Section 2: Dark Side of the Galaxy
Chapter 5: Omega
Originally an Asari mining complex and military outpost, then attacked and abandoned dozens of times over several centuries, captured and expanded by Turian Warlords, and then seized by a Krogan Battlemaster has left Omega a chaotic affair that could symbolize the entire Terminus if it wished.
A general rule that has been maintained through all of its owners is that the closer you are to its core, the better and easier your life is likely to be. The farther from the open cavern that leads to the eezo mines you are, the less the station's rulers care about your existence.
As Aria has no wish to reign over a dead or dying station, she has maintained several of the Patriarch's policies. The most critical of which is securing the station's water and food supplies with her personal commandos, and distributing it from singular locations within each district (excepting Kima). No one outside of her organization is allowed to even inspect the water mains or ventilation shafts that run through the station. Even negligently touching the systems is a death sentence, and anyone attempting to compromise the station's food supply results in the offender being strung up in front of Afterlife to be killed by the crowd.
The Core Districts
Formed by whatever calamity split Omega apart, the core is a open cavern sealed with barriers to leave a basic atmosphere trapped within the asteroid. Spiraling tunnels bored into the rock over centuries lead to the mines, while others travel downwards to allow airborne traffic to reach the lower reaches.
Afterlife's District
Built into the side of the core, and spanning more than a dozen levels, Afterlife is Aria's throne. Formerly the station's sprawling command center, roughly half of it has been converted to the club that is open to the public. The remaining half is kept excluded and sealed at all times except to Aria's personal forces, and includes the critical control rooms and other equipment required to keep the station and its mines working. Surrounding it is its attendant district, filled with high end shops, bars, casinos, and penthouses.
That area covers roughly half way around the core, the remaining half is entirely devoted to docking and hangers for Aria's personal fleet, including massive berths for her dreadnoughts, as well as apartment complexes where their crews can relax while on shore leave and be shuttled to private sections of Afterlife without having to deal with the common rabble.
Tuhi District
Located directly below Afterlife, Tuhi has been the heart of slaving in the Terminus for nearly nine centuries. Designed and built by Tharsus himself after his seizure of the asteroid, it remained largely unchanged until Batarian slavers arrived. While deeply impressed with what the ancient Turian had done, they thought it could use some additional work and upgraded many of the facilities.
The center of the district resembles a multi-story prison, topped off with the actual markets above them. Slavers rent cell blocks from Aria's managers to utilize, transporting their cargo up and own specially designed lifts. The remainder of the district, bracketing the prison core, and consists of living areas, restaurants, and shops that largely exist and cater to those coming and going to the markets.
Fumi District
Bordering Tuhi, Fumi is the only district open entirely to the core. Originally built as a massive barracks complex for Turian soldiers by Tharsus's grandson, it resembles a stepped city built into a cliff face. The majority of the buildings are built into the rock itself, while the streets hang outwards over-top of the next level down. Beginning as Omega's core slopes downwards, the district works its way downwards over the course of a dozen levels before reaching the cavern floor, with hundreds of eezo pylons working to maintain a secondary barrier over the streets and buildings.
Currently controlled by the Talons, Fumi could be considered the 'upper middle class' region of Omega. Pirate Captains and other well-off criminals often make their home in the highly secure Turin-designed structures. While not safe by Citadel standards, you are less likely to be randomly attacked in Fumi than you are anywhere else on station.
Zeta District
On the opposite side of Tuhi from Fima, Zeta is also known as the 'sealed' district. This is where the miners and merchant sailors who maintain the station's eezo trade live. Anyone coming or going is heavily checked by Aria's troops, and traffic is strictly controlled to the point where it is more reliable to ask miners who have retired as to what life is like inside rather than attempting to enter at all.
While their lives are not perfect, Aria ensures the primary provider's of her wealth are relatively well cared for and have ample opportunity to indulge in vices. Largely built into the ancient remnants of Asari construction, it is the most 'elegant' district in terms of appearance, though the appearance means little. A cynical person would note that the drugs and whores Aria provides her workers are charged for, the same money she pays them for mining and hauling eezo returning to her accounts nearly as quickly as it comes out.
