The Triad

'“We are the Triad. The Empire’s one of the personal enemies, we may be criminals and rebels to them; but we‘re no fools. We fight to believe in the rights for freedom of all sentinel beings. That’s our only rule.”'


 * ~ Scipio Retwin, one of the Triad's founder.

The Triad is a criminal underground-organisation that branded as a rebel to the Imperial that they went to their extreme lengths to perform numerous anti-Empire activities that threatened to expose the Empire’s evilness. The Triad rose to power roughly around the year 2196, just ten years after the events occur prior to Mass Effect 3, founded by three strong-headed and wise war veterans who survived the through thick and thin and went on the run as fugitives. The group has been in existence for nearly 90 years as of the present day and the members and their beliefs still remained with them ever since.

The Empire still consider the Triad as a pest but it doesn’t stop them from going on the bent of destruction, killing Imperial Inquisitors on sight and bombing part of the cities on the night of 5th November yearly and every other election dates. It is likely the Triad leaders often get heavily involved in political debates to get their own way as they pleased. The leaders began to build the Triad further warping them into an army with their past military experiences; and thus, no one ever dare to approach the heavy armed organisation alone.

As of present day, Tolth Retwin took over the role of leadership position and more members were rescued and joined the organisation in order to fight for freedom and/or looking for a safe haven.

There was rumours that the Triad had several bases in different locations and planets; some were abandoned and destroyed by their doings to hide their trails in order to kill the Imperial army.

History to the Rise of the Triad
The Triad are founded by not only one but three leaders to control the criminal operation. After the rise of the Empire’s wake, the Triad soon rises to power, ten years later, after Scipio Retwin; a former Hierarchy Commander-turned-crimelord, escaped the clutches of the Empire to sought freedom outside of the state still pursuing his time with the military outside of the Imperial state; he plans to thwart the Empire one day, his only motive for this was to make them pay for the damages they’ve done to the galaxy and the suffering of every species under their rule.

Scipio’s military team shortly were ambushed by the Imperial and his commanding officer given him time to escape to sought freedom and avoid capture.

Scipio Retwin, along the way, met Marco Moretti, and Hakon Lefir, prior to their encounter whilst being on the run, already discussing plans ahead for the future‘s sake; completely unsure of where to go. They wandered and travelled around for days fighting for survival and one thing that they all got in common; was that they are no fans of the Empire developing their dislikes and hatred for them, they hope to fight back what the Galaxy once originally was before the Reapers attack. Over the time they travelled, they come across a few escaped slaves and alien sympathisers, they often tried to help them and understood their struggles to hassle the Empire inquisitors. They don’t admit it but it pains the trio to see the suffering and lack of hopes within those slaves’ eyes. They tried their hardest to help the slaves that were affected by plagued nightmares in the aftermaths of their rescue from the inquisitors.

Retwin has enough of it. Moretti and Lefir were quick to understand Retwin’s anger towards it.

Thus in the end, they come to an agreement to build an army, becoming something more of an anti-Empire elite, which the Empire branded their activities as ‘reckless' and consider them to be ‘dangerous', as they perform many anti-Empire tasks in order to survive.

The Triad eventually born.

The leaders recruited and gathered former escaped slaves, pirates, smugglers, mercenaries, alien sympathisers and rebels; who they all develop a strong dislike for the Empire. The leaders and members do not care that they are branded as a ‘rebel’, they fight to what they believe in and got themselves heavily involved with politics.

The journey to the freedom has just begun and they spent 90 years onwards fighting for their lives and freedoms; with each sacrifices has to make. There are many members are considered to be well known amongst the fellow members, and as well some of the members are known to the Empire to hunt down.

List of errand jobs and activities.

 * 1) Black market trade.
 * 2) Smuggling.
 * 3) Raiding/Hunting slave camps to hunt for foods and supplies ~ Non-human members.
 * 4) Infiltrate the Imperial city for regular mercenary and/or smuggling jobs. ~ Human members with fake IDs, identity/name and disguises.
 * 5) Bounty Hunting
 * 6) Thievery. Only big jobs for said contacts. (Sometimes young members can do pickpocket whatever pleases them.)
 * 7) Very likely chances of any terrorism or anti-Empire activities during election and/or any political debate days.
 * 8) Assassination. Only those who wish to pursue the job in taking out Empire supporters.

Insight to the Triad
It is possibly likely that people genuinely believed the Triad were taken after the asian mafia group from many centuries ago as their criminal activities are very much similar to what they do to thwart the Empire.

