Animal Incorporated [ANIMALINC] - Organizations

History

Animal Incorporated… heh. Folks think it started as a company. Truth is, it started as a warning.
When the fringe got loud, when the UEE looked the other way, some of us learned real quick that surviving out there meant acting like nature does—quiet, patient, and absolutely unforgiving.

Back then, the lanes were thinly patrolled, if at all. Colonists vanished, ships went dark, and the people in charge pretended they didn’t hear the screaming. So drifters, smugglers, miners, militiamen—anyone who’d been burned—started running into each other. We shared stories. We shared losses. And somehow a pattern formed, like tracks in the dust.

We built nothing official. No headquarters. No charter. Just a way of recognizing your own in the dark. A phrase spoken at the right time. A habit of stepping in when everyone else steps back. You could spot it in a man’s posture, in the way a pilot flew, in the way someone patched a hull without waiting to be asked.
Nature calls that instinct. We just gave it a name.

Over the years, the circle stretched across systems—faster than the UEE could catalog, slower than most folks noticed. We didn’t recruit. People found themselves part of it the moment they acted like they already were.

Some say the group’s older than the recorded stories. Some say it started with a ship lost outside Nul, some say with a crew that outwitted a Vanduul raider by watching how animals hunt. Others whisper that the deep levels still follow ancient patterns—predators, watchers, scavengers, guardians.
All superstition, of course… unless you’ve seen something different in the way some members carry themselves.

Animal Incorporated isn’t an army.
It isn’t a resistance.
It’s a long, quiet tradition of keeping each other alive in a universe that doesn’t care if you make it home.

That’s the truth of it, kid.
You don’t join it.
You live it.
Or you don’t.

Manifesto

We do not claim territory.
We do not swear fealty.
We do not kneel to crowns, corporates, or committees.

We stand where the lines break.

Where miners go missing in dead systems, where haulers vanish into static, where colonies get left off maps because the wrong people lobbied in the right rooms—
that is where our work begins.

We believe survival is not granted; it is earned.
But it should never be earned alone.

We hold that every life traveling the lanes has the right to be seen, to be warned, to be helped when the void comes calling. Not because it’s profitable. Not because someone ordered it. Because the circle stays whole only when every part of it is carried.

We offer no medals.
We keep no rosters.
We do not ask permission to do what needs doing.

We act in the quiet, in the corners where officials don’t look and raiders don’t expect company. We learn from nature: patience when needed, ferocity when forced, unity when demanded.

We reject the idea that the strong stand apart.
Strength is the hand extended, the hull patched, the stranger guided through the dark.

We acknowledge no enemies except those who prey on the unguarded.
We fight not for conquest, but for the ones who can’t lift a weapon.
We defend not because we’re heroes, but because no one else is coming.

We choose action over apathy.
We honor sacrifice over spectacle.
We value truth over reputation.

The circle binds us—not by hierarchy or command, but by choice.
A choice renewed every time we step in rather than step aside.

Vita Circulus, In Nostro Manu.
The living circle, in our hands.

Charter

Article I: Name & Nature

The name of this assembly shall be Animal Incorporated.
It is not a corporation in spirit, nor an army in structure, but a living tradition born of necessity.
Our purpose is simple and unchanging:

To keep the circle intact.
To protect those abandoned by power.
To answer where silence has taken root.

Animal Incorporated exists wherever the void grows hungry and someone chooses to stand against it.

Article II: Admission

Membership is not granted by vote nor purchased by influence.
One enters the circle by action—quiet, unasked, and witnessed by another who knows the signs.

Any traveler, worker, pilot, scout, or wanderer may walk the path if:

they act when others turn away,

they protect without expectation of reward,

they understand that survival is shared, not hoarded.

No roster is kept. No public roll is read.
Those inside the circle recognize one another by deed long before words are exchanged.

Article III: Work & Obligation

Animal Incorporated holds no official ranks.
Roles emerge as they are lived:

Some gather truths and carry warnings.

Some mend hulls, hearts, and habitat walls.

Some stand between danger and the unready.

Some guide the lost.

Some act only when the moment demands, and vanish again into the lanes.

Each member contributes according to instinct, skill, and the needs of the circle.
None are above the work.
None are below it.

Article IV: Conduct of the Circle

Every member, regardless of path, keeps to the creed:

“Vita Circulus, In Nostro Manu.”
The living circle, in our hands.

From this creed flow the expectations:

Aid is offered without bargaining.

Secrets are kept unless lives are at stake.

No one uses the circle for personal power or political gain.

Violence is a last resort, decisive when required.

The vulnerable are shielded; the predatory are confronted.

Pride has no place here. Tradition does.

Breaking these tenets cuts one from the circle.

Article V: Revision & Continuity

The charter may be amended when the circle itself shifts.
Such changes are rare and arise only when agreed upon by those carrying the oldest weight—
the keepers of memory, the watchers who remain unnamed in public record.

The charter adapts, but the creed does not.

Article VI: Dissolution

Should the circle ever falter or fracture beyond repair, its remaining members shall:

preserve all records of warnings, safe routes, and hidden dangers,

return whatever resources remain to those most endangered by the void,

ensure the tradition does not die—only sleeps until it is needed again.

Animal Incorporated was formed by necessity. If it must end, necessity will determine its last act.

Closing Declaration

This charter binds no one by force.
It is a reminder, a compass, a promise:

Where the lanes go dark, we bring the light we have.
Where the strong falter, the circle holds.
Where life struggles to endure, we stand in its defense.

Animal Incorporated endures.
As long as one lives the creed, the circle remains.

Animal Incorporated / ANIMALINC