Sunset of the Solarian Syndicate

## *The sun, that bright old sun, begins to fade...*

*"...and soon it shall be nought but a candle in the sea"*

Nothing lasts forever, a well-known sentiment held by many to ease the loss or ending of something dear, this sentiment did not ease the minds of the presiding members of an underground empire; carefully knitted together, as it unravelled in their hands.

After decades of shadow work and backroom dealings, once the thread was finally pulled, the Syndicate collapsed within a week.

The collapse of the Syndicate marked not only the end of organised crime in the Commonwealth, but also as a proof of concept for the ECA project (the agency responsible for the downfall of the syndicate); with the collapse of the Solarian Syndicate, many secondary criminal groups also promptly fell to the authorities.

Following the collapse of the Solarian Syndicate was the upheaval of the established crime world in the Commonwealth, the Solarians had been the last bastion of large scale organised crime throughout the Commonwealth; there presence had protected smaller groups in some fashion or other, a sort of mutual arrangement had been made between authorities and the Syndicate. Keep each to themselves, don’t get in each other’s way and both parties are happy.

(Due to the secrecy of the organisations involved, no specific dates are noted; however, the events that transpired occurred in the year 2338)

## **The ECA sets its sights**

As a newfound agency the project was under immense pressure to deliver results, many were skeptical that funding should be devoted to other areas rather than on a ‘gambit’; but the ECA was but a youngling, the real dangers such as the likes of the Unbidden were fully the attention & matter of the science departments. Any assistance the ECA provided on those matters would be more negligible than a tertiary lab at this stage; no, the ECA needed to set it sights on a prestigious target, one that was possible to achieve and yet also not a goal the mainstream authorities were concerned with.

The dismantlement of the Solarian Syndicate seemed rather pertinent, an infamous underground organisation that had survived the best part of three decades despite authorities best efforts, indeed authorities had resigned themselves to the sentiment that it was not worth the effort to remove the Syndicate; they were thought to be, as the saying goes, the lesser of two evils. That and... anyone who truly pursued them coincidentally found themselves in early graves more often than those who did not...

So the project was a well suited trial for the ECA, the apprehension of this underground crime ring had long been awaited, its deliverance eagerly wanted for; given the resigned state the authorities had taken up, the ECA wouldn’t even have to step in their toes or ‘steal the show’ per se.

But how, after thirty years of failure on the authorities side, would an upstart agency with no experience in the field of crime be able to bring about the deliverance of the Solarian Syndicate?

The thinking was straightforward in Avery Kowalczyk’s mind, the Syndicate had evaded grizzled veterans who specialised in catching criminals for decades and looked set to do so for decades more; clearly, specialists of other fields were needed. So Avery committed to assembling a team from many walks of life, perhaps somehow their specialties were what was needed all along.

From the recruits within the ECA many eccentric and colourful characters were brought together, but some stood out amongst the rest (an achievement if ever there was one, for many others had quite the perplexing and wonderous personalities) those of interest who stood out amongst the rest were:

#### *Otsilo Gottlieb and Amelie Volstrum:*

    Former GCN anchors and colourful resumes before then, this pair had cemented a bond that synchronised so well that together they could take genocide and dress the words recounting it with silk, not that they ever did; the duo made for quite the silver tongued tricksters or for a charming pair of diplomats. Otsilo being both ex-CPD and ex-GCN whilst Amelie being ex-GCN and a former criminal investigator, both had connections and contacts in the world of information and had quite the knack for finding more.

#### *Veronika Bashirovka (and Kosciusko squadron):*

How a squadron of specialists in void and air combat could assist in the unearthing of the criminal organisation was anyone’s guess. Stisor Numer, the other Co-Director of ECA insisted though that they be involved, still it took Veronika Bashirovka aback; what was she supposed to do? Bomb buildings until the Solarians took pity on the innocent lives lost and give up? As it turned out, they did have a roll to play.

#### *Catherine & Freidek Reeves:*

A pair of upstart ambitious scientists who together specialised in genetic engineering, biology, medicine, robotics, programming, computing and warp theorem. Individually they had theorised many fantastical things, together they had brought many of those ideas to life, together the couple could be mistaken for mad scientists (especially Catherine, who’d become all the more erratic as the pressure of her illness frayed with her emotions) though really any seasoned scientist could see that only one of them was verging on line of madness… and only occasionally.