The Base Districts
Located beneath the core, the base districts refer to their location at the 'base' of the massive spire stretching down and away from the asteroid proper. The first several levels are devoted entirely to one of the largest docking and hanger complexes in the known galaxy, circling three hundred and sixty degrees around the station and descending nearly fifteen stories.
Doru District
If an individual claims to have 'been to Omega', but never mentions having lived there, they likely only ever saw Doru. Stretching inwards from the base hangers to the central column, Doru holds everything a spacer might dream of wanting. Restaurants, hotels, casinos, bars, pubs, brothels, slave markets, stores hawking exotic wares... If it's known to the galaxy, it's likely for sale somewhere in Doru. Unwary travelers occasionally find that that rule applies to themselves as well, and veteran ship crews wisely travel in groups rather than move alone. The Eclipse maintains a significant enclave in Doru.
Cala District
Located directly beneath Doru, Cala is thirty levels deep within the spire and compromised almost entirely of residential areas for the workers of Doru. A series of unwritten rules keeps the violence down in Cala, as most of the workers simply want to relax and rest after a long shift in Doru. Conflicts are usually settled in the lowers, and those outsiders who are stupid enough to attempt to start something often find large sections of the population uniting to drive them back out.
The Lower Districts
The three lower districts reach downwards from the base, located within the pylon that stretches away from Omega proper. By any stretch of the imagination these are not locations where people often willingly live, and are considered to be violent, squalid, and brutal even by Omega's standards. Each of the three lower districts borders the other two, all three concurrently dropping downwards.
Gozu
Once the heart of the Blue Sun operations on Omega, they made token efforts to clean the place up before simply recruiting desperate fodder from the population. While it is the 'best' of the lower districts, that isn't saying much, most of the district resembling projects or slums. Currently it is controlled by Warlord T'Ravt after she seized it from the True Sons, though only time will tell if her people are able to affect any kind of change.
Kenzo
Until the Blue Suns' collapse, Kenzo was the front line of the fighting between themselves and the Blood Pack. Their collapse left a void in power, with numerous gangs rushing to fill it. The district remains little more than a warzone, smaller gangs rising and collapsing on almost a daily basis.
Kima
The Blood Pack's seat of power on Omega, Kima bears clear markings of Krogan occupation. Few non-Vorcha still live in Kima, having wisely fled rather than try to survive the kill or be killed society that the Blood Pack enforce. Kima has the smallest population as a result, and even Aria's people long ago gave up attempting to maintain the district's systems.
Gangs & Other Notable Groups
The list that follows is merely the 'major' gangs and groups currently active on Omega. There are obviously dozens, if not over a hundred, smaller groups of individuals that have banded together for one reason or another, but they largely lack the ability to effect change on the station in the way the following organizations can.
The Talons
Type: Paramilitary Police Force / Gang
Warlord: Aria T'loak
Leader: Commander 'Red' (Nyreen Kandros)
Originally a small, profit focused gang that concentrated on drug running, it was nearly wiped out during the Blue Sun War after its leadership attempted a foolhardy attack on Captain Tarik's headquarters. Reorganized by a mysterious Turian female known only as 'Red' in the wake of the disaster, she rebuilt them into something closer to a para-military police force.
Drug running and protection rackets have been cut down to the minimal required to pay her people's salaries, while her recruiters quickly found a large well of support for a gang whose primary focus was to protect the nominal civilian population and cut down on the random violence. Currently in control of most of Fumi district and lower portions of Tuhi, they have quickly risen to be one of the largest and most well run gangs on the station.
The White Tigers
Type: Gang
Warlord: Aria T'loak
Founded by disaffected Alliance veterans from the Buccaneers War, the gang has a notable anti-Batarian bias and typically only recruits humans and Turians into their ranks. Asari are allowed entry only if they are bondmates to another recruit or an existing member. They are easily identifiable by the white war paint that its members habitually wear, and focus heavily on training their members up to a military standard. This makes them a cut above most other groups on the station and gives them a significant advantage when it comes to lowering the casualties they suffer. Unfortunately, their low incomes force them to make do with relatively mediocre equipment which often negates their skill advantage.
