Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Who Are The Order?

What is the Grey Steel Order?
"Victorus aut mortis."

-Inscription on the Talon coat of arms

It's a good question, and a difficult one to answer. According to publicly available records, the Grey Steel Order was one of the earliest knightly orders sponsored by the Church of the Twin-Tailed Comet, an old religion, Centered around a god named Sigmar, which existed in ancient time, when Tacitus was still alive, in the city of Gilneas and was dissolved after the great plague, the one high (supposedly) wiped out the Khal Dynasty, wiped out its city. Of course, highly classified files held by the Aquilan, Voshkod, Katsuragi, and Asmodian say differently, as do, of course, the personnel of the Order themselves.

According to the Aquilan' files, the Order are a covert paramilitary force operating mainly out of neutral territory, and intent mainly on fighting the Church of the Eight Star, a cult-like religion worshiping four gods. All of this is true, but it is far from the real story.

The Voshkod believes the Talon to be a cult, a militant offshoot of the Twin-Tailed Comet that has survived underground and still clings to ideas and principles obsolete centuries ago. This is true, too, but again fails to acknowledge how pervasive and dangerous the Order is.

Katsuragi psychics have come to the unsettling conclusion that the Order may have had a hand in the Katsuragi-Asmodia War. There are too many troublesome questions about the late Emperor Yoshiro's childhood tutor, a man in a position no one would think to look at. Yet now, looking back, the Protectorate should have been more vigilant of even the most innocuous of people. These psychics are right to wonder - and perhaps fear - how far the Order’s influence reaches.

The Asmodian Council have a better idea than most of what the Order’s aims are. They know about the Heralds, and suspect that the Order’s objectives reach further than that. But even for them, identifying the Order's motives is little more than educated guessing.

Ask a common Footman of the Order what they’re fighting for, and they’ll give any number of reasons - striking back at enemies the ADI won't acknowledge, waging holy war against God's enemies, and fighting the rising tide of atheistic science are only a few of the most common. All of these reasons for the Order's combat operations are true, but omit many other factors.

Ask a Crusader, and their answer will be more informed. They are aware they are warriors in a struggle centuries old, and a war in which mere guns and fire are but the most primitive weapons available. They know that the real war takes place in the heart and soul. Killing bodies, for the Order, has never been anything but a messy last resort... although that may be changing.

Ask one of the Triumvirate, the enigmatic leaders of the Talon, men and women with no faces or names, and only then will you receive the true answer to what the Talon is, and in so doing learn that some things are best left unknown.

The Grey Steel Order is a conspiracy in every sense of the word. It is hidden from the world at large, carrying out machinations right under the noses of the supposed superpowers of the world. Its actions often seem to have no rhyme or reason to them, and make sense to none but its very highest levels of leadership. Order personnel universally prefer to martyr themselves rather than be captured, but even for those skilled and fortunate enough to capture an Order operative, little of use can be gleaned: the Order takes excellent care of its own, but guards its mysteries, of which there are a great many indeed, very carefully. Many serve in the Order for their entire lives but never come close to learning what the real agenda of the Order is. Even the Crusaders, the battlefield commanders of the Order, seldom learn what the true strategic goals of a given Crusade are. Taking a city may only be of secondary importance to ensuring that the right person sees the Order in action. That the Talon is guided to some extent by prophecy is well known in some levels of the Order, as so aptly proved by Lady Maria, but one might wonder how that's possible, if the Talon have failed for so long as they apparently have.

The truth, if one could call it that, is that the Grey Steel Order plays a very long game indeed. They know that making the right man see the right thing can have dramatic repercussions decades later, and many a conspiracy theorist has wondered just how much of the world's history was orchestrated by these enigmatic figures. The answer, inevitably, is less than the most wild of theories, but their hand has indeed shaped the world, and will continue to do so. But beyond that, the Order are the only ones who could truly answer the question of how much they have influenced, and they certainly won't tell. In fact, only three of them could tell, and the Triumvirate are not the most forthcoming if people.

