A/N: Things have not progressed as well as I would have liked recently. As a stopgap measure (since it's not even 1PM and the weekend looks like it's already fucking ruined, lol) I am publishing Jacob's NDC document.

The next chapter of TWCD is… being worked on. Very slowly. No good ETA at this point except before the end of the month is unlikely. Now that I've predicted I won't have it out this month, I probably will.

Again, all credit to sub-coauthor Jacob for this. I made minor adjustments for canon purposes.


The Cerberus Files : Tactical Addenda, Opposing Forces


MESSAGE HEADER: HELNET BEGIN ENCRYPTION STRING

NEGOTIATING ARBITRAGE HEADERS…CLEAR

HERA-ONE-SEVEN-FOUR: TIFFANY-174

CREATING HANDSHAKE…ACKNOWLEDGEMENT HANDSHAKE ACCEPTED

BEGIN TRANSMISSION: TIFFANY MINSTA


Sir,

I'd like to begin by thanking you for inviting me to continue researching and writing these reports. It is a pleasure and an honour to contribute to the defence and glory of humanity.

I'm told, though, that some staffers and new recruits are offended by my 'bitchy fucking racism' and 'snobbish elitism.' Indeed, a great many personnel at several outlying facilities seem… aggressively confrontational about it. I am not, I admit, a people person when not around my own people – but then neither is Mr. Leng. And when someone is stupid enough to say that we need to be less of a 'racist bunch of assholes' to his face, it makes me question why.

I'm unsure if you have bothered listening to such things (I suspect you have better uses of your time), but I wish to touch on them because I'm concerned with the systemic weakness such things reveal. On the other hand, the fellow who said such a thing to Mr. Leng is no longer a concern, mostly due to lack of several critical body parts.

Like a head. Heart. Lungs. And both legs.

Ahem.

While I understand the necessity of moving the organisation away from some of the more extreme positions we once held, I do not think I need commoners questioning the very basis of why Cerberus exists is a good thing. The facts are that alien governments and leaders cannot be trusted and aliens in general are going to help themselves first. Aliens are just that – alien. They are literally the Other and do not think, live, or act as humans do. Survival is humanity's highest priority and extinction is not an option.

I would in fact argue that such intellectually weak reasoning is a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome and mental illness brought about by the trauma of the First Contact War and the current propaganda and provocations of alien species. The atrocities and crimes against humanity carried out by alien forces are a matter of historical record and cannot be denied. We do what is necessary to protect humanity from the predations of alien monsters who aided the turians in their attempted genocide of our entire species, did nothing, or plan to subjugate us in the future. If you're not committed to our cause, then you're part of the problem.

To the second complaint I say this: I'll listen to your criticism of how I behave when your family has spent a billion credits on fixing the fuckups of our planet done by 'the common man.' I'll listen to it when you spend nineteen hours a day studying at top flight colleges – on full merit scholarships, mind you – and gaining double degrees magna cum laude. I'll listen when the reasons for such bitching about my attitude have nothing to do with my work and everything to do with low-brow peasant jealousy and ignorance.

I'm fully aware, sir, that you are not of the noble families – father says you came from the streets. I don't look down on you (or anyone else) for their origins. My own ancestors were hardly nobles to begin with. No, I look at how people live their lives. In your case, how you rose to your current position and skills, not to mention wealth, indicates that the only thing really stopping you from claiming such status is that, I suspect, you never wanted the attention that it would bring.

There's plenty of talent and skill in people who are not noble. But there is no value in treating people as equals until they actually show they are equal.

There is a vast gulf between being concerned about overreach on the part of Cerberus – which you already corrected – and the premise of the commoners who faithful lap up the lies of the Systems Alliance and are the first ones to support Cerberus when things are going bad, but as soon as jobs are plentiful and their ignorant offspring are busy screwing asari, tell us we're 'evil.'

I have no time for such nonsense. I did not choose to be born into a noble family. I would not change if I were indeed not noble. My attitudes are because I am better by reason of intellect, drive, and achievement, not the name on my ID chips.

I apologise for the digression… but the investigation has put my nerves on edge. You'll see why shortly.


The Noveria Development Corporation (NDC) is quite possibly the most ruthless, amoral and professional business concern in the galaxy – quite an impressive feat when you share that same galaxy with the Corporate Court of Ilium, the Vol Protectorate, the Systems Alliance Court of Corporations, and, of course, the private machinations of the Council race's ruling elites.

Most do not typically consider the NDC to be an 'Opposing Force' in the same sense as the Deathwatch, STG, et al, and in a very narrow sense this is correct – Cerberus forces are unlikely to face NDC combat teams in a raid on Minuteman Station. Nor are they militarily a superpower – while they have interesting capabilities, their focus is elsewhere.

The events of the Benezia Incident, however, proved that the NDC's influence is far more extensive than most suspect, and that events on Noveria can, and do, affect what happens in the galaxy as a whole. We rarely experience direct action with the Unseen Cloud, the Discerning, or Aria, after all, but that does not mean they aren't all dancing in the shadows with us.

Or behind us.

Thus, the NDC is certainly worth studying. Given their financial focus and my own training, I was the primary investigator.

After the well documented events of the Benezia Incident one might wonder just why the Citadel – or any member race of the Citadel Council – hasn't simply decided to storm Noveria and capture the planet for themselves. All of those corporations and their shadowy backers must be sitting pretty on a pile of secrets and credits, after all. The ugly truth is that any Council race does have the military capacity to do so. Indeed, Noveria was more vulnerable prior to the Benezia Incident and the Systems Alliance had every chance to invade.

One questions why. Any invasion attempt now would inflict devastating losses on the attacking force, yet it remains a fact that the ability to do so is there. The intent is not.

The intent will never be there. The Noveria Development Corporation has very carefully ensured that the Citadel, and by extension every single member race (regardless of their Council status), ultimately benefits in some way from the silken words and lucrative investments that flow forth from Noveria – and in recent years, has made sure to pay at least a bit more lip service to laws outside of Noverian Space to avoid conflict.

Those silken words slip their way into any conversation discussing 'Noveria' and 'control' or 'oversight' by anyone who matters, and you can be sure that those people who do matter (and their friends, families, and business partners) are, of course, offered preferential stock options and sweetheart deals. The NDC would be delighted to be of service to you. Well of course we'd be happy to discuss any concerns you may have regarding our research permits – we take our obligation to galactic society very seriously and we're glad you help hold us to account – and, oh, would you like a drink? Our bartenders are the finest around, she'd be happy to make whatever you can dream up. Mm, yes, fresh from Ilium, that one. Perhaps you'd prefer your drink served in a private suite? I'd be happy to introduce you to her, it's no trouble at all, friend. This way.

You see how these things work.

They use the most beautiful lies to cover the most horrible truths. They corrupt or seduce, kill or cajole anyone who would oppose them. That asari bartender isn't fresh from Ilium. Please. She's four hundred years old, highly trained and experienced in mind-reads and alteration during deep melds, and thoroughly briefed on every possible detail on the target. (Addendum: If the Board of Directors is in an especially sick and vindictive mood they'll replace that 'bartender' operative with an ardat-rekshi, or even deliberately set up a match with a Nightwind operative at the behest of the Thirty. For a small fee, naturally. -Tiffany)

The room is wired with more (and better) ultra-high definition video and audio feeds then ANN's own studios. They've got some deadeye ex-military turian creep with a Krysae AMR watching the whole damn thing. They've had operatives grooming this mook for months, even years. If this doesn't work then there's another half dozen possible traps set up that target entirely different attack vectors.

