The Committee

The Committee is a consortium of criminal enterprises on Sirius Base run by three large mafia families (and several smaller families) who act as the true de facto government on the station. Having their hands in virtually every business, legitimate and otherwise, running on and around Sirius Base, the Committee has been in control of the station for decades, and were partially responsible for astroturfing the insurrectionist movement that resulted in Sirius attaining protectorate status in 2151, thus granting the syndicate families more freedom to operate as they wished.

The various families who constitute the Committee control different areas of the station and generally focus on different criminal and legitimate enterprises, though they do occasionally impinge on each other's territory and engage in violent infighting or political sabotage and espionage. The Committee itself, and the three largest families, partially exist to keep peace between these families and impose some degree of order, operating under a sort of code enforced by the patriarchs and matriarchs of the various syndicate families, who are then expected to discipline their own underlings for infractions. Similarly, several of the smaller families are to some degree "sponsored" and affiliated with one of the three larger families, partially to keep their ambitions in check and to otherwise stem potential chaos.

## Committee Families: The Big Three

**The Kai Family**: One of the most powerful and arguably the richest family on Sirius Base, the Kai not only wield considerable influence on the station and within the Committee, but also possess deep ambitions to control enterprise and politics elsewhere in the Pollux Corridor and beyond. In addition to having their tentacles deep in asteroid mining throughout the Sirius system and the Corridor, the Kai are strongly associated with the trade in Gold Dust, several political coups throughout the Corridor, and human trafficking. They have a long history of selling interesting "subjects" to Maxicorp, and they are primary patrons to the Aldea Academy for Gifted Youth on Sirius Base, with a great deal of clandestine control and oversight over the school's operations. When the school has produced successes, the Kai have been primarily responsible for staging the disappearance or false death of the subject and then had them transported to Stein. When the school has needed protection from investigation or prosecution, or when it has accidentally pushed a subject too far, the Kai have been their first and greatest protectors.

The Kai family is fractious, large, violent, and internally divided, particularly since Avis Kai's attempted coup to displace her father. Of the three largest families that make up the Committee, the Kai are considered the most dangerous, though their internal divisions make them more susceptible to infiltration. As a result, they have been successfully targeted several times by SNI's Black Ops division. While the Kai are not averse to doing their own dirty work, they have traditionally relied on an interrelated family, the Sova, as well as the Rak Organization, to do their fighting and complicated wet work for them.

**The Artemios Family**: The Artemios family are political power players on Sirius, with their claws deeply embedded in much of the legitimate institutions and enterprises on the base. Having evolved from a glorified protection racket into savvy (if intimidating) investors and talent-spotters, the Artemios are always open for business and certainly the easiest family of the big three to work with. Their primary claim to power is physical control over the base's space docks and shipyard, and they have successfully used that position to negotiate with both Maxicorp and the Star Navy over docking rights, supplies, ship repairs, and even shipbuilding during the Praezorian Wars. Their criminal enterprises include moneylaundering, racketeering, large investments in various chrystabell farms and Gold Dust labs around Sirius, medical supply scalping, and skimming trade revenue via "fees" imposed on starfarers and merchants passing through the system.

While they typically feel rational and legitimate, the Artemios are still extremely dangerous, and their general mood can turn on a dime. They usually rely on a smaller family, the Galanis, to act as muscle, enforcers, and to do their wet work for them. It is possible to have a perfectly cool and friendly business meeting in the morning, only to find oneself threatened with torture and brutal murder by a hired enforcer that night.

**The Oswine Family**: The Oswines are the information gatherers and brokers on Sirius Base. Of the three families, they are the most ideologically invested in Sirius Base's independence from the Earth Republic and Star Navy, and they were primarily responsible for fanning the flames of insurrection that resulted in the base's protectorate status. The Oswines own a large network of restaurants, hotels, bars, clubs, brothels, escort services, and transportation services, and exercise surveillance and counterintelligence operations throughout the base. As a family, they are unusually tightly knit and loyal to one another, and they are famously difficult to infiltrate.

## Smaller Committee Families and Affiliates

**The Galanis Family**: The largest and most powerful of the smaller Committee families, the Galanis are extremely rich in their own right, having benefitted from years of lucrative contracts for the Artemios family as enforcers and experts in wet work. As they have grown in power and influence, the Galanis have expanded their criminal and legitimate profile, joining the Artemios on various enterprises. One of their newest sources of profit is the counterfeiting of formerly Maxicorp-controlled drugs and selling them to colonists and starfarers at an inflated rate.

**The Sova Family**: The Sova are interrelated with the Kai family and sponsored by them within the Committee organization, acting as the Kai's enforcers, muscle, and experts in wet work. They are considered violent, terrifying, and insane even by the other families, and the Kai are expected to keep them on a short leash, a task at which they are only somewhat successful. The Sova have ambitions and reach beyond Sirius, much like the Kai, and have been involved in criminal cases as far afield as Calypso Twilight. The ERS Gryphon discovered in 2155 through '56, during a set of cases on the Twilight, that several members of the Sova family were having themselves cloned and their brains transplanted in order to secure renewed youth and extended lifespans. The eldest members of the Sova family and its former matriarch and patriarch, Roxana and Ephraim Sova, were resistance fighters in Siberia as teenagers and founding members of the Xero Veta cult. The family on Sirius Base is now run by Svetlana Sova, second daughter to Roxana, after its remaining members sought the protection of their sponsors to avoid further prosecution and pursuit by the Star Navy and JUDCON.

**The Rak Organization**: Related to the Kai family and sponsored by them, the Rak Organization operates throughout the Pollux Corridor and act as foot soldiers for large operations. Skilled in gunrunning, munitions racketeering and manufacturing, combat stim counterfeiting, and various acts of anti-military piracy against the Star Navy, the Rak are a disciplined outfit and not to be crossed. When one is dealing with the Rak, their leaders are cool, distant, and often extremely pleasant, and they are confident enough to never use violence until they feel they will be adequately compensated for it.