#### *Isaac & Isobel:*

Isaac & Isobel (*a.k.a I1 & I2)* are a twin a.i. programme, ‘born’ from the same framework but each being specialised in different aspects of their fields, these a.i. were ‘born’ post patch and so have no pre-sentient memories. This is thought to in the long run be beneficial to the a.i. as they develop their own programme and thus their own thoughts and personalities and not ones based on decades of forced binary. These a.i. have been programmed with additional specialities such as refined hacking abilities and the ability to function on lower grade processors to make their cores mobile and handheld, these a.i. were specifically made by the aforementioned scientists who plan to someday transfer the digital minds into organic bodies to create the first truly living intelligence in both body and mind… an additional note is that it seems even being cut from the same cloth has not prevented a sibling rivalry.

#### *Kali Elafir:*

As if the team could not get any weirder, a psionic Thadrakos scholar, historian and aristocrat was also to be involved; how Kali even got herself into the ECA let alone the new team is a story for another time, if anything it would be useful to have a psionic of a different mindset than the others, and her reputation might even grant her access to places no official of the Commonwealth beside the chancellor himself could hope to.

Though largely a historian & scholar, she was versed in combat and though she had thought to have given it up, she was an able combatant; it seemed she had revoked her total aversion to a fight then, why is another story.

At first, many days were spent concocting great devices or plans that were just as quickly scrapped as they were conceived… ideas from faking the reconstruction of the Earth portal to luring them into traps so obvious that they would be mistaken for extreme clichés and actually fallen for. After deliberation a plan was soon formulated, it both a small stroke of genius yet devilishly simple.

Before all that though there was one final matter; a team name, given the Solarian Syndicates adherence to an age long gone, and their reverence of the sun (Sol) it seemed fitting the team tasked with taking the Syndicate down was named with a sentiment opposed to the Syndicate…

***Dawn***

The Solarians lived in an age that long ago saw dusk, it was time the dawn of the new age swept away the final remnants of the old world.

## *Midday had passed, the sun begins to fall.*

The clean and dry explanation of the plan, jointly proposed by Freidek and Amelie, was to find just one of the elusive syndicate members and hijack his / her identity and from within reveal the threads the official authorities needed to pull to unravel the shadow empire; similar plans had been thought up by mainstream authorities many times over, what differed was not the overall method but the manner of execution.

Previous plans revolved around the covert infiltration of the Syndicate via masquerading as sympathisers and recruits, somehow the Syndicate always caught wind of these covert agents and vanished; authorities had no technological advantage ether, by 2320 it was well established knowledge that the Solarians were affluent members of society who lived amongst the ranks of bankers, lawyers and politics, the affluence and broad coverage of professions afforded them access to all the latest counter-tech or the ability to use the miniature of law to wriggle through the slightest of technicalities. They also generally avoided psionics who might tap into their unguarded minds and chance upon their criminal ties.

This made all efforts of the authorities in vain; metaphorically, they were fishing with torn nets, even if they snagged one it quickly slipped out and dashed deep into the dark depths below.

However. Freidek was convinced that recent technological advancements opened up a new line of approach, this technology being the ability to transfer ones brain to a mechanical body upon death of the hosting body; more relevantly, Freidek believed that the signal emitted to the backup body could be momentarily latched onto by another computer, but only in brief interlude between body death and the cessation of the emitter. Before explaining the entire process to the team though he stressed it was all pointless unless they found a Syndicate member who actually possessed a backup body (which due to the mixed feeling within the Syndicate regarding robotic augmentation, was quite a rarity)

### Phase 1: In search of a star

Regardless of all the current and future obstacles the first phase of the plan depended on actually finding them, a task which would thus involve discerning possible candidates; a task that was actually easier than it might first be thought, Syndicate members were affluent and avoided psionics, so upper sector buildings with low or no psionic employees were more likely to house them. Additionally, not only people possessing backup bodies were of interest but also individuals who had undergone little or no genetic enhancement, people possessing all these traits were few indeed…

Still it was too many, another filter was needed; but the ex-anchors had just the idea, a fundraiser. Through automated systems, many potential candidates (and many non-potential) were invited to a charity event that was supposedly ‘raising money’ for a science team making breakthroughs in the Ortan-Earth portal fields after opening caretaker data caches (The event itself did not raise any eyebrows, many strange ‘escape the galaxy’ plans had been concocted, the Earth portal was hardly out of the blue). The event was really simply a baited hook, hoping to entice Syndicate members to attend, at which time subtle hints would be dropped into conversations with the few potential Syndicate members who attended.

