The Collective

**The Collective** were a mysterious criminal organisation.

## History

#### The Calm Before the Storm

Sometime after the Moonbase Killings, the International Space Police Force were called in to investigate the murder of engineer Sonia Garrett. Garrett's spacesuit had been torn by Xander O'Brien via his humidity probe. Her suit was further tampered so that while losing oxygen, her suit did not register it and alert her. Behind the scenes, O'Brien had carried out this act on behalf of the The Collective, who had blackmailed him through their threat to murder his daughter, Susan. Regardless of whether he kept the secret of not, the Collective started a fire at Susan O'Brien's house, causing her death.

In an attempt to cut off all loose ends, the Collective planted an explosive in O'Brien's space station, the Hattie Jacques. When faced with the fact that he was heading for prison for the murder of Garrett, he saved the lives of the ISPF officers by entering the shuttle with the bomb and detaching from the station. Before his death, he was informed of the murder of his daughter by Nathan Spring, Controller of the ISPF and Acting Moonbase Controller. This caused him to reveal the name of the the Collective. He was unable to give up more information as the bomb exploded. Spring reflected on the events, claiming it to be 'the calm before the storm'. (AUDIO: *Dead Air*)

### A murder, a kidnap and a crashsite

The ISPF found themselves very busy when three seemingly unrelated cases landed on their desks - the murder of Jacob Depard, the supposed leader of the criminal organisation the Red Core, the disappearance of laser operative Mark Robinson and the crash of the moon shuttle, the MTZ1986. Paul Bailey investigated Depard's murder and found it to be suspicious, with traces of foreign DNA on his phone. Pal Kenzy's investigation of the Icarus station, workplace of Mark Robinson, led her to believe that this wasn't just your average disappearance, due to faked logs of the laser usage, usually used to destroy junk satellites from the space lanes. Kenzy had summised that either Robinson was up to something that led to his disappearance, or that the management themselves were hiding a secret. And Colin Devis was surprised to find Wolfe International's Corporate Security Officer Alice Okoro sifting through the remains of crashed Moon Tours shuttle MTZ1986, which itself had bizarelly just narrowly missed the Icarus station.

Further investigation found that the Red Core had entered a secret alliance with the workers of the Icarus station, unbeknownst to its management, in which they would allow the Red Core to salvage the rare metals and minerals from the junk satellites, in exchange for a fair share of the money made. All the crew had to do was to fake the laser entries, which is where Robinson came in. Okoro had revealed to Devis that her true reason for being there was trying to discreetly understand why and how the Moon Tours shuttle had been taken from Wolfe International from right under their noses. Kenzy found that things had taken a recent turn for the worse when The Collective had found out about Icarus' deal with the Red Core, and had wanted in on the deal. They planned to buy out the Red Core and enter an alliance with the staff of the Icarus. When Robinson had refused, they had made it their mission to eradicate the Red Core, starting with Depard, kidnap Robinson - promising to leave him unharmed, and begin working alongside the union leaders. In reality, the Collective had also murdered Robinson, had highjacked the MTZ1986 and had attempted to send it into a collision course with Icarus. Last minute intervention had sent it crashing on the surface of the Moon.

With union leader Kathy Marshall under arrest, and also under their protection, the crew found out that the DNA on Depard's phone matched an assassin called Torsten Arthurton, who had worked with the Collective many times. Having killed Depard, he then made his way to Moonbase, where he shot Marshall as she exited the interview room, thus meaning she was unable to testify against them. Arthurton was then shot dead by Paul Bailey before he could take any more lives. With the only person present during the DNA reveal having been Okoro, this made her the ISPF's number one suspect. (AUDIO: *Hostile Takeover*)