Brotherhood of the Southern Cross / BOSC

The Brotherhood of the Southern Cross was originally a covert band of rebels who took their first stand at the Eureka Stockade. The originator of the ancestral Brotherhood was Argyle Scott MacKenzie, affectionately referred to as Scooter. Prior to his ‘encouraged resettlement’, Argyle was a member of The Black Watch, 2nd Batallion (formerly the 73rd). He was 19 when the 73rd fought at the Battle of Waterloo, they took heavy fire from French Cannon and he lost both of his brothers.

Following his return to Scotland, he quickly made a name for himself as a pugilist and general lad-about-town. It was not long before he found himself on the wrong side of the law and was encouraged to take a ‘brief jaunt’ to the Great Southern lands. The 40 odd years that followed found him trying his hand at many careers from agriculture and animal-husbandry to bar-work, brawling and eventually mining. Tired of the tyranny of government taxes that required ‘Diggers’ to pay a tax regardless of the success of their claim, Arglye rallied the most determined and stubborn Diggers from in and around Ballarat to start causing general mischief in an attempt to highlight the ineffectiveness of the government-men. On the 17th of October, 1854 he raised to the ground, the Bentley Hotel after a fellow Scottish Digger was murdered.

500 Diggers barricaded themselves at the dig-site on the 30th of November and swore an oath on the Southern Cross flag, forming the original Brotherhood of the Southern Cross. On the 3rd of December regiments moved in leading to the deaths of 22 Diggers and 5 troops. In March 1855 the Gold Fields Commission handed down its report, and the government adopted all of its recommendations. The Commission resulted in all the demands of the diggers being met.

Argyle and The Brave 500, as they later became known, had taken part in an armed rebellion to reform the unfair laws and won. Argyle and some of his picked men made a steady living off what they could mine but never hit the jackpot. 10 years before his death, the group, known simply as the Angry Argyles left the mines to set up a station in Northern Victoria. Argyle eventually met his end in the same fashion he had lived his life; teaching a gang of drunken sheep-rustlers a lesson only 2 lived to remember. When his body was found, covered in knife wounds, he still had one of the dead men in a necklock under one arm and it is rumoured, through his bushy beard there was a wry smile on his face.

The Brotherhood of the Southern Cross raised its head once more in our current age, when corporate asteroid-mining rights began to put the squeeze on the independents looking to make a living. This time two men answered the call, Scott Argyle Amman, a direct descendant of Scooter and cut from similar cloth. He was a shrewd businessman who had amassed a fortune through his business ventures and from his short-lived racing career. A competent pilot who disliked being told what to do by The Man, he reformed the Brotherhood of the Southern Cross to poke The Man in the eye and to give independent miners universe-wide a chance to carve out their own destinies free of the authorities’ yolk. His first step was to recruit a strong right-hand who would match what he brought intellectually and financially, with the grunt to back up each and every press-statement and assault plan.

Enter Glenn. No other name is on record with the UEE and to date only one person has been entrusted with his brood name. For Glenn, was initially raised by settlers on the outer colonies, before a Vanduul raid left the entire settlement massacred. To this day it is not known why the Vanduul took him, aged 8. Perhaps a curiosity, a snack or a toy for the young Vanduul to slaughter. Whichever Vanduul first tried, was not lucky enough to find a weak human whelp. After being paired with a Vanduul cub for a ‘sparring’ match where only one survivor remained, the young human surprised and impressed the Captain of the brood ship by tearing out the young Vanduul’s neck with his teeth. He did not come away unscathed however. The Vanduul cub broke his left leg, both above and below the knee and after savage Vanduul ‘surgery’ and prosthetic implantation meant for Vanduul warriors and crudely adapted for his human frame, he emerged with a limp and a truly unique prosthetic appendage. His brood Captain trained him and bestowed upon him his Knife. He spent his 20s, carrying out warfare against other brood ships and eventually acted as a scout for raiding parties by passing without notice through human customs checkpoints.

The UEE eventually slowed him down after a raid gone bad. His Scythe was winged and in true Vanduul fashion he set his ship to impact the nearest destroyer, the wing-blade spinning out of control. Lady luck once more smiled upon this survivor of men and his ship was selected for research. Several tractor beams arrested his fatalistic spin and he was drawn into the docking bay. Fortunately for the welcoming crew, he was unconscious. As they were to find out during his detainment, his prosthesis was not simply a sub-par replacement limb but a custom made weapon. Every door of every cell they locked him in was soon caved in under the determined assault of his kicks. Eventually they built a custom cell reinforced with salvaged ship armour. This stopped him…….for a while.

Over the next 2 years it is unknown what became of him, until he docked on Terra in a heavily modified caterpillar. Unable to return to his Vanduul brothers, for what would appear to be cowardice, he made a name for himself through trade and ruthless pugilism both on the ground and more lethally, in space. Few could match his ability to face thin odds and survive. Amman had found his man. Together the two men set to grow the Brotherhood into what it has become today. A band of fearless spacefarers who will pursue their own needs regardless of what the UEE believes is right and wrong.