Kaer Loche
From TaikaiWiki
First introduced in Eternity: ...And Justice For All, Kaer Loche is currently a Multiversal-level organization whose purpose is to safeguard peace and prosperity within the universes currently under its control.
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Overview
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Kaer Loche is relatively new to the Multiverse. Compared to societies like the Eternals and the Endless, Kaer Loche is still in its first tentative steps in establishing itself. It doesn't have the same amount of influence Entropy Incorporated does, and it has already crossed its path with some of their agents in its very first foray outside its cradle. Despite this initial conflict, proven to be just a small sample of things to come, Kaer Loche successfully established its presence in four other iterations. With the initial help from the R Syndicate, Kaer Loche managed to muster enough technology to make its presence known in these iterations in a more overt way than back home. Its way of working is unique; in its home iteration, the organization has been kept in secret for over a thousand years since its inception, but contact with other iterations meant that its secrecy would only be held in its birth iteration. In the FMA021 iteration, for example, Kaer Loche operatives openly worked with the natives in order to rid the country from internal threats. Kaer Loche's actions in other iterations were similar, allowing an unpreceeded amount of trade to happen between the five iterations that compose Kaer Loche's core today. Though it may seem odd, when compared to other societies that inhabit the Multiverse, Kaer Loche's secrecy is due because of its history; both its inception and internal organization owe much to the Bishops' obsession of finding the most practical way of doing things while giving the unknowing masses the impression that they, and not some unknown force, were the true agents of history. As of ...And Justice for All, the elaborate ruses created by Kaer Loche began to loosen, but its effects are still unpredictable when it comes to the impact of such a revelation within Kaer Loche's own Earth.
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The History of Kaer Loche
The Kaer Loche hails from an alternate-history Earth. The turning point came when the Kings' Crusade, instead of being a complete failure, ended in an alliance between the Kings and Saladin. What happened instead was the exact opposite: a Crusade against the Catholic Church of the time.
Humble Beginnings
Before the events depicted in Eternity: ...And Justice for All, the Kaer Loche was perhaps the best kept secret ever. It has existed for over a thousand years – at least 800 of those guiding the direction of nations, continents and, more recently, the world. Although there are similar secret organizations in other iterations of the Multiverse, Kaer Loche is one of the few that, while gaining global influence through craftily manipulating governments and the general public through absolute control of information, the Kaer Loche’s ultimate goal is to lead Earth and all of its nations towards a state of absolute peace and order – not exactly absolute, of course. The Kaer Loche, ever since its inception, works to create a world without chaos, and has been surprisingly successful over the course of human history, despite its membership number being below a thousand men and women.
Kaer Loche’s creed has been the same ever since it was first created in 1201 AD, 8 years after the Third Crusade, or the Kings’ Crusade, as it is more popularly known on Kaer Loche’s Earth. But its history didn’t begin then –- the founding of Kaer Loche was more of a consequence of the events that transpired during the war and that contributed to its end. More specifically, in 1191, twelve crusaders, serving under different monarchs that had traveled towards the Near East to fight Saladin, went missing after a vicious battle against the Muslim army a few hundred miles from Jerusalem. This event, while not extraordinary in any way or shape during that time, and the various acausal coincidences that ensued, acted as the main catalysts for Kaer Loche’s creation.
While the assembled European armies battled Saladin’s forces, the twelve crusaders, hailing from many feuds and regions of Europe, walked around the desert aimlessly – though not exactly a coincidence, these soldiers managed to maintain its cohesion, from the moment they reunited, the small contingent were able to survive several days and nights without falling apart due to petty conflicts between the soldiers and the difficult time they had when trying to communicate with each other due to the various languages and dialects each soldier was familiar with at the time. The twelve’s unofficial leader (at the time) was a German knight named Wilhelm Baumgartner, that served under Frederick, the Holy Roman Empire monarch. He, alongside an English knight named Kenneth Gustav Blair, lead the knights towards what a safe refuge for them, marching north towards what they hoped to be either an European controlled city or a more neutral ground from where they could at least survive the harsh conditions imposed by the Sahara desert.