Sexual, financial, familial, professional, personal – it doesn't matter. That poor fool now belongs to the Noveria Development Corporation.

It doesn't end there. Aside from privately held companies, any publicly listed stock on the Noveria Stock Exchange is freely traded throughout the galaxy (though Noverian stockholders and the Board of Directors have preferential buying and selling rights as well as so-called 'golden shares,' which allocate preferential voting rights under certain circumstances. These are always going to be the circumstances that matter).

What this means is that, technically, any citizen of any Citadel species can freely buy stock in Noverian corporations or Noveria itself and in doing so, enjoy the full benefits and dividends of their investment. They then have an entirely rational self-interest in the continued existence and prosperity of the NDC. Every single Citadel government owns shares in the NDC or in Noverian-based corporations, and so do the vast majority of financial companies, banks, credit cooperatives, pension funds, and billions of individual investors. The NDC represent a significant single figure percentage of galactic GDP, enough that destroying the planet would almost certainly trigger a catastrophic financial crisis and long-term (twenty to fifty year) recession across almost all of Citadel Space.

Even if that was not deterrent enough, there is every indication that both the salarians and asari have very high level interests in Noveria – more on that later, but the upshot is the only reason Shepard was so successful in her one strike on Noveria was that the Council (and the Alliance) did not expect her to actually pull the trigger – and if she had, things might have transpired very differently indeed.


Origins and Current Status

Like Ilium, places like Noveria have existed in one form or another for centuries. Most of the corporations and governmental proxies who operate on Noveria have of course done business before the NDC existed, and continue to do outside of Noveria. There have always been those who would seek to carry out their business outside of mainstream society, even as they feed on that same society, and the basic incentives that encourage and reward this behaviour are not ever going to disappear.

Yet it is only in the last thirty years that the NDC arose and Noveria became what it is today. Some of this is due to the rise of the more powerful, and far more independent, Court of Corporations on Ilium, which in the past century has moved the planet from loose affiliation to nearly outright independence from the asari Republic. Some companies did not like the business environment on Ilium, or how deeply it was slanted only to certain parties – and the Thirty needed a business port for their own dealings not overrun by uppity clanless meddlers, no doubt.

The tedious details of the planet's physical nature are unimportant and available on the extranet. The main cities are still Port Hanshan (the capital city, housing the NDC Prime Tower as well as the primary corporate member body headquarters), Regulus (specialising in banking, commerce, and specialist professional services), Daystani (specialising in industrial research and high-tech manufacturing), Sertaci (formerly a private fortress retreat for the rich and powerful clanless asari on Ilium, now open to anyone they choose to allow in who can front the money and connections – and now almost 80% rich and reclusive members of the Thirty, since most of the original clanless seem to have fallen down a flight of justicars at some point).

(Addendum: It physically pains me to admit that Port Hanshan has a simply fabulous dance hall that I cannot recommend more highly. They have an excellent selection of regular touring performances and even offer lessons in styles as diverse as human neo-classical, asari flow-of-the-spilling-mountain-waters, batarian force-posture (which is for males only, but still), turian all-gather, and even elcor loa-dances of fertility and pound. -Tiffany)

Noveria is home to a nearly endless number of corporations (both public and private), combines, research initiatives, privately owned and operated businesses, independent merchants, front companies, law firms, shell and financial holdings, and assorted travellers – over twenty thousand at last count.

A full listing is far beyond the scope of this report and wouldn't provide any actionable information at any rate; however, I have taken the liberty of listing a selection of unusual or influential firms that are likely to be of interest to Cerberus operations.


PRINCIPLE ACTORS

Let us begin with Director Anoleis's own companies, or at least the ones he has a sizable stake in. Anoleis owns half of Baria Frontiers, the most successful start-up of the last twenty years and a company that specialises in stellar navigation charts, mapping systems, FTL plotter devices, and exploration services. For the right person offering the right price, they're more than happy to sabotage navigational data and pilot instructions, make an expedition 'disappear' or sell particularly interesting discoveries to the highest bidder. We know for a fact that they've sold the locations of Reaper hull fragments to the Shadow Broker and the STG, and that they've provided trade routes of various shipping concerns (mostly, those who compete with the NDC) to Aria for decades.

Anoleis owns a third of Haliat Armoury, a specialised high-end turian-founded weapons manufacturer which prefers to have their weapons tested against shipping routes by pirates they sponsor. They're currently bidding on defence contracts on human wildcat colonies and happily sell their weapons to Facinus separatists. Rumours suggest Haliat is going to be brought in on some of the construction of fleet-based weapons from the Thanix System the turians are working on.

Finally, we have Apex Defence and Electronics. Anoleis founded and owns the whole damn thing, and they specialise in ships sensors, ECCM equipment, and certain grades of GARDIAN batteries (largely for frigates and below). Unlike the others, by Noverian standards Apex is relatively above-board, but it's only a matter of time before they do something appalling. More importantly, Apex is the main provider of almost all the indoctrination detector and sensor packages used by the Citadel and C-Sec – a contract worth literally billions of credits – and that means he has to be fully briefed on the Reaper threat.

I find it… curious that the Citadel chose him instead of a closely held asari or salarian outfit.

Nirvana Technologies is a rather unusual outfit, initially founded by a human archaeologist and a strange, exiled, high-caste batarian scholar who specialised in precursor species history. The company specialises in archaeological research, artefact digs, translation, and esoteric physical and mathematical research. Most of their hires are experts in these fields and, unlike other Noverian inhabitants, are rarely seen mingling or engaging in Noverian life.

Twice a year, the company receives shipments and an envoy from the Batarian Empire. The envoy is clearly a member of the Imperial Blood, surrounded by Imperial Guard and carrying some kind of spherical device covered in blackish-blue cloth. (Addendum: Given what we now know about the Batarian Emperor and his domain, I strongly suggest we further investigate this company and all of its known associates. -Tiffany)

MarsGene, as we all know, was founded by the brilliant Doctor Wilson, who now works for the Revenant Cell. (Addendum: Unless you've had that boorish cretin killed. I'll buy you a year's worth of Wild Turkey if you have, sir. -Tiffany)

The company still operates without him; the public story is that he's deeply immersed in an exciting new research project, whilst privately he directs their efforts via cutouts in a blind trust – as long as the patents and money keep rolling in, most investors really don't give a shit. MarsGene is rather amoral, with a distressing taste for using flash clones as test subjects (entirely legal on Noveria, and it certainly explains why he used so many on the Revenant Project) and a tendency to see sapient beings as organisms rather than people. That said their products and services have saved tens of millions of lives and improved hundreds of millions of others – they've eliminated several human conditions (such as cystic fibrosis and lupus) and a number of early stage cancers.

Unbelievably, Binary Helix is still operating and is publicly listed on the Noveria Stock Exchange! The Board of Directors ruled that the organisation as a whole was unaware of Saren and Benezia's more nefarious activities and that the company's employees could not be held responsible for their investors' actions. (Addendum: That said, hundreds of Binary Helix employees were interrogated and dozens were executed by the Spectre Corps. -Tiffany)

They remain one of the finest genetic engineering and bioscience firms in the galaxy, and are just as unfettered and immoral as ever. I suppose after 'unknowingly' resurrecting a nightmare species hellbent on genocide there's nothing else I can really list here that would add to their crimes.