Cloak and Dagger
"I walk down the street and I see them all around me. That vendor selling flowers, is she a friend or a foe? That policeman at the corner, is he on our side or theirs? That waitress winking at me, is she trying to be friendly or trying to give me a sign? Why are they all staring at me? Why are they ALL staring at me?!"

-Tape recording found on body of a male corpse found in Fodlan, identity unknown.

When those conspiracy theorists who believe in the Grey Steel Order can be persuaded to share their knowledge, through payment or ideals, the picture they paint of said Order is often an evocative one: According to many supposedly 'in the know', the Order is a world-spanning conspiracy with members in every government, every board of directors, and every gas station. Almost every major figure is either willingly or unknowingly doing the will of the mysterious group, and often anyone the theorist personally doesn't like will also be painted as an unwitting pawn of the secret world superpower. If these conspiracy theorists are to be taken at face value, the Grey Steel Order is able to act through anyone, anywhere, at any time they like. There is nowhere they cannot see, and no honey pot they do not have their fingers in.

There is a certain truth to these rantings. Certainly the real Order makes use of foreign soldiers and labor who are unaware of the nature of their employers, and it is estimated by archivists within the Order that as much as 16% of it's total manpower may come from people who are unaware of their affiliations or ties to the Order. Factory workers and common ground-pounders are after all in plentiful supply, don't tend to ask too many questions, and are deemed just dull and simple-minded enough by the chain of command to be beneath worth corrupting by the Heralds Of Chaos. But for the most part, the Order prefers not to manipulate directly from the shadows. There are two major reasons for such a decision: on an ideological level, directly manipulating major world leaders and other such individuals is considered distasteful by members of the old guard within the order, who reason that such crude tactics are more evocative of the Heralds and prefer to take a more subtle, guiding approach when working with such figures. On a more practical level, those figures who are directly manipulated have a tendency to, for better or worse, screw up carefully made plans set up years ago by not talking to the person they should have or getting inconveniently killed before they were supposed to. As such, the vast majority of people aligned with the Order are split up into two categories: Full members, and Cells.

Up to 23% of the Grey Steel Order is composed of full members, made up of those who are directly aware of the Grey Steel Order and what it's goals and overall orders are. They are the ones responsible for maintaining and piloting the immense Crawlers and vehicles of war to battle, the ones responsible for providing cover stories and implanting false data and muddying the truth to the point where it is no longer recognizable, and the ones responsible for overseeing the various bases of operations used by the Order. Full members are also the ones who are directly considered to be Order 'personnel', and are often portrayed as the face of the Order (at least insomuch as a face exists) by the propaganda and inspirational departments in Gilneas. It is a testament to their abilities that, in an organization as widespread and secretive of the Order, they can effectively organize and communicate with other major Order strongholds at all without being traced or discovered.

But for all their skill and organization, fully recognized and ordained members of the Order are still a minority within the Order as well as the group least likely to actually encounter members of the Heralds in the world today. That dubious honor falls instead to the remaining 61% of the Grey Steel Order: Cells.

If being a full member of the Order of the Talon is a position of power and authority, of a strict, well-trained, and prepared lifestyle, being a member of a Order Cell is anything but. Knowing just enough about the Order of the Talon to be considered an asset to their mission, but not enough of an important asset to justify true induction, they are overseen by Talon officers who never reveal themselves directly and are sent on missions they know nothing about to kill people they have never met. Rather than intimidating figures clad in armored plate or armed with terrifying weaponry, cell members are armed only with what they can buy or acquire themselves on the open or black markets, or in exceptionally cases given by the Order. Instead of battle tanks and Crawlers, they make due with minivans, jeeps, and occasionally civilian aircraft or commandeered police helicopters. There is no security in their assigned tasks, nor any chance of support from their shadowed superiors: should a cell member die, be seriously injured, or be confronted by police responding to a shooting, their Order attachment may simply disappear, leaving them to face the consequences on their own. It is no surprise that many cell members fall to paranoia, forced into a life where at any time, someone could suddenly try to kill them: a random stranger on the street, a friend, or even a loved one.

