History/Consortium

The Martian outpost has just informed Earth of the discovery of etherium, and panic breaks out among the human governments and multinationals regarding the potential of this extraterrestrial resource, energy in its pure state and more powerful and less polluting than all the fuels exploited to date. Ownership of all the etherium mining contracts would mean world dominance.

The political and economic tensions ramp up when the first cargo of etherium is finally brought back to Earth. The Consortium, a multinational controlling an industrial empire in the energy sector, starts a race for permits against other companies equally determined to get their hands on them. A ruthless industrial war ensues, employing tactics that clearly contravene the strict limits of the law. Each company is engaging in frenetic espionage activity in the guise of legal investigations including blackmail, sabotage, corruption and electronic surveillance.

The shareholders of the Consortium are prepared to crush their opponents mercilessly, and abandon all moral scruples by creating the Shadow Network, a group of former military dropouts, commandos and assassins hired to use any means possible to eliminate the opposition. The Consortium gains the monopoly of the etherium market through its criminal activities, and uses the massive profits to invest in research and step up the development of its military, space and digital industries.

Barely a century later, the Consortium commands a military and economic empire that assures its undisputed dominance over the rest of the world.

The first spaceships powered by etherium reactors emerge over the next centuries, and the entire solar system is now controlled by Earth except Mars, which remains forbidden territory in accordance with agreements signed with the Smuggler.

As the close of the millennium approaches, the Consortium is preparing a war fleet and mobilizing an army: the struggle for etherium in the name of humanity can now begin.