The Syndicate

> "*To all fellow villains or those of you tuning into our private frequency...victory is neigh! Thanks to the discoveries made by Vlad Plasmius after his exile, Crocker and I have come up with the ultimate plan to rid the entire multiverse of our enemies! But, we won't be doing the busy work ourselves. We shall have those do-gooders of our worlds fight for us! They will bleed themselves dry over the thought of their trivial existence, and those who don't will be none the wiser. It will take some time. Perhaps even a decade at the rate we're going. But it will have to do. No, a plan like this can't be rushed. There is no room for failure. Let Neutron, Fenton, and the others have their rest. When we return, they will tremble over the world we're in the midst of creating. The time of war is now on the agenda.*"
> ― Professor Calamitous announcing the first stages of the Toon Wars.[[source]]
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The Syndicate was a group of supervillains from different worlds allied with each other to take over the universe in the Nicktoons Unite Era before expanding into the multiverse with the start of the devastating Toon Wars. They originally consisted of Professor Calamitous, Mr. Crocker, Vlad Plasmius, and Plankton until their defeat where they disbanded for several years until the Nicktoons Saga, where all but Plankton had reunited with the intention of turning every world from both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network against each other. Following this, Aku had joined them during the Samurai Jack Saga, and the Syndicate had managed to create an entirely different timeline all on their own. But their plans would finally be thwarted when four of their arch enemies deactivated their Time Drive, killed Aku, and trapped them and their past selves from the start of the saga in an inescapable realm outside of time, monitored by Clockwork. This, however, did not stop the Toon Wars from continuing to escalate further. After 5 long years, the Toon Force were able to disable every known Toyco facility and cripple all the Syndicate's contingency plans, eventually leading to their surrender.

Despite being imprisoned, the events of Toon Wars: The Final Days became the result of much of the Syndicate's influence throughout the series, heavily referencing them from time to time. Their strategy for manipulating everyone after discovering the Void in Elmore would later be explained in detail by Phoebe when Jimmy was brought to the Forgotten Society.

Though the Syndicate and other associates would never return to the Toonverse, their namesake was borrowed for the Horde Syndicate during Crossover Forces, reusing several of the old organization's assets, including a small fleet of Battloons and taking the Echo Drones in as a private robot army; much like the Toybots before them. Black Hat and other criminal teams can also be seen with these parts still in use.

## History

### Nicktoons Unite Series

In the original Nicktoons Unite video game, the Syndicate worked together to siphon energy from each of their worlds for their Doomsday Device, which they planned to use to destroy Retroville while still having all the power they need to take over the universe with each world in their grasp. Calamitous discovered Plankton, Vlad, and Crocker thanks to stolen plans from Jimmy Neutron for a portal capable of traveling through many parts of the universe, starting with Dimsdale back in *Jimmy Timmy Power Hour 2*. Together, all four villains had managed to seize control of Fairy World, Amity Park, and Bikini Bottom while making preparations for their final weapon. To do this, they gathered ghost energy, fairy magic, and power from the jellyfish; even oppressing their world's citizens with their exclusive robot and ghost troops. Their plan nearly succeeded until their arch enemies, Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, Timmy Turner, and Spongebob Squarepants banded together to free their worlds and shut down the Doomsday Device. Afterward, each of the four villains were taken into custody back on their respective worlds and would not meet again until after *Globs of Doom*. However, beforehand, Calamitous would discover other worlds in the universe and attempt to conquer them with a private army of robots built and manufactured by him with his Toyco facilities during *Attack of the Toybots*, which was also shut down and would be run by his own robot employee, Chadbot, instead.

In Globs of Doom, Plankton, a former Syndicate member, returned as one of the villains allying with the heroes to defeat Globulous Maximus. In addition, though Calamitous wasn't present, his daughter Beautiful Gorgeous took his place alongside the rest of Evil Development on Retroville. Technus was also one of them, being the voice of reason of the group while Plankton was more like the leader as he was working alongside Vlad and Calamitous in the past. In the end, they were defeated when they attempted to betray the heroes when they learned why Globulous was invading their worlds. Since Technus had access to the Ghost Zone, they simply left for their worlds using a ghost portal. Later on, Technus would be one of the allies of Danny who helps him defeat Dan Phantom, while Beautiful got on in the old Syndicate's new plan following Globs of Doom.

