The world of Onyx Black is characterised by many different groups and factions - be they social, religious, political or otherwise motivated. This document will list the most important ones.
Funded by the homeworlds and - in secret - by Sector C-Null, the ISPD is the governing body in the neutral zone. With a crew complement of almost two thousand, the ISPD staffs everyone from Navareans to androids and even a few Delta. In general, with the exception of Talos, people who work for the ISPD are considered traitors to their homeworld. As a result, the ISPD needs to get most of their crew from somewhere else. To accomplish this, a new way of acquiring personnel had to be thought of.
Working with Theotech Inc, they developed a method of recombining and splicing genetic material of willing volunteers to create genetically recombined clones. No one clone is genetically identical to either their siblings or any one volunteer - recombination ensures that every clone has anywhere from 6 to 100 parents. These parenthood is not revealed to the volunteers - rather, once a charge of ISPD clones is grown, they are raised on the precinct they were grown for.
Of the 100 fertilised eggs of one clone charge, it's only expected that about 10-20% survive. The current record of clones surviving beyond the toddler age is 41 clones. These clones are all siblings and are registered as well as treated as such - they also share the same last name.
All cloned individuals are raised by the precinct's crew - with the precinct's captain acting as the parental figure. To combat airlock fever and keep the morale of the growing clones high, the precinct's physician also acts as their therapist and secondary parental figure.
In order to be economically viable, the ISPD sells confiscated goods on the galactic market. This includes, but is not limited to pirate ships, drug hauls, illegally acquired goods, controlled substances and even illegally operated space stations.
While this isn't known to many people, Sector C-Null owns and operates a lot of the neutral zone's precinct stations from the shadows. This is an agreement between the sector and the commissioner's office - and Sector C-Null pays a handsome price for this privilege. The precincts owned and operated by C-Null are 21-A (Morgana's precinct), 83-C (Near Sgt-A*), 11-N2 (In extra high orbit around Sol), 43-G (near Galathea Station), 01-MX (near the Maxwell Singularity) and 33-J (along the Tides junction). This agreement grants Sector C-Null a retainer with Captain Merri - in essence, Merri is working for C-Null more than she does for the ISPD. Of course, she is aware of this, even though she'd rather think she has some personal agency and authority left.
Sector C-Null is the biggest mercenary group in the galaxy. Led by Constance Augustine under the pseudonym C-Null, this empire controls most of the pirate operations in the neutral zone. They position themselves as a family - a giant organisation that values loyalty and individuality above all else. No matter who you are - you will find your place in Sector C-Null.
It's unknown how many members the sector has. Conservative estimates place the total crew complements in the ten thousand range, and among the sector members, it is said that C-Null herself knows every single one of her compatriots personally.
The base of operations of Sector C-Null is Centauri Starbase. Hiding behind the gravitational lens of Sgt.A*, the base is perfectly concealed and undetectable by conventional scans. In order to detect it, one's ship has to compensate for the gravitational lensing effect of the black hole. This requires massive computational power, so a ship has to connect to the starbase's computer to plot a course. That way, no one but invited guests will be physically able to dock with Centauri Starbase. All attempts to blind fly will most likely end with the ship getting caught behind the event horizon.
Politically, Sector C-Null leans heavily left wing. They are a militia that's organised incredibly vertically, with C-Null herself having executive control over any decision. In practice, she rarely uses this power because she trusts her subordinates to do their job well. This trust is a cornerstone of C-Null philosophy. The sector can only function if there is no mutual distrust present - many operations like this have fallen apart before due to infighting.
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