Despite the danger and the double-life cell members must lead, however, they still fight. Some cells are made of former criminal gangs who found the truth and were blackmailed in return for their service. Some were police or military squads whose superiors were replaced or converted into full members, and must face the possibility of being fired or dishonorably discharged if they do not comply. Some truly believe that the Heralds Of Chaos is a threat that must be addressed, and are willing to do anything they can to try and stop them. Some want to protect their families, their homes, or their country. Some just like to hurt people and receive praise for it. But no matter what their background or reason for fighting, once a person becomes an Order cell member they can never go back. Many continue to go on and lead double lives until they die from battle with Cultists or other causes, always watching out of the corner of their eyes for masked figures. Some are killed deliberately or accidentally by Cultists in running firefights and sudden home invasions. Some accidentally die in conflicts with other cells, tricked by the Heralds or ordered by faulty information from their superiors. A few go mad. Though the lucky ones may get inducted as a full member.

The full members of the Order of the Talon do not like to focus much on the 61%. Someone has to fight the everyday battles, but there has to be secrecy. Caution. Planning. In a day and age where any camera can capture an errant armored figure, any plane can spot the steam from a factory site in the middle of nowhere, and anybody could be a Cultist, brazenly attacking the forces of the Heralds in open daylight is no longer enough. Attacking with full force when the Scorpion has been cornered is welcomed whenever possible, but somebody has to weaken it first. Assassinating Cultists is all well and good, but the Heralds hasn't survived this long either without also being able to cover its tracks very well.

And so the few sacrifice the many to save the world, and pray when night falls that their actions, and the blood of innocents staining their hands, were not in vain.

Life In the Order
"Good food, comfortable quarters, working air conditioning in my tank, and all they ask is that I attend church every night? If I'd known, they wouldn't have needed to kidnap me to begin with." -A Talon officer, formerly a Voshkod officer, appraises the conditions of his service.

The question an outsider might have, on learning of the Order's organization and purpose, would be to ask what life for the average member of the Order is like. The answer, surprisingly, is comfortable. While the Talon hold the ascetic, monk-like officer as an ideal, they are in truth more practical in their expectations for the majority of the Order's personnel. The Order provide comfortable quarters for all officers and personnel, light on luxury but heavy on the quality of the furnishings, and even Order barracks are relatively comfortable. Order bases and Crawlers include well-equipped mess halls, and while no one would call Order food luxurious, the Order does like to keep its personnel as happy and comfortable as possible. This is not a merely altruistic decision: most of the Order's personnel could potentially be very dangerous if they decided to betray the Order, so it is in the Talon's best interest to keep its members content.

One of the most surprising revelations for new converts, however, is that the Order has evolved a more practical approach to ensuring a high degree of physical fitness among its members, even the non-combatants: all Order bases come with a large and well-equipped gymnasium, and most have an outdoor sports area as well. Tennis and boxing are always popular pastimes among the Talon - Auguste Oberlin, the current Master of the Forges, was at one point the Order's champion pugilist - and recent decades have seen organized games of soccer become a regular fixture of the Order's physical training and recreation regimes. Strange as the concept of people like the Grey Steel Order playing sports for fun is to an outsider, it is as ever a development with a pragmatic side: clean, wholesome sports are seen as a far better form of recreation than the other common recourses of military organizations like recreational drugs and gambling (not even the Order are stupid enough to ban drinking from off-duty entertainment, and in fact, the Order controls many historical vinyards throughout the neutral territories that were once owned by the Twin-Tailed Comet, using them as a covert source of funding).

The exact nature and extent of the Order’s dogmatism, in turn, varies by location. The Sanctum Majoris and Saint Peter's Bastion, naturally, are the most dogmatic and conservative. This tends to diffuse by distance, however, with the Order's within Guardian or Destroyer territory sharing a deeply conservative nature, while occasionally to the consternation of the Order’s leadership, more distant bases of operations, especially the Order's stronghold in Dalaran, are looser in nature.