### 10-Year Gap

Although not much was known of what the Syndicate had done during this gap before the Toon Wars, it was told by Vlad in the Nicktoons Saga that following the events of *Globs of Doom* and *Phantom Planet*, he was found by the reformed Spongeglob who offered to return him back to his hidden lab underneath his now abandoned mansion. Thankful for his service, Vlad killed Spongeglob and took samples of his Morphoid substance to study and used his Ghost Portal to travel to Dimsdale and Retroville to set Crocker and Calamitous free from prison from past episodes (notably removing Plankton from the equation by accident). Together, they studied the Morphoids and learned of the events of *Battle for Volcano Island* and *Globs of Doom*. They deduce that they form another, more elaborate plan to defeat their enemies based on what they know the Nicktoons had been through. It was then that they decided to build the foundation of the Toon Wars upon the discovery of a new universe they stumbled upon while doing research together in their secret lair and traveling the multiverse.

### Toon Wars

#### **Nicktoons Saga**

In the Nicktoons Saga, the Syndicate returned in full force after using what they learned from previous Nicktoons games and their time in the other dimension to start a massive multiverse-wide war. This caused these worlds to fight one another over an unknown reason to the heroes. And while this was going down, the Syndicate had managed to retake control of the Toyco Factory in Retroville by destroying Chadbot and using the newly regenerated Morphoids to invade Fairy World and destroy it completely; making sure to save the Fairy Magic to fuel Crocker's Fairy Cannon for later. They greet themselves to the Nicktoons once again with confidence explaining what their grand plan is but keep what they've done to achieve it a secret. With every other world now against one another, the Syndicate depart back to their new location, but not before informing the Nicktoons they've found the Disasteroid from *Phantom Planet* and were sending it to destroy Retroville. Also making sure of its success when they allied with King Goobot V to distract the heroes further from the war's beginning.

#### **Gumball Saga**

Following the death of King Goobot and the founding of the Toon Force at the end of the Nicktoons Saga, the Syndicate returned once again in the Gumball Saga, having invaded Elmore to capture all of its citizens for another plan they were conducting against their mortal enemies. It was at this time, on the other hand, that Nicole Watterson and Yuki Yoshida attacked Crocker and Calamitous and drove them and their fleet away from the town, which led to Vlad personally going to Elmore to survey the site and hunt down Nicole, whom he and the Nicktoons confused for Gumball. After being taken off guard and beaten by Penny Fitzgerald, Vlad retreated to Volcano Island, which he and the other members later revealed to have been taken over by them and had its people, minus Shelly the Wise Old Crab, killed. When the Toon Force go to the volcano to free the people, they get ambushed by several other cartoons they've met from other worlds who had been told by the Syndicate where they'd be to attack next. Following their defeat, Crocker tests the power of the Fairy Cannon on everyone and Vlad tells him to save it for later, imprisoning the Toon Force along with Gumball and leave Penny behind to be corrupted by the volcano's ooze coming from the broken vats in the chamber. They explain to Jimmy that the whole purpose of them capturing all the people of Elmore was to sacrifice them to the Mawgu once they reopen the Rip Zipper Dimension Jimmy invented and sealed him in from *Battle for Volcano Island*. In addition, they tell him that Rob from Elmore had allied with them to finally enact his revenge on Gumball for past events of the show.

When Goddard freed Jimmy and the other Toon Force members, they warped Elmore's people back home but couldn't get Gumball and Penny off-world. This left them with the Syndicate who revealed to everyone that the whole operation was just a ruse to keep the Toon Force on the island for when the Mawgu arrives and upgrades himself using the Morphoid Pit and the island's ooze. While distracted by the remainder of the Toybot Army along with Rob and a corrupted Penny, who's soon saved by Nicole and Yuki, Vlad reopens the Rip Zipper successfully and kills Rob, whom they used as a pawn. Calamitous, Vlad, and Crocker acknowledge themselves to the Mawgu and tell him how to commence the upgrade. And although he expressed he wouldn't hesitate to destroy their worlds as well, it didn't matter to them anymore. They escape and the Mawgu proceeds to completely annihilate Dimsdale and almost destroys Amity Park only for Gumball to activate the Planetary Defense Cannon and destroy him and the island.

