Terminarch! It’s the name of the secretive military branch where YOU, the operator, the player, work within the world of Burn-9. What are they? Who are they? Why are they? These are all fabulous questions! I thought I would take some time as the lead writer of Burn-9 and try and explain what this organization actually is and how it fits into the setting. I’ll also take a few moments to talk about why I made the choices I did as the lead writer.
The short and simple answer is that the Terminarch is a skunkworks branch of the Navy. Here is the actual lore entry in game:
“Established in 1952 under growing concerns of the spreading communist menace, it was meant to be a forward facing ‘black’ operation. The forward facing part of the organization would be Terminarch Black Ops, a truly invisible strike force utilizing cutting-edge technology, both as a way to maintain operational excellence, but also to test ideas that might be too expensive or niche for standard military use.”
Within the setting, there was a famous event in which a known terrorist (at least as far as the United States is concerned) was skillfully captured and extracted from his home country by TBO (Terminarch Black Ops) and what had been a fairly well kept secret leaked into the open: The world learned that the United States had finally created TRUE super soldiers.
However, that’s just what the average military fetishist within the setting would know. This is also the part of the organization that the player/Operator works for as Black Ops mission control.
There are two other branches of Terminarch, Terminarch Tech Ops and Terminarch Psych Ops. Tech Ops is where most of the useful technical innovations have come from, such as the Augmentation program that most of the soldiers seen in the game have gone through. Psych Ops, while less successful, is also far more horrible! It’s basically a modern version of MK Ultra. Their goal is to achieve the impossible, astral projection, psychic powers, ghosts, and even stranger things. Tech Ops pursues their goals with a blank check and no oversight.
For this reason the logo for Terminarch has three heads. The symbol is meant to be a cockatrice, which does not generally have three heads in classic myths and legends, but I’m going to claim it does! Each of the heads is based on a different cockatrice legend about what looking into their eyes does and how it kills you (It always kills you). While Terminarch has no ‘official’ motto the two that are used most commonly in their iconography and headers is “Non sibi sed patrae” Not for self but for country and “Morior invictus” Death before defeat. This should give you some idea of the kind of people who formed this organization.
Why the name Terminarch? It’s a term that means the ‘last member of a species’. Terminarch’s stated goal is to create a soldier so good no other soldiers would ever need to be trained. They also (and this is mostly because I think it’s cool) give out codenames that are either extinct animals or fantasy animals that have never existed.
The word has a starkness and a cynical, maybe even sardonic, quality to it that I quite enjoy. It also has a technical feel to it that gives a futuristic vibe to the entire thing. It seemed like exactly the kind of word a military nerd would look up while naming their new infinite budget, infinite power skunkworks group.
While Terminarch ostensibly answers to the Navy and often works under the purview of the CIA, in practice they answer only to themselves. Working under a black charter with no direct oversight gives them carte blanche to use their resources however they see fit to further whatever they deem as in America’s interests.
The Operator (the player) was hand picked from Navy operations to be made a Terminarch Black Ops mission control. The player now has the job of commanding a squad of the world's most advanced soldiers.
Terminarch, while fictional, draws upon a lot of historical real world elements, the military industrial complex gone to extremes within the world of Burn-9 is a necessary evil. The Operator works from within, but also one all too ready to turn the world into a cold and monstrous machine.
It’ll be fine, Operator. Get to work.
Until next time, 14 Hours out.