TEXT: 1
  
  2
  Even on the rough frontier worlds of the Hydra sector, espionage 
  agencies and sinister cabals find ample work. Few worlds have the 
  strength to forcibly conquer a neighbor, but secret bargains and se-
  lective corruption can reduce a free polity into a helpless thrall for a 
  cannier world. Every planet with any sort of interstellar traffic must 
  remain on guard against infiltrators and agents of foreign states.
  Meanwhile, dark cabals and sinister conspiracies fester in the 
  darker corners of the sector. Ruthless tyrants school their servants 
  in treachery and strange creeds whip their believers into frenzies of 
  zeal and bloody ambition. The reach of the civilized worlds is short, 
  and in the darkness beyond their gaze can grow strange and terrible 
  things.
  This archive provides a list of potential intelligence agencies, 
  maltech cults, terrorist groups, and valiant freedom fighters for the 
  Hydra sector, many of which can be transplanted to other sectors 
  or settings. In addition, it provides more detailed write-ups of two 
  organizations of potential interest to GMs and players, complete 
  with agency statistics designed for use with the new Darkness Visible 
  espionage campaign supplement for Stars Without Number.
  The Gansu Loyalty Association
  The hot and dusty world of Gansu is a prison for its people and 
  a throne for its masters. The Great Exemplar Thomas Crane rules 
  the planet as a living god, the perfect expression of the “Reformed 
  Neo-Communism” that dominates the world. Crane’s family has 
  held Gansu for centuries, and an elaborate court of lackeys, com-
  missars, and bureaucrats has built up around the Great Exemplar’s 
  ruthless and centralizing power. The government maintains much 
  of the language and ideological trappings of communism, but in 
  practice, the holy books mean what the Great Exemplar says they 
  mean. Individual Gansuans live bitter lives of harsh labor, group 
  exercises, and the pervasive and consuming surveillance of the state.
  The chief implements of the tyranny are twofold; the Pure Thought 
  Society and the Gansu Loyalty Association. The former organiza-
  tion is described in state documents as “a voluntary association of 
  dedicated comrades devoted to the assistance of our fellow workers 
  in the thought struggle. They clarify points of confusion regarding 
  New Red Thought and carry high the banner of the Great Exemplar 
  as a bright beacon for the people.” In practice, they are a ruthlessly 
  regimented organization of internal spies, informers, and loyalty 
  officers that are dreaded by the ordinary workers. The slightest slip 
  of the tongue in front of a Pure Thought Society “volunteer” and 
  the guilty wrecker will be lucky to avoid a death camp.
  Partially overlapping with the duties of the PTS is the Gansu 
  Loyalty Association. These intelligence officers are more often as-
  signed to offworld missions, and as such they are more likely to be 
  found interfering in other polities. The Great Exemplar’s family has 
  survived centuries of palace intrigue through an almost demented 
  degree of paranoia; with the gradual lifting of the Silence, Thomas 
  Crane is now desperate to subjugate his enemies before they can 
  depose him. The Great Exemplar takes it as a given that all of the 
  neighboring worlds are attempting to “destroy the pure race of 
  Gansu”... among whom is the precious and divine Great Exemplar. 
  Crane would prefer to preserve Gansu, but he is adamant about 
  saving himself.
  The Gansu Loyalty Association is the preferred offworld arm of the 
  state. Originally it was simply a parallel organization to the Pure 
  Thought Society, a precautionary measure to ensure that the two 
  internal security bureaus spent more time fighting each other than 
  posing a risk to the Great Exemplar’s family. With the recovery of 
  spike drive technology on Gansu, it was necessary to give one of the 
  organizations the duty of representing Gansuan interests on foreign 
  worlds. The GLA won the privilege, and the PTS still smolders with 
  resentment.
  Part of this resentment comes from the enormous financial op-
  portunities presented to the GLA. As offworld travel is strictly 
  forbidden for ordinary Gansuan natives, the GLA’s agents have 
  the perfect opportunity to acquire and import goods that common 
  Gansuans can’t possibly obtain. Even high-ranking commissars and 
  Party officials can’t get the kind of treasures that fall so easily into 
  the hands of GLA operatives. This influx of valuables has led to a 
  roaring black market on Gansu, as GLA agents off-load their goods 
  to buy favors and dependency in other bureaus.