The Grey steel Order sharply discourages personal liaisons in general for its personnel. Spouses are seen as a marked weak link for Order members, unreliable and with a disturbing habit of learning more than they should. Some within the Order take it so far as to pronounce marriage as an unhealthy distraction for members, though this extreme a view is not universal, with newer members even considering such extreme idiotic. Again the Order ideal of the ascetic rears its head: the true Order ideal is of a man or woman with no love but that for and by the Lord God, shunning worldly luxuries and distractions in favor of a purity of purpose and duty. The Triumvirate, however, is practical enough to realize how unrealistic that ideal is even as they encourage it. Men and women have their libidos, and actively trying to suppress such things cannot help but be detrimental to discipline and morale, as so aptly demonstrated by the uglier side of the Crusades - the Talon had no part in the mass rape and butchery of (insert suitable location), among other places, but it noted the atrocities and decided, however reluctantly, that a solution had to be found. One of the Order's secrets most seldom spoken of is a number of young women and men in the Order's employ, prostitutes "liberated" from the world's cities (especially the Sprawls) and brought under the Order’s wing. They are "utilized" as before their "recruitment", but the Order does extend them medical care, weans them off the drugs they are frequently addicted to, and teaches them more useful skills to help them find a better career later in life - many of these young women and men take places in the Chamber Unseen when their "service" is complete. The Order consider it an ugly and necessary evil, but one might point out that it has had its successes. Though newer, and some older, members are now questioning if it’s necessary, though they appreciate giving these young, lost, souls a chance for a better future.

The other earthly love many Order personnel have, on the other hand, is carefully regulated but tolerated: Order members are permitted to stay in touch with the families they had before joining the Order, subject to Order censoring of their communications, and the Order discretely provides pensions and counseling for the families of members who died in battle. Order soldiers are not often permitted to visit their families (exception: members of the Chambers Epistolary and Unseen, obviously), but the excellent pay members receive is often enough to justify the service of most members, even before considering their faith and mission. On a less savory note, it is not uncommon for the Order to use these visits as a way to indirectly spread misinformation via the unwitting Order soldier.

Order Dominions
"Dalaran is effectively under our control, councilors. The retrofit of the station with a full suite of difference engines is complete, and our agents have infiltrated all relevant levels of the Alliance government. The Chamber Epistolary has enjoyed considerable success, and church attendance rates in all urban and rural sectors increase weekly. We still cannot operate openly there, but I recommend further expansion of the facility and the establishment of secondary facilities to directly supply our presence there, as well as investigate the ongoing reports of unidentified warcraft in and near the poles."

-One of the Grand Council reports on the state of Order operations in Dalaran.

In truth, there is only one area where the Grey Steel Order can operate directly. Nevertheless, the Order's influence is global. By and large, where compatible religious sentiment has been historically strong, the Talon have maintained a presence as well. Where compatible religious have historically been weak or nonexistent, the Talon have not established a permanent presence. Operatives of the Chambers Epistolary and Unseen operate throughout the world, including the government of the Voshkod, Katsuragi, and even the Collective of Auring, but it is rare for the Order to establish a permanent base in a given geographic region.

It is difficult to generalize what life is like in these stations, as their operations so often depend on the nature of their home region. The Dun Morogh and Tal Dovar forges masquerade as Alliance weapon factories, and employ ignorant labor like any other defense-related industrial plant, albeit with uncommonly generous pay and benefits that ensure there is never a shortage of workers, and with visible support of community churches and outreach programs. More isolated facilities like Port Vigilance employ only Order members, who serve terms of defined duration at the facilities with little to no access to the outside world to ensure the facility's secrecy. Fort Absolution and the Redemption Grounds are more like prison camps in their format of operations, with defenses placed as much to defend from attacks from within as from without. The Orrder’s global reach results in an accordingly diverse range of operations.

