Scorpion Cult

**Dev. Status** | Conceptualized

*Evil hearted you.*

*You always try to put me down,*

*With the things you do,*

*And words,*

*You spread around against me.*

- "Evil Hearted You," The Yardbirds
The **Scorpion Cult**, for short **Cult** but also known as the **Black Hand**, or the **Brotherhood of Seth** is a Blue Alert 3 faction. An old cult that has been with the world since the Wheel and the Fire; they utilize cloak and dagger tactics to make up for their up front weakness as well as devastating mind games that can leave their enemies gibbering, laughing empty shells. They are the archnemesis of the Order of the Hawk, who have battled the Cult across every continent, nation, and institution in a shadow war to determine the course of human history. Now they sense that the time is coming, and that soon they shall bring together the pieces of their Messiah's wandering brotherhood to be ready for him when he is revealed and the sacred crystal he promised would come is delivered to him.

## At a Glance

 **Motives** | Messianism, Chaos, Sadism, the formation of Nod.

## Background

### The hidden Scorpion

The Scorpion Cult is ancient beyond reckoning. "As old as the wheel and fire" in its own words. By its own admission it was founded by the man who would first slay his own brother; an immortal who was doomed to walk endless nations by this murder as punishment for his crimes. This man is known by many names, but to the Cult he is the Messiah. The Cult claims that its faith is the heir to the traditions of the Abrahamic, Mazdan, and Dharmic religions; in equal parts the child, ancestor and ultimately successor of the word of Christ, Muhammed, Abraham, Zoroaster, Mani, Buddha, Nanek Devi Ji and more. It is a millenarian apocalypse cult that believes that their Messiah has been doing great work behind the scenes of human history to prepare the worthy for the apocalypse where the cycle shall at last be broken and the deserving shall be saved.

How much of this is true is of course questionable. But what isn't questionable is the Cult's surprisingly vast resources and its far reaching influence. The cult has fingers in every pie and ears in every court. Or at least, so it claims. If one believes the cult, they caused the fire of London to punish England for its decadence. They brought the rats that bore the bubonic plague. They convinced Ivan the terrible to drink Mercury to heal his back and drive him ever deeper into madness. They set Attila the Hun on his warpath to scourge the west. They brought about the end of the Han dynasty to bathe China in the blood of forty million souls. They convinced Hong Xiuquan to set China ablaze with the Taiping catastrophe. They convinced the British to continue grain exports when the colonies were starving from crop failures. They killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And they also convinced McPie Kong to only offer the rib pies three months out of a year.

So they say. As with so many things concerning the shadow world of spies and cults, truth is hard to verify. Many would argue that their influence in history even if they had done some of things could not be as great as they say. History is the movement of the masses under the conditions that they live under; not the work of great men and their brilliant ideas. Civilisation is built upon the labour of society as a whole, not the genius of exceptional individuals. They say that society's faults and problems are born out of mechanisms out of the control of any one man or group of men. Others contend that the idea of a secretive organisation maintaining a coherent agenda across the entire span of recorded history and beyond is patently ridiculous. Someone would have uncovered them, they would have drifted in goals and ideology. Even if they had somehow endured; they would not be recognisable to any of their founders.

The Cult's believers would say that they can change even the great masses of man through their direct action and their behind the scenes manipulation. They would say that their conviction allowed them to remain in control of their message and their beliefs where other lesser faiths had grown diluted. They would say that they are strong while the other beliefs and faiths of the world are weak. They say that their prophet and messiah still walks among men, preparing for the great ascension that shall be borne by a crystal that will fall from the stars, the ancient matrices, and the sacred visitors. And that is why theirs is holy work, and to oppose them is the greatest of blasphemies against God and mankind's future. Perhaps that is why the Cult is so bloody minded in its fanatacism; someone who believes in all earnesty that theirs is the holy work of God is not someone easily convinced of their own wrong doing.

### Scorpion Rising

The rise of Epsilon and the Cult's highly placed infiltrators within the Allies during the second worlld war proved to be a tremendous boon for the Cult as it was able to piggyback enormous amounts of resources and support from them; tremendously growing their recruitment base and access to technology. They ballooned from a relatively small organisation into a richly supplied and sprawling shadow army lurking in the underbelly of society and their "friendship" with Epsilon was a fruitful one even if they have some doctrinal differences. Their militant orders had an ever growing supply of heavy equipment and had access to enormous quantities of money.

## Militias, Temple Guards and Fanatic Sects of the Scorpion

### Structures

Civilian structures can be converted into Cult structures by construction crews, allowing a Cult base to be easily hidden amongst any place that people congregate and making rooting them out entirely an incredibly difficult task.

### Utility Units

 File:IconCult.png | Cult Shadow | Capable of hiding Scorpion Cult armies in their optical cloaking devices and baffler fields, Cult Shadows are vital for getting in secret strikes and can direct its illusion effects on enemy units to make them seem like yours to the enemy, usually with fatal results.

## Protocols

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