Following the end of the arc, should **the Syndicate** fail in their next objective, they also begun work on development for the Syndicannon. A small yet powerful super laser with the capacity to nuke an entire metropolis. The prototype was undergoing construction in an isolated forest away from Amity Park, and its facility was quickly discovered and infiltrated by Nicole Watterson, Gumball Watterson, and Maddie Fenton. The cannon was used against the Toybots by the two Wattersons, and destroyed when they exploded the facility. Plans for the Syndicannon were eventually found by the Tucker Foley and Gaz Membrane sometime late in the war and wouldn't be seen until many years later in Toon Wars: Legacy's Crossover Forces, now fully realized.

#### **Samurai Jack Saga**

The Syndicate would quickly make their final appearance in the Samurai Jack Saga with regular Syndicate Drones long from *Nicktoons Unite* attempting to attack Jack's world, only to be effortlessly dismantled by him, Danny, Zim, Jimmy, and Tucker. This, however, turned out to be a ruse to buy Calamitous enough time to warn Aku of his eventual demise at the hands of Jack thanks to Ashi, and as a result changes history and traps the two along with the Nicktoons in the future where they rule with an iron fist on the multiverse. Aku, now allied with the Syndicate, caused the Disasteroid to crash successfully into Amity and almost collide with Elmore, only for Nicole to sacrifice herself to destroy it. This, however, led to Anais Watterson joining the Syndicate to repair the damages when Vlad comes to the world to offer to repair it (as a facade to make a profit), eventually becoming a snobby dictator-like gem collector gathering precious resources for the Syndicate's ultimate plan since day one: The construction of a Time Drive. This device would tear open portals to an infinite number of timelines that they could get into and take over. It was until the heroes who traveled forward in time could stop them by allying with their future counterparts, teaming up with Anais who was betrayed by her peers, and destroying the device, finally killing Aku in the battle. When Vlad was sucked into the Fenton Thermos and Calamitous and Crocker had nowhere to run, Calamitous stated that although they're finally defeated, the Toon Wars still continue to escalate without them, as confirmed by the rest of the Toon Force where it is revealed that while the 4 Nicktoons were gone, they had to save Jump City from hundreds of hordes of people from other worlds manipulated by the Syndicate in a devastating battle that took a massive toll on the team. After being captured by the heroes, Danny would send them, via the Fenton Thermos, to Clockwork in the Ghost Zone. In turn, he sends them to an inescapable prison outside of the realm of space and time for their crimes on the multiverse and the timestream.

### 5-Year Period

> "*This is almost depressing. Without Enterra to make new robots for em, and without the portal technology to bounce to the other universe, or someone like Vlad around to tell them 'NO,' I'd say they're pretty screwed.*"
> ― Tucker Foley after disabling the Toyco Holdouts at Enterra Drive Yards
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Though what Calamitous said was true, the Toon Wars would eventually come to an end after 5 years from the end of their final appearance. During that time, more Toybots in reserve after their plan to take over all of space and time had failed were reactivated for full-wartime and were led by past allies of the Syndicate including: Beautiful Gorgeous, Eustace Strych, and the Yokian Fleet Commander to name a few. Their first mission involved the transport of their armies across the Nicktoons Universe using the 6 Yokian Cargo Ships at their disposal, carrying up to 198,000,000 Toybots in total. Luckily, the Toon Force were quick to get word of the impending invasion thanks to assistance from Enterra Drive Yards, the same intergalactic company that developed the technologies needed to self-construct the many Toyco forces and facilities. With this, they disabled 4 of the carrier vessels while the other 2 had barely been able to escape off-world from the desert regions of Jimmy's world. And though the war would continue onward for 5 years, the Toyco Holdouts would be active less and less until eventually they were all destroyed. Their last notable encounter was the liberation of Enterra Drive Yards from the Syndicate's grasp after it's new leadership sought to completely take over the facilities there (something the original leaders would have likely approached differently or never thought to engage). This saw the deactivation of millions of their only two forces. Though the leaders in charge of the Syndicate remnant did manage to escape, they only left with but a few thousands of Toybots at their disposal, which was vastly inferior to the millions needed to continue the war. With leadership crumbling in on itself and their forces outnumbered and hunted down, the Yokian Fleet Commander decides to make a peace offering to Jimmy Neutron to disable all the remaining Toybots using the plans to the last of their holdouts.