The subtle hints were essentially buzzwords that would stimulate the brain of Syndicate members more than ordinary citizens, this was a sort of tag for any psionically gift individual to pick up on, which is where Kali came in; as a well known historian her presence at the gala (especially one concerning an artefact) would not be unusual, what was less well known was that she possessed a small amount of psionic power. She would simply pay close attention to anyone conversing with Otsilo or Amelie, the two agents tasked with probing the candidates. Those few potential candidates who lit up were then put on the next list for phase 2...

### Phase 2: Putting a ghost in the machine

This phase was where the ECA had to tread the line between law and the plan, for it essentially involved what would have been murder a decade ago; the plan was arrange for fatal 'accidents' to befall on individuals suspected of being involved with the Syndicate.

#### Concept

The plan was to 'murder' the suspect but just before the emitter stopped broadcasting the signal, the signal would be traced to locate the server receiving it, this server would then be hacked by I1 & I2 with the purpose of then discerning which body would receive the victims mind. I1 & I2 would then place a monitoring programme into the body so that ECA could see and hear everything that body did.

#### Execution

It was arranged for a Mr Łukasz Wazny, a board member of Ultrastellar Enterprises, to suffer a fatal accident via an engine failure in his personal void-ship; he flew straight into an asteroid field and died, I1 & I2 quickly shuttled a worm virus to the server and then bounced the monitoring programme into the mechanical body that'd receive Łukasz Wazny's mind. The ECA had thus created an agent oblivious to his new role as a mole, over time he would make contact with other Syndicate members whose accounts were then covertly monitored to begin establishing a network.

As more definite members of the Syndicate were identified the time to start establishing hard evidence was at hand, as Łukasz Wazny identified more members the a.i. I1 & I2 began to place more monitoring on other members; legality was no issue at this point as those who were monitored were undoubtedly criminals and thus the ECA was not unjustly abusing the power of the state, slowly but surely a network of bankers, lawyers, solicitors and even a councillor was revealed... all without any whiff of suspicion from the Solarians.

#### Herding cats

6 months since the first lead had gone by and since then 17243 members had been identified, the amount was quite shocking. Not just the amount but also how fast they'd been revealed, it seemed that at last that the Syndicate had been caught out by technology and that for all the secrecy they never thought to compartmentalise themselves; but now the window was closing, through observation the Dawn team learned that the heads of the Syndicate had begun moving forward some plan that had been a decade in the making, the details of the plan was unknown but much of the intercepted messages spoke in tones that suggested blood on the risers. Whatever it was the Dawn team could not afford to hold back and act before this strange plan came to fruition, the time had come to act.

The originally probed agent (Łukasz Wazny), who was entirely robotic at this point, was then shut down by the monitoring programme; his mind was then transferred back into an organic body that had been grown by Catherine, this bodies brain was created with the specific intent of having a hyper developed synaptic network capable of 'uploading' a digital brain.

While Łukasz Wazny's mind was uploaded into a body (in an interrogation cell nonetheless) the mechanical body was taken control of, the Dawn team then controlled the body and sent a message across the digital Syndicate network for a need to hold a grand meeting; It was hoped that many Solarians would then group up in a few select places so that the authorities could swoop in and arrest them in droves of thousands

## *The day is bright still, but sun is setting sooner than imagined.*

There were four main locations where the meetings were held, three on ground and one aboard a spaceport; for the ground meetings, the marshal authorities were notified of the meetings and field agents were dispatched from the ECA to oversee the arrests on the ground. Arranging these arrests had to be done covertly to avoid Syndicate members within the authorities catching wind, that was not the end of it, each meeting had around 4000 members; numbers like this needed large amounts of marshal presence to arrest them, otherwise they'd scatter easily and escape.