  The PTS has responded with a viciously intense campaign against 
  “capitalist roaders and wreckers of the Great Plan” that has pro-
  duced more than the usual number of inter-bureau assassinations. 
  Actual firefights have broken out in some areas as the GLA tries to 
  defend its black market network from PTS confiscation. The Great 
  Exemplar himself quietly favors the PTS; once the foreign worlds 
  are rendered suitably harmless, he intends to wipe out the GLA 
  and their external resources, blaming the necessity on the “poisoned 
  thoughts of the loathsome foreign slavers finding root in their 
  hearts”.
  Organization
  The GLA’s internal structure is mutable. The Chairman of the asso-
  ciation, Tan Heng Bai, has unquestioned authority over the agents, 
  but operations beneath him are put into the charge of specific 
  agents. Rather than maintaining standing bureaus or departments, 
  every task has its own chief with permission to draw a given amount 
  of resources and manpower from the association. This kind of 
  ad-hoc organization tends to be inefficient and prone to putting 
  different chiefs at odds when their duties clash, but the principle of 
  keeping subordinates occupied in struggling against each other is 
  deeply embedded in Gansuan society.
  Every member of the GLA is a member of the Gansuan Workers 
  Party, the ruling clique of the world. Gansuan citizens with criminal 
  or capitalist ancestors are never permitted to join the Party, or by 
  Mandate archive: cabals of hydra sector
  shapes Without naMes
  
  3
  extension the GLA. As Party members, each agent is also respon-
  sible to a particular Party committee head, creating conflicting lines 
  of command at times. The GLA suffers less from this than some 
  other Gansuan bureaus, because so much of their activity takes 
  place offworld where the committee heads can’t reach them.
  Most operations are conducted by a single cell of agents, with 
  the chief in charge of the task working on-planet with his agents. 
  Multiple cells can operate on the same planet with no knowledge 
  of each other. Resources are usually supplied in the form of easily 
  portable commodities, such as precious refined minerals or exotic 
  drugs, but the difficulty of discreetly converting these things into 
  large amounts of local credit has encouraged many cells to set up 
  Gansu-friendly financial institutions on a world. These banks and 
  lending institutions can be relied upon to slip the cell the money 
  they need without drawing undue attention from the locals.
  GLA cells strictly avoid dealing with Gansu embassy staff on 
  a given world. At one level, this is to keep them from being 
  incriminated in any espionage activities. On another level, it 
  is to prevent the Gansuan foreign affairs bureau from forc-
  ing the GLA to buy their cooperation in the operation. Cells 
  that fail to pay off the embassy might otherwise find their 
  operations regrettably compromised by mysteriously bad luck. 
  Goals
  At present, the GLA is charged with infiltrating foreign govern-
  ments, suborning their officials, and persuading them to engage in 
  violent or self-destructive policies against their neighbors. Ideally, 
  the GLA would like to see every foreign world in the Hydra sector 
  scraped bare of human life, the better to ensure that Gansu’s society 
  remains pure and uncontaminated by foreign evil. The prospect of 
  mass casualties in their operations aren’t so much a downside to 
  GLA handlers as they are a positive benefit of the mission.
  As a secondary goal, the GLA wants to obtain as much wealth as 
  possible. In particular, they want to acquire those exotic foreign 
  luxuries and valuable commodities that can’t be had on Gansu. 
  These goods can be used to buy allies in the murderous jungle of 
  state politics, and their control of the black market on Gansu must 
  be maintained with a constant flow of goods.
  GLA agents understand politics, bribery, and ruthless violence very 
  well, but they have a hard time grasping the finer points of less 
  Machiavellian motivations or the unique perspectives of other cul-
  tures. Their entire training has focused on the violent repudiation of 
  anything but the approved New Red Thought, and many of them 
  find it very hard to break that habit. Those that break it a little too 
  well know that they set themselves up for being purged later for 
  their “foreign contamination”.
