ORG:Matadors

Manifesto
We are a committed group of pirates, traders, and pilots working across the universe to advance our interests. New solar systems, natural resources, and technological advances are in our reach, emerging from new worlds and humanoid species we encounter. We look to exploit these new discoveries as prospects for more business and raid opportunities.

Our intent is to have an enjoyable and immersive experience to take ourselves to the far reaches of our universe and explore the final frontier, capture a capital ship, or escort a high value individual to a specific location, whatever it is your heart desires you can achieve in the Matadors. This group is built upon a strong comradery and battle born brotherhood with strong ties to their origin and history resounding throughout the universe.

How to Apply
Head over to the Matadors website, www.Matadors.space and click on enlist.

Corporate rules of the MATADORS:
1. We are a Team. All members of the MATADORS will contribute a percentage to the corporation. Our rewarding system gives fair payment and quarterly bonuses for all ranks. This helps pay for the ships that support you, from refuelling and repairs, Reclaimers, and Bombers to our Capital Javelins and IDRIS.

2. It will be a requirement to participate in a minimum of operations and security detail during the week depending on the rank.

3. As an organisation we attend a fair amount of real-life meetup & community events, it is not a requirement to attend these events but everyone who makes the effort has a really great time.

4. Our organisation is comprised of many intelligent & successful individuals so a high standard of respect & maturity is required.

5. We like to pilot our ships, wander around, and have fun. What’s the point of freedom if you can’t enjoy it? However. During Missions, you must listen to your ranking officer. Our corporation is a militarised structure and must be respected as such.

6. Recruits will be on probation for a minimum of 1 month before consideration of rank. This will be based on all aspects of activity, whether it’s the discord, in game, or otherwise.

7. All available MATADORS are required to defend the capital ships if it they are under attack, this is non-negotiable.

OUR STORY | Origins
The origin and history of the Matadors is one of endeavour and rebellion. They began as a group of early colonists seeking to leave a polluted, overpopulated and over-regulated Earth. Their original leader, John Hunter, whom many believe to be a descendant of the 1800s Australian pirate Charlotte Badger, sounded the call in the late 21st century of “To Mars, for freedom!” His followers answered this call by being among the first Mars colonists in the early 22nd century, with many having departed Earth in the “Mars Rush” of the 2090s.

When it became clear that the laws inside the colony were becoming too restrictive for their taste, The Matadors went on strike. Soon after, they struck out to create their own sprawling settlement deep beneath the surface in the Martian caves where they could take advantage of plentiful resources such as water, which they used for drinking, oxygen, and converting to hydrogen fuel. Indeed, this may have saved their lives.

You see, their distrust of the terra-forming activities taking place under the auspices of various Earth corporate interests, as well as interference from the United Nations (the predecessor to the UEE, UPE, and UNE) lead to the Matadors building self-contained, self-sufficient, 3D printed habitats or “Habs” with closed-loop systems for ultimate independence.

When the Mars Tragedy struck in 2125, the Matadors were among the few survivors. As such, they were often treated with distrust and even suspicion. The official line was that no one survived the Mars Tragedy. The Matadors were being written out of history, declared non-persons. Anyone professing to having survived the Tragedy was labelled a liar or worse.

It was because of this that when the first jump point to Croshaw was discovered in 2271, Matador families made their way out to the newly discovered star system only to find the same pattern of Mars’ settlements repeating. The Matadors, first admired for being many of the first vanguards and explorers, would later be told their way of life was archaic, anti-social, and even uncivilised. It was time to move again.

In 2309, the Matadors again migrated en-masse. This time, it was decided that rather than make their homes on planets, they would sail amongst the stars; After all, their ancestors sailed Earth’s oceans by using the stars as navigational aids and lived mostly on the high seas, why should the Matadors be bound to land of any sort?

In the centuries that followed, the Matadors would explore newly charted systems, gather resources, and move on. What bases they established were more like temporary settlements. This became increasingly more difficult to do however, as the central authority of the UNE placed restrictions on their activities and where they could live..

Around 2617 a new leader, Maipe Reynolds, decided enough was enough. According to records, obtained in my search for the truth, this is how the story unfolded. Maipe noticed that the Matador’s kindness had been mistaken for weakness. No matter how much the Matadors tried to distance themselves from outsiders, people tried to use them for protection with no cost to their own. In the beginning, when Maipe attained control of the organisation, he opened his arms to outsiders. He gave them ships when they needed to fly and provided them with funds when their accounts were low. What he learned from the experience was it was never enough, and they would always come back for more. Trying to influence and change the organisation from the inside. In allowing ill-assorted people among his family, deception was inevitable.

What Maipe had seen made him squirm with disgust. The family he trusted was trying to change the organisation. The idea of sharing their fortunes and conquests with charlatans could not be swept form his mind. He watched as waves crashed through his brotherhood, waves that could not be ridden, waves that hold you under and drown you slowly.

Maipe watched the tensions grow, watched the fracturing from afar as the walls closed in. He allowed the sycophants time to dig their own grave, he allowed them to believe their own illusions. The time came in 2618, when Maipe decided the saboteurs time must come to an end. The merry men and motley crews would be banished into the dark ocean, burned from the from the inside like removing a tick from flesh.

The decision to cast out Robin Hood fantasies was met with little force. Maipe took his most trusted members on an extermination run to destroy the cancer from within. They burned through the blasphemers without haste saving the “Judas” for last.

As the family stood together, in a group consolidated as one, theirs eyes met a coward in the airlock. A man that had set lies and corruption in motion, wanting the power for himself. Not willing to work for it, rather spread a plague behind the back of a man who had allowed him in his family. As the rat went to speak, Maipe raised a hand to silence him. With a soft but deliberate tone, the true leader spoke “Never believe your own delusions, as there is always someone pulling the puppets strings.” With one last attempt to save his own miserable existence, the weasel took a deep breath to save himself. That was the last breath that he would ever take, for no sound came out when he spoke. The cold of space does not like the sound of a betrayer speaking and will silence them with little effort. The airlock closed behind the lifeless body as it drifted into the abyss. The mutineers had fallen and Maipe would never allow the Matadors to fall into the treachery of illusionists and magicians again.

From that time forward the Matadors evolved into what they are today. Feared by the lonely spaceman and hunted by the soft caged creature. The Maipe Reynolds line continues to rule the Matadors through a mighty fist, for the deception of the past would not take hold again. There would be no room for disloyalty, for people in the past forgot that the kindest people still have the ability, to ruin lives. They just don’t, until they need to. Maipe realised one thing, that day long ago, control is an illusion for those that seek it from other men, real control comes from an iron fist dawned down upon the men that follow. The long game is played in generations not in minutes, hours or days. If you’re not paying attention it will catch up quickly.

Today, the Matadors are a strong organisation, that are both feared and loved depending on who you ask. They are a scourge of the void to those who do not show caution. They’re known for their far-reaching infrastructure, organisation and precision strikes, of almost ridiculously overwhelming lethal force against any person, corporation or governmental entity, that gets on their bad side. They are born wanderers whose history spans a millennium. Cross them at your peril.

— Gloria Borger – Delamar Free Press, 2947