guidebook Black Hole Gang(Space/Emerald City Rogues)

[Ari]

Since the attempted Grue invasion in the 1950's, and indeed for longer than proposed human history, extraterrestrial life has come to Earth to hide, to escape, to begin anew. Some become quiet, anonymous members of human or pre-human civilization, some rise to become brave heroes or dire villains, and yet others choose to exploit their unique set of circumstances for profit. Of this last is the Black Hole Gang, a band of exiles, fugitives and wanderers who combined their talents, resources and knowledge to become the Sol system's most powerful interstellar crime syndicate.

 

Earth is home to many rare materials, unique wonders and kinds of life unknown in the wider galaxy. It is also poor, unadvanced by stellar civilization standards and largely ignorant of the world outside the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, let alone of the galaxy beyond Sol's orbit. The 'Terrans' know that alien life exists, some of it is hostile, and it comes from somewhere science has yet to determine. Sometimes the Atom Family or Freedom League return with some snippet of information about extrasolar life, but for the most part you can tell the average Terran anything and they'll probably believe it.

 

That's the gravy train the Black Hole Gang runs on, and they are in no mood to lose their spot to the bigger dogs outside the Developmental Quarantine Zone, in which Terrans remain so helpfully unaware and outsiders are given the boot before they divulge too much. Starting in 1979, when the three leaders of the Gang arrived on the Pacific coast fleeing their various problems, they were amazed to stumble upon an entire hidden population of non-humans and even non-Terrans living in and around Emerald City. Learning from them of the mysterious Chamber that had gathered so much wealth and power into the city, using it as a base and laboratory for secret, total domination, the trio sought out the human crime collective and offered their unique skills and contacts in return for a share of the profits and certain escape from Earth if things ever got too bad.

 

Nobody has ever justly accused the Big Brain of being closed-minded or prejudiced, and he accepted their offer. Even agreeing not to ever read their minds without their express permission. Since then, the Black Hole Gang has made a killing smuggling living things, technology and raw materials to and from Earth. After the opening of the extra-Plutonian wormhole, their business has boomed and their importance has steadily increased on both sides of the stellar divide. There are times, even, when they think of the Earth as home. 

 

Though for them, home has always and only meant a safe place to hide.

 

Leadership:

 

The original three who started the Gang remain its leaders, titled 'Star's. In order of age:

 

Khorr'Tang, Star of Execution & Acquisition Oversight. When someone needs to be eliminated, or something valuable must be taken, this orange-hued Lor career-diplomat has both the savvy and ruthlessness to get the job done quickly and quietly. A secret devotee of the Katanarchist cult, she's shown tremendous aptitude for personal combat, stealth and mysticism alongside her hard-won people skills and knack for the perfect heist. She sees the Quarantine Zone and neighbouring stars as her future personal fiefdom, has spent considerable resources on building bases through the sector and will stop at nothing to protect her 'investment'.

 

Of the Stars she thinks about, and thus hates, Terrans the least.

 

Gowlim-D, Star of Personnel & Resource Management. The handling of currency, recruitment and care of employees and ensuring everything keeps moving is placed in the hands of this ice-blue Zultasian. Managing the Star Khan's treasures and ensuring every conquered world payed its tribute in full and on time makes coordinating an interstellar gang almost child's play. Heavily-augmented with cybernetics, she can transmit and receive information across the Orion Arm and stores most of the data involving the Black Hole Gang in caches scattered throughout the local sector. From observation posts and the sensors of craft across the void of space, she pulls the strings and leads the dance.

 

As a former Khanate noble she loathes all non-Zultasians as her inferiors.

 

Toyota Corolla, Star of Negotiations & Asset Development. The Gang is in constant need of new contacts, technology and field information. In the hulking and solid rogue Grue, they have a master of the underworld arts who fulfils these roles with ease. Formerly the nameless chief scientist for the Meta-Mind, Corolla now adopts any identity they wish from across a dizzying repository of stolen memories. They make the deals, form the alliances, design the latest bio-tech gadgets and keep Terran and galactic law-enforcement off the scent. It's a never-ending workload, but Corolla remains up to the task. After centuries devoted to one thing at a time, the explosion of possibilities is intoxicating.

 

As the Star who deals with people the most, they individually hate all Terrans.

