.
Lance grins, "I suspect that's some sort of lie?"
A Vulcan next to them turns her head slightly, "That would be a logical deduction." Says Ensign T'Pel.
"Well I'm having fun." Says Ensign Arthur shrugging, "I'm glad that Lanie brought us here."
"Thank you Lance. I appreciate that." says Ensign Lannaess, a teal head with pointed ears bobbing in thanks.
Orran sighs, putting a green hand to his mouth, "Of course you do Lance. You showed us that big stone castle place back on Earth during third year."
"And it was sweet." says the Human.
"I didn't even know that Earth had knightly orders and Nobility until we went to that museum!" says Lannaess smiling happily at the memory.
"Yeah. I mean." Orran gestures helplessly, "For the two of you that makes sense I guess. Swords and chivalry and big riding beasts are part of your cultures." He points at a suit of Amarki armour behind a glass case as the quartet walk along, "But I'm Orion, armies of women with pointy sticks stabbing each other for titles and land hasn't been a thing in like four millennia!"
The Amarki Ensign gives him an odd smile, "Well in the right circumstances Amarki with a pointy stick beats Orion with a gun."
"Yes. Exactly! " says Lance nodding his head, "So awesome. I feel sorry for you. You will never know the awesomeness of a cavalry charge of gallant Knights in shining armour. You know: Awesome!"
The Orion man waves his arms around, "It's not awesome -it's dumb. You just shoot them all." he gestures violently with a sweep of his hand, passing dangerously close to an ear belonging to an impassive Ensign T'Pel "It's not hard."
"It's not all swords and spears," says Lannaess, pointing at another display, "The Order of the Painted Star fought in more modern conflicts too. Some of their members took part in raiding that Syndicate slave pen not long ago."
"At least this one has guns," says Orran, looking at a display shelf of stylized helmet mounted gas masks, "I mean it's still old as hell, but not pointy sticks."
"Yeah, that's like Cold War or Eugenics war era stuff." Lans says reading the description plaque and admiring the bright crest embossed on the front of the helmet, "Huh. This has been vacuum sealed. Technically still functional."
"Okay. That. That has to stop." Orran folds his arms in annoyance, "That whole using references to obscure human history. It's annoying and you keep doing it. Stop."
Lance frowns and crosses his own arms, "OK. No. You're actually being a jerk. What side of the bed did you wake up on this morning?"
"The... right one?" Orran huffs, "I just shouldn't need to get a Doctorate in Earth History to understand you."
T'Pel steps next to the Human Ensign, "I believe that Ensign Arthur is correct. You have been unusually emotional during this trip."
"I am always emotional T'Pel." Orran huffs, "As a Vulcan I don't think you should be a judge of emotionality in anyone."
"Speaking as an emotional person with pointy ears I can safely say that you have been an incredible ass today." Lannaess steps between T'Pel and Lance, "And it's not the museum, I remember you being waaayyyyyy better behaved at that Anglish place."
Orran briefly meets three sets of inquiring eyes before looking downwards, "I, uh, sorry," he says letting his arms drop too, "I, I've still got family on Daruba. We emigrated when I was small but I still talk to my cousins and grandparents there."
"Ahhh." Lance pats his Orion friend on the back in sympathy, "That's rough man."
"Yeah. I've got a cousin in the Aerocommandos too. So I've got her to worry about." Orran purses his lips, "She actually moved back there to join up after the crackdown started.It's, it's just this whole thing."
"Well it's good to know that someone is taking the Syndicate seriously." Says Lannaess with a frown, "Still." The frown shifts to a sympathetic smile, "I hope your family safe."
"So do I." says Auras, "I feel like there is something wrong with me. My family is on danger and I'm safe and sound on Amarkia. It doesn't seem fair to me."
"That is the way things are sometimes. Right?" Lannaess pokes Auras' Starfleet insignia, "Still. That means that you are committed to risking yourself to make the galaxy a better place wherever you are."
"Yeah. I guess" Auras looks down the gallery at other relics of Amarki Military Orders, "How about we take a look at the rest of this junk?" He says with a bright grin.
"That would be-" starts Ensign Arthur before he is interrupted by the world ending.
Auras blacks out briefly. Only to be awoken with T'Pel looking into his eyes and running a tricorder over him; her face cast in ghastly gauntness by the dull shadows of orange emergency lighting behind her.
"What…?"
