Vigil's Railroad

The Vigil's Railroad
Goals	Relocate persecuted humans, aliens, and synthetics.

The Vigil’s Railroad is a colloquial term for the systematic movement of persecuted synthetics, humans, and aliens for the purpose of resettling them with new identities elsewhere in the Empire. It takes its name from the fact that it historically had as its backbone the Vigil Pilgrimages of Repentant sects, sponsored by the Church of Humanity, Repentant.

Early History and CHR Involvement

Repentant sects and members were involved in the smuggling of persecuted people since long before the War Against the Artificials, often utilizing the excuse of Vigil Pilgrimages for such efforts. The mass persecution of synths resulting from the war, however, led to an expansion of such efforts by orders of magnitude.

During the years of the CHR's existence, the Vigil's Railroad involved organized CHR Pilgrimages, black-market smugglers, and affiliated merchant vessels, all dedicated to moving persecuted souls to places of refuge. Though the system was not exclusively run by CHR members, those associated with the Church of Humanity Repentant made up the bulk of its members and support. The railroad was comprised mostly of ideologically driven volunteers from all walks of life, and criminals known for their utmost discretion (for the right price of course). Its organizers moved people off the radar and then smuggled them off world through CHR organized pilgrimages or aboard one of the many merchant vessels constantly travelling between Cabina and other worlds across the sector (the Cabina Cups Tea Company’s merchant fleet being the most prominent of these). The refugees were often provided black market fake id, improvised surgery to avoid facial recognition (at places such as the Gran Panacea Medical Center), and temporary shelter paid for either by the volunteers themselves, or the CHR via various obfuscating roundabouts. There were various exit points across the sector where smuggled individuals were resettled, one of the more prominent ones being the Cabina Frontier.

The Church of Humanity, Repentant vigorously and publicly denied involvement. Nevertheless, the CHR's overall coordination of member sects greatly (if indirectly) aided the expansion of the network, as did its support of Vigil pilgrimages. In addition, parts of its Department of Special Circumstances were involved in directly organizing these efforts. Still, given the secrecy and "need-to-know" nature of the operations, even the High Exarchs of the Concord were only dimly aware as to what exactly was going on, except that something was going on. They approved privately as vigorously as they denied everything publicly.

Current Activities

Summary

Following the dissolution of The Church of Humanity, Repentant and the collapse of the Department of Special Circumstances, much of the unofficial coordination of these efforts was shaken. Nevertheless, the countless volunteers associated with the Vigil's Railroad quickly found ways to reconnect and re-coordinate. The did this primarily through continued involvement with Repentant sects, and later also by means of contacts in the corporate and charitable entities of the new organization SERAPH, which had assumed control of many of the properties and assets of the CHR.

Participants in the Vigil's Railroad move people off the radar and then smuggle them off-world to safer locations in the sector. This smuggling is done through organized Repentant pilgrimages, through contacts with various criminals knowns for their utmost discretion (for the right price, of course), through shipping refugees as "cargo" aboard merchant or charity vessels (most often those of entities associated with SERAPH), or through employing refugees as temporary hires (listed or unlisted) aboard the vessels of such entities. The refugees are also often provided black market fake ID, improvised surgery to avoid facial recognition, and temporary shelter. These costs are paid by either the volunteers themselves, Repentant sects, or SERAPH and its entities via various obfuscating roundabouts.

The secrecy and security of the railroad is defended largely by its compartmentalization and lack of record-keeping, alongside a wide range contacts with InfoSec specialization that can be called on for favors where needed, and the fanatical ideological commitment of its most central organizers. Crux may capture a specific group shipping synthetics, but that group will know nothing about the thousands of other groups and individuals doing the same thing in different ways in different places. Contacts are based on informal networks of trust and "a guy who knows a guy" -- an information network is based on knowing the right people, who in turn know the right people, who in turn know the right people. Parts of the chain that have untrustworthy or corrupt people tend to be caught and die off, while those parts that survive are the ones where the people involved proved reliable.

