No Holds Barred / NHB

I. The UEE Conventions.

The Protocol Additional to the United Empire of Earth Conventions of 21 August 2381 (At the time called the UNE Conventions), and relating to the Protection of Victims of Universal Armed Conflicts, (Protocol XIII), 16 March 2412 states:

Art 977B. Mercenaries:

1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant
or a prisoner of war.

2. A mercenary is any person who:

a) is especially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;
b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;
c) is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material or financial compensation;
d) is not a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;
e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and
f) has not been sent by a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

All the criteria (a – f) must be met, according to the UEE Conventions, for a combatant to be described as a mercenary.

According to the UEEC, a captured soldier must be treated as a lawful combatant and, therefore, as a protected person with prisoner-of-war status until facing a competent tribunal (UEEC III Art 5).

That tribunal, using the aforementioned criteria, may decide that the soldier is a mercenary. If, after a regular trial, a captured soldier is found to be a mercenary, then he can expect treatment as a common criminal and may face execution. As mercenary soldiers may not qualify as PoWs, they cannot expect repatriation.

II. No Holds Barred, throughout history.

Ever since its inception, the UNE [United Nations of Earth] has been trying to bring the various mercenary organizations under control.

Expanding to the stars came with a price; wars, riots and chaos being inescapable consequences of an open frontier. The growing availability of military technology and equipment to individuals meant that not only Private Military Companies but nearly anyone with a ship and a gun could take part in armed conflicts.

The UNE Government, concerned by the growing power of private armed forces, mercenary groups and individuals for hire came up with a simple solution: betray the basic rights of mercenaries and treat them as criminals even though the government itself was employing PMCs whenever the need arose. The so called “mercenary trials” that followed would eventually lead to an outrageous number of politically motivated death sentences.

Early on, mercenary organizations began forming “legal unions” to defend themselves. Most of those hired top attorneys from the best law firms to represent them during those unfair trials. Unfortunately the deck was stacked, as would soon become apparent the verdicts were decided in advance and no amount of legal manoeuvering could change them.

Despite their inability to defend their clients the unions managed to bring out the practices of the government into the open, a move likely to cause an uproar in a supposedly free and open society. As a response the UNE security services started breaking up the unions, often enlisting the help of other mercenaries and PMCs.

By their very nature mercenaries often fought each other and it made it difficult for them to organize into any kind of coherent group for any period of time.

However, some organizations arose and managed to survive over time, either due to their sheer size and power or because they were small enough to remain unnoticed.

Some time after what came to be known as “the purge” a Syndicate calling itself No Holds Barred, commonly referred to as NHB, emerged seemingly out of nowhere. It is now believed that this Syndicate was born of the union of the Sherdog Squadron, led by a notoriously loud and provocative leader going by the nickname of “Mr White” and the Jump To Lightspeed Corporation, a very large and exclusive organization of pilots.

A shroud of mistery still surrounds the organization, with some historians going as far as to suggest that those two groups only came in during the rise of the Syndicate which may have existed since medieval times.

III. No Holds Barred, today.

The syndicate operates under an unusual structure

Sitting at the top is a small group of individuals, considered to be the spiritual fathers of the organization, whose primary task is to maintain cohesion between the various stakeholders. Information about these individuals is scarce, their number, identities, and even species remain largely unknown.

The words of this “council” is carried by a represenative, supposedly chosen every fifty years. This representative may be the only person to know the identity of the organization’s leaders. He is their voice, their face and their strong arm.

The Syndicate works like a conglomerate with the various groups having little restrictions on their activities and organization. These groups are highly specialized and typically maintain a pool of freelancers on call to fulfill their contracts. These freelancers are given both legal and physical protection and in exchange have to follow only one rule, the so called “Gentleman rule” whereby freelancers are allowed to engage in hostilities with one another provided all parties are acting under a proper contract.

Occupying a special place in the Syndicate hierarchy are “special groups” whose primary purpose is to deal with threats to the very survival of the organization. They are given complete latitude to carry out their assignments and report directly to the representative. They are also considered untouchable, any freelancer attacking any member of these groups, even under a proper contract, would immediately lose the protection of the Syndicate.

Such an unusual hierarchy may seem chaotic at first glance but the Syndicate’s longevity, said to be one of the oldest in human history, would seem to disprove that assumption. However due to the uncertainty about its origins this conclusion should not be considered definitive.

IV. No Holds Barred, from the UEE perspective.

The UEE does not believe the Council members exist and see the Council’s representative as the Godfather of the Syndicate, as such he would have ultimate control over the organization.

Time and again the UEE has characterized the NHB Syndicate as nothing more than a criminal organization. However, despite repeated attempts, no security service or law enforcement agency has ever been able to weaken them.

Their military power is limited but their alleged secret connections with the authorities, lack of a conventional hierarchy and their apparently chaotic behaviour makes them a difficult threat for the UEE to deal with.