As it turned out, they found neither – the history records of what exactly happened between their disappearance and eventual reunion with the Christian forces has proven to be either largely inaccurate, relying more on hearsay among Kaer Loche’s members and the network of misinformation created by the organization through time in order to protect itself from the general population suspicion, or improvable due to the lack of written accounts by any of the twelve knights (although there are many who believe that the Lochian High Council hasn’t provided the historical documents to anyone outside the High Council itself in order to maintain a certain aura of mystery around the Kaer Loche even to its own members). Instead, they found what seemed to be an abandoned temple, buried underneath the sand and apparently forgotten for what seemed to be several thousand years. With no other option left, the Knights entered the ancient building to take cover for the night, but to their surprise, they found out that their underground shelter seemed to be well kept and still active, with several torches lined against the wall, revealing several drawings and words written in a foreign language they couldn’t recognize. Bewildered, the Knights took a vote – to return to the desert outside or to venture further inside the temple. For them, the two choices led to their deaths: if they left, making through the night without shelter meant certain death; and if they decided to stay, they could either survive past the night or meet their respective ends in even more gruesome ways than freezing to death. Despite their own insecurities and superstitions, they decided to go further inside, mainly motivated by Wilhelm and Kenneth’s insistence that, even if the temple and whoever came to it worshipped the devil and his minions, they would at least have the same fate as those fighting the Muslims – dying in order to save the Holy Land from the evil influence posed by the deviants of the teachings of the Church, as it were. As it was later uncovered, neither Baumgartner not Blair truly believed their reasons to explore the uncharted place, instead being driven by other things than religious zeal, but the remaining Knights agreed nonetheless.
This is where the last written record of what happened ended, as the Knights entered the temple, the next written account released by Kaer Loche describing their sudden appearance at the gates of Jerusalem in the heat of battle. According to the account, the twelve knights appeared three days after they entered the temple, right in between the Christian army that charged towards the Holy City and the Muslim army that, under orders from Saladin, prepared to guard the city to the last man. Upon their sudden appearance right in the middle of the two armies, Baumgartner and his remaining Knights, instead of charging towards the city, stood between the two forces with their swords drawn and shields ready in a circle formation.
Non-Lochian reports from the episode simply mention that the two armies never met on the battlefield, and the leaders of both armies arranged a lasting peace agreement, which in turn created a period of peace that lasts to this day, and is remembered as the beginning of the end to the conflicts around the known world over the centuries. In addition to the known facts, the Lochians have full access to Blair’s written account of what actually happen in greater detail, even though the document was written several years afterwards. In it, Blair describes as the Knights tensely stood still as Baumgartner held a mysterious object they had uncovered inside the temple: a purple gem. According to Blair, the effect it had on the battlefield was nothing short of unexpected, and the Knight described the feeling as ‘overwhelming’ – more specifically, it was as though the twelve knights appeared to be invincible, both to themselves and to others as well. Because of this, the gem has been called ‘The Crown’s Jewel’, as the Knights referred to it as being a jewel that adorned God’s crown – or at least it is believed, since there are no historical record that proves that the term started with the original Knights. Nonetheless, the simply glimpse of the gem made the Crusaders and Muslims to stop fighting, with Baumgartner and the other Knights regarded as heroes by their respective lords once they returned to their respective military division, but vowing to meet again and take care of the stone (left with Baumgartner, who managed to conceal it with him on his way home).
The end of the war, as it were, didn’t please many political and religious forces in Europe, as expected. The leaders of the Crusaders, expecting swift retaliation on the way home, marched towards Europe once again, but instead of returning to their country of origin, all troops marched towards Italy, surrounding the peninsula from every direction and fought the Church’s assembled forces in a series of campaigns that eventually engulfed almost the entirety of Europe. In the aftermath, the forces lead by Richard, Frederick and Phillip emerged victorious, while the Catholic Church was no more – the Pope, who had branded them as heretics, as well as the entirety of the Church’s Archbishops had been slain, effectively annihilating the Church’s highest echelons. The three monarchs then finally returned to their countries, seizing complete control over their own territory, giving birth to a new age of prosperity in Europe, as well as strengthening the alliance between the main European political and economical powers and the Near and Far East’s powers.