The Vigil's Railroad has various exit points across the sector, places where smuggled individuals are resettled. One of the more prominent ones is the Cabina Frontier, and Pylopid is as an increasingly preferred exit point for alien rescues.

Vigil Pilgrimages

Main article: The Vigil

On sect-sponsored vessels and/or with sect-facilitated paperwork, Repentant pilgrims cross the sector on traditional pilgrimages. They visit core worlds, rimworlds, and out-of the-way shrines. They utilize tourist visas and work visas, with some paperwork of more legitimate caliber than other paperwork. These pilgrimages continue to provide cover and means of facilitating the movement of many human, alien, and synthetic refugees across the Empire.

Sect Specializations

In addition to the overall tendency of Repentant individuals to engage in Pilgrimages, and to aid souls in need when called upon, several sects have particular beliefs and practices that lend their membership toward more mobile or thoroughgoing involvement in railroad activities.

• Branches of Taran: Following in their founder's footsteps, most in this tiny sect pledge themselves to assisting the "Pilgrim's Path" (their term for the Vigil's Railroad).
• Gardens of the Repented: Members of this sect increasingly go into space, some gone for months at a time, all claiming to be on the Twilight Vigil. On Cabina is a sect garden with many strange plants constantly added, with some saying each flower represents an alien or synth rescued by members of the sect.
• Stewards of Knowledge: Normally more intent on smuggling texts and artifacts than people, these individuals can nevertheless sometimes be called upon to apply their expertise to more living cargo, particularly the alien life many of them study.
• Clockworkers' Faith: Synthetics are not only welcomed by the Clockworkers' Faith, but many feel almost instinctively drawn to it, due to its rhythms and chants, the regularity of its festivals and ceremonies, and the emphasis on simple structured living according to set patterns.
• Devotees of the Good Work: The sect considers synthetics to be perfect workers, the creation of which was divinely inspired so that synths could inspire humans to work better. While the sect put a lid on any overt synth-worship after the War Against the Artificials, it remains extremely pro-synth, and its members welcome rescued synths into their ranks with new identities as loyal human workers of the sect.

The Mourning Star

This is space station was originally owned by Governor Mourne Kushrenade. Professor Lavi Thorund has recently become the primary person in charge of operations. The station has a slow but functional spike drive, allowing it to move from place to place, though it only does so rarely.

The Mourning Star primarily harbors non-human refugees and the disenfranchised youth. The station's stated goals are: 1) To provide a safe haven to the marginalized; and 2) To find safe hospitable worlds with steady employment to relocate the refugees. To those few who are in the know, the Mourning Star is known as a key locus and thoroughfare in the Vigil's Railroad network. It is currently located in an undisclosed location somewhere in the core systems.

SERAPH Involvement

Society for Ethical Reform through Aid, Protection, and Humanitarianism

Main article: SERAPH

Through various backchannels, questionable bookkeeping, and deniable efforts done in absolute secrecy, many of SERAPH's charities and corporations are, in one way or another, involved in facilitating and expanding the efforts of the Vigil's Railroad. With the organization’s sector-wide presence and ties to Repentant sects, members of SERAPH are ideally positioned to help facilitate certain forms of transport and contact.

SERAPH and its entities officially and completely deny any such involvement and denounce these rumors. Inspections of their bookkeeping have come up clean, but in truth and absolute secrecy, SERAPH's involvement includes but is not limited to, the following:

• Gran Panacea Charitable Foundation: Individuals in this organization sector-wide provide medical aid, cosmetic surgery, and identity reassignment services to refugees (both synthetic and human). The Gran Panacea Medical Center on Cabina was historically famous for its medical aid to synthetics, and remains a covert (and officially denied) nexus of such expertise and assistance.
• Maajid Memorial Foundation for the Education of Humanity: This organization's members often attempt to rescue aliens they consider in danger. The organization facilitates alien resettlement (both licitly and illicitly) to various friendlier locations.
• Cabina Cups Tea Company: Its merchant fleets are used to ferry refugees (particularly of the synthetic variety) either as cargo, unlisted passengers, or temporary hires. Many refugees find resettlement and more permanent employment on its tea plantations and in its manufactories. Due to recent contracts signed regarding tea growth and shipment in the Trilliant Expanse, the reach of its network has vastly increased.
• AIDSERFS: Officially, one of the initiatives of this organization is to facilitate the relocation of serfs seeking to better their circumstances. Individuals in this organization may resort to less legal means of facilitating this goal, including black market ID and identity reassignment for "self-emancipation", if official channels prove ineffective or in cases of serf mistreatment.
• Cabina Coffee Company: Its merchant fleet and plantation network is not nearly as extensive as Cabina Cups, but individuals in the company do what they can in places where the CCC has a foothold. And if you for some reason need weaponized caffeine for various operations, their R&D might be the place to look.
• SERAPH Outreach Centers: Secret basements? What secret basements?  

Additional Coordinating Organizations

Synthetic Sector Safety Support

Synthetic Sector Safety Support

Main article: Synthetic Sector Safety Support

Many individuals involved with the Vigil's Railroad tune into SSSS broadcasts, provide assistance to and are trusted contacts of individuals in the SSSS, and connect synthetic refugees with SSSS services where applicable. Membership in the two movements may overlap, and the Inter-system Operatives of the SSSS have had meetings on Cabina with prominent individuals involved in Vigil’s Railroad to discuss coordination of efforts.

Individuals involved in the railroad are often involved with the SSSS through provision of synthetic medical services, emergency efforts to hide synths in discreet local locations (often with Repentant sects), securing of false paperwork and out-of-system transportation, and facilitating relocation to the edges of the sector, sanctuary sites, or other desired locations.

The Jun Bloc

"Ask for Jun"

Main article: The Jun Bloc

The Jun Bloc and the Vigil's Railroad operate in very similar ways, with a number of individuals working as "members" of both, insofar as both operations offer membership. At certain edges it can be unclear where or what the distinction is.  Individuals associated with the Railroad will often know they can point synths toward certain locations and advise them to say, "Is Jun here today?" Moreover, many Repentant sects and churches, and innumerable CHR- affiliated charities and shops and outreach centers, became locations one could "ask for Jun" and be shepherded into operations specific to helping synthetics (often including other individuals who consider themselves members of the Jun bloc).

When the UPC fell apart and the CHR dissolved, however, much of the Jun Bloc went even further underground, being even more careful with who they trusted. Jun Block individuals were instinctively wary of the shift of many individuals, charities, shops, and outreach centers to affiliation with SERAPH, not sure what level of interference or compromise the affiliation with the new organization might lead to. SERAPH's own internal push to better hide and distance itself from illegal activity, and the high scrutiny it saw immediately post-STO from the High Church and House Crux, also tended to either push out Jun bloc individuals, or send them far deeper behind the scenes of SERAPH operations. While Jun bloc relations with contacts in most Repentant sects and churches remain strong (as these do not fall under SERAPH reporting or oversight), certain places that were considered "safe" under CHR branding are currently no longer considered so under the SERAPH affiliation, as individuals in the Jun bloc feel out the shape of the new organization, and how far it is safe to work in or with SERAPH's various stakeholding entities.

The Deadbound

Main article: Deadbound

The Deadbound do not have doctrines, so much as they have a mission. Firstly, to protect the secrets behind the Deathless Synthetic Contract from ever being found out, by any means necessary. Secondly, to protect all Deathless and Koschei resident synths to the best of their ability. They are secretive and self-centered, but will help other synths and more reluctantly aliens if it does not pose a risk for them or is in exchange for favors from rest of the underground network.