Some areas, however, fall indirectly under the shadow of the Order. Saint Rita's Hospital in (insert Aquila city) is only part of a shadowy network of the Talon that has infiltrated much of the Aquilan Midwest. Dalaran, unbeknownst to both the Alliance and its own population and government, is under de facto complete Order control. In such regions, the Order employ a strategy of influence mainly from the bottom up: after the local government is compromised, the Order prefers to evangelize the population through both direct Order missionaries and clueless missionaries from other churches manipulated into sending missionaries into the Order. Defying what the conspiracy theorist would think, the Order don't actually care, usually, what a compromised region does. They are not there to crack down on crime or immoral behavior - though ideally, the religious revivals in Order regions takes care of that on its own - and do not actively spy on clueless normal people. The Order has far more useful things to do with its time, and would never risk detection over something trivial and transient. Here again, one must remember that the Order play a long-term game: their motives are not always obvious, and indeed not always intentional. The Order control of Dalaran, for example, is quite literally an accident on the part of the Order, but was recognized as useful once it happened.

Obviously, however, the Order’s influence is far weaker in some parts of the world than others. The Federation Of Aquila have proven easy enough to infiltrate over the years (though that is changing), but the insular, culturally stagnant Katsuragi Protectorate and Brotherhood Of Asmodia are far harder for the Talon to subvert. Ironic, one might note, that one culture centuries behind the times has had the most difficulty infiltrating other cultures equally culturally obsolete. Other regions have simply never held any great interest to the Order, such as Cantha. The Order’s reach is long, but finite.

Finally, there is Gilneas, the region built upon ancient ruins where the Order operates in the open. Shielded from discovery by simple obscurity and the Chamber Evangelical, modern-day Gilneas is a bizarre combination of the archaic, the modern, and the fantastical. It is not uncommon to see stone buildings that date back centuries sprouting smokestacks and hastily added wings containing steam boilers side by side with relatively modern construction. And, by and large, the region thrives. The Order's efforts to eliminate inter-religious hostilities in the region have been very, very thorough.

Indeed, life in Gilneas for the average civilian is peaceful and pleasant. An outsider might note, however, that the entire region seems trapped sixty years in the past. Electricity is rare outside the major cities and their enormous steam power plants, horses and donkeys outnumber automobiles, and even local fashions and societal functions seem frozen in a bygone era. Churches, synagogues, and mosques dot the cities and desert in (occasionally very strained) harmony, and visitors quickly feel like genuine outsiders in a world that has long since passed in the rest of the world. Gilneas are rarely seen abroad, but their Alliance Of Hawke passports are sufficient to alleviate most scrutiny. They are nevertheless stereotyped as extremely conservative, terminally old-fashioned, deeply suspicious of new-fangled inventions, and quite possibly inbred. Eccentric and the butt of many jokes, but harmless, and few ever have any desire to travel to this particular sector of the Alliance territory.

For the most part, the Order does not overtly interfere in local politics and culture. Their presence is sufficiently entrenched that their hand is simply not needed except on rare occasions. The Order's existence is also not a secret to the local population, although their scope, motives, and capabilities very much are. They are, by and large, treated as part of the landscape by locals - autonomous, to be respected when they do act, and rarely a significant concern to anyone. The Order does enjoy considerable respect and support from the local population for their efforts in assisting with natural disasters, defending the region from MLA, and occasionally offering remarkable assistance to those in need, however, and many young men and women seeking to rebel against their families or seek adventure knock on the doors of an Order outpost to seek training as a yeoman or squire. Those who are accepted - after a discrete but thorough background check - are often surprised to see a considerable number of foreigners in the Order, but by that point the recruit rarely questions the Order's activities.

