Black Mask
From Autonomicon Mk. II
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Black Mask is a criminal organization currently operating throughout the entirety of the Orion Arm. It is believe to be one of the largest criminal groups in existence, involved with nearly every type of illegal activity including organized piracy, drug smuggling, and assassination.
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History
Due to the nature of Black Mask it is very difficult to get any verifiable facts regarding its early history and origins. Even information obtained on its current activities through police raids and interrogations have revealed very little due to the decentralized nature of the organization.\
Pre-Colonization
What little is known reveals that the Black Mask was active even before the colonization era, although most likely under a different name and bearing almost no reflection to the current organization. It was most likely responsible for the large number of fraudulent evacuation passes sold throughout the black market on Earth, and even for some authentic passes, obtained through various bribes and deals struck with government officials.
Colonization Era
During the colonization era a total of 88 civilian ships were lost throughout the Orion Arm, ranging from small survey vessels to mammoth terraforming and colonization vessels. At least 3 of these vessels were later sighted acting as modified attack vessels, although whether or not Black Mask was involved is disputed.
Black Mask may have again been involved in early piracy, when several obsolete German-made ships of unknown employee attacked a Soviet mining expedition, resulting in the first interstellar battle.
The first definitive proof of the existence of Black Mask, and what was most likely its modern founding was in 2104 when vast sums of money were paid the to the rapidly declining Luktopian Corporation. In return for access to some of the industrial facilities on Luktopia, the organization became the systems most prominent police force; this was the first recorded use of the Black Mask name and symbol.
Post Colonization Era
The formation of the Luktopian state and the rapidly lowering cost of interstellar craft enabled a substancial growth of Black Mask and the criminal underworld. Groups that had once been confined to operate on a single planet or system were now able to freely travel within the Orion Region.
Almost overnight Black Mask took control of the various drug operations in the Kuiper System, and it was here that Black Mask gained the majority of its new membership. One of the “sanctuary planets” within the Orion Arm, Kuiper, and to a lesser extent, Cassini and Bessel, were overcrowded, economically unstable, with ineffectual governments and leaders.
Throughout the next decades Black Mask was able to operate nearly unhindered within its own corner of space, tightening its monopoly on its various enterprises. At one point, corruption was so rampant within Kuiper, that every level of its government had been infiltrated or bribed by Black Mask.
Expansion
The early successes of Black Mask enabled it to expand exponentially across the Orion Region, its wealth allowed it to provide economic assistance to fledgling colonies in exchange for certain leniencies and oversights. On Tanarsus it provided the Gallerian Union with stolen Centauri environmental control schematics, on Iskander it provided the Obsidian state with oxygen replenishment units, and in the midst of the Gotham Earthquake provided off-world travel to the highest bidder.
Current State
Today Black Mask has a hand in nearly every underground dealing across the Orion Arm. In systems such as Luktopia and Kuiper it operates openly, usually working with government officials and local security forces. Across the rest of the Orion Arm it operated in secret, ambushing trade convoys, bribing local officials to overlook hidden shipments, and assassinating those who threaten their plans.
While the success of Black Mask has been nearly uninhibited in the poorest nations of the Orion Arm, across the rest of the region its growth has been hampered by its decentralized nature and inefficient organization. Time and time again its methods of remaining underground have been rendered useless by the massive qualitative advantage that law enforcement agencies such as the FBI or Interpol enjoy.
