Basalt Cartel, Erosian Branch

Motto: "From stone, we carve dominion.”

Founded: 2761 CE (12 years after Eros colonization)

Primary Spheres: Subsurface mining shafts, fusion reactor belts, grav-plate utility corridors, worker barracks, and most of the old spinner-frame infrastructure.
Secondary Activities: Smuggling, drug manufacture, political manipulation, sabotage, assassination, and black-market tech trade

Operational HQ: The Basalt Cathedral—a cavernous command hub carved directly into the nickel-iron strata of Eros, surrounded by defensive plasma gates and pressurized tunnels.

Present Membership: ~26,000 personnel

• Full initiated members: ~4,100
• Contract muscle and mercs: ~6,500
• Deep mine workers (dual membership with guild): ~11,000
• Support staff (smugglers, engineers, medics, IVR-programmers, financial ops, etc.): ~4,400

Origins and Influence

The Basalt Cartel grew from the Deep Space Miners’ Guild, originally a mutual-aid society of contractors and engineers who risked their lives in Eros’s gravity-less shafts. Over generations, union muscle turned to organized muscle. When the miners realized that management and corporate security were as deadly as the vacuum, the guild began protecting its own—by extorting others.

By the time Eros spun itself still and installed gravity plates, the Cartel already controlled every reactor line that powered those plates. Today, the Basalt Cartel operates more like a shadow government — financing, regulating, and exploiting the mining industry while maintaining an uneasy alliance with the Red Dragons Tong, who dominate the freight docks.

Economic Power and the Mines

Eros’s mines snake through kilometers of reinforced tunnels. In the deepest shafts, fusion-driven tunnel boring machines and AI-guided drones chew through veins of nickel, cobalt, magnesium, and trace elements of gold, platinum, iridium, rhodium, and recently, rhenium—the real prize.

The Cartel maintains secret claims on the richest deposits through falsified guild manifests and embedded sensors feeding false readings to the colonial survey authority.

The recent rhodium and rhenium strike has transformed the Cartel into the most liquid criminal syndicate in the Belt. They sell raw ore through intermediaries to Mars’ refineries, using AI-run five-kilometer ore freighters as both legitimate cargo haulers and smuggling vessels.

Some of Eros’s nickel-iron ore still comes in a kamacite-taenite matrix, relics of the asteroid’s primordial metallic core — the kind of rock worth killing over.

Structure and Key Figures

• Director-Primus Osei “Basalt King” N’Komo: The current leader, a former mining foreman who replaced his lungs and skin after a decompression accident. He’s known for a calm demeanor that hides a brutal streak. His word is law in the shafts.
• Chief Enforcer Vega Liu: Oversees internal discipline and spacings. Her team, the Grav-Dogs, are veterans in low-G combat suits—known for literally throwing offenders out the locks without a spacesuit.
• Quartermaster “Black Fuse” Arran Thorson: Controls the syndicate’s logistics, reactor fuel contracts, and drug distribution. Thorsen’s signature is in every illicit shipment on Eros.

The Cartel is semi-feudal — each tunnel section or mining zone is run by a Crew Boss, who owes loyalty and tribute up the chain. Former security contractors, ex-Marines, and cyber-augmented miners with loyalty bought in platinum shares reinforce their ranks.

Directorate (The “Crown Stratum”) – 7 People

This is the ruling council. The Basalt King presides; six “Stratum Directors” oversee core divisions:

• Stratum of Ore – mining, extraction, geological acquisitions
• Stratum of Fire – fusion engines, reactor access, tunnel-borer operatives
• Stratum of Veins – finance, commodity manipulation, laundering
• Stratum of Teeth – enforcement, discipline, spacings
• Stratum of Breath – utilities, grav-plate power lines, life-support siphoning
• Stratum of Shadows – espionage, assassination information control, VR propaganda

Each Stratum Director deploys five to twelve crews, depending on profitability and danger level.

FIELD ELEMENTS AND SOLDIERS

Crew Composition

A standard mining-territory Cartel crew contains:

• 1 Crew Boss
• 2–5 Tunnel Sergeants
• 8–16 Hard Rock Miners (initiated members)
• 12–20 hybrid workers (guild + cartel)
• 4–7 “Torchbearers” (combat-augmented tunnel fighters)

Notable Elite Units

• Grav-Dogs: Specialists in 0g and micro-g combat.
• Approx. 150 fighters across three companies.
• Responsible for:
• Spacings
• Riot suppression
• Tunnel reclamation during unauthorized strikes
• Escorting rhodium/rhenium shipments
• The Black Calyx: Cyber-aug and wetware-enhanced assassins and saboteurs.
• ~40 operatives
• Used rarely—extremely expensive to deploy.
• The Kamacite Order: Heavily modified ex-miners who wear crude basalt-iron armor plates as intimidation display.
• 300 total, but spread throughout 20 zones

TERRITORY & POWER BASE

The Basalt Cartel controls:

• 83% of the deep-shaft mining zones
• 100% of the fusion-powered TBMs (tunnel-boring machines)
• All access to plasma drilling conduits
• 52% of life-support maintenance corridors
• All illicit narcotic refineries outside the arcologies
• All IVR dens inside worker barracks

They also heavily influence:

• Deep Space Miners’ Guild elections
• Grav-plate supply chain
• Reactor fuel bidding
• Certain ore-assay officers (bribed or threatened)

The Red Dragons Tong are the only group preventing full monopoly.

HISTORY ON EROS

Early Days (2749–2760 CE): The colony initially ran as a corporate-military experiment. Workers were expendable.
Poor safety + long shifts + corporate cruelty = unionization attempts.

The Great Reactor Quake (2758 CE): A fusion coolant accident killed 312 miners. Six months later the guild leadership mysteriously disappeared.