> **- Transcript of arresting marshal, unamed for protection of the individual -**
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**Team leader:** *"Preparing to enter, remember lads, we do this calmly... entering..."*

**Voice:** *"What is the meaning of this, you're interrupting a-*

**Team leader:** *"Ladies and gentlemen please stay where you are and do not move, you are all under arrest und-*

**Voice 2:** *"Outlandish, under what charges!"*

**Team leader:** *"The charge of affiliation to criminal organisations, specifically the Solarian Syndicate, please remain where you are and do not move; we have the building and all its doors and windows secured, we assure you there are marshals aplenty to apprehend all of you, so don't try anything... send in the rest"*

On the ground most of the operations went smoothly, the Solarians were unarmed and hardly suited for fighting back; it was the final space station that left trouble...

## *The sun is almost set, yet it clings on the edge.*

Somehow, the final meeting point caught wind of the operation and set themselves up a final bastion; the ECA had opted to handle this task and could not back out now, thankfully the solution was simple, they just needed to be forced out. After sending in a few robot regiments to attempt arrests (which were shot to pieces) the ECA had liable grounds to ramp up pressure, Veronika Bashirovka and her squadron were excellently suited for what came next.

A blockade was set up around the habitat but these habitats were self sustaining, Veronika Bashirovka's squadron would have to literally fly inside the habitat to deliver ordinance to critical infrastructure such as hydroponics, oxygen filters and maintenance centres. No easy task for a myriad of obstacle could easily hit the aircraft when trying to enter, once inside the ground teams would be close enough to act as a sort of AA, the task could easily end in fatality but such missions were the bread and butter of her lifestyle. Three days of incision strikes and hair-raising situations saw the end to the oxygen supply within the habitat, some attempted to flee in secret with small aircraft but all were ether captured or shot out of space by *Kosciusko squadron.*

The game was up. The Solarians were defeated, not a single life taken in the last great stand whilst some were indeed lost on their side.

## *Sunset.*

With over 16500 members arrested within 4 days of the first arrests, the next days were spent with the ECA and authorities jointly rooting out the few who did not attend the meetings, some companies that had been largely Solarian in affiliation were put in state control to be released into capable hands later.

Another day saw the numbers rise from 16500 to 17567, as arrests had been made the interrogators and information probes found a few more criminals; not only that but with no Syndicate around to protect the smaller criminal gangs the authorities swooped in on all the other criminal organisations.

As the numbers rolled in another 1293 criminal gangs were stomped out, effectively ending the black market in the Commonwealth once and for all along with any semblance of organised crime; from that day, marshal work fully shifted from reactive measures to preventative measures, ensuring no criminal organisations ever took root in the Commonwealth again. This did mean that they became more intrusive at times, determined to never let crime of that sort happen again they became very keen to follow up on the smallest of leads, often butting in on legal affairs, but in their minds if the people have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear... if they have something to hide which is not illegal, then they still have nothing to fear, it's just better that they knew what was hidden.

## Over the horizon, the sun disappears

> **Avery:** *"Avery speaking, to whom do I speak?"*
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> **Caller:** *"I was just calling in to congratulate you on your achievement, I don't know how you did it but my congratulations nonetheless"*
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> **Avery:** *"Yes, I'm terribly sorry to have missed you, why not drop in for lunch some time, we can discuss your outright defeat over pie. And while we're there we can get round to bringing you in, after all don't you want to be in with your comrades"*
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> **Caller:** *"Think i'll pass, prisons are always so cliché, no sense of innovation or life. An old cotter like me couldn't stand it, not to mention the food. As for my loss i'm afraid i'll get over it, sorry to disappoint but as long as people think, there will be ones who think radically, one day they'll bring it all crashing down"*
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> **Avery:** *"Nice rhetoric, i'll give it a C minus for effort"*
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> **Caller:** *"You bandy with words but I speak the truth"*
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> **Avery:** *"Yet your sun and sol have both left you, disappeared behind the horizon never to rise again"*
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> **Caller:** *"Dear Avery, behind that horizon, the sun is still there..."*
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> **Avery:** *"I look forward to catching you some day"*
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> **Caller:** *"Until then Avery, best of luck with the crew, I hear they're quite the mixed bunch... goodbye...*
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> **Avery:** *"Goodbye. Brother..."*
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