"I, I have no Idea-" says Lance from beside him, the Human's face twisted in pain, a leg at an unnatural angle, "Lannie went to go find out what the hell happened." He grunts and looks down at a chest studded with glass shards, "I got real messed up though. Good thing my uniform is already red." He chuckles. Weakly.
"You are unharmed." says T'Pel to Orran, shifting back over to the Human, "Ensign Arthur. Please do not move." She begins a thorough check of the Human's body, "Ensign Auras." she says without looking at the Orion man.
"Huh. Yes?" he says as he pull himself to his feet, careful to avoid the scattered debris on the ground.
"There is an emergency kit at the end of the gallery attached to a support pillar. It is a bright Orange. Please retrieve it for me." The Vulcan still has the majority of her attention focused on the wounded Human, "With its contents I can easily stabilise Ensign Arthur."
"Right. Yes." says Auras as he takes off at a quick jog. He knows exactly where the Vulcan wants him to go and he is back within moments setting down next to the Vulcan who is now being assisted by an unfamiliar Amarki. Likely a curator judging by his age. And badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck.
"Thank you Ensign. Now if you-"
The Orion's attention is drawn away by the return of his Amarkian comrade.
She looks… burnt out. Her eyes stare dully ahead, "It's all gone."
"What?"
She listlessly lifts her tricorder, "Photon torpedo. The city is gone."
Auras works his mouth, "Why are we…? What?"
"Shielded". Says the old Amarki man helping T'Pel, "This is a museum and also technically still on the rolls as an active Painted Star lodge. We're armoured in case of war…" He takes a shuddering breath, "Is it the Cardassians? Are we at war. Is there more?"
"I don't know? I don't know!" Lannaess is somehow only on the verge of panic. The unreality of the situation is in full force and her Starfleet training is keeping her focused on her report and just moving forward however she can, "I just scanned. And. One blast." she holds the tricorder out, "Still. Radiologically… well. What you would expect. But." she shudders involuntarily, "There is so much fallout and particulates in the air that walking outside will choke you to death in moments. Signals are heavily scrambled too. I doubt anyone will able to transport in or out for hours."
Auras briefly opens his mouth to ask exactly why that is; operating on pure Starfleet Instinct to understand exotic effects.
"Though." Lannaess links her lips nervously and looks away, "It's an Orion signature. Union make."
Auras can feel the sudden and anguishing loneliness of people pointedly not looking at him, "No." he says simply. His heart dropping away into the core of Amarkia, "Not here." He stumbles against the display of old anti-chemical gear.
He can't think about this, there must be something else he can do…
Auras turns to the curator, currently busy holding Arthur's spine still at T'Pel's instruction, and kneels down next to him, "Those masks. Do you have a stock of current ones."
The curator pauses for a horrible moment before responding, "Nothing current. The main arsenals are in the city…"
Auras nods silently before standing up. He moves into swift motion grabbing a sword from a nearby shattered display case and, before Lannaess can even begin to form a confused expression, he brings it down on the case of ancient breathing equipment.
"This will have to do" The Orion says as he dumps a dozen heavy satchels over his strong shoulders and reaches to open another.
"What..?" Lannaess starts before catching on and slinging another dozen over her own, more slender, shoulders.
"T'Pel. If we bring survivors back. Can you treat them?" says Auras as Lannaess translates the archaic script on the inner lining of the satchels and puts on a mask and helmet on herself and instructs Auras on how to follow before reaching out to grab the one of bulky proto-environmental suits.
The Vulcan pauses to consider, "I may be able to provide basic triage capabilities before the authorities arrive on scene." She looks up at the elderly Amarki man, "Sir. Do you have additional medical equipment?"
The man sucks a breath in through his teeth in thought, "A few more of the emergency kits and a lot of older supplies from a few decades ago"
"I will use those then" the Vulcan returns her attention to the Human Cadet, "I no longer require your aid with treating Cadet Arthur. We require more supplies." The Vulcan continues on with instructions, though the voice fades out of earshot as Ensigns Auras and Lannaess jog around the corner and to the entrance of the building.
There is silence out of the two until Auras emits a small gasp. The entrance of the building, in fact the entire gallery has melted inwards and black ash and other particulates whip though in hot and angry waves.
And outside?
Outside is hell on Amarkia. Fires as far as he obscuring lenses of the helmet would let Auras see. A hellstorm of blazes across the horizon.
