Council of Seven Information Services (C.o.S.I.S.) – S

Sentry guns use stripped down, heavy barrelled versions of heavy rifles, as used by normal Enforcers. This allows them to share ammo supplies and makes resupply easier. Their job isn’t to kill enemy troopers as much as to give warning of enemy movements and allow the Enforcers time to react and reposition themselves in the event of an enemy attack. Earlier models carried heavier weapons, but these were found to run out of ammo too quickly in the face of massed enemy assaults. They were also extremely heavy and were seldom taken as primary choice when the lighter alternatives were available.

Most Enforcer sergeants are steady in battle, calmly holding a line when others have fled, or advancing methodically by long-established drill. Sergeant Howlett comes from a different school of tactics.

Most Enforcer sergeants rise through the ranks through the tactical units and it has long been acknowledged that this offers the best all-round training for a prospective leader. Tactical units face the widest variety of combat situations and foes, so the mettle of a trooper is tested most thoroughly. Sergeant Howlett has only ever served with assault units.

Most Enforcer sergeants hang back slightly from combat, their duties being to direct the battle as a whole rather than show individual prowess. If personal leadership does need to be shown then they naturally lead an advance, but always as part of a key move within the structure of the overall operation. Sergeant Howlett leads by example, charging recklessly into the thick of battle to personally cut down as many of those who oppose the will of the Seven as he can. If others follow, that’s fine by Howlett. If not, then he’ll chew them out later, back at base. If they live.

In the sparsely populated planets of the far reaches of Corporation space, the settlements all tend towards a familiar look – built from the same prefab units that are supplied by Shensig Interplanetary to almost every colonist collective and security unit known to man. These boxy and utilitarian blocks are formed into storage units, barracks, workshops, offices, armouries, labs, holding pens, and medi-centres with equal ease. They are the defining architectural wonder of the Corporation and are commonly what alien races assume to be the pinnacle of human achievement. They are a far cry from the architectural marvels of the Core.

Whether a settlement is military, contractor or colonist it will be built in much the same way. First the construction bots lay down a foundation of concrete sections laced with multiweave for additional strength and with expansion buffers between slabs for thermal integrity. On top of this they then use the patented  habtainers to construct the required buildings. These habtainers are designed to be used both as shipping containers en route to the new settlement and as habitats once they arrive. Their simple and robust cube form allows them to tessellate with maximum efficiency both in spaceship holds and within security perimeters. They are even moderately bullet proof.

When a Containment Protocol is declared the fighting is usually not long in following, and these battles almost always take place in and around Shensig habtainers. The reason is simple. Any alien artefacts must be reported to the local Corporation military, who can then examine them. This places the source of almost every single Plague outbreak within a Corporation base. That is where the Plague are most common and where the Enforcers must go to stamp them out. The plundering forces of Rebels, Marauders, Forge Fathers or  Veer-myn don’t care about the swamps and backwoods of the planet as much as the high- tech resources and information that can be plundered from the abandoned Corporation bases. So they too head for the habtainer jungles of Corporation settlements…

Joe has what might best be called an old music hall villain moustache – a great, black soup-strainer of a thing that sits like a giant slug on his upper lip and which he twirls thoughtfully as he leers at the crowd in what has become his personal interpretation of showboating. And despite his comical appearance he gets to twirl the waxed tips of his moustache rather more than his opponents would like as he is a prodigious Striker. Yes, Striker!

A smoke grenade does no damage and does not hinder movement at all. It is simply designed to create clouds of smoke to conceal an advance or block the line of sight of enemy weapons.

The Sorok are a fierce race with a rigid warrior caste system. Their honour-duels are known to last for days, and a swordspawn is expected to make its first kill before it learns to speak. Despite this, they are often underestimated by those who do not know them, due to their outlandish appearance. The Rebellion boasts entire enclaves of Sorok warriors, who see the Corporation’s expansion policies as a threat against their traditional ways.

Sometimes called a chameleon cloak, this cloak’s covering of photo-reactive cells makes it harder to target the wearer as it blends into any background.

A multi-purpose bipedal vehicle with a single pilot that is widely used by the Corporation and has subsequently been acquired by both Reb and Plague factions via a variety of means.

A spacefaring traveller, The Survivor is the only known living being to have been infected by the Plague and survive a Containment Protocol. Since then he has had only one desire: to retrieve a piece of a Plague Artefact and try to synthesise a cure for himself. For The Survivor it is simply a race against time before the Alien Virus overcomes his biological defences and he succumbs to the infection - a race he cannot afford to lose.

Gmorts Chaotica would like to thank James M Hewitt, Mantic Games, the Quirkworthy Blog, Titan Games and of course the Corporation for their invaluable assistance in the compiling of this encyclopaedia.