Elanus Risk Control Services is that rarest of things, a turian galactic conglomerate that is completely open to foreign investment and operates independently of the Hierarchy. They have a reputation for providing extremely reliable full-spectrum risk control and security services in most galactic markets (they refuse to deal with outcasts and separatists, P. or the Terminus Systems) and are mostly made up of human and turian troopers with asari biotics and salarian tech specialists. They provide most of the third-party contractor functions for the NDC that aren't handled by the NDF. Compared to groups like, say, the Blood Pack or CAT6, Elanus Risk Control is fairly tame – but keep in mind that as a turian paramilitary organisation they take the same view of warfare and civilian causalities as the Hierarchy. Expect overkill and a chilling lack of mercy.

Interestingly, the CEO of Elanus is an old Palavanus, one who lives in near total seclusion in a hardened bunker-palace in Sertaci.

The Thax Enduring Lore-song Crush has the distinction of being the only krogan-owned corporation on Noveria (and one of only six in the galaxy). The name is at best an extremely awkward translation – the original Korogish roughly means 'the melancholic keening of lore-song and life-struggle, led by the Shaman of Clan Thax' alongside the focused industry and leadership implied by the term 'Crush.'

Regardless, the organisation specialises in the collection, analysis, and study of krogan cultural artefacts and remains the foremost repository of spoken word and performance-based Lore-songs and Shamanistic rituals in the galaxy. Needless to say, such rigorous intellectual pursuits are not commonly associated with krogan. The Thax Crush also serves as a trading post, offering a way for krogan goods and services to circumvent the economic sanctions of the CDEM, and their primary exports are bespoke survival suits, bodyguards, and exotic weapons (largely Graal spike throwers and ultra-heavy shotguns).

The Thax Clan is currently in a blood feud with elements of Clans Weyrloc and Gatatog after the latter two tried to aid the Blood Pack in seizing certain shipments destined for the Thax Crush. The contents of these shipments are currently unknown, though they originated from what used to be Rachni Space.

Sirta Foundation, the galaxy's premier medi-gel supplier and medical services corporation, maintains a research facility on Peak 9 and an extensive business operations hub and headquarters in Port Hanshan. They have an immense degree of power and are, along with the other companies listed here, one of the few corporations who can speak directly to the Board of Directors without having to make an appointment. Sirta is involved in an astonishing number of research programs and are utterly ruthless when dealing with any potential competitors (often contracting out non-buyout operations to the Unseen Cloud's NESSUM Directorate). They maintain a stranglehold on all medi-gel research, production and distribution and, as they're technically a not-for-profit 'charitable foundation,' are afforded certain tax benefits in Citadel Space that make competing with them even harder. Their corporate slogan is just spitting in the wound: 'Sirta – Here for You and Your Family, Always.' (Addendum: Because all of our rivals are dead and you have nowhere else to go. -Tiffany)

At least they're a human dominated concern, though those revolting asari are slowly creeping their way in.

Lawson Technologies maintains one of their largest research and development facilities in Port Hanshan, along with a headquarters that exists solely on paper and acts as a tax evasion scheme. The company is tied in heavily with the NOVENSILES Project and much preliminary research and subject testing is carried out here on Noveria, thus providing the High Lords with a degree of cover and plausible deniability, an opportunity to spy on other NDC operations, and easier access to the Omega product markets. Clever. (Addendum: Sir, I used to admire Henry Lawson's commitment to humanity, but after a number of shocking conversations with the lovely Miss Lawson, I'm beginning to wonder why you haven't given him the full Benedict treatment. -Tiffany)

A human corporation and one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the galaxy, Mimetic Entertainment, has an office and production facility on Noveria, carefully hidden behind various 'blind' trusts and proxy shareholders. Mimetic presents a wholesome face to the galaxy at large, so obviously they can't have their highly profitable pornographic studios exposed or shut down. I say 'pornographic' solely because that's how their products and services are classified under Noverian law – in actuality they produce a revolting variety of extreme content (I'm not describing it here – suffice to say if you were caught with any of it in Human Space you'd be burned alive by the Commissariat, and rightfully so), engage in sexual slavery and trafficking, and inter/intra-species prostitution.

On the other hand, they do also produce the Saturday morning cartoon line up for aliens.

The Reach Research Compound/Aoegr Manufactory has a sizable operational facility on Peaks 4 and 5. The entire venture is masterminded by Dalatrass Muvai Solus and Matriarch Thessial, so you can imagine where this is going. They cooperate very closely with Director Anoleis and, according to logs recovered by Vigil, Peaks 4 and 5 are assigned the second highest defence priority on the entire planet after the NDC Prime Tower itself. Critical work on the Alteration Framework, what we are presuming is some kind of trans-mortal initiative of the SIX, is carried out here. Uncountable subjects have entered and never returned, the facility goes completely dark several times a year, and any shipments or visitors to and from the facility are not subject to inspection or registration (unlike everyone else on the planet). Unconfirmed sources suggest that the facility's directors and security personnel met multiple times with the Collectors on a dead world at the edge of the Terminus Systems.

Elkoss Combine maintains a registered combine and professional services firm in Port Hanshan as a joint venture with the Special Investments Division of the Vol Protectorate (read: the Unseen Cloud). They have a cordial working relationship with Director Anoleis and have a minority stake in his company, whilst he has a (non-voting) seat on the Elkoss/Unseen Cloud joint venture. The organisation is used mostly for VDF gene-mod research, speculative investments in alien firms, and the full spectrum of NESSUM/VAU operations (see the Unseen Cloud file for further details).

The Armali Council carries out legitimate bio-amp testing and research on behalf of its Thessia headquarters… and also acts as a proxy for the collection and processing of high-level AY-index clanless asari into Nightwind operatives, as well as illegal breeding of more AY-susceptible asari. Technically such things aren't even illegal on Noveria. Regardless, the Justicar Order is completely oblivious and for obvious reasons the Thirty aren't going to put a halt to their own program. We suspect they act as a front and cover assignment for other black operations of the Thirty, and the Discerning are definitely involved with their Noverian operations.

Given the extreme wealth of the Armali Council, it should come as no real surprise that their facility, cut into mountain bedrock outside of Daystar, is even more heavily fortified than the NDC tower.

Naturally the AIS, STG, and the Shadow Broker all maintain a clandestine presence on Noveria. The AIS is mostly occupied with defending the High Lord's work with Lawson Technologies. The STG is in the difficult position of being caught between following the STG Master's orders and the conflicting politics of the SIX. Due to Director Anoleis's influence, most (non-clone) STG operatives here are from the Manno and Solus families, both of whom are in a feud with families Ergii and Shuel. All SIX families are wary of the STG Master and are paranoid of being overthrown. What this means is that despite Director Anoleis's STG background, the STG is not actually in control on Noveria and cannot even operate openly there. Meanwhile, the Shadow Broker operates with his usual élan and subtlety; we do not have a full understanding of Broker operations on Noveria, but current modelling suggests the Broker will attempt to subvert or acquire assets in NDC Internal Affairs and corporate Boards. (Addendum: We have only just started to investigate, but you should also assume that the Hades Group will eventually be interested in Noveria. -Tiffany)

Finally – and this is awkward – Cerberus (both pre and post-Benedict) maintains a number of anonymously registered shell companies, holdings, and exotic financial instruments on Noveria, hidden beneath a bewildering array of cutouts, proxies, laundered transactions, fake identities, and so on. All communications are carried out by QEC or courier deliveries encrypted with one-time pads. None of our activities on Noveria are particularly nefarious – compared to everyone else on that Godforsaken planet we're downright cuddly – but rather the usual business operations our organisation uses to fund our various projects. (Addendum: Like the Revenant Cell. That thing is a black hole that drains us of operatives, money, and time. Your Shepard rage-chimp has no idea just how much effort is required behind the scenes to keep her functioning, does she? -Tiffany)


Goals

Compared to most of our adversaries, the goals of the Noveria Development Corporation are quite straightforward and easily explained. Ultimately, the NDC acts entirely out of self-interest. They wish to retain their sovereign independence, such as it is, and do not want to be 'enslaved' (their words) by taxes and regulations and the oversight of the unworthy (or limitations of any kind, really). They wish to be the foremost centre of business and commerce in the galaxy, a planet where corporations and entrepreneurs have absolute freedom to make their own decisions and unleash their genius without having to deal with the limitations of people who are either too stupid or too fearful to understand them. They wish to dominate whatever markets they are active in, and then seek out new markets to dominate. They wish to provide maximum value for their stakeholders and investors.