The twelve Knights that had taken place in the discovery of the gem quickly rose in rank within their respective newly formed country, each gaining notoriety during the war effort to liberate Europe from the rule of fear imposed by the Church’s forces, biding their time to arrange a meeting as they waited for the situation in Europe to calm down before being able to travel freely, while using their respective position within their respective monarchies to enable a more peaceful political landscape. Baumgartner and Blair, for example, were personal advisors to their Kings, while the others came to hold similar positions within the court. After the three monarchs successfully managed to end the long war against the Catholic Church while starting friendly relations with the Arab world, Blair invited the other eleven knights to his castle in the Isle of Skye for a meeting where they would celebrate Blair’s 30th birthday.
Upon arriving at Blair’s estate, the knights learned that they were the only guests, and that his invitation served as a decoy so their gathering after almost a decade, given their status within their respective governments, didn’t raise any suspicion. Instead, Blair revealed that his intention was to reunite with his companions once again in order to protect the jewel they had uncovered (and that had indirectly ended the Crusades, loosening the Church’s grip on all matters etc). In order to do that, he explained, the twelve of them should form a fringe society that would work towards eliminating conflict, whether internal or external, by using their roles as advisors and ministers, avoiding exposing themselves to protect their secret instead of gathering attention to themselves in the process. Eliminating conflict, he said and Baumgartner agreed, was the key to protect the jewel – even though the twelve agreed that their current rank and wealth was obtained by their own merits, they would have achieved nothing had they died in the Sahara desert almost ten years before.
The meeting lasted for almost a month, in which the knights discussed Blair’s proposal, creating several drafts with the initial ideas that would later be elaborated upon by future Kaer Loche members. Nonetheless, on December 21st, 1201 A.D., Kaer Loche was born as all twelve knights signed the document that contained the original guidelines and laws of Kaer Loche (and the very first document in which the name appears in). The document’s guidelines included matter such as loyalty to one another; the commitment of brining peace to the world in order to preserve the purple jewel; the guidelines to succession, making the leadership positions within Kaer Loche hereditary; the turning of Blair’s castle as their base of operations by arranging funds to build an appropriate place to keep the jewel as well the fund to move it from Germany safely and, finally, establishing the death penalty towards anyone that betrays the society. Although the original document would be revised and expanded upon by the original members and future ones, Baumgartner and Blair (who had been appointed as overall leaders due to their efforts eight years previous) were satisfied, and the Kaer Loche society was born.
Evolution and Hierarchy
The society and its members quickly managed to spread their influence through Europe and Asia, both strengthening relations with other countries and cultures but also investing heavily on technology – the close interchange with the Arabs and, later, India and China, allowed Europe to implement several radical technological changes quickly, and the known world experienced a much faster technological development when compared to similar timelines in other Earth iterations. By the 1300’s, Kaer Loche had about 150 members, as the original founder’s offpring, as well as trusted aides joined the society in order to cope with the increasing complexity of the society’s affairs.