While dismantling the rest of the Syndicate facilities, the Toon Force also discovered hidden projects that never made it past development, including but not limited to:

* The Syndicannon: As mentioned above being a city destroyer but canceled during its prototype stage.
* BorgCys: A secret biotech project specialized in designing humanoid cyborg mutations to serve alongside the Toybots and their original plan for the Cyber-Virus. One of the Yokian Carriers acting as the units' only facility was infiltrated and destroyed by the Secret Toon Force before all but one of the machines could be activated. Though, it too was quickly defeated by them. A larger, gargantuan variant of the same machine was stored elsewhere, and was once used in an attack on Boxmore alongside it's regular human-sized counterparts. It was only stopped when K.O. and Fink managed to break into the robot's internal systems and shut it down while Momotaro kept it and its smaller troopers busy from the outside.
* Cyber-Virus: Large misshapen creatures that used corrupted data from reality itself to infect the Multiverse en-mass, never going into development out of fear of ruining the Syndicate's plans due to their instability. See Virus Entity for details.
* General Trial: One of the biotech creations of the Syndicate who acted as general of their forces during the war before his defeat at the hands of Momotaro in the Battle for Enterra Drive Yards.
* Formicidae - The Formicidae are a horde of bull-sized bio-mutants created by The Syndicate from the DNA of both crocodiles and army-ants. They are armed with poisonous stingers, razor-sharp claws and massive pincer-like heads. They come exclusively in two variants, including Red and Black. Although prototypes for them were produced in lab by the Syndicate, they were never sent out due to their defeat in the Toon Wars, and instead sold on the black market. Eventually, however, they would eventually be used by the Horde Syndicate for an attack on Monte Macabre and Summer Camp Island in Crossover Forces.

### Toon Wars: The Final Days

> "*The Syndicate knew just how existential all of this was, and they used it to manipulate everyone and turn them against one another. That's how the Toon Wars started.*"
> ― Phoebe[[source]]
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Later on throughout the Final Days Saga, many key events of the arc are stated by other characters to have been directly or indirectly influenced by the Syndicate to some capacity. Eventually, the story of how the Syndicate started the war would be explained in full detail by Phoebe in Chapter 11 where she tells Jimmy Neutron through evidence from other cartoons that they had managed to one day discover the Void and in turn the Fourth Wall through a lengthy expedition through the unknown regions of the Ghost Zone. This allowed them to see into the real world for a brief period through the interface of the controls of their reality and the purpose of their existence as cartoons for people's entertainment. They then learned how if a series was cancelled, they would ultimately be stuck in limbo and never thrive. While for those that have an ending, they would endlessly repeat themselves from episode 1 to their conclusion. The Syndicate found that certain shows tend to last longer than others due to popularity and set a precedent for many series beneath them, ultimately determining if a show is worth staying on air to thrive or be cancelled prematurely. Using this knowledge and access to the Fourth Wall, the Syndicate had managed to manipulate several worlds in the multiverse into doing evil in a foolish attempt at thriving again by killing any fondly recognized or popular show they can find (their biggest target being Spongebob Squarepants, who lasted the longest out of every Nicktoon to date).