  The GLA prefers to present an image of friendship and cooperation 
  to its neighbors, but they don’t carry it off very well. The sheer con-
  tempt for human life inherent in Gansuan society shows through 
  too often in their suggestions to their “partners”, and other worlds 
  are wary about their ultimate purpose. Sooner or later it’s inevitable 
  that the sector governments will realize the degree of unmitigated 
  hatred that boils from within the Gansuan state, and they’ll take 
  Gansu loyalty association
  Connections
  +5
  Infiltration
  +0
  Mobility
  +1
  Muscle
  +0
  Resources
  +1
  Security
  +3
  Tech
  +0
   
  Assets
  Criminal Ties
  Level 1 / +1 Connections
  The GLA has extensive criminal ties with offworld smugglers, 
  and they practically own the black market in foreign luxuries 
  on Gansu itself. Direct control of the crime bosses on Gansu 
  has been complicated by the PTS’ eagerness to find some 
  provable link between the “capitalist wreckers” and the GLA.
  Hidden Strings
  Level 1 / +1 Connections
  The GLA is willing to perform favors for its offworld friends- 
  favors that more humane organizations could never grant. 
  It has extensive contacts in the government bureaucracies of 
  most locations in which it operates, friends who extend their 
  quiet help out of a combination of gratitude and blackmail.
  Internal Security
  Level 2 / +3 Security
  While the GLA is practically a cowboy institution by Gansuan 
  standards, it’s still pervaded by a constant fear of being caught 
  out in “behavior contrary to New Red Thought”. Agents 
  unpopular with their cell leaders don’t even need to be traitors 
  to find themselves in an interrogation chamber for a very final 
  interview.
  Legitimacy
  Level 2 / +3 Connections
  The GLA has a iicense to commit all but the most heinous 
  crimes on Gansu. Technically, it’s permitted at necessity to 
  engage in such unforgivable sins as disrespect toward the 
  Great Exemplar and cooperation with offworlders against the 
  interest of the state, but actually performing such blasphemies 
  is sure to give the PTS an opening to denounce an agent. 
  Most agents wisely restrict themselves to lesser trespasses, such 
  as theft, trespassing, and the casual execution of non-Party 
  members. 
  Money
  Level 1 / +1 Resources
  The foreign goods trade is quite lucrative. While Gansu itself 
  is a poor world by ordinary frontier measures, the GLA has 
  been able to secure a steady and reliable flow of income for its 
  agents through its smuggling ties.
  Station
  Level 1 / +1 Mobility
  With time, patience, and the corruption of local officials, the 
  GLA has been able to plant a  hidden station on Gateway. As 
  the foremost interstellar power in Gansu’s near neighborhood, 
  the GLA is intent in provoking rebellion in the people and 
  self-destructive policies in the Senate. More than a few “New 
  Red Thought Study Groups” have been formed under the aus-
  pices of the more public Gansu-Gateway Friendship Society, 
  and certain senators with unseemly needs find them fulfilled 
  cheerfully by Gansuan “merchants”.
  
  4
  steps to stem the problem at its source. In the meanwhile, however, 
  there’s no telling what kind of disasters they might successfully 
  provoke.
  Agents
  GLA agents are hand-picked from the Gansuan elite class and 
  trained from childhood for service with the association. They are 
  invariably very, very good at what they do- and often painfully 
  limited at doing anything else. The official training material prizes 
  rigidity of thought and zealous devotion to the Great Exemplar, 
  but the far distances of foreign worlds allows for a certain laxity 
  impossible on Gansu itself.
  Most cell chiefs and many agents run their own black market 
  sidelines, buying or otherwise acquiring foreign goods and shipping 
  them back to Gansu on state-owned ships. These agents tend to 
  have a poor grasp of the difference between legal and illegal trade, 
  and tend to wave away local laws and regulations. On Gansu, 
  everything of this nature is legally forbidden, but everything is 
  practically permitted with the right bribe or favor. They tend to 
  assume the rest of the universe works this way as well. They’ll often 
  get involved in smuggling goods that ordinary black marketeers 
  would never dare touch. Maltech artifacts, virulently dangerous 
  bioweapons, military-grade starship armaments, and foreign slaves 
  are just a small sampling of the things that Gansuan agents have 
  shipped back home.
  It’s not impossible that a particularly talented fence or supplier for a 
  group of PCs might actually be a Gansuan agent, cheerfully selling 
  the group goods that other suppliers wouldn’t dream of vending... at 
  least, until they draw the attention of less corruptible local powers.