Nominally allied with the Talons, their primary territory lies in Doru District, though they do hold scattered regions elsewhere on the station.
The Brotherhood of the Fallen
Type: Religious Order
Warlord: Aria T'loak
Leader: Eldest Brother Kith
Founded by a Turian priest who found himself drawn to Quarian Ancestor worship while on a diplomatic mission to Rannoch. Taking what elements of it that called to him and blending it with traditional Turian spirit worship, he abandoned his mission to preach his new faith on Omega rather than return to Palaven. Quickly finding a receptive audience in the young and disaffected on the station, many of whom created a martial order to defend their new religion.
A combination of a gang, a mercenary unit, and a religious movement, the Brotherhood of the Fallen primarily recruits Turians and Terminus Quarians, although the children of Batarian exiles have been known to join as well. They operate primarily in Doru and Cala, defending the shops and homes of the faithful while doing odd-jobs on the side to help provide for themselves and their bretheren.
The Cresting Wave
Type: Mercenary Group
Warlord: Aria T'loak
Leader: Huntress Chiek
The oldest organization still active on Omega is the Cresting Wave, originally founded by Asari slaves who revolted against their Turian owners more than a century before the Patriarch even considered attacking the station. Easily identifiable by their sky-blue armor, they recruit only Asari members and prefer those matrons who are down on their luck and have little other choice but to join.
Organized by squad sized 'Cabals', they hire themselves out to anyone willing to pay their fees for nearly any task the customer may desire. A Cabal may be raiding the lower levels for slaves one day, selling themselves as prostitutes the next, and killing the people they just slept with for credits the day after that.
Their equipment tends to be on the upper end by Omega's standards, and many of the older Cabals have been working exclusively together for decades or even centuries. However, as others are composed entirely of desperate maidens, the quality of their fighters varies wildly.
The Hunters of Shadows
Type: Gang
Warlord: Aria T'loak
Leader: Boss Juyl
Once a much larger gang, the Hunters of Shadows have found themselves increasingly on the defensive over the past few years, surrendering much of their premier territory to the Talons and White Tigers. One of the few gangs with few racial hang-ups, they will take anyone with a gun willing to bear their mark and follow orders.
Heavily involved in Omega's drug scene, they usually avoid the more lucrative slave trade because of the investment and time required to see a profit.
The True Sons
Type: Gang
Warlord: None
Leader: None
While their primary bases have fallen, there are still a few scattered detachments of the True Sons operating on Omega. Founded on the principles of representing the short-lived species against the Asari dominated Terminus, and not being too found of the even longer lived Krogan either, they were quickly swamped with recruits and saw their numbers balloon.
Unfortunately, this brought them to the attention of the Blue Suns, and saw the group effectively co-opted by the PMC for its own purposes. During the various operations that followed, it eventually came to light that the group was enslaving as many people as it could acquire for use as cannon fodder, completely ignoring the unwritten rules on Omega (as well as the written ones concerning giving Aria her cut). It took little encouragement from Aria to see the other gangs turn on them, tearing the upstarts apart in a matter of months.
Heavily tainted by the group's past actions or not, there is enough resentment on Omega and in the Terminus in general against Asari that they will likely recover if the remnants can organize themselves effectively.
The Eclipse – Omega Detachment
Type: PMC
Warlord: Jona Sederis
Leader: Commander Jarroth
The Eclipse detachment on Omega is relatively small, but highly profitable as they are responsible for a significant percentage of the drugs that enter the station (largely from Illium). Operating primarily from a small enclave on Doru, including their own docking and hanger facilities, they also possess numerous small outposts throughout the station to facilitate their trading.
While obviously under Sederis' command, they have standing orders to provide Aria with whatever support she requires provided that: A – she compensates them appropriately, and B – it doesn't harm Eclipse interests elsewhere.