It was at the turn of the 14th century that the Europeans and Arabs (in an exploring mission financed by both countries and prompted by Kaer Loche’s members) discovered another continent, at least 100 years before Columbus made his attempt in other iterations. Africa and Asia also received a lot of attention, and Kaer Loche members were actively supporting and taking parts on the exploration of those continents. Unlike other Earth iterations, however, Kaer Loche’s Earth didn’t suffer from slavery and no indigenous people from any uncharted region were expelled or otherwise robbed from their land. Instead, those explorers, advised by members of the Kaer Loche society, worked with the natives instead of against them. In Africa, the Europeans and Arabs, while exploring the majority of the continent and making contact with most tribes, did not, at the time, find it interesting to build colonies in the continent, instead dealing with the several tribes and ethnicities by exchanging technology, teaching the many tribes how to develop and use their tools, for natural resources. In Asia, after defeating the Turks with the help of the Chinese, the Kaer Loche society recruited a few members in order to maintain the good relations between the two different cultures, expanding its members base to 200 – although the recruitment of Chinese government officials into Kaer Loche was welcomed at first, it’s seen today as a massive error of judgment, since those new members did not share Kaer Loche’s vision of an united world, instead using the society’s influence for personal gain.
In the New Continent, however, things were a bit more complex. While the settlers didn’t have any problems with the more primitive natives, the settlers soon stumbled upon the more advanced civilizations native to the continent, namely the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas. Their rituals of human sacrifice and domination of other, less developed, tribes were met with disgust by the Europeans and Arabs at first, and the Kaer Loche society’s members that were in charge of the affairs between the European settlers and the native people (about 15 people) almost lost control of the situation when a group of settlers attacked Tenochtitlan during one of these rituals. A war between the Europeans and the Aztecs was almost certain until a senior Kaer Loche member (Sir Duane of Essex) managed to intervened, relying on the Aztec’s superstitions by convincing them to stop practicing the human sacrifice rituals, and turning the settlers responsible for the attack into Aztec custody. Though not completely satisfactory, Sir Duane’s resolutions paved the way to more friendly relations with the other, more advanced, civilizations which helped eliminate slavery and the oppression some native tribes lived under before the Europeans arrived. Through time, the continent itself came to be known as Aztlán, instead of a more European name, due to the great influence these indigenous people played in building the continent with the help of the foreign settlers.
The contact with many civilizations and the expansion of the known world lead to many leaps of technology and the creation of several new independent states and kingdoms through the Aztlán continent, though not all of it – a rather large portion of the South Aztec continent being preserved and not colonized in any way, except for a few modern settlements with the purpose of scientific studies and tourism.
While the new developments and new cultures that came to be known to the Europeans was received with enthusiasm by the general populace, Kaer Loche was facing a crisis – the sudden growth of the organization, from 12 to about 500 in less than 150 years had become a problem instead of an asset. In several stances, the lack of communication between members and even the individual ambitions of some of the most isolated members (namely the ones that acted in the Far East), provoked several of meaningless conflicts and instability on those regions, and in 1411, a new meeting was held, and all members were summoned to Kaer Loche’s castle to deal with the current situation as well as revising the society’s code to better cope with the new reality. In the new meeting, several members were cut off from the organization – those who did not attend the meeting, regardless of the reason were also excommunicated automatically. The purge began immediately, and 300 members out of 500 continued, while the others were either executed or imprisoned, although some members of its Chinese branch managed to hide and escape the punishment. After that, it was decided that the society needed a stricter hierarchy, instead of relying solely on hereditary rights, which made any actual succession unfeasible, since being the oldest son of a member didn’t always mean the successor was as competent as the previous member in any given task. Although the hereditary principle to decide on one member’s succession was not entirely eliminated, specific guidelines were created in order to prevent abuses, such as overlapping functions or internal disputes between members. The leadership positions, originally 12 of them, were cut down to 8, since 4 of the original members’ descendants had either married with others or disappeared completely. In the case of Blair’s descendants, which branched into 2 families, it was chosen that the descendant of his eldest son was to become a member of the council, while the branch still retained membership, although not within any of the newly founded leadership positions. Since the heir was a woman (Helena Marie Blair), she became the very first female member to ever achieve such a position, while the heir to the branch family (direct descendants of Blair’s nephew) became her subordinate, though not without resentment.