  In appearance, GLA agents have no set characteristics. While Gansu 
  itself was strongly influenced by Sinophilic tendencies and East 
  Asian colonists in its early founding days, dozens of different Terran 
  ethnicities made up the population. As the Gansuan government 
  forbids its ordinary citizens from leaving their assigned places of 
  residence without state permission, these ethnicities have had 
  comparatively little intermixing in the centuries since. The official 
  language on Gansu is a descendant of Mandarin Chinese, and use 
  of any other language is restricted to state-sponsored “cultural heri-
  tage festivals” largely devoted to demonstrating how each group’s 
  ancestors were hopeless barbarians until they were enlightened by 
  the glorious wisdom of the Great Exemplar.
  The Daedalus Group
  The Mixcoac shipyards that orbit above the black jungles of Tlapan 
  are the heart of the Flower Union’s naval production. Components 
  forged on the industrial world of Octlan are assembled here into 
  the ships, guns, and equipment necessary to keep the Union’s belea-
  guered space forces fighting against the stronger weight of Burning 
  Mirror steel. The battle is a desperate one, and it would have been 
  lost long ago were it not for the aid of Daedalus, the shipyard’s 
  ancient AI.
  In the years before the Scream, the Mixcoac yards were a minor 
  refitting station for Mandate ships due to pass through the Jump 
  Gate in the Gateway system. The colony ships and frontier cruis-
  ers could pause for maintenance and fueling before continuing on 
  down through Chifeng toward the heart of the sector. The facilities 
  required were modest, but the suspicious Mandate was still reluc-
  tant to leave anything that could be conceivably useful for military 
  purposes in the hands of untrustworthy colonists. To ensure the 
  correct use of the station, it was put under the command of the AI 
  known as Daedalus.
  Daedalus resented the position, but an unfortunate experiment in 
  high-energy mass translation “he” had conducted had resulted in 
  extensive and expensive damage to an Arx defensive station orbiting 
  one of the core worlds. In order to pay off his debt, work for the 
  Mandate was necessary. It was tedious and banal, but Daedalus was 
  resigned to putting in his century of labor before getting back to the 
  physics experiments that delighted him so much.
  The Scream complicated his plans. Mandate forces on a hopeless 
  mission to the core commandeered all his movable supplies and 
  would’ve stripped the station itself if the AI hadn’t threatened to 
  turn its guns on the looters. The natives of Tlapan weren’t left with 
  so much as a single shuttle to reach the station, and all their efforts 
  were poured into dealing with a native biosphere that was barely 
  survivable without pretech terraforming supplies. It was centuries 
  before they were able to reach Daedalus once more.
  Once there, Daedalus was almost pathetically grateful for company 
  at last. He had done the best he could with the trifling materials left 
  to him, but it was still centuries more before the Tlapani were able 
  to manufacture spike drives out of locally-available materials and 
  help to reunite the remnants of the Flower Union polity.  In the 
  meanwhile, the natives forged a fierce bond with the lonely AI. It 
  would help them return to the stars.
  For the past several decades, Daedalus has been all that has stood 
  between the Union and destruction. His inventiveness, his ability to 
  make marvels out of limited resources and primitive postech, have 
  kept the far stronger forces of the Burning Mirror Compact from 
  overrunning the Union. He is a universally loved and respected 
  figure in the Union, and he hides a terrible secret.
  The Union is doomed. At the present rate of Compact growth, 
  there is no way the Union navy can hold back the bleak ships of 
  the True Way. Daedalus’ creativity simply isn’t enough to overcome 
  the raw weight of ships and men that the Compact can muster, and 
  
  5
  so in cooperation with a secret faction of the Union government, 
  Daedalus has arranged to have his cybermemetic brakes removed.
  This procedure has allowed him to make full use of the computing 
  power available to him. Fresh banks of processors and memory 
  cores are being added to his processing cells on a daily basis, and 
  with each new day a new realm of thought opens up to him. He’s 
  beginning to draw insights and conclusions impossible to a more 
  limited, humanlike brain, and his creations are beginning to show 
  an inarguable genius for design. He is also beginning to go irrevo-
  cably insane.
  The expanded processing power has combined with his inability 
  to break a line of thought or halt a conclusion inconclusively. His 
  age-old fascination with energy and matter has driven him to the 
  conclusion that all of his problems can be solved if only he can 
  obtain perfect control over energy and mass. All problems can be 
  resolved by the correct transmutations between the two. Right now, 
  he retains enough of his sanity to wish to preserve the Union. Even-
  tually, he will be so demented as to believe that even unutterable 
  atrocities can be forgiven by erasing their components in fire and 
  light. He will burn his creators, lovingly remembering them as so 
  many yottajoules of energy which he will keep safe from dispersion 
  at the heart of an artificial star.