For the citizens of Gilneas, the only regular external threats to worry about are the Moonlight Liberation Army and, occasionally, the White Guard. The MLA is regarded by most Gilneas as a menace to society and by local Order forces as a nuisance. Although every attempt by the MLA to launch an open attack on Gilneas towns or Order strongholds has either spontaneously collapsed due to infighting or attacked by the Voshkod, Aquila, Alliance, or even other MLA targets due to bad intelligence, occasional raids, rocket attacks, and suicide bombings are a fact of life for Gilneas. Simply put, the Order cannot prevent every attack, especially small-scale operations.

The Order, Science, and Technology
"When all is said and done, most technology was invented by men for one of three purposes: to kill with it, to make money off of it, or to have sex with it."

-Evie Frye, over lunch with Lando Calrissian

Contrary to what one might think, at the core operating levels, the Grey Steel Order is not comprised of Luddites, is perfectly accepting of science and technology, and makes no effort to curb scientific or technological development. There are, of course, outliers, but it is an exaggeration to claim that the Grey Steel Order is truly technologically backwards or unscientific. The Order takes it as granted that the Lord God is omnipotent and omniscient, and that by definition, all technological and scientific discoveries and inventions are only possible because God wishes them to be possible.

The Order does have a certain cultural anxiety and distrust of technology and scientific progress, but this has nothing to do with the science in and of itself. Over the centuries of the Order's existence, they've seen scientific revolutions come and go, earthshaking discoveries made, called heretical, accepted, and taken for granted. However, the Order has seen inventions made for peaceful purposes, and promptly used to kill and destroy. How and why the Nobel Prizes originated is a lesson the Order hasn't forgotten. Simply put, the Order fears what humanity will do with new knowledge and new technology, and believes that technology is swiftly outpacing humanity's ability to control it. Cybernetic augmentations and synthetic limbs are well and good, but the Order saw the battlesuits of the Brotherhood Of Asmodia and all the attendant horrors that go unadvertised coming long before the first battlesuit came online. And when the Order of the Talon learned of SKYNETS army and the Grey Goo, they were not surprised. To them, it was only a question of when artificial intelligence would slip its yoke.

It is true, to be sure, that the Order is slow to adapt to new technology, but it is also true that the Order largely does not need to quickly adopt every new technology. For one thing, their resources are vast but not inexhaustible, and equipping every knight with a spectrum rifle and all the attendant infrastructure to maintain the weapons simply isn't feasible. For another, the Order's existing equipment remains highly capable. The Order's mechanical engineers, though they don't use the term, are among the best in the world, and in particular are masters of metallurgy, hydraulics, pneumatic engineering, and mechanical engineering. A spectrum cannon may be powerful, but when a steam-powered cannon can do the same job just as well, substituting a boiler for the equally massive power supply needed for the energy weapon, the Order is content with the steam cannon. Archaic as it looks, the Order's technology for the most part maintains parity with the Order's rivals in every area the Order considers relevant.

Moreover, the Order has some unique forms of technology, and magic, found nowhere else in the world. Talon Steel, of course, needs no introduction, but perhaps the most interesting scientific frontier of the Order is found in their ambiaric and etheric devices. These devices operate on much the same scientific principles as technology used by the rest of the world, but perhaps as a result of the dramatically different construction of the devices, the Order has learned how to create technology that differs - sometimes significantly - in application from the rest of the world. As a result, the Order's knowledge and utilization of the electromagnetic spectrum has been proceeding along parallel lines to the rest of the world, using similar processes and principles to very different ends. Voshkod seismic technology uses very similar principles to the deadly sonic resonance of the Jericho Cannon, for example, but the results are completely different.

Finally, it should be noted that although the Order of the Talon is generally scientifically literate and technologically adept, its members do not see themselves in such terms, and many would be offended at the suggestion. There is a shroud of mysticism over the Order's very real understanding of science, barring the occasional convert who hasn't yet been completely indoctrinated into the Order's mindset, and most of these are quickly snapped up by the Fellowship of Saint Thomas. As is so often the case with the Order, a great deal of truth and reason are obscured behind ritual and dogma.