Cybergaia Movement

Cybergaia, generalized as the Cybergaia Movement, is a decentralized hacktivist movement centered around the ideas and teachings of its founder, VISIO0N, as well as the general philosophies of various founding members hailing from the religion.spiritualism and technology.hacking boards of SlimeBBS. It is known for numerous cyberattacks since its founding in 2582.
VISIO0N, a Unifaith adherent, believed the rejection of technology was impossible under current circumstances—and thus viewed cyberspace as a necessary vector to oppose capitalistic, consumption-centric society. Together with a number of likeminded hackers hailing from the religion.spiritualism and technology.hacking boards, VISIO0N founded Cybergaia, eventually being given the title of Ether-Guru by its members.
He was joined in this initiative by ecco_1999, an artist and programmer responsible for the Ecco ArtCollectiv, a digital art movement in InfoSpace. Ecco_1999 sought to create a digital utopia in InfoSpace dubbed the Cybergaia Project, a virtual world serving as a testbed and preview of Cybergaia's ideological vision for humanity's future harmonious existence with nature, as well as a virtual abode for members to inhabit. The Cybergaia Project would carry a broad appeal to Unifaith adherents living in heavily-urbanized, industrialized worlds, as it offered access to unperturbed nature, even if virtually so.
== History ==
Cybergaia's first major cyberattack came in 2684 with SLIME_FOREVER, a computer worm which ravaged the networks of the Translunar Dynamics megacorporation in retaliation to their announced plans to expand corporate offices to Moñái. The ensuing data breach would lead to the private information of millions of employees executives being leaked in a batch document dubbed the Fees Papers, named after SLIME_FOREVER's coder, fees9000. The revelations contained within this document led to the resignation of several high-level executives, as well as the arrest of the chief executive to-be of the Tupã System, Mark Harrison-Schön, on several counts of money laundering. The cyberattack also led to responsible Cybergaia members making off with over 11.3 billion in VTC. The aftermath of these events led the Security Information Network to designate Cybergaia as a 'movement with cyberterrorist elements,' recognizing many who associated with the movement did so on a non-actionable basis.
The organization was involved in the Days of Rage, working alongside the Hand of Gaia to undermine key logistical and financial infrastructure across the New Rome system. SLIMEX, a modified upgrade of the SLIME_FOREVER worm, targeted assets of the Fran-Wakeman Corporation, leading to the financial information and addresses of employees being leaked to InfoSpace. Of the approximately 11 million employees implicated in the leak's primary batch, numerous high-level officials were targeted in assassination attempts—successful and unsuccessful—by militants belonging to the Hand of Gaia. This complicity would ultimately lead to the Stellar Republic of New Rome designating Cybergaia a terrorist organization.
In 2611, Cybergaia played a minor role in the Bank of Albion Blackout, cooperating with NightAnon in numerous leaks. Cybergaia's actions led to the disclosure of connections between banking entities in the Coalition and numerous paramilitary organizations responsible for aiding illegal loggers on various worlds, most importantly Moñái, as well as a money laundering ring in the Casablanca star system.
The passing of VISIO0N sometime in the 2620s led to a decrease in high-level activity from the organization over the decade, though the Cybergaia Project continued to steadily grow and expand with the efforts of its developers. Ecco_1999 released news of her cancer to Cybergaia in 2629, stepping away from the Cybergaia Project's development in 2630 and handing control to her long-time friend, goodtidings. She would continue ecco_1999's work, serving as the closest thing to a de-facto leader during Cybergaia's uncertain interregnum.
In 2631, ecco_1999 passed away, though not before creating an engram of her consciousness and ordering a close associate, occupy_obliterate, to upload said engram to a Stapleford datahub in Hyperion. This digital duplicate of ecco_1999's consciousness would be obliterated by the datahub's cyberdefense AI, though not before compromising a significant amount of stored data. The ensuing 2631 Stapleford Data Breach would blow the lid on a number of controversial and, to some, borderline unethical operations by the Hyperion branch of the company, leading to a number of anti-corporate protests on the planet. Having taken place the same year as NightAnon's Great Heist, a significant amount of blame was also leveled at NightAnon, leading to a major escalation of SIN operations and the mass arrest of hundreds of Cybergaia members. A cyberattack on Project Cybergaia itself, dubbed the Mindscorch, would jeopardize the entire virtual world, leading to a server downtime and the physical death of several members that had been in the virtual world at the time. Believing a raid on Project Cybergaia's physical servers was imminent, goodtidings would oversee a relocation of the virtual world's servers to a more remote location.
Goodtidings would commit the majority of her work to the restoration of Project Cybergaia's integrity, while the hacktivist half of the organization was wrought with infighting over official succession to VISIO0N. Many believed that Cybergaia's strength was rooted in its decentralized, often leaderless approach to the movement, and thus rejected the notion that any could truly succeed VISIO0N, while others favored a model of seniority, believing the associates of VISIO0N and ecco_1999 were best fit to succeed him. A number of small-scale cyberattacks by individual cells would also be perpetrated in this time, culminating in a number of game leaks, acts of corporate sabotage and viral recruitment over the decade.
In 2644, the SLIME_FOREVER 2 computer worm would hit the servers of Weicao and Cavalier Autoworks in protest of the opening of several factories on Moñái, leading to mass leakages of employee records as well as the 3D manufacturing data of several models—this leak alone would lead to a boom in automotive counterfeiting, leading to a plunge in the two companies' stock prices and the resignation of Cavalier Autoworks' CFO. The attack used an enhanced fork of SLIMEX. While initially intended to be a small-scale act of direct action, the sheer effectiveness of SLIME_FOREVER 2 would lead to a number of successor attacks, most prominent among them affecting Stelzner. The aftermath of this action would lead to a number of regulations being passed against counterfeit vehicles manufactured without license, though an underground subculture of illicit carmakers and 'tweakers' would persist in spite of these laws.
Goodtidings would declare Project Cybergaia fully restored in 2646, eventually leading to its first expansion, Earth Again, in 2650. The most prominent structure on this virtual duplicate of Earth, the Gaia Temple, would become the new virtual headquarters of the Cybergaia Movement. With this, a majority of Cybergaia's virtual communes and groves would elect goodtidings the de-jure successor to VISIO0N. While handing much of the reins to her close associate, redenption, goodtidings would oversee many further expansions of Project Cybergaia in the decades to follow, until her passing somewhere around 2684. She would leave the Cybergaia Movement in a much more stable state than it had been when she had succeeded ecco_1999, having been credited for leading it through its darkest period.
While initially the matter of goodtidings' succession was one of debate and uncertainty, redenption recommended his protégé, known by the alias Leila Soong, for the post of Ether-Guru. While younger than many other members, her competence both in the development of Project Cybergaia and the creation of new malware made her a noteworthy pick. On her ascension to leadership of the organization, she revealed SLIMEBOMB, a novel malware that would see its first deployment in the Moñái Paleozoo Security Incident in protest of genetic experimentation, leading to the failure of security locks on multiple enclosures. This attack would bring Cybergaia back into the media spotlight, leading to a number of debates regarding the ethics of the Moñái Paleozoo and rampant genetic experimentation as a whole.
Since then, Leila Soong has launched Open Source or Die!, an initiative to leak the source code of proprietary corporate software to better allow for third-party repair and modification of appliances, computers, cyberware, software and videogames. Most prominent among these leaks is that of the DreamTime Visualizer by Oniricorp Interactive Software.
Category:Unifaith
Category:Hackers
Category:Hacktivist Groups
Category:Cyberterror Organizations
Category:Terrorist Organizations
Category:InfoScape
Category:Hypernet