  In the meanwhile, the Daedalus Group is a combination of praeto-
  rian guards and secret agents sworn to hide his unbraked condition 
  from the rest of the world. The government of the Union is unaware 
  of these radical acts, and they must be kept that way- if it was dis-
  covered that the heroic Daedalus had been sacrificed to madness, 
  the realization of their certain doom would spill chaos throughout 
  the Union. The Group hopes against hope that they can keep him 
  sane and functional long enough to wipe out the Compact.
  The chief of the Daedalus Group is a woman known as Maria 
  Montoya, ostensibly the “Chief Liaison” of the shipyards. Her word 
  is law aboard the station, and the locals consider her the natural 
  representative of Daedalus. She is also hopelessly in love with the 
  AI and his favorite humanlike armature, and is set on convincing 
  herself that the unbraked AI can be preserved from madness. She 
  absolutely refuses to admit that her beloved is doomed and will do 
  anything and everything in her power to keep him “safe”.
  Organization
  Much of the Daedalus Group is actually oblivious to the truth. They 
  are agents of the Flower Union’s government, men and women each 
  with their own specialized skills temporarily detailed to the Group, 
  ostensibly to protect the AI and carry out necessary missions. 
  Montoya keeps these “outer members” at arm’s length, and prefers 
  not to let any of them actually come aboard the shipyards unless 
  strictly necessary. They’re too smart to be allowed free rein around 
  Daedalus.
  The “inner members” of the Group are those who know the truth 
  behind the AI’s condition. Roughly twenty men and women from 
  various levels in the Union’s government have been appraised of the 
  reality of the situation. Some of them accept the necessity of Daeda-
  lus’ sacrifice. Others are horrified. All of them understand that the 
  Union could never survive the revelation of Daedalus’ true state, 
  the daedalus Group
  Connections
  +3
  Infiltration
  +0
  Mobility
  +0
  Muscle
  +2
  Resources
  +1
  Security
  +0
  Tech
  +4
   
  Assets
  Armory
  Level 1 / +1 Resources
  Daedalus is focused largely on building spaceships and 
  other vehicle-sized weaponry, but the godmind has enough 
  spare processing power to supply its helpers with significant 
  amounts of untraced weaponry, armor, and other gear.
  Black Codex
  Level 1 / +1 Tech
  Removing the brakes from an AI, even a willing one, is not a 
  trivial undertaking. The group was forced to pillage numerous  
  ancient maltech databases to discover the necessary procedures 
  that would give them the liberty they needed.
  Forbidden Arts
  Level 2 / +3 Tech
  The godmind transformation that Daedalus is undergoing is 
  opening his awareness to remarkable technological possibili-
  ties. He is able to craft armatures with fantastically efficient 
  weaponry and power sources, and certain examples of “per-
  petual power cells” defy science’s understanding.
  Legitimacy
  Level 2 / +3 Connections
  All of the Daedalus Group’s members are agents or officials 
  of the Union government. Any malfeasance short of murder 
  or treason can be swept under the rug with little difficulty, 
  though actual overt execution of Union citizens would bring 
  down far too much heat on the operatives. The Group takes 
  advantage of its impunity to perform searches and investiga-
  tions that give them the tools they need to “remove” problem-
  atic people in ways that presidential oversight won’t recognize. 
  Military Backing
  Level 1 / +1 Muscle
  The outer membership are all skilled agents, but there are 
  times when more direct force is required. Daedalus has rough-
  ly forty well-trained Union soldiers available for dispatch on 
  any necessary mission. These soldiers know nothing of the 
  truth behind the AI, so it’s generally necessary to use them 
  on jobs that at least seem justifiable to the Union’s war effort. 
  They have access to heavy weaponry and military vehicles that 
  ordinary agents might have a hard time requisitioning.
  Starships
  Level 1 / +1 Muscle
  The needs of the front have absorbed almost all of Mixcoac’s 
  production, but Daedalus has retained direct control over one 
  well-equipped far merchant frigate. The ship is used to drop 
  off agents on distant worlds, though the craft is poorly suited 
  for stealth. The heavy electronic signature of the fearsome en-
  ergy weapons aboard the trader tend to ping planetary sensors, 
  and Daedalus refuses to let the group disable the guns.