And yet, the founders revealed the Empire are, infact, are right about the namesake.

The Triad do not do any slavery business when it comes to aliens BUT they are intended to rescue and freed the slaves from the slavery market if it deem necessarily. Not to mention; the young members attempt to repeat the motion on freeing animals too; in or out of the Imperial state. This implies on escaped slaves caught by the Empire inquisitors and they will stop at nothing but to save and rescue the slaves from dangers.

The twist was that; the Triad were willing to openly do slavery business; handing over their captive Imperial inquisitors. After the members captured them, through ambush or encounters, the Triad always interrogate and allowed former slaves to torture them for information. The Triad enjoyed scaring their prisoners very much, in spite of hatred and revenge, the prisoners taunted that they will never give out information or that his or her comrades will come for them. The Triad, in return, taunt to their prisoners they will do something much much worst, and plans to sell them through slavery market and hand them over to batarians and/or other anti-Empire organisations; mostly prisoners will laugh at this and never believed their words.

In fact, The Triad kept true to their words and did eventually sell them into slavery market; they only accept supplies, and/or credits if it needed, from their clients. They did this for years.

The Triad actually do have members that are children. Thus the only thing they do when it comes to children was that they rescue them from orphanage, slavery market and/or from the Empire inquisitors. The leaders hate the idea of leaving children alone to fend for themselves, which they later brought them in to give them a safe haven. Similar to what they did to the escaped slaves. The children grew up to become a valuable member and friend to the leaders and The Triad.

Over the years to the present day, it is interesting to note; that everyone in The Triad are like a family to each other and always protect everyone from dangers. They do not like to be separated from each other, if their only one rule was to ‘stick together like a family’, anyone attempt to do it, which cause severe distress on the children and possibly some mental conditioned teenagers; most members will become very violent to their enemies/opponents in order to protect the children and younger members.

Although, family is important to The Triad, it kept them going strong and felt at peace amongst each other. Even if they moved from one hideout to another; the children state that being with their newly found family is a home to them.

Appearances.
The Triad possess a cult-like, fanatical devotion to their leaders in all respects. Their styling is best described as a twisted mixture of Harajuku Punk-Goth and Steampunk, the roughly daubed 'Chinese Opera/Noh Mask' facepaint and asymmetrical 'flame skull' spatter body art, which unites the gang members. They display some tattoos, body piercing and face paints.



Fashion
Mostly their fashion and appearance are loosely based on a mixture twist of Steampunk and Harajuku Punk-Goth elements on their clothes, yet they always stick to the strict gang code of red and black. The members often handcraft and created their own outfits to suit their preferences, with the chosen materials they can gather from markets. It’s part of the code to represent their membership and allegiance to the Triad. Make-ups may or may not require; though it suited and depends on what member’s preference they’re comfortable in.

However, there are some members who wear full armours, but not rejecting their fashion code, yet continued to add a twist of Steampunk style to their armours. These said members who wear them are trained and elite mercenaries; because of this, some of the members can’t fight and/or have no experiences with weapons to fight and thus the reason for the leaders to build an army to fight off Imperial inquisitors.

Masks
It is likely that most members will bear an identical tattoo representing their loyalty and membership to the Triad. Infact, most members wear a full mask to hide and shield their appearances in the public; these mask designs are vary on the member’s preference; mostly some are based on Venetian masks or an animal type of mask with Steampunk influences.

Anastasia Kyriakos is seen to wear an Industrial-style Anubis mask. Kobayashi is also seen wearing a mask that loosely based on an Oni mask in a samurai-eqse style.

Known Members
There are quite a lot of members that are heavily involved in the Triad’s ongoing feuds with the Empire; these members come with some quirks of their own that helped the Triad through thick and thin. These members are made up of various species and those with a terrible past ranging from former slaves, alien sympathisers, and even ex-Imperial inquisitors who became a fugitive to the Empire.

It rumoured to be said that there are over 50 members since the year 2196 when the Triad rose to power and was founded by not one but three leaders.

2230 - Present Day
Although, many years has passed, the founder of the criminal underground were killed in action by the Empire that spark tensions with the members demanding vegenace and bloodbath to avenge their loss leaders.

Tolth Retwin took over the leadership position to honour his father's memory; the members are clearly devoted and refuses to let any Imperial members make the same mistake. The Triad suffers the loss of their loyal members out of sacrifice to protect the leaders and their family.