Gatecrasher

Gatecrasher is a Zerelian term for someone who has been marked as an enemy by the artificial intelligence god G.A.T.E., which governs law, order, and stability in Zerelunce. Gatecrashers are often employed by individuals who have to maintain the appearance of being law-abiding or who otherwise have tasks they themselves cannot complete. As gatecrashers near-universally do illegal or "dirty work," they must take care to not be discovered. Some of them will have front jobs or identities to hide their work as gatecrashers; others have nothing left to lose and simply evade capture from law enforcement to get by, uncaring of their reputations so long as they compensated for their work.
Zerelunce's government -- and thus G.A.T.E. and its keepers -- does not formally acknowledge the existence of any organization of gatecrashers, simply regarding them on the same level as standard criminals that work alone. However, networks of gatecrashers do exist, and they tend to create groups for themselves to take on multiple or larger-scale jobs than they could take alone. A solitary gatecrasher might be regarded as "too new" to have secured a group or perhaps simply too difficult to work with. Commonly, gatecrasher squads are formed through preexisting relationships "above ground" (i.e. outside of the gatecrashers) or form because they were all hired by the same person. Employers of gatecrashers might continually hire the same individuals, or they might never repeat-hire to avoid their identity being found out and reported to the government as an employer of gatecrashers.
Go-betweens for gatecrashers and prospective employers are called "crash coursers". Each side typically has a crash courser of their own to send to represent their side's interests in the deal, and crash coursers are the ones that negotiate payment and the nature of the work required for the gatecrasher. Because of their role in the gatecrasher community, crash coursers tend to be unimportant in society -- the sort of people who are easily overlooked in government checks and who never go out of line. They go by pseudonyms and may work for multiple even conflicting sides in negotiation; rarely do crash coursers have an exclusive affiliation. For this reason, they may be regarded with suspicion and mistrust, especially if it's felt that the crash courser did not bargain a good deal or otherwise misrepresented their contractor's interests. However, crash coursers are necessary in gatecrasher work; without them, either side would know too much about the identities of one another, which could lead to double-crossing and revenge. Through crash coursers, anonymity can be kept for the sake of maintaining stability in the tumultuous gatecrasher underground.
Category:Zerelunce
Category:Gatecrash Gamble