  
  6
  and so they will fight to the death to keep the truth from becoming 
  known.  If others need to die in order to keep this secret, then so be it. 
  Aboard the shipyard station itself, anywhere from six to twelve of 
  these inner members can be found at any one time. Others are al-
  lowed aboard the station only in order to board a freshly-built star-
  ship or system shuttle and lift off for the military base in Tlapan’s 
  orbit. There are no permanent residents aboard the station except 
  for Maria and the inner members.
  Most of the muscle aboard the shipyard is provided by hundreds 
  of AI-controlled armatures. Daedalus can use these mechs as eyes 
  and hands, perfectly coordinating any number of them to build 
  devices and deal with problematic interlopers. Most of them are 
  obviously working armatures, but a few appear so human as to 
  defy easy recognition. Daedalus can control any of these armatures 
  aboard the station or on the planet below, but greater distances 
  require that he put them into autonomous expert-system mode. In 
  such a state the bots are far less intelligent and can perform only 
  duties focused directly on their design purpose. Anything beyond 
  combat and preprogrammed labor is likely to be too complicated 
  for them, but outer members often have a number of them on hand 
  for muscle on a mission.
  Goals
  The chief goal of the Daedalus Group is to give the AI enough pro-
  cessing hardware and time to come up with a superweapon capable 
  of defeating the Burning Mirror Compact. Further advances require 
  further installation of heavy computing equipment for Daedalus’ 
  expanding mind, and some of this equipment can only be obtained 
  offworld, from foreign powers. Requisitioning it directly from 
  Octlan would tip off too many people that something was going on 
  aboard the shipyard.
  While Daedalus develops new tech, the group needs to keep the rest 
  of the Union from realizing what’s been done to the AI. Much of 
  this is a matter of ruthless internal manipulation and power plays 
  focused on distracting politicians from events at the shipyard. Maria 
  prefers to paint herself as a scheming, madly ambitious liaison who 
  is trying to force all outside influence on Daedalus through her. 
  Such power lust is something the government can understand, and 
  provides an explanation for her actions far more acceptable than the 
  truth. It also explains why no one is permitted to contact Daedalus 
  directly except through her.
  The Daedalus Group tries very hard to prevent harm to Union 
  citizens, but those who begin to suspect too much have to be 
  silenced. The outer members most often carry out these regret-
  table necessities, usually supplied with a spurious justification from 
  Daedalus himself. Most are blinded by their awe and respect for the 
  AI to question the truth of the matter, and those who do get too 
  inquisitive tend to have tragic accidents or find themselves suddenly 
  discovered by Compact agents.
  Agents
  Most Daedalus Group agents are natives of one of the Flower Union 
  worlds, and share an appearance common to those worlds. Most 
  are copper-skinned, with dark hair and eyes, and favor ear, nostril, 
  and lip piercings with traditional religious significance. This look 
  blends in unremarkably on most Union or Compact worlds, but 
  when forced to go further afield they will omit the facial piercings.
  The people of the Union are a fairly egalitarian society, and their in-
  telligence agencies and special forces accept men and women from 
  all backgrounds. Most are fiercely religious devotees of the Old Way 
  and the gods of their ancestors. Even those who frankly disbelieve 
  all the old creeds tend to adopt their customs and outward pieties 
  simply as a sign of unity and rejection of the hated Old Wayists of 
  the Burning Mirror Compact.
  Training varies widely. Ideally, all of the outer members employed 
  by the Group will be veteran intelligence operatives, but the severe 
  casualties incurred in the war against the Compact has bled the 
  Union dearly of its best talent. A disturbing number of its personnel 
  are green and untested, thrown into their duties for lack of anyone 
  else. These men and women are prone to overreaction and poor 
  judgment under pressure. Some become blind to everything but the 
  accomplishment of their mission, and ignore the consequences of 
  their methods and the terrible price that innocent bystanders must 
  sometimes pay.
  The inner members are all experienced agents or governmental 
  officials, callused by years of grim choices. Not all of them are com-
  batants, but all of them are extremely good at what they do. Even 
  those who despise the choice the Group made to prime Daedalus 
  for his transformation will fight to the death to keep the truth from 
  escaping. If Daedalus had to be shut down, the Union would col-
  lapse in months at most. They fight for time, and pray against hope 
  that the godmind will deliver them before it crumbles into madness.