## Members

### Leaders

* Professor Calamitous (Founder)
* Vlad Plasmius
* Denzel Crocker
* Plankton (Formerly)
* King Goobot V (Temporarily and Reserve)
* Rob (Temporarily by Vlad)
* The Mawgu (Unofficially by the Syndicate)
* Aku
* Anais Watterson (Formerly in Syndicate Timeline)
* Beautiful Gorgeous (Reserve) - The self-absorbed daughter of Professor Calamitous in charge of Evil Development, was a member of the League of Villains by King Goobot V, frequent enemy of Jet Fusion, one of the people who fought against Globulous Maximus, and reserve Syndicate leader after Calamitous' downfall in the Samurai Jack Saga. Throughout the 5 years of the war, she led countless battles against the Toon Force and even some infiltration missions in regards to her routes as a spy. But due to her focus on herself rather than the maintenance of her troops, almost always her missions end with barely half her fleets intact. In the end, it was the battle at Enterra Drive Yards that forced her to return to a more solo life.
* Yokian Fleet Commander (Reserve)
* Eustace Strych (Reserve) - The spoiled-rich enemy of Jimmy Neutron who became his mortal enemy when Jimmy bested him in a competition, taking it as soiling his image. He was a member of the League of Villains, and returned to enact revenge multiple times, one of which involved Timmy Turner facing him for the first time. He was later chosen personally by Calamitous and Vlad to continue the steadily evolving Toon Wars in their absence. But due to his self-righteousness and gluttony, he inadvertently led to the Syndicate's defeat when he and Beautiful Gorgeous opted to overtake Enterra Drive Yards from the inside with their own facilities. Fortunately, EDY became well aware of their attempts, and decided to put an end to it by getting help from the Toon Force to destroy the new holdouts. After the attack was won by a landslide by the Toon Force, Eustace had effectively lost more than half the Toybot army, only leaving with a few single-digit thousands with no means of building more. This in turn drove him to insanity, pulling his hair and breaking his foot from kicking a sturdy Toybot out of anger. It is unknown what happened to him when the Yokian Fleet Commander gave Jimmy the coordinates to the last of the Syndicate holdouts.

### Armies

* Syndicate Troopers
	+ Ghost Grunts
	+ Syndicate Drones
* Toybots (Invented and used by Calamitous)
* Morphoids (Originally made and used by Globulous)

## Trivia

* Although the Syndicate did include Plankton formerly, he is allied with the Toon Force in the Toon Wars. The reason being because to Frozarburst he seemed more like an antihero than a full fledged villain after working with Spongebob and lightening up to other characters throughout the show.
	+ In addition, even though it isn't mentioned verbatim, Vlad states that he forgot about Plankton when getting the Syndicate back together because he was too short for him to see.
* Aside from Aku, Anais, Spongeglob, King Goobot, the Mawgu, and Rob were all victim to being used by the Syndicate in some form or another; though in the Mawgu's case, this was mutual.
* According to Clockwork, the Syndicate as characters and the Toon Wars itself are considered the biggest example of an anomaly in recorded history.
* In spite of many either dying or being sent to suffer by Aku for many reasons (insulting him or failure to do a task for him), Vlad is scarily the only one of the group who isn't afraid to talk back to him, notably defending himself with an insult to him. However, Aku himself isn't ever phased and usually welcomes his and the other's banter.
	+ Speaking of Vlad, in an unfinished short, it's mentioned by Frostbite that he wasn't defeated by him at the start of Phantom Planet. Instead, Frostbite and his subjects pummeled Plasmius before accidentally freezing themselves with a mirror. Vlad barely escaped with the map of the Ghost Zone intact.
* The Syndicate barely have a symbol of their own, save for a skull and the Toyco bear.
* It is unknown exactly what age any member of the Syndicate are when in the Syndicate Timeline. Since it occurs around 30 years into the future, this would mean, depending if they're middle-aged, that they are elderly. However, throughout their final appearance, they never seem to have aged at all, implying that Aku is keeping them from dying with his magic, or they've used the Fairy Cannon to keep them from aging.
* In both Danny and Timmy's own words, the Syndicate are constantly labeled as "Old Geezers." This is doubled by names such as "Short Round," "Ear Neck," and/or "Fruitloop."
* The way the Syndicate are handled after the originals were defeated in the Jack Saga can be compared to that of the CIS from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, who were in charge of commanding the Droid Army and Naval fleets against the Galactic Republic.