There are a few structures standing closers to the museum, but in the distance? Nothing, the spires of the Judicial district are gone, as are other nearby skyscrapers. Other shapes squat in ugly, yet solidly existent heaps in the distance: administrative buildings, military complexes and other important Amarkian institutions.
None of that occupies the attentions of the two Ensigns. They stand at the edge of a residential suburb turned charnelhouse. Auras's only thoughts are of how many survivors could possibly still be alive.
Ensign Orran Auras briefly tugs at an ancient NBC suit designed for a less destructive era and turns to Ensign Riane Lannaess, "Well. Time to get to work." He says before stepping out of the shelter.
In the final accounting the Amarkian government credits the immediate search and rescue efforts of Ensigns Lannaess and Auras with saving over three hundred innocent lives who would have otherwise died before official aid could arrive.
For their constant forays out into a toxic hellscape of flame, ash, and black rain the two Starfleet Junior officers are both admitted into the Order of Painted Star and each awarded the Starfleet Medal of Honour.
Executive Meeting - random_npc
Not De-Canonized, not Properly Canonized either. One of the last gasps of the Syndicate as Criminal Profit Organization as our actions radicalized them as accidental guerillas shortly afterwards and probably removed the layer of characters here from the equations.
To be fair to us, I don't think the Syndicate radicalizing is something that should be 'blamed' on us. The Syndicate was always going to radicalize as soon as anyone started trying to remove them from power, so there was no way to be rid of them without having this happen. Furthermore, confrontation with the Syndicate was more or less inevitable.
That's a bit different from "accidental guerillas."
My last chapter of Fairy Tales is at least tangentially related to Orion 'deep history' and how it might tie into Orion-Amarki relations in the present, but I'm not sure it should be counted. It's not really an Orion omake.
I do find it interesting that the players basically chose to stick their hand into the Space Afghanistan blender. It kinda surprised me how people acknowledged the difficulty of what Starfleet was getting into even as they pretty much called for a crusade against the Syndicate. (And I was one of those people.)
Faced with a situation that mirrors a highly controversial interventions of recent memory we... Launch a controversial intervention!
One, there was a genuine perception that the Syndicate posed a threat. The Cardassians had already used the Syndicate as proxies to strike at the Federation, twice. On the first occasion, only quick action by the Enterprise stopped the Cardassians from blowing up much of the Amarki government. On the second, one of our prize starships was nearly destroyed, with hundreds of casualties. This created a perception that if we continued to ignore the Syndicate, it would continue to attack us- and sooner or later, one of those attacks would have dire consequences, something much worse than losing a single ship or a few politicians.
Two, Federation space had expanded to surround Orion space. The Syndicate was "our problem" as a result, in a way that events in a remote foreign country never could be. Sooner or later, we would have to react to the Syndicate's presence, rather than just benignly neglecting it. In a sense, by accepting Amarki and Caitian membership and enveloping Orion space, we had pitched our tent over a nest of snakes. Given that this decision had been made, it became another reason why we felt a need to deal with the snakes before we could rest easy.
Three, there was an idealistic motive. The Syndicate practices slavery and every sort of crime, they are intensely subversive against the democratic government of the Orion Union. There is reason to speculate that if the Orion Union ever existed at any point in the canon timeline, the reason you don't hear about it in the TNG/DS9 era may be because the Syndicate broke the Union, neutralized it as a political force. Because in-game, it looks like they could have accomplished that if they so desired, if we didn't have the Federation coming in to back the Union up.
"Did you hear what just happened on Amarkia?" Lineela looked up from her podcast to address the others, who were still sprawled out on the golden sand applying the last of their sweet mintberry lotion to each other's mostly-naked bodies.
"No," Amaeos looked lazily up from Marlos' half-lubricated body, "You're the only one who listens to the news. What happened?"
"There was a terror attack. Two hundred thousand dead."
"Oh." The atmosphere became somber. "That sucks."
"Yeah." Lineela shook her head, eyes downcast. "Lets get stronger drinks than usual."
"Did you hear what just happened on Amarkia?" Lineela looked up from her podcast to address the others, who were still sprawled out on the golden sand applying the last of their sweet mintberry lotion to each other's mostly-naked bodies.
"No," Amaeos looked lazily up from Marlos' half-lubricated body, "You're the only one who listens to the news. What happened?"
"There was a terror attack. Two hundred thousand dead."
"Oh." The atmosphere became somber. "That sucks."
"Yeah." Lineela shook her head, eyes downcast. "Lets get stronger drinks than usual."