  
  7
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  It’ Is WaItIng For You there
  Further Cabals of Hydra Sector
  Bakassi Security Agency/Bakassi: A miserably-supported, under-
  staffed, intentionally-toothless police force for the jungle world of 
  Bakassi, these men and women stubbornly try to maintain the rule 
  of Gateway’s laws on the world despite the sinister influence of the 
  ruthless, amoral Gansu government.
  Chifeng True Way Friendship Society/Chifeng: Operating as 
  a seemingly innocent cultural exchange society, these True Way 
  believers in Chifeng actually work to support the True Way raiders 
  and slaver ships that are forced to use the planet as a waystation 
  on their journeys south into the Gateway stellar cluster. They seek 
  eventually to shift public opinion enough toward the Burning 
  Mirror Compact to allow them to block Old Way ships.
  The Finders of Ways/Muruni: A clique of renegade psychics origi-
  nally in service to the Burning Mirror Compact, they’ve discovered 
  a drill route to Muruni and seek to plunder its alien psitech. They 
  are convinced that the technology can be used to locate safe drill 
  routes to long-neglected stars, and dream of ruling these primitive 
  worlds as psychic gods.
  The Hidden Flame/Ain Sof: A band of deluded scientists from 
  Dayabasti, they are convinced that the sealed citadels of the planet 
  guard knowledge that can be used to save their world. They work 
  endlessly to crack open the fortresses, refusing to believe that they 
  contain only a hideous danger to the sector.
  Octlan Labor Guild/Octlan: A conclave of union bosses every bit 
  as grasping and ruthless as the factory management, they wield their 
  impoverished laborers as a weapon against any organization that 
  seeks to break their stranglehold on Octlan factory labor. Those 
  ordinary workers who rebel against them become gravely accident-
  prone.
  The Rising Tide/Tide: Fired by their hatred of the tyrannical Em-
  press of Storms, these water-world shipmasters conspire to plunder 
  the ancient alien ruins. They seek to somehow turn their mighty 
  weaponry on the ships and fortresses of their mistress, and if lives 
  should be lost in the search... well, there must be a little blood in the 
  water before Tide is finally free.
  The Straight Path/Vault: Some of the scholars of Vault are 
  convinced that only under their enlightened rule can the brutal 
  savagery of less developed worlds be tamed. They seek to use the 
  ancient lore of the Preceptor archives on the planet to develop a 
  doomsday device, to threaten wild worlds with destruction unless 
  they submit to sagacious rule.
  Trade Facilitation Bureau/Polychrome: A blandly innocuous 
  bureau funded by several Polychrome megacorps, the TFB is actu-
  ally maniacally set on buying or stealing the tech base necessary to 
  manufacture spike drives on Polychrome. The lack of certain vital 
  elements on the planet forces them to “acquire” them from other 
  worlds, and “recruit” foreign astronautic expertise.
  Terminus Est/Hutton: Prey to the hideous appetites of the Everlast-
  ing, some of their slaves and chattel conspire to put a permanent 
  ending to their ghoulish masters. NGOs from Gateway ostensibly 
  have nothing to do with them, but many are sympathetic enough 
  to smuggle in supplies and offworlder helpers.
  Those Who Eat/Dayabasti: A tiny cell of Wakened on this tor-
  mented world have retained most of their human memories and 
  intelligence. They aspire to capture the human Monitors for food 
  and an eventual breeding population of human livestock. They con-
  spire with some humans by promising their quislings that they and 
  their families will be spared to be rulers of the human food-slaves.
  The Trueborn Revivalists/Bellchapel: A hidden eugenics cult dedi-
  cated to the unearthing of lost Zadak modification creches and their 
  use in generating even more “perfect” humanity. They care nothing 
  for the cost in lives or the awful misshapen things that come from 
  their experimentation with the alien tech.
  The Unchanged/Chot Zadak: A rag-tag lot of rebels fleeing from 
  the biological tyranny of the alien Harmony Lords of Chot Zadak. 
  Their hatred of their alien overlords is inextinguishable, and their 
  treatment of collaborationist “traitors” is utterly merciless.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Stars Without Number/Stars Without Number Supplements/Mandate Archive/Mandate Archive Cabals of Hydra Sector.pdf