Finally – and perhaps most ironically – in order to achieve these goals, the NDC puts an enormous amount of effort into ensuring that they have access to the Citadel species' markets and that these markets are healthy enough to accommodate the NDC. Every parasite needs a host, after all, and it's in the parasite's best interests to ensure the host carries on living, blissfully ignorant of the fetid creature lapping up its blood.


Board of Directors

The unique nature of the Noveria Development Corporation – especially compared to the alien black operations forces that are the usual subject of these files – means that it is the only privately owned and operated opponent we face. Whilst groups like the Unseen Cloud and the Discerning may seem similar, in the sense that they are 'civilian' agencies, ultimately those units serve the purposes of their respective species and governments. The NDC, however, operates entirely out of its own self-interest, and so an overview of their Board of Directors is critical to truly understand how the NDC functions and the threat that it poses. There are twelve seats on the Board of Directors; these are the twelve men and women who hold ultimate power and rule over Noveria like tyrants. Their word is literally law, and at best they tend to see themselves as benevolent despots entitled to rule by right of having achieved rulership in the first place.

An absurd tautology, I know, but by their reasoning if you're brilliant and defiled and dedicated enough to have achieved a Directorship in the NDC, then, frankly, you've earned the right to do whatever you like and no one else is even qualified to question you.

Bel Anoleis hardly needs an introduction. His ruthless professionalism, icy demeanour, and panache are legendary, and even amongst salarians his ambition and amorality are striking. (Addendum: In fact, a Wheel Priest once remarked that Anoleis "sees the false and treacherous paths others take, and instead of calling out in guidance allows them to be entangled under the Wheel's great spokes, where he feeds on them like carrion." Anoleis laughed and had this engraved on a bronze plaque in his office. -Tiffany)

His hair-trigger temper is also well-known in every bar and rec room on Noveria, and that fellow whose brain he blew out during the Benezia Incident certainly wasn't the first. Anoleis is remarkably greedy, displaying not so much a reduced capacity to measure risk as he gets older, but rather a disdain for the consequences, believing himself to be insulated from almost all of them. This is for the most part true, so perhaps one can hardly blame him for the hubris and avarice.

Despite popular opinion, Anoleis does possess a moral code – it's merely a very strange one. He believes that corruption, in the sense of unearned rents and protection rackets, is wrong, but that any income earned for any goods or services that were actually rendered is entirely acceptable. (Addendum: Not that this stops him from bribing people. He merely has contempt for the people who accept his bribes. -Tiffany)

Morality as we understand it is entirely separate from this code and from the transaction itself, and the usual salarian utilitarian logic and extremely rapid emotional processing only accelerates this. He may engage in the most morally bankrupt and horrific contracts – like the Alteration Framework – but he will absolutely ensure that said contract is executed to the letter and that everyone involved was properly compensated for their efforts. Like most salarian males he retains a touch of macho romanticism; he was moved by the sacrifices of those employees who refused to flee the rachni assault on Port Hanshan and lavishly rewarded those who fought for him. Do not make the same mistake so many dead fools have and confuse this for sentimentality or weakness. Anoleis is ferocious and will not hesitate to crush any attempt to usurp his domain.

Despite his age, also do not make the mistake of thinking he is a helpless civilian. Anoleis personally executed well over three dozen asari cultists and two geth prime units in the Battle of Port Hanshan.

An adoptee of House T'Rome, Rulena Te'Rome was the first clanless in several hundred years to have earned such an honour (along with Matriarch Lidanya), but the fact that she is still a matron (barely four hundred!) is considered even more impressive. Her adoption into the House diffused tensions with the clanless and is the primary reason why the House of Storms quietly vetoes any justicar actions against her. Rulena is fully complicit in the Armali Council's clandestine AY screening, breeding programs, and all Nightwind activities on Noveria – largely because it was her who suggested all of these things. She bears the faint marks of one of the older and more ritualistic Dreaming Dancer cults; rumour was that she scores positively on the AY index herself, but sources inform us that her sexual tastes are exclusively human female and asari, and that she regularly indulges in forced melds and personality-submission linkage. (Addendum: It's a difficult term to translate into English, but essentially it involves an ongoing 'relationship' in which the asari in question toys with the subject's personality and mental state mid-meld in order to force certain behaviours upon command. It is considered the vilest of crimes and a capital offense in Asari Space. -Tiffany)

Her business acumen is most impressive and she is the key architect of the Thirty's recent moves to corner and dominate the Ilium economy; we estimate that this will be irreversibly successful within the next six to seven years. She clearly plans to operate on Ilium for the long haul, which is baffling considering the resistance of the clanless there to the Thirty. Perhaps in realisation of this, she has rather cannily bought minority stakes in most of her fellow Board members' corporations to ensure that they have an interest in her survival.

Matriarch Mara of Clan Steelshape is the third highest ranking member of the eponymous asari clan responsible for advanced manufacturing and high-tech research in Asari Space. Asari are too often stereotyped as being mediocre scientists and researchers, but I shouldn't have to remind readers that it is unbelievably stupid to underestimate a woman who's been working with optronics and mass effect fields since before humans had discovered gunpowder. (Addendum: Those who look down on asari technical ability are usually the kind of ill-bred, bow-legged chimps who watch Westerlund News. -Tiffany)

If you do have to be reminded of this, then I kindly invite you to eat a bullet – humanity will be stronger without you being present in the gene pool. Asari STEM-savants are some of the finest in the galaxy and are unmatched in their depth of experience – STEM-savant Matriarchs like Mara are terrifyingly intelligent and supremely focused. Matriarch Mara is often overshadowed by the brilliant Matriarch Thessial, but make no mistake – she's a formidable figure in her own right and even discounting her position as a Noverian Board Member her power within Clan Steelshape cannot be ignored. She apprenticed under Matriarch Thessial and actually shares several dozen patents with her.

She's solely responsible for the business operations, investment decisions, and research and development scheduling for the entire Clan which is largely why she's on Noveria in the first place. The NDC offers an extraordinary degree of latitude to Clan Steelshape and their operations on the planet, partly because it's supremely lucrative for the NDC (and Director Anoleis personally) and partly because you really don't want to make an enemy of such people when you could just as easily make them an ally.

All we know of her work is that she's currently involved in several extremely speculative research projects (even for asari… practical implementation of this technology is not expected to occur for another two hundred years!), largely dealing with brief (one to five real-time seconds) manipulation of temporal mechanics, zettawatt-grade void-based lasers, and localised gravitational singularity induction. Obviously, all of these have potential military applications and we should monitor her every move closely.

The lone turian member of the Board, the Unbroken is a sinister and mysterious figure. (Addendum: That glossy black, floor-length, cartoon supervillain robe isn't helping on that score – and of course it has a hood trimmed in his ancestor's fused bone dust. Turian melodrama is fucking embarrassing. -Tiffany)

According to Pel, the Unbroken's face paint represents the sacrifice of honour and an uncontaminated existence (or a 'life free of the pain and horrors that cloud the spirit,' depending on the translation) in order to do the works one is ordered to by the Spirits. Needless to say, this is an extremely unusual outlook amongst turians, one that is almost unheard of outside of the Valluvian Priesthood texts and certain esoteric Spirit Shrines.