 

Membership:

 

The galaxy is full of desperate people, and even before the Incursion War there was widespread corruption and crime across the fringes of the Lor Republic and unrest across the Stellar Khanate. The Grue Unity, similarly, relying on unbroken psychic links to maintain order, has regularly lost control of Grue at the edge of its influence, ironically the cause of several invasions blamed on the Meta-Mind. 

 

As a result of this, displacement by the Communion and the arrival of the many refugee species from the neighbouring arm, the Black Hole Gang has a reliable stable of tens of billions of beings across known space. Their lowest number is by far human and Cryptid agents on Earth.

 

However, most of these star warriors are common criminals. Little different from the average Terran driven to crime by circumstance or inclination, they provide in quantity and ubiquity what they lack in firepower and technical skill. 

 

The research assistant siphoning funds and data to pay for an expensive habit, the indebeted merchant captain reluctantly adding a little extra cargo, the soldier looking to make an accuser disappear. The Black Hole Gang's reach is only into the lowest levels of galactic society, but their grasp is unerring and unyielding.

 

Most membera use the Criminal stat block, with non-human members adding their species characteristics. Equipment rare on Earth, such as blasters and spacecraft, are in common use by them.

 

Methodology:

 

Like their name(chosen purely because it was a common idea), the Black Hole Gang works to bend everything toward itself, unseen yet irresistible.

 

Usually the Gang works in disguise as another organization, from governments to other criminals to even masquerading as Praetorians or Star Knights or superheroes. As well, despite their vast reach and resources, they take care to never work in bulk, or amounts that are difficult to move and hide. One cloning tank, one psychic mutant, one piece of magical art, the Black Hole Gang never gets greedy and takes pains to never over-extend its narrowly-limited power. 

 

That aside they will do anything, absolutely anything, for money and control. 

 

Resources:

 

The Black Hole Gang has ready access to 9 private space craft on Earth, 507 in the Orion Arm, and approximately 1000 in extreme emergencies. None of these are warships, nor are any heavily-armed or armored. They are mostly small shuttlecraft and freighters.

 

Their personnel is, as stated previously, in the tens of billions. A miniscule number on the galactic scale, but making up a varied and effective workforce that can go almost anywhere the Gang needs them to. 

 

Thanks to the Gang, many have biotech or cybernetic modifications that grant them any number of additional advantages, from minor shapeshifting, to invisibility, to direct interfacing with technology to bluffing psychic scans.

 

As well, as Chamber members, they have access to the ferocious and powerful Brande Management supers culled from supervillain families. Some of whom are among the most-traveled humans in the galaxy.

 

Space being largely occupied by airless rocks of little mineral value, the Gang has a great deal of free real estate set up with safehouses, docks with repair and refueling bays, caches on asteroids and so on. On Earth their base is a fortified bunker built beneath the Nolan Aerospace airfield and rocket launchsite. 

 

Sphere of Influence:

 

The Lor Republic and Grue Individuality are the most economically stable, technologically-liberal and socially-mobile areas in local space. Thus, most Gang business is done in or with these systems. They exert subtle but considerable influence on the Developmental Quarantine Zone centered on Sol as well. 

[Thevshi]

So, to reiterate the issues I raised in chat yesterday, the economics and scale of this are just WAAAAY to outlandish.

 

First, the entire business of this criminal organization is centered around traffic of illicit goods to and from Earth. As I mentioned, there is no way this would be generating enough revenue to support such a large organization. Earth would have been stripped bare and/or flooded with stuff from Space under such an economic model. Only dealing in “high value” items is not going to be enough, nor would it require such a vast network of operatives.

 

Second, the scale of the organization, even without the above issue is way, way too large. As I was discussing yesterday, the largest Triad in the world numbers approximately 55,000 members. Out of a world population of 7 billion people, this is less than .00001% (or one hundred thousandth of a percent) of the entire world’s population. Even if we applied a similar percentage to a civilized galaxy population of, say, 100 Trillion beings, that is ONLY 1 million members of the organization. Tens of billions just makes NO logical sense.

 

And as for the operation becoming easier now that there is a wormhole in the system, the Freedom League is monitoring it, so how is it any easier? You saying the Freedom League is just completely incompetent?

[Ari]

To be fair, Thevshi, superhero fiction does depend on bewildering large blind spots or tolerances of the protagonists for blatant evils, with their antagonists often operating right under their noses for lengths of time that border on the absurd. 

 

But in light of your crit earlier, have hit on it just being composed of modified versions of the three leaders written above.