Secret History of the L.D.S. Pt.1

December 8th, 2042:
The Secret History of the Long Dragon Syndicate - Part 1
By: Ashley Rose (archivist aboard the H.M.S. Athena while en route to Europa)
Author's Note: This is a summary of my upcoming book, "The Secret History of the Long Dragon Syndicate," to be released sometime in 2043. It was written with the help of "Mei," the one-time spiritual leader of the Long Dragon Syndicate.
It began long before anyone thought it did.
The commonly accepted view is that the Long Dragon Syndicate (referred to hereafter as the LDS, for the sake of word count) came out from the merging of several major Chinese drug and weapons criminal organizations in the dawning days of the Resource Wars. The opportunity for profit was extremely high, as warring nations needed cheap and accessible weapons that major governments were unwilling to provide to their formerly friendly neighbors.
The second part is true. The Syndicate came about amid an opportunity for vast profits, but it was not during the Resource Wars. Mei tells me that the actual Syndicate can trace its origins back to the Boxer Rebellion, formed to sell arms, weapons and opium to the foreign armies that came into China to quell the conflict. In the wake of the following widespread colonization of China by the Western Powers (before their expulsion of the colonies by the Japanese in the time leading up to World War One), the Syndicate, creating itself as an underground mystical organization who would defeat the invaders by corrupting their spirits and souls, began to hugely profit off the needs of these Westerners now stuck in a land whose populace was widely hostile to them. It was this mystical nature to the organization that would define it to the lower-class people of first China, and then later most major Asian countries. 
It would also be what divided, and eventually destroyed it.
The first well known member of the Syndicate was "Stephen" Tam, a businessman turned Warlord from Hong Kong. Little is known about his life or history, except that he was the first who saw money in the creation of weapons via the use of 3D Printing technology. While there had been controversy over the idea of creating weapons via 3D printers, an untraceable firearm, and the fact that a firing pin and ammunition had to be supplied to make the guns work meant that not many looked at widespread manufacturing of them. Tam, later known as the "White Tiger from the Ocean," created a way for 3D printed Guns to be not only manufactured with firing pins, but also was able to create hardened ammunition from the same technology. There is much debate over whether Tam was actually part of the LDS prior to establishing himself as the number one black market arms dealer in Asia, but if he wasn't, he was part of their organization shortly after.
Mei described to me that following Tam's introduction into the Syndicate things began to change more swiftly than they had in a hundred years. The Syndicate, which had started as a Chinese organization had grown to include members from all the major Asian countries. There were even a small number of Japanese members, tied to the Yakuza, who specialized in prostitution and drug smuggling into the Western United States.
It should be noted that no matter what spiritual ideological means the LDS had been founded under, by the time of the Resource Wars they had mostly vanished. The Syndicate, while still operating in shadow, was now a sprawling criminal organization that only paid lip and cursory service to their once all-important spiritual background. 
Tam's entry into the Syndicate resonated around the organization with an explosion. He brought not only massive wealth (as essentially every third and second world country purchased weapons from him, looking for cheap, disposable, but easy to use guns), but the idea of changing the world, for the betterment of those who were willing to pay tribute to him. Mei said he saw himself as one of the old Gods of Chinese Myth, bringing fire and lightning to Earth, in the form of plastic manufactured AK-47 knockoffs.
Filling the Syndicate's coffers was his first step; the second was filling its ranks with soldiers.
Here is where the history divides. This history of the Syndicate, with Tam leading it for another two decades of opulence and bloodletting and bringing it into the public eye is well known and documented. What happened behind the scenes, however, with the spiritual side fighting for the soul of the organization, is not known.
Category:Long Dragon Syndicate
Category:Mei
Category:Athena
Category:Resource Wars
Category:China
Category:Japan
Category:United States
Category:Yakuza
Category:World War I
Category:Stephen Tam