Brotherhood of the Spider / DROW

Throughout human history, few governments have been as despotic as the UEE. Though Messer is gone, the UEE continues to defile its citizens with programs such as the Golden Horizon initiative…the deliberate destruction of any space station outside of its borders that “might” be a security risk. Ancient Earth and its history teach us that liberty and freedom are the keys to success…not the planned power struggles of a sovereign and those who he has selected for success. Though our recent ancestors may have traded their liberty for the promise of security, that promise has turned to ash with the UEE, and we shall not tolerate their tyrannical regime any longer.

To the UEE, we represent a “security risk” because we are free thinkers and value liberty. We have been deemed to be outside the law, and subject to immediate termination whether we take up arms or not. Damned if we do, and damned if we don’t…so damnit we will!

We are men and women without a nation. Outlaws in our own land and homeless outcasts in any other. Desperate, we go to seek a desperate fortune. Therefore, we do, here and now, band ourselves into a brotherhood of buccaneers, the Brotherhood of the Spider, to practice the trade of piracy on the vast shipping lanes of the UEE.

To defend ourselves from an aggressive species as we have with the Vanduul is one thing…but to take arms against our own kind requires an explanation.

We did not come to be because we were poor and lusted for another person’s property. It was the Golden Horizon Initiative proposed in the UEE Senate that has driven us to these extraordinary ends. While direct conflict with the forces of the UEE would certainly be suicide, we will take what action we can to affect the downfall of this corrupt and evil empire that seeks to murder its own species. The UEE is still engaged in war, but they feel it necessary to turn their military might on the Golden Horizon space stations. These stations are old, and for the most part lie outside the current borders of the UEE. The UEE claims that they are little more than pirate breeding grounds, and that they should be exterminated via torpedo attack. No trials of individuals, no accountability for actions of those who have committed crimes…but just the collective fate of doom for any living soul on these aging stations. The UEE dares to justify their proposed action by saying that these stations lie outside their borders, and are therefore not subject to due process. This is the action of a desperate, dying, and decadent empire that does not have the consent of those it governs. The UEE has devolved into a bunch of squabbling and privileged political elitists, who cling desperately to power at the expense of individual liberty and freedom.

On ancient Earth, a man who would later go on to become a President of the United States best summarized our current state:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Therefore, to that end, we enter into the following Articles of Agreement:

Article I:

The Brotherhood of the Spider pledges to bring down the tyranny of the UEE by any means that we are capable of. We will attack the UEE from within and from without.

Section 1: We will starve the UEE of resources. We will seize the ship and cargo of any person or corporate entity known to aid or suspected of doing business with the UEE or their primary weapons suppliers. By reducing the UEE’s ability to wage war, we will ensure that all of their military is forced to fight the Vanduul threat…that no warships will be free from combat long enough to destroy the Golden Horizon stations.

Section 2: We will reduce the power base of the UEE. We will contribute to the decay of society within the Empire: causing chaos by the smuggling and trading illegal goods. Workers of critical UEE war industries will be targeted for drug addiction in order to slow down production of new warships and weapons that could be used against the Golden Horizon stations.

Section 3: Captured persons will be ransomed or alternatively sold as slaves to corporations that do business with the UEE. By ransoming captives, we will deprive the fascist UEE of funds that they would use to destroy the Golden Horizon stations. Captives that are not able to be ransomed will be sold as slaves to UEE friendly corporations. These slaves will eventually resent their masters and revolt, causing more chaos within the UEE.

Article II:

Territory, Control, and Safe Passage

Section 1: The Brotherhood of the Spider shall exert absolute control of space travel in an area to be determined.

Section 2: Safe Passage through controlled territory can be negotiated through an alliance of shared belief and purpose, or by voluntarily contributing 25% of a vessel’s full cargo capability.

Section 3: Vessels that have arranged for proper safe passage shall be escorted safely and unmolested through controlled space.

Section 4: Vessels failing to obtain proper arrangements for safe passage shall be immediately destroyed, excepting those as detailed in Article III.

Article III:

We are not monsters, and will not act as such.

Section 1: Any cargo vessel that signals its surrender shall be given an escort out of our territory after they have contributed a sum of no less than 50% of the value of their cargo, or 50% of their physical cargo.

Section 2: Any warship or unladen cargo ship that signals its surrender shall be immediately seized and impounded by the Brotherhood of the Spider for future use in our campaigns against the UEE. The owner and passengers of said ship will be released free of harm and free of ransom at the nearest safe planet or star base.

Section 3: No ship or pilot shall be destroyed more than once per hour, unless it insists on attempting to pass through territory controlled by the Brotherhood of the Spider without paying proper transit fees.

Section 4: Territory limits will be set, and will not be randomly increased to claim that a vessel was within our boundaries. Territory may expand over time, but only as quickly as seems prudent to the leadership of Brotherhood of the Spider.

Who’s asking?