It was also decided during the meeting that, although the Blair’s family estate in the Isle of Skye was the society’s main base, other places should be built in order to allow members from the same region to meet without much compromising their positions – the name of those places would be traditionally, though not officially, called ‘castles’ in an obvious homage to Kaer Loche’s central headquarters. With the reduced number of members within the leadership, the organization as a whole took, over time, several codenames from Chess to identify leadership positions and assign jobs to the other members, though this decision was not made during the meeting – only the need of codenames was briefly discussed, as Kaer Loche’s structure had, after over 200 years, become an organization that ran parallel to governments as a whole, instead of being an integral part of them. If someone were to find out any given member’s affiliation with the society, then their goals would be compromised, they reasoned, hence the need to use aliases to both better identify a given member’s position within the society as well as conceal, more or less effectively, the nature of Kaer Loche.
The High Council
The High Council is identified by the following titles: Rooks, Bishops, Knights, King and Queen, while the other members are identified simply as Pawns, regardless of which Council member they’re subordinated to. There are 2 Rooks, Bishops and Knights at any given time, while the title of Queen and King is unique, there also isn’t a set limit as to how many Pawns (regular members) there can be at any given time. The following is a more detailed description of each rank, detailing the affairs of each, as well as the current importance of each.
Rooks
The Rooks care for the infrastructure of the organization, setting up communication and overseeing the development of technology. The Black Rook’s duty is, in addition, to filter information regarding Kaer Loche to the general public, who is still largely unaware of its existence. The Black Rook usually controls several media corporations, or at least have his group of Pawns to either hold shares of the various media groups or to spread false information by coming up with several conspiracy theories to mislead the general public. The White Rook oversees the development and filtering of information through the Internet, by controlling servers around the world (with that in mind, Kaer Loche built several servers around the globe to be used as both a place to store information about the organization as well as filtering information). In addition, the White Rook also controls the flow of technology, keeping several technological advances secret (such as the 1821 landing on the Moon as well as other milestones in technology).
Bishops
The Bishops take care of Kaer Loche’s code, enforcing it and studying it, as well as watching for breaches on the part of the society’s members. Basically, the Bishops’ job is to care for the law, both within and outside the organization. The Black Bishop takes care of the legal system as a whole, making sure every single Constitution and Code of Laws in the world respects Kaer Loche’s principles, even if most people are unaware of it. The intent of the Black Bishop is not, however, to keep lawmakers and judges from doing their job, as his main concern is just make sure that any given country allows its people to be free and obey the law. The White Bishop studies Kaer Loche’s ideology and works in justifying the organization’s beliefs to the general public, working together with the Black Rook to spread Kaer Loche’s ideals to the general public. The White Bishop is usually well versed in Philosophy, both Western and Eastern, and is regarded as the most ‘academic’ position within the society, since its position influences mostly the world’s academic output, indirectly guiding academic thought to meet Kaer Loche’s, controlling mainly the Human Sciences department of Universities through the planet.
Knights
The Knights arguably hold the most important position within Kaer Loche, with the exception of the Queen. It’s their job to oversee the military as a whole, working towards new technologies, new tactics and making sure that no national military is too unhappy with their respective governments. Although Kaer Loche successfully managed to avoid war for over 700 years, all council members then and now deemed necessary to maintain the military as a way of avoiding anarchy and to use the military itself to better control any given state – that and being warriors themselves, they are very reticent about removing national armies altogether, even with their pacifist tenets. It’s the Black Knight’s job to oversee the Tarkus Project (another reason as to why they deliberately chose to not diminish the importance of the institution over time), using volunteer recruits from armies all over the world, personally selecting potential members and overseeing their training as well as the implants they’re subjected to. The Black Knight’s pawns are usually high ranking officers, who secretly leak info about the Project in order to find potential recruits, also making sure that those who are rejected do not leak any information to the general public. The White Knight, in the other hand, takes care of the organization’s space program, working with the other council members to develop technology and weapons that can be used in outer space, if necessary. Not as important as the Black Knight, given the nature of his assignments, such as supervising the content of many UFO magazines with the Bishops to find any real information within, the White Knight is also in charge of military logistics and assists the Black Knight in the Tarkus Project: namely finding a way to hide the Project from public eyes.