The Unbroken does not have any ties with Elanus Risk Control Services – the company you'd most expect a turian Board Member to be involved with – and most of his business is providing legal and financial services for outcast and separatist movements in the Traverse, including the Facinus, as well as other ventures in the Terminus Systems. By all reports the Unbroken conducts himself professionally with a tendency toward dryly mocking irony and sarcasm, yet no one can confirm any details about the creature's past, since all records are either missing or contradict each other. (Addendum: If nothing else, his 'wit' ensures he has a stellar future ahead of him in the Turian Diplomatic Corps. -Tiffany)

There is a mad rumour that the Unbroken is actually Rolarn Quarn, thief and conman extraordinaire, but that's impossible to verify and even P. doesn't possess some kind of phase-jump capability… though the Unbroken's sub-vocal harmonics do match some recorded fragments of Quarn.

Then again, some of the sub-vocals are also a match for P. himself. And running openly out of Noveria is almost crazy enough I could see that nutjob doing it.

Dessu Cal represents the Special Investments Division of the Vol Protectorate, and is thus the Unseen Cloud's man on Noveria. (Addendum: In case those VDF modifications weren't a dead giveaway for a volus in his position. The man has eyes like a starving sea monster, but then again, he did crush an uppity mid-caste batarian mercenary into a bloody paste with his servo-arm, so he can't be all bad. -Tiffany)

Dessu Cal hails from the infamous Cal Clan of Besso Secundus, one of the volus's earliest colonies, and his clan-family still owns over 70% of the planet. From what we understand, the Unseen Cloud's Noveria operations are designed to provide the Vol Protectorate with a degree of socio-economic strategic depth, in that they'll have greater and more 'legally flexible' access to alien markets and corporations, and plausible deniability in that such operations can never reliably be traced back to the Vol Protectorate. Noveria is thus the volus's primary conduit for access to the Terminus Systems markets, communicating with Aria and laundering Omega's blood money, circumventing trade embargos and sanctions, and making underground deals with parties who'd rather not operate in the open (like the Batarian Emperor or the High Lords of Sol). Dessu Cal is in command of all of these operations.

A direct strike is ill-advised without overwhelming tactical superiority – as I mentioned in the Unseen Cloud file, Dessu Cal travels with a bodyguard retinue of volus counterassault biotics, salarian snipers and technosavants, and a pair of disgraced former Remembrance Dancers.

Ortu Elkoss is without doubt the third richest being in the entire galaxy, after Thana T'Armal and Muvai Solus. Officially his net worth is just north of forty billion credits, but his unofficial holdings are valued far more highly, although estimates are difficult to come by.

He is the current Chief Executive and lifetime Board Member of the eponymous Elkoss Combine, which his clan has run since its founding over a thousand years ago – he's the scion of possibly the most famous corporate dynasty in galactic history, and most volus look up at him as cross between Prince Manswell and Admiral Ahern (which makes perfect sense given volus psychology and culture. Don't laugh.). Forget what you know about most humans who inherit wealth. Amongst volus it is considered proper and just to pass as much as one can to one's offspring, and for said offspring to do everything they can to maximize the profit from these opportunities. Elkoss is extraordinarily intelligent, focused, and charismatic with a precise attention to detail and an alarming capacity for long term planning.

His investments and philanthropy have brought riches to tens of millions, and he's probably lifted a couple of billion sapient beings out of poverty, but you should never forget that the alien functions in an alien way with alien morals. What this creature can give he can just as easily take away. Case in point: during the last SA election, when those Terra Firma and Blue Stars No More goobers were screaming about how 'bloated greedy volus is controlling all our monies, WAKE UP!,' Elkoss did two things. First, he made a few cryptic comments on social media and the extranet about the essential vulnerability of human markets. This alone led to a 0.5% drop in SA GDP for six consecutive quarters (adjusted annually). Second, he secretly instructed the Unseen Cloud's NESSUM Directorate to target certain Terra Firma and BSNM financial backers and power brokers. The result? 40% of those targets are bankrupt, another 25% are now in prison, 15% committed suicide, and the remainder have travelled to Irune to beg for mercy. (Addendum: That said, if Chambers is even more hard up than she looks, do let her know that Elkoss was just voted the most eligible bachelor on Irune. -Tiffany)

Eli Wikluh is quite possibly one of the most infamous biotech traffickers and arms dealers in Human Space. Wikluh is the man responsible for acquiring live batarian bio-symbiotes for the AIS (though he neglected to mention all the others he'd acquired and was selling on the side to the highest bidder) and in capturing certain aliens as test subjects and samples for both NOVENSILES and pre-Benedict Cerberus (including approximately one thousand drell civilians to harvest for eidetic memory protein samples). He's bought and sold nerve agents, blood agents, black nano, nuclear materials, siege mines, stripped down ion bombards, flash-pak chemical explosives, and even a hijacked shipment of CAINs to literally anyone who'd buy them. He's on the omni-tool of every warlord and crime boss in the Terminus Systems, and for a couple of years on the Citadel, was rumoured to be the Shifter's regular thought-seek and drinking buddy… a connection that eventually led him to Noveria. He's been plying his trade here ever since. Oddly enough he's quite the family man, and has been happily married with five children for the last fifteen years.

Why exactly this lunatic neo-terrorist and criminal is on the Board is something no one seems brave enough to ask.

Xi Zhang is a decorated former soldier of the Systems Alliance (having earned several combat decorations and made N3) whose family, a well-off but otherwise unremarkable group of shipping merchants, somehow offended a lesser cousin of House Chu and had to flee the Sol System (and effectively all SA Space). An exceptionally fit and focused man in his very late forties, Zhang and several of his cousins had started a high-end security consulting and 'special services' company on the Citadel before moving to Noveria about ten years ago, where his star has risen ever since. It is Zhang's company that provides tactical advice and intelligence training to the NDF, and his men (and women) often act as bodyguards for VIPs or as enforcers and clean-up types for the Noverian elite.

Zhang was the leading advocate of a direct assault on the Commissariat dreadnought during the Benezia Incident after he'd learned that Yonis Chu was aboard (though Zhang wasn't a Board member at the time), and apparently, he despises the entire House to this day. Any AIS agents his people uncover are generally subjected to a harsh and humiliating interrogation before being drugged and shipped back to Earth with a snarky note addressed to Yonis. His promotion to the Board of Directors occurred about eighteen months ago and he is largely responsible for encouraging Director Anoleis to adopt a more aggressive force posture, although to be fair Anoleis was already moving in that direction after the events of the Benezia Incident anyway.

Dalatrass Kirro is the head of a fairly powerful family of venture capitalists and information brokers from the Silver Rim. She maintains good (if slightly distant) relations with the Solus family, who control her entire home-cluster, but of course she isn't stupid – she knows full well that if she gets too close to any one of the SIX then the rest will have the STG kill her and her entire family. She's done quite well for herself – proof of which is her ability to survive this long – and despite major setbacks (including the bankruptcy and death of several cousins and siblings) she controls both the largest information brokerage firm on Noveria and a minority (1-5%) stake in most major corporations on the planet. This puts her in a position of power… but not too much power, which is exactly how she likes it. Better to quietly profit in the shadows and let some other braggart fool paint a target on his back.