• The Basalt Cartel emerged soon after, offering:
• Medical care
• Death benefits
• Strike protection
• Weaponized solidarity
• Rumors persist they murdered the old leaders.

The Spin Shutdown (2785 CE): When Eros stopped rotating to install grav-plates, Cartel members sabotaged three external contractors, ensuring local Erosians got the new technical jobs–binding the colony’s infrastructure tightly to Cartel influence.

The Five-Kilometer Freighter Revolution (2810 CE onward): AI-driven Mars-bound ore ships formed the basis of Cartel-Tong rivalry and later cooperation.

The Rhodium Rapture (Current): Discovery of rhodium and rhenium instantly vaulted the Basalt Cartel into the upper stratum of Belt crime.

• Several cartel wars began in the shadows.

INCOME STREAMS

Total estimated annual yield: 1.2–1.5 trillion credits ₢

(Cartel numbers heavily laundered; real totals unknown)

Breakdown:

Mining Revenue – 48%

• Skim from commodity shares
• Illegal side-stream extractions (rhodium especially)
• Black-market ore sales to Mars, Titan and (secretly) Mercury
• Manipulation of output sensors to falsify quotas

Smuggling – 21%

• Drug manufacturing (legal to consume, illegal to use in mines)
• Rare metals transport off-books
• Augments, wetware, Old Terra and machine war relics

Interactive Virtual Reality & Vice – 11%

• IVR brothels
• Pain-sims
• Gambling
• Spacing ("The Walk") betting rings

Protection & “Security Contracts” – 10%

• “Protecting” worker barracks
• Making violence disappear
• Enforcing “safety guidelines”

(E) Blackmail, extortion, and information markets – 10%

Relations with Other Syndicates

RELATIONSHIP WITH RED DRAGONS TONG

The Red Dragons Tong monopolize Eros’s docks and shipping manifests, while the Basalt Cartel controls what comes out of the rock. Their alliance is pragmatic — ore must flow, freighters must leave. But the balance is fragile. Dockworkers loyal to the Tong frequently clash with Cartel heavies during strike shortages, and both groups use sabotage and information warfare more often than open gunfights.

Basalt Cartel: controls what comes out of Eros.

Red Dragons: control what leaves Eros

The Basalt-Dragon Accord, an unwritten truce, states that:

• The Tong manages import/export and smuggling routes
• The Cartel governs mining, fusion fuel, and labor “security.”

Breaking the Accord usually ends with a body orbiting Eros — or a reactor “accident” deep in a mine shaft.

Despite friction, the Basalt–Dragon Accord still holds:

• No killing at docks
• No attacking ore freighters
• No assassinating each other’s leadership
• Disputes settled in the Soot Courts (arbitrated by corrupt Eros judges)

Disputes arise from:

• Dock union votes
• Control of rhodium consignments
• Drug profits
• Smuggling through ore-freighter hull cavities

Both factions occasionally assassinate one another’s mid-level managers.

Drugs and Vice

Eros’s laissez-faire governance permits nearly every vice, but drug use while operating mining machinery is a capital offense.

Fusion engines don’t forgive mistakes.

The Cartel enforces the law with theatrical precision. Anyone caught high in a mine faces “The Walk”—a one-time airlock execution without a suit.

Public spacings are broadcast with sanitized disclaimers but become high-stakes betting events in illicit streams. The odds vary by distance, spin, or time-to-death—a grotesque mixture of punishment and entertainment.

Rumors persist that some of the “walked” were actually rivals, whistleblowers, or debtors—not true offenders. The Cartel uses these events to reinforce discipline among miners while keeping the much smaller non-mining population entertained.

DISCIPLINE and JUSTICE SYSTEM

The Walk

Spacing without a suit — the ultimate punishment.

Usually livestreamed with euphemistic commentary.

Betting markets flourish around:

• Distance traveled before unconsciousness
• “Flail pattern”
• Time until death
• Whether scavenger drones snag remains

Lesser Penalties:

• Reactor quarantine
• Grav-plate hard-mode confinement (increased weight)
• Induced vertigo injections
• Forced 0g tunnel duty without mag boots

Cartel “courts” use harsh but predictable rules.

Social Contract and Worker Control

Despite their brutality, the Cartel enjoys a high measure of loyalty. Every miner gets a profit-share of ore sales. The better the yield, the higher the cut—a rare system of collective incentive in the Belt. This is the carrot to the Cartel’s airlock stick.

The Cartel’s message is obvious: Keep the mines humming, and we all breathe easy.

Culture and Symbols

Life on Eros is a fusion of pragmatism and fatalism. Workers refer to the Cartel as “the Rock’s Blood”—necessary to keep the colony alive. Their insignia, a black basalt hammer, is sprayed across tunnel walls, reactor chambers, and the miners’ tattoos.

The Basalt Cartel sponsors underground fight clubs, sustains illegal VR dens, and funds small-time inventors who provide the colony’s black-market luxuries. It is both parasite and protector — a shadow guild born from vacuum and necessity.

Common Tattoos:

• Shafts running down the spinal column
• Reactor coils around arms
• Black veins over the heart for full members

Preferred Weapons:

• Mining picks modified with plasma edge
• Magnetic mine spike-launchers
• Short stun-rods
• Fragmenting micro-charges for sabotage

Rituals:

• Ore-washing baptism for new members
• Last Rock rite before spacings
• Grav-drop trials for elite fighters

Current Issues and Threats

• The rhodium strike threatens to destabilize the Cartel because of internal greed
• Several Stratum Directors plot to replace the Basalt King
• Red Dragons Tong are quietly expanding their dock influence
• Arcology elites are attempting to buy direct mine influence
• A mysterious zero-G saboteur (possibly an AI leftover from the Machine Wars?) is disrupting equipment