Syndicate Files: The Relic - Prologue

It's no accident that the first syllable of Syndicate is 'sin'. Every kind of offence against god or man can be found on the teeming stations of this sector: venal, mortal, sins of commission and of omission. No wonder the priests and the preachers did a roaring trade, promising salvation and a better, brighter afterlife than the here and now. Every child of Syndicate knew that everything could be had for a price, somewhere, somehow: even divine forgiveness.

Syndicate is home to a thousand gods, a million beliefs and sometimes it seems like a different cult for every man, woman, and child. Intaki children with too-old eyes who remember the first meeting with the Gallente, and their people's first steps into space, and watching Caldari Prime burn; the Red God of the Sani Sabik, in its bloody glory; the Void and Life, her partner in infinite one-night-stands; fickle Lady Fortune and her coins; Cold Wind with hard lessons, hand in hand with ancestors; and just 'God', of the Empire and other places.

Those are just some of the big ones, too. The Quafes and KKs. Then there's the little ones, the 'Jaque's Liquor Store' or 'Yakia's Pharmacy' of the religious world. Cults for Ametat, Avetat, the Deceiver, and the Divine-Emperor. Endless variations of neo-tribal shamanism. Star worshipers, planet worshipers, and even station worshipers. Con men and mad men scooping up the lost, the desperate, and the gullible even faster than the rest of Syndicate can eat them up - sometimes to worse ends.

That's the point I'm getting at, really: the worse ends and the 'holy' folks. Otherwise it might give you the wrong idea, me pointing a gun at a priest's head.