The Tarkus Project
As mentioned previously, the Black Knight is in charge of the Tarkus Project, the most controversial Kaer Loche project to date, sparking debates about its validity and usefulness the moment it was presented, at the end of the 1700’s. The project consists on building an army for the Kaer Loche – though, obviously, not just any army. The idea was born during the development of Earth’s first spacecraft, in conjunction with many of the wealthiest and technologically advanced nations of the planet at the time.
As the technology developed, culminating in the first human landing on the Moon, the Black Knight at the time proposed in a conference that Kaer Loche started thinking about a more specialized unit designed specifically to defend the organization if its existence leaked to the public and caused general unrest among the population. With the creation of a program that trained soldiers specifically to defend the organization, coupled with the technology that allowed them to develop such a large scale project covertly, he argued that if the worst happened, the organization would be able to retain its power, even if by force. After months of debating, the High Council finally approved the project, and the Black Knight started recruiting suitable soldiers to act as Kaer Loche’s protection, called the Fianna. Simultaneously, the organization steered the world’s population from the Moon and towards Mars, manipulating governments and the media in order to cover-up the other end of the project: a massive spacecraft, originally designed to monitor the planet below alongside the network of satellites, to act both as a refuge to the organization’s members as well as an offensive conduit that could strike anywhere at any time leaving its target completely unable to launch an effective counter attack. As the project went on, and the spacecraft took shape, it was simply called Tarkus. The craft, due to its size – the original project predicted the spacecraft would be able to carry over 100,000 men inside (now expanded to a whooping 500,000 after the latest additions), carrying state of the art weaponry and technology, its own supply of energy, water and even food – had to be build outside of the planet so as not to unneeded attention; though something as massive as the Tarkus was not easily hid, and thus the Kaer Loche arranged for it to be developed behind the Moon (move which prompted the cancellation of any further exploration of the satellite, as well as carefully manipulating routes present and future space faring missions, using several engines around the construction site to stop the several parts of the ship from scattering. Although nearly completed, the project is still controversial within the organization, but its existence and purpose cannot be denied or dismissed.
The Tarkus
The colony-size spaceship Tarkus (so named due to the ship’s semblance to an armadillo) is perhaps the most ambitious human project to date. Tarkus is a massive ship designed to protect the members of Kaer Loche should anything happen to the organization, and as such, can be used as a temporary headquarters, complete with private chambers for the High Council members as well as secure areas to keep Kaer Loche’s Jewel safe should the Castle’s security be compromised. Obviously, the Kaer Loche wouldn’t undertake such a massive project just to have a safer headquarters should anything go wrong – it also works as the organization’s primary strike force, housing Kaer Loche’s own military, as well as state of the art weaponry. With enough room to support 500,000 men at a time, as well as thousands of vehicles, such as smaller aircraft and landing pods (with enough room for 500 people each), the Tarkus is invincible against any outside forces, at least those Kaer Loche know of. Built with the most advanced technology, the ship is, theoretically, easily maneuverable and capable of obliterating a small city using only its secondary weapons (and without having to resort to the Fianna on the ground).
The Fianna
The Fianna are Kaer Loche’s soldiers, basically. With the approval of the Tarkus Project, the Kaer Loche slowly began scouting for volunteers among the world’s finest soldiers, using several nations’ space program volunteers as the primary choices to become a fian. The soldiers selected were usually single, with no family and with extraordinary physical and mental skills, drawn by the possibilities of being astronauts or simply because of their sense of duty towards a respective nation. All approved candidates, still not knowing the true purpose of the program they had entered, were then subjected to biological and mechanical enhancement, carefully trained (and even brainwashed, in some cases) to blindly protect the Kaer Loche from all enemies, each receiving a biomechanical titanium alloy armor upon completing the training before being cryogenically frozen inside the Tarkus. One of the main reasons for that was that, since the recruitment of new fianna was incredibly slow (only a handful candidates a year at most, to not raise any suspicion regarding the disappearance of people); and each year, all new fianna were sent to the ship even as it was being built. The whole operation, between recruiting, training and transporting, took about 200 years and Kaer Loche’s forces have amassed a little bit over 400,000 fianna.