Exit Points

The lonesome Cabina frontier

The railroad has innumerable exit points and havens around the sector, particularly along the outer rim of the Empire, or in specific out-of-the-way locations on more central planets.  Among some of the notable rumored exit points are the following:

• Cabina Frontier: A backwater of a backwater and “wild west,” dotted with thousands of settlements and towns and monasteries, all heavily Repentant in ethos. Frontier settlements are generally wary and distrustful of visitors and anyone not part of their tight-knit communities, but open to peaceful settlers and refugees willing to commit and work. Their local sheriffs tend to keep their own law without regard for what anyone outside of the frontier thinks about it.  It is rumored that in addition to runaway serfs and repentant criminals, a significant part of the population of the more remote settlements is currently made up of synth refugees.
• Pylopid: Over a year of influence from CHR and SERAPH legal efforts has resulted in various local and legal protections for aliens within two clan communities in the Deep, in additional to several “sanctuary zones” in less-travelled stretches of the Deep for rescued and refugee aliens of various sorts. Synth and human refugees also gravitate toward this rimworld due to the impenetrable and sprawling cities and settlements of the Deep, far removed from the gaze of the Empire.
• Shān: Where many on the Railroad express reservations about risks like "raiders" or "being eaten alive" the moment Shān is mentioned, others hear the call of opportunities not available on safer, more orderly planets. The icy waste offers a rough sort of freedom, the kind found by going as from civilization as you can without leaving technology and the familiar behind. Shān remains an oft-requested destination for those who would rather take refuge behind a gun. Rumors say the Railroad sometimes takes Cah-Binn from Cabina to join their kin in Redshell to satisfy similar violent urges.
• Aomori: There exists a small and devoted coalition dedicated to hiding synthetics, and there are rumors of a sprawling underground sanctuary for synthetics, hidden beneath crumbling pre-Scream ruins, with any approach and detection impeded by proximity to the Gaia Terraforming Engine and the bizarre MES emissions of Shukra Ghost Trees.
• Koschei: "Deserted" bunkers or the manufacture Koschei birth records to insert individuals into the general population are among the preferred means of secreting individuals here. The hands-off nature of the noble administration on Koschei, and the committed activity of the Deadbound, are among the things that enable the continued success of these operations. All this is done through layers of deniability, with plenty of "corrupt officials" to blame if anything is ever found out.
• Bora: Few individuals would elect to immigrate to an icy low-tech tribal world, given better options. On the other hand, the planet boasts a population of hundreds of millions to hide among, and its rimworld isolation is compounded by an automatic defensive net system that blasts most incoming ships from the sky, providing another layer of security by effectively quarantining the world. Individuals with the right contacts can end up in the secret labs studying the vaults and becoming more experimenter than potential experimentee, when it comes to interactions with the local population.
• Hong Lu:- The planet's air quality may be terrible, as may be the life expectancy of its residents. But it has a high tech level, a teeming (over)population to become lost in, and is the black market capital of the sector. The fact that Imperials are burned in the streets may also be a bonus. A number of individuals on railroad are happy enough to claim this as their exit point, and overall it is an important northwestern nexus for criminal, smuggling, and revolutionary contacts.
• Keelside: Less a final exit point of the Railroad, and more a nexus for individuals in need of additional forged documents and faster/secure transport to the more obscure parts of Acheron Rho.  This unassuming biodome is located on the opposite side of the Lodestone to Bio-Dome Event 1 and Habitat Horizon A, away from the prying eyes of law-abiding visitors and Imperial enforcement. Occasional aliens are sometimes also smuggled to the South District of Bio-Dome Event 1, which contains a closed off sub-district with guards to protect residents from the aliens who reside within. (The inside is more or less identical to the non-alien side, and the guards are actually there to protect the aliens from non-Pyxis humans).
• Teuthem: Due to its small and concentrated population and deadly wilderness, this is usually a poor endpoint for refugees. But the planet is full of smugglers and other questionable individuals, making it an important nexus-point in the north for those desiring passage, papers and identity management, or connection with more criminal or revolutionary elements.