Needless to say, she's heavily invested in most counterintelligence operations by the NDC and tends to execute any enemy agents she captures, or occasionally sells them to researchers. Though very much a consummate professional, when relaxed her personal manner is quite lively and gregarious for a salarian. (Addendum: Amusingly, she's been known to occasionally wear robes rather than a full bodysuit during breeding season (as is common courtesy amongst salarians) solely to piss off Director Anoleis by filling the confined boardroom with the overpowering musk of mating pheromones. Director Anoleis finds this infuriating, but there's nothing he can do about it – to suggest to a Dalatrass that her musk is offensive and worth covering up is unspeakably rude in salarian culture, so he just has to sit there and take it whilst he tries not to dry hump a ten thousand-credit chair. The rest of the Board finds this whole biennial ritual to be absolutely hilarious, and so do I. -Tiffany)

The last three Board Seats are currently 'Vacant' due to the previous owners being killed during the Benezia Incident, but a current favourite is none other than your fellow tycoon and poker buddy, Henry Lawson. Mr. Lawson is without doubt one of the most famous human businessmen in the galaxy and his company, Lawson Technologies, is a leader in the fields of micro-manufacturing, omni-gel production and transponder programming, medium-to-personal robotics, and genetic studies. Officially he has a single daughter, though he's rumoured to have fathered dozens and is seen as something of a charming deviant by most social columns. In all, an impressive man who would seem to be very well-suited to the Board of Directors. (Addendum: eyes only: Illusive Man: Sir, I've cleaned up this brief paragraph, but I feel I must be honest with you – Henry Lawson is an amoral monster who didn't hesitate to use DOZENS of his own cloned children to acquire more power and influence. The man's a control freak, and also just a freak. As I mentioned earlier, after a series of increasingly horrifying conversations with Miss Lawson, I think it may be time for Mr. Lawson to suffer a tragic heart attack for the good of humanity. -Tiffany)


Operations

(Addendum: Due to the human origins and current salarian ownership of the present-day NDC, most of their operations are named after a mad blend of influences from human and salarian culture. -Tiffany)

MOMENTS OF SPRING: The name is based on a rather clever salarian pun, where spring refers to both the traditional season of new growth and new plans as well as a slang term for the moment a bombastic young male comes up with a cunning scheme to win the attention of a potential breeding female (not a dalatrass herself of course – such delusional hubris would get the young male in question killed by her relatives). SPRING operations are offensive in nature and are typically active measures and counterintelligence ops directed at an external target in Citadel Space or the territory of a Citadel member races – though in exceptional cases the target may be operating on Noveria. Much like the STG – and not surprising considering Director Anoleis's influence – SPRING operations tend to be very precise and carefully planned, with a high degree of technical expertise and dependent on many different pieces striking at once. For example, they prefer to compromise an enemy spy network, extract whatever operational data they can, and then execute all of them at once before the enemy can react; the AIS, on the other hand, would much rather subvert the network over time and turn it against its masters. It's a matter of approach.

NIRVANA/RAKSHASA: Refers to applying either positive incentives (NIRVANA) or negative incentives (RAKSHASA) to a current or potential client. Obviously a human reference. Note that 'client' in this case can refer to an individual, a group of people, multiple business entities, or even an entire conglomerate; regardless, the principles of NIRVANA/RAKSHASA operations remain the same.

Typical NIRVANA operations against individuals mostly revolve around plying the target with whatever rewards and pleasures they desire (and of course recording all of this for blackmail in case the target turns your offer down); please note that the NDC is not even slightly concerned with the perceived morality of the rewards and pleasures in general. It doesn't matter if the target is being paid with blood money from illegal organ harvesting, or making use of underage sex slaves, or being offered live test subjects. What matters to the NDC is that the target is acquired and becomes an asset. In the case of business entities, the NDC typically offers favourable trading terms, extra dividends, bonus cash payments for executives, joint research rights, or technical and security assistance. Naturally, the NDC is the dominant partner in all of these activities, but for the vast majority of people this is still a very tempting offer. Most agree to whatever terms are offered, since the NDC is well-known for being a generous friend and a ruthless enemy.

Typical RAKSHASA operations include hostile takeovers (either directly or through proxies), speculative attacks on a particular stock, bankrolling the target's enemies, poaching customers and employees, and deliberately running at a loss to undermine the target's contracts until they are bankrupt. So far this is merely the full range of aggressive options that would be familiar to any seasoned executive. But never forget that this is the NDC, and they do not hesitate to make use of blackmail (preferably through ultra-high definition audio-visual surveillance and comms interception), honey traps, anonymously distributing propaganda and disinformation to galactic news outlets and on the extranet, hacking (either to steal secrets, 'brick' the target's data, or plant incriminating evidence), corrupting law enforcement, renting protestors and hooligans, extortion and protection rackets, sabotage, psychological harassment, or even outright terrorism and assassination.

BOKKA NULL: A baffling salarian pop-culture reference to the lead character of a classic noir-intellectual romance-crime drama that's apparently very popular with both STG types and, of all people, turians (though the birds would never admit it). It is the codename given to the personal operations and programs of Director Anoleis, who seems to have a fondness for naming his pet projects after events and people from his old STG days. Most BOKKA NULL activities are closely related to Anoleis's work on the Alteration Framework and are subject to the fiercest and most paranoid security measures on all of Noveria. Recent activities include live cargo shipments from supposedly uninhabited worlds on the edge of Salarian Space – one of which was festooned with UV laser decontamination units, acid tanks, and HEPA filters – as well as an esoteric series of hyper-luminal genome modification simulations that are (ingeniously) piggybacked onto the main Noverian computer network and disguised as ordinary housekeeping runtimes. The strangest part of this is that the genome in question isn't salarian. It's human.


Membership

Much like the history of Noveria, most of the NDC membership records are tedious and irrelevant. If you're that keen to bore yourself to death searching through twelve and a half million meta-files containing application forms, personnel profiles, meeting minutes, and database records, then please feel free. Technically speaking, any employee or subcontractor of any incorporated entity operating on Noveria is considered a 'member' and is required to submit their personnel records (including DNA records as well as tissue samples and full scans of any unique identifying features). All employees are subject to a whole-of-life background check (limited to one hundred years for asari, at least at this level), psychological testing, and a gruelling pre-induction interview by former military interrogators and retired C-Sec detectives. Every single claim and statement the potential employee makes must be recorded both digitally and in writing and is triple-checked by the NDC's data-trawling and cyber-operations unit.

Any lie or omission is considered grounds for termination. Keep in mind that on Noveria 'termination' is quite literally that – a bullet to the back of the head or, if the Board would like to make an example of the offender, termination via exposure to Noverian weather. (Addendum: Approximately six months ago, the NDC Board of Directors voted to begin a geo-engineering project designed to increase the already impressive lethality of the planet's weather. -Tiffany)

Naturally, every possible legal cover or defensive mechanism is included in the employee contracts, which isn't particularly difficult when the NDC is the absolute sovereign and decides what the law is in the first place. Any form of disclosure or theft of NDC and/or NDC associate assets is punishable by termination. Any independent activity that undermines the goals and operations of the NDC is punishable by termination. Any hostility toward the NDC is punishable by termination. Failure to carry out your duties to the best of your ability is punishable by termination. Each of these termination-level offenses is considered a Major Contract Violation. Minor Contract Violations are punishable by less extreme measures, including fines, salary clawbacks, asset seizures, exile, blacklisting, lawsuits, or simply investigation and mediation.