All fianna have enhanced reflexes and strength, as well as the ability to drive just about any vehicle if not wearing their special armor – a rather rare occurrence, but an intensive part of their training. Since both Tarkus and the fianna have never actually been used, it’s difficult to know what if the fianna’s enhancements and training were effective, though many studies regarding the acceptance of the mechanical and genetic modifications had overall positive results. Only time will tell if the frozen soldiers will ever be used in actual battle and, despite all the testing, it’s difficult to say if the fianna will prove to be useful or just a very expensive liability when their time to awaken come.
King
The White King takes care of the organization’s finances, investments and basically rules the world’s economy by proxy, so to speak. It’s the King who decides when and how much to invest in a given area, hence his importance within the Kaer Loche council, since all the other members need his approval in order to start a new project. The King’s pawns can be found within the highest ranks of several governments, effectively controlling trade and taxes, manipulating the stock market and currency value throughout the world. By controlling the distribution of wealth, the King basically controls the speed new technologies are developed, to better control the general populace to avoid unnecessary problems with any given use a new product may have once it is fully developed.
Queen
The Black Queen is the most important member of the lochian High Council. The Black Queen is in charge of Culture, which is a very broad assignment, since it deals with the affairs with all other council members, except for the King’s – the two usually don’t interfere with the other when making decisions or assigning specific tasks for the Pawns, but it’s impossible to deny the influence of one over the other. Literature, music, art and even television shows are influenced by her decisions, though the Queen never decides directly the content or form in which people express and entertain themselves. Instead, the Queen is simply a guideline of sorts to artistic and philosophical movements; sponsoring otherwise unknown artists and thinkers, successfully modifying a given period of time’s zeitgeist, paving the way towards change and a better acceptance by the general populace of Kaer Loche’s philosophy. In addition, the Queen oversees all the other High Council members, making sure that each one works within the lochian guidelines, vetoing or approving current and future endeavors. Finally, the Queen is also in charge of keeping the Crown’s Jewel safe, and is the only member to maintain permanent residence at the Castle by the Lake because of that, making daily visits to the underground chamber in which the Gem resides, checking the security equipment and making sure that no word about the artifact is ever leaked to outside the Kaer Loche.
Pawns
The Pawns are basically the workers within Kaer Loche. Each council member has a number of Pawns under his or her supervision (in the case of the Queen) and each Pawn is placed within a strategic position within governments, corporations and information outlets. The Pawns’ color taken from the High Council member they serve under, so the Black Knight’s Pawns are Black Pawns and the White Rook’s Pawns are White Pawns, for example – except when a group of Pawns under the same superior are assigned for a task that requires two or more to work together; when that happens, each Pawn is assigned with a different primary color until the end of the assignment, but such a thing happening is rare. The Pawns are important to Kaer Loche because they act as the invisible arm the organization needs to fulfill its agenda; without them, Kaer Loche would simply be a private club with eccentric aristocrats with no real influence in the world. A Pawn can be just anyone, from a big corporation CEO (if under the White King) to a simple engineer working in the robotics industry (if working under one of the Rooks). Although Kaer Loche has a very strict hierarchy of succession, it doesn’t mean that a Pawn is relegated to a lesser position outside the organization – it’s not uncommon to find a Pawn holding a higher position than his superior within the organization, the only exception being the Pawns under the Knights, who never outrank their superior, no matter what happens. Unlike the other members, Pawns can be demoted, expelled and recruited despite heritage and family history, making the Pawns very flexible as a group as well as very dedicated towards the organization. According to the last survey, there are about 1,021 Pawns spread across the globe.