Control measures and performance incentives only get stricter and more paranoid from there. There is a total of fifteen Operational Ranks in the NDC, and each rank carries with it certain duties and control measures depending on the project and the role of the employee. The highest rank – that held by the Board of Directors – actually enjoys the most freedoms and least oppression. Some employees may be fitted with VI-monitored cortex bombs, containing a small high-explosive charge or a few atoms of antimatter, that detonate upon intrusion into unauthorised areas or dataspheres, when leaving the planet without permission, or when certain other conditions are met. There are also species-specific control mechanisms. Extremely valuable elcor employees are frequently subject to pheromone dispersal systems designed to influence their behaviour, turians may work under subsonic harmonic vibrators, asari may need to swear Oaths of service and secrecy or undergo regular surface-links, and so on. In extreme cases the employee is monitored 24/7 by a 'personal assistant' drone, implanted cyberware, or a one-way Graybox feed connected to the VI security array.

One might ask at this point just why prospective employees put themselves through such an ordeal, one where even if you are successful your life itself is temporarily rented out to what is effectively a corporate stellar dominion. The answer should be obvious: the Noveria Development Corporation offers its employees some of the most staggeringly opulent rewards and incentives available anywhere. Not all of these are available to lower ranking employees, of course, but the promise of attaining them is always there, and that is enough to motivate.

The average Rank 1-5 NDC employee earns a salary package worth forty-seven times more than that of the average Class II SA citizen. For Rank 6-10 employees, this figure is three hundred and thirteen times larger, and for Rank 11-15 it is typically seven hundred and seventy-five times larger. Depending on the incorporated entity, employees may have access to preferential stock options, heavily discounted financing, and full joint ownership of any patents. Naturally they have the full backing of whichever corporation or combine they work for. Contract law as well as private and intellectual property rights are fiercely protected (ironic, considering the shocking amount of corporate espionage carried out either on Noveria or by its inhabitants), and you'll certainly have no problem dealing with the common trash who would envy and murder you simply for being superior. (Addendum: Most refreshing. -Tiffany)

It isn't just about money, of course. The NDC is clever enough and subtle enough to realise this and offer equally attractive incentives targeting separate areas of their employee's lives. Do you have a family? Your spouse will live just as well as you, your children will receive the finest education you could wish for, and your immediate relatives will have access to cutting-edge medical care before it even hits the market. There to see and be seen? You'll enjoy a position of great power and privilege, mixing with the cream of galactic society at the most exclusive parties. Religious? Port Hanshan offers dedicated human prayer services, full-size elcor meditation groves, Palavanus-curated Spirit Shrines, a host of Wheel Priests and Athamists, batarian Pillar-Lakes, whatever you care to believe in. Fan of the arts? No troupe, band, painter, haptic performer, comedian, dancer, or writer is beyond the reach of the NDC. You'll see, experience, or perhaps even own them. Career focused? You'll be working with some of the finest minds your species has to offer in research labs that are surpassed only by those of Clan Steelshape, the Reach Research Compound, and perhaps the Revenant Cell.

This is merely the beginning. Favoured employees have access to every imaginable luxury, no matter how trivial or decadent. They live in palatial private quarters fit for a Citadel Councilor or a High Lord, attended day and night by exquisitely trained servants. Gourmet meals, made for both dextro and levo visitors and using only the freshest ingredients delivered daily by FTL courier, are served with a smile by the finest chefs in the galaxy. You will have unlimited access to every vice you desire. Red sand and Hallex, chemically purified and snorted off the joygirl who delivers it. Human heroin, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, dimethyltryptamine, and cocaine. Every alcoholic beverage in the known galaxy – vintage, origin, and price is no object. The full spectrum of euphoric, depressant, and psychoactive saps from Sur'Kesh. Hallucinogenic drell skin gland concentrates. Hormonal doping. Biological symbiote organisms, temporarily attached to the host for a week and guiding them through a grandiose haze of euphoria (or lust, or blood-rage, et cetera). Whatever the hell elcor Lifemasters are on.

An endless supply of whatever men, women, aliens, objects, or experiences bring you to orgasm. Would sir like his humans from Earth or one of the colonies, or perhaps from one of their intra-racial groups? Baffling, I know, but it seems to matter to the humans. Ah, turian, a fine choice, we can apply whatever paint and plate markings you like and the pregnancy pheromone injections are activated upon passing through your door. Please, simply enter your preferences into our haptic catalogue for next time. It is for the lesser beings of the galaxy to concern themselves with morality and other such triteness. Yours is to rule and to enjoy ruling.

There are far darker pleasures on Noveria that are enjoyed more discretely, away from prying outsiders. The slave stables, where those favoured by the masters of Noveria may pick whomever they like to subject to whatever they want (quite popular with human and batarian males, as well as sadists of all races). The gladiator arenas disguised as warehouses or power stations, where sapient beings are forced to fight alien beasts or other combatants for the amusement of those watching (a great favourite with krogan and also volus spectators who can't help but run betting pools). The still-living leftovers and escapees of various hotlabs, hunted for sport (mostly catering to turian hunting parties). The clone banks, thousands upon thousands of clear reinforced glass tubes holding the growing organs (and foetuses and eggs and faces) destined for underground surgeries and dining tables. Cyberware labs and specialist doctors so extreme even the STG won't deal with them. It doesn't end; every sapient being in the galaxy, human or alien, is driven by their own existence and instincts to seek out certain needs and desires, all of which can be accommodated or researched or traded on Noveria for the right seller, the right buyer, and the right price.


Combat Tactics and Equipment

There are two primary combat branches of the Noveria Development Corporation. These are the Noverian Fleet, responsible for all atmospheric, space-based, and planetary/system defence operations, and the Noverian Defence Force, responsible for all ground-based security and defence operations. Both of these forces have changed immensely since the Benezia Incident.

For a start, the current Captain of the Noverian Fleet is no longer Zerzo Hallas. That fool got himself fired, or exiled, or just shot after the Board of Directors reviewed his conduct during the Benezia Incident. No one can confirm exactly what happened to him. (Addendum: He's a drell. Who gives a shit? -Tiffany)

It is in any case irrelevant, since the good Captain's replacement is far more problematic. Grigori Zakharov, the new Fleet Captain of the Noveria Development Corporation, is a former Corsair Commodore whose actions were considered extreme enough to disgrace himself and be hounded out of even that controversial program. It was Commodore Zakharov whose Corsair unit defeated a batarian pirate incursion, captured the lead vessel's navigational data, and then tracked the fleeing vessels back to their base of operations… his men then slaughtered the pirates, torturing to death any who surrendered, before gang-raping whatever batarian females they could find. Commissariat sources suggest that they kept several of these batarian females on their ship as pets, arguing that that they weren't really sapient and so could not be considered slaves under Citadel law. Zakharov fled to Noveria to escape trial and summary execution at the hands of the Commissariat, and despite his revolting character is an accomplished naval operator and tactician who's quite popular with the men (and women!) under his command and something of a hit with the Board of Directors.

Fleet Captain Zakharov commands a far more formidable force than the one that humanity encountered during the Benezia incident. The backbone of the new Noverian Fleet is a dozen salarian assault-cruisers supported by four dozen salarian corvettes, with four corvettes generally escorting each assault-cruiser, and each design has been carefully modified and optimised to suit Noverian operational requirements. They don't employ dreadnoughts, partly because it would bring far too much unwanted attention from the Citadel, and partly because they see such vessels as an inefficient use of resources that could better be spent on the orbital platforms and asteroid-mounted mass drivers. The vessels are not designed for expeditionary usage, power projection or long deployments – yet another reason the Citadel doesn't really consider Noveria to be a threat – but in return they are able to over-engineer the weapons, sensor, and ECCM loadouts using the newly available space and resources. I consulted with General Petrovsky on this subject, and he said that such a fleet "sacrifices deployment endurance and combat mass in exchange for a frightening capacity to rapidly inflict damage and outmanoeuvre any attacker, forcing the survivors to be exposed to either crippling broadsides or the fearsome teeth of the Noverian space defence platforms." (Addendum: Thanks for that, GI-Joeski. -Tiffany)

It is essentially a naval flotilla designed to out-gun, out-hack, and outmanoeuvre any hostile in-system force and destroy it utterly, yet at the same time present no threat to any Citadel power.