Though at first the structure of Kaer Loche may seem static, mainly due to the hereditary nature of succession within the higher circles, the organization uses a more mixed system of succession and recruitment to both protect itself and maintain its influence. The High Council members usually pick their successor within their respective families from birth, and the chosen person to take over the position is then introduced to the organization as a Pawn under the council member that chose him as a successor – usually at the age of 21. While any given council member’s relatives are also a part of Kaer Loche, the member’s decision is respected so as to avoid unnecessary bickering and intrigue within the organization, although internal feuds aren’t uncommon, just less prejudicial towards Kaer Loche. When the council member dies or retires (a practice that is becoming more and more common within the organization), the selected successor then takes over the position with enough information about the position to continue pushing Kaer Loche’s agenda.
Unlike the council members, however, the Pawns are more flexible when it comes to succession. Since there’s no real difference between Pawns other than which council member a Pawn answer to, there’s no need for a Pawn to select a direct relative to be his or her successor. Instead, introducing a relative into the Kaer Loche is optional, and many Pawns have died without naming someone to serve the organization. Most Pawns, however, are in Kaer Loche because their ancestors were also in Kaer Loche and most likely their descendants will also be members. In addition, Kaer Loche recruits people from outside the organization to become Pawns if they prove to be trustworthy as well as influential in the area they work in, and these recruited members are also given the choice of extending his or her membership within Kaer Loche to his or her descendants, with the condition of having done a good enough job within the organization to receive the privilege.
All Kaer Loche members serve under their respective countries’ military forces, including the women. Kaer Loche tradition states that, while the society works to bring harmony and peace to the world, a member of the organization must be also a warrior – the only exception being recruited members, which are not required to have done any military service, though there hasn’t been a case of a recruited member not having served the military before being recruited.
Notable Pawns
Modus Operandi
Kaer Loche keeps itself secret by spreading propaganda about other fictional secret societies to keep the general public unaware of its existence, as well as having its many headquarters located in very exposed areas instead of secluded places (except for its main castle in Skye) so as not to raise any suspicion regarding what exactly goes on in such places. Many Pawns either own or hold an influential position within newspapers, television and magazines, and have the specific job of suppressing anything mentioning any real suspicion behind the organization’s activities. Other than that, the organization believes that, in order to fulfill its agenda, no other kind of information should be censored or filtered in any way, and thus the press and the flow of information, except information about the organization itself, is not controlled in any way. While Kaer Loche does control the direction nearly all aspects of human activities, its methods of control isn’t simply to repress the general populace with the amount of influence the organization has, but uses its influence to guide nations and individuals towards a better standard of living as well as a better understanding of the human condition as a whole.
The organization’s members believe themselves to be acting as guides to the world, instead of its owners, and as such, are completely loyal to the organization’s code and there has never been any account of any given member breaking Kaer Loche’s vow of silence. Though some of their actions may seem to be dubious at best, such as withholding information about the 1820 Moon landing for about 20 years, others are not as controversial, or even talked about, such as the development of the technology to actually land on the Moon in the first place, or protecting the environment while still ensuring high productivity from the industries spread throughout the globe. Even though the organization’s secrecy may be frowned upon by some members, all of them know how necessary it is, otherwise the results of the organization’s exposure to the general public could simply undo their century spanning work towards a better future.
Basically, Kaer Loche main way of operating is hidden in the shadows of organizations recognized by the public, creating opportunities for growth instead of enforcing them, and Kaer Loche’s Earth mirrors the organization’s ambitions: a clean, prosperous world in which differences are respected and armed conflict only exists in ancient history books. With a population of around 3 billion people, Kaer Loche controlled Earth thrived much earlier than in other iterations (with a few obvious exceptions), allowing man to explore the infinite space as well as unearthing the secrets hidden deep within the soil much earlier than any of the planet’s iteration. While many other iterations of Earth, situated in different periods of time, have achieved such harmony, this particular iteration achieved it without one of its main downsides, like suicide and apathy, by constantly creating a challenging enough environment without necessarily disturbing the current balance.