Very clever.

On top of this are another roughly fifty new orbital defence platforms that serve as docks, fighter carriers, missile bases, particle cannon platforms, ECCM hubs, and general fortresses. The NDC is also slowly bringing small asteroids into their moon's orbit and fitting them with five-kilometer mass drivers (they're leasing the design schematics from Aria for a small fortune). They hope to have four to six such asteroids operational within the next eighteen months.

The ground-based Noverian Defence Force remains under the command of the newly promoted Colonel Arctus Vurthex. (Addendum: 'Colonel' is an awkward best-fit human translation. According to Pel, the correct term would be 'third claw of the disembowelling leap' and that 'for a fancy, high-born motherfucker' I know 'dick-all' about 'turian shit.' One day I'm going to have that man shot into the sun if he keeps pulling his disingenuous thug act with me. -Tiffany)

Vurthex, as I'll call him from here, is not the usual hoo-ha former Deathwatch sociopath that most idiots expect to be running such an operation; he's spent over fifty years in the Hierarchy as a logistics and operational security officer for the (relatively upstanding) Blackwatch, and according to Pel no one has a bad word say about him. He left solely because the NDC offered a blank cheque to treat his children's rare medical disorders, and he has a standing offer from the Hierarchy to return without the need for the usual Trials.

For a turian he's surprisingly thoughtful and subtle, and of course deeply loyal to his superiors. He did not break or run at any point during the Benezia Incident, having held the tower against staggering odds, and personally executed every NDF deserter before apologising to the Board of Directors and offering to strike the paint from his own face to salvage his honour. They were most impressed by his bravery and loyalty and promoted him on the spot. He treats all of his troops well, providing they've served well, and has a fine working relationship with Major Matsuo.

Vurthex's reforms are already shaping the NDF into a serious paramilitary organisation capable of successfully engaging all but the standing military/intelligence units of the Citadel races, the geth, the Broker, batarian elites, Aria, and, perhaps, Cerberus. The NDF now has access to former Hierarchy leadership cadres, Serrice Guard instructors, human tacticians and retired AIS spooks, disgraced drell biotic savants, quarian engineering and infowar teachers, and, of course, Director Anoleis's motley crew of former STG. They are supremely well-funded, equipped with cutting-edge weapons and accessories, and train together on a daily basis; Vurthex is emphasising unit cohesion, esprit de corps, combined arms operations, and info-centric urban warfare. NDF combat teams are typically made up of twelve personnel: one unit leader, two scout/snipers, three CQB specialists, three tech specialists/combat engineers, and three regular troopers. All are trained in combat medicine, communications, xenopsychology, and counter-infiltration.

As you can see, such a force is designed specifically to contain and neutralise any hostile force within Noverian facilities and to repel any landing or invasion attempts. It is not designed for expeditionary actions or theatre-scale warfare. The NDF also now has a dedicated mountaineering and extreme weather special operations detachment made up of former STG personnel. (Addendum: And of course, it's the oldest, craziest Solus types who volunteered for this. Noveria's weather is the sole reason why it's considered a death world by most stellar cartographers. Something is dreadfully wrong with that entire family. Then again, their motto is 'You can only die once.' -Tiffany)

Finally, a few words are needed here on the subject of the Noverian security network and cyber systems. Nanite monitoring devices are extremely common and form the backbone of the Noverian basic automated security net, along with full body and cargo scans, automated patrol mechs and drones, ultra-high definition video and audio feeds, bio monitors, biotic tracking and suppression devices, and of course Internal Affairs' own counterintelligence operatives. All communications, both within Noveria and all incoming/outgoing traffic, is stored for six months and monitored in real-time by an AI/VI hyperluminal computational array based in Port Hanshan; this array is physically separate from the primary NDC cyber systems and datasphere. The NDC has just signed a contract with Admiral Daro'Xen of the Quarian Migrant Fleet Research Flotilla to provide ongoing technical advice to further improve the NDC's cyberspace and electronic countermeasure capabilities.

This is already paying dividends, and the innovative new NDC cyberbanks and datasphere use a 'coil' systems architecture as opposed to a traditional 'web'-like network (like the extranet, for instance). The datasphere is segregated into a cascading series of independent subsystems that are physically independent in real space and communicate solely by hardened optronic shunts. Access to a lower level requires both physical authorisations as well as passing through the intrusion countermeasure electronics, patrol runtimes, hunter-killer daemons, and redboxes embedded in the previous level. Whilst a sufficiently advanced enemy could, in theory, overwhelm the Noverian datasphere, remember that the NDC physically controls all FTL communications and bandwidth within the solar system and can open or throttle these lanes at their leisure.

Any attacker who breaks in would be trapped. Only a full-scale geth fleet, the Collectors, or Vigil would be able to successfully engage in such an instance without being physically present in the planet's orbit.

The primary 'coil' system layers are as follows:

Interrogative IFF/preliminary firewall and patrol runtimes housekeeping datasphere

ICE1/H-K DAEMONS Rank 1-5 Access

ICE2/H-K DAEMONS Rank 6-10 Access

ICE3/H-K DAEMONS REDBOX Rank 11-15 Access

ICE4/H-K DAEMONS Sensor and financial communications net

REDBOX PHYSICAL SYSTEM CORE/ROOT ACCESS


Final Thoughts

I do hope that anyone who didn't think that the NDC could pose a threat to us, or laughed at the idea of them somehow being considered an opposing force, can kindly shut up.

We are resigned and desensitised to self-interest as a motive, let alone as a raison d'état. Almost everyone in the galaxy engages in some kind of business, probably works for one, and certainly has to live with the decisions that businesses make. The Noveria Development Corporation is dangerous precisely because people see it as ordinary. Much like you, sir, they delight in being underestimated, and are utterly ruthless in dealing with anything and anyone they see as a threat. The NDC has every possible reason to fight for their own survival, and the best way to ensure that they live on and prosper is by making sure that everyone that could possibly threaten them has a stake in their operations. Mutually beneficial arrangements win a lot of powerful friends, and only a fool thinks that a man with a briefcase is less dangerous than a man with a gun.

Oddly enough, the best way to defend against the NDC is by ensuring that they have a stake in our survival too. Ensure that any operations against Cerberus personnel and assets consistently result in pain and losses with no tangible benefits. Kill their counterintelligence teams, flip and mislead their moles, sabotage their clandestine shipping lanes and cash flow; deny them any kind of return on investment when they seek to engage us. Then show them that a positive – or at least neutral – relationship with the Dog brings with it all kinds of rewards, and that money is just the beginning. I would recommend eventually bringing the NDC in for a minority stake in the front company manufacturing and distributing our next run of utility and security mechs; a 10-20% non-voting stake should be enough to whet their appetite and give the NDC an incentive to aid or at least cover our front operations on the planet. It would also make funding the Revenant Cell easier.

-Dr. Tiffany Minsta


P.S. I still haven't gotten to test out my neural shock gauntlet on any alien subjects, and now I'm out of icewine. Ugh.