Crime
Criminal Breakers
What “criminal breaker” means
In every country, Breakers should be registered, trained, and deployed under emergency law. They seal Gates, cull monsters, guard corridors, and keep trade moving. The world Gate authority classifies criminal breakers as anyone with Breaker skills or gifts who works outside those rules. That includes unlicensed Awakened, off-book licensed teams, unit deserters, black-market sealers, relic poachers, convoy hijackers, and fixers who fence monster parts and forbidden tech. Some are predators. Others are gray-market fixers who step in when the law is too slow, too far, or too rigid.
This document covers how they live, earn, and hide, who hunts them, and why communities sometimes protect them. It keeps to the core facts: Gates are managed by doctrine, seal rigs, and disciplined units; major states run registration; global cooperation exists but is strained; and the economy relies on salvage, rails, ships, and guarded roads.
Why criminal breakers emerge
Access and scarcity. Gate zones hold salvage, rare chitin, crystals, relic alloys, and dormant tech guarded by monsters and hazard light. Licenses and permits are slow or captured by big interests. Criminal crews jump first and argue later.
Gaps in coverage. Seal rig rings, guard towers, and patrols cannot be everywhere. Small towns, ice roads, and river hamlets fall between jurisdictions. Gray crews fill holes, at a price.
Debt and pay disputes. Some licensed teams are underpaid or denied salvage rights by their agencies or contractors. They drift into freelance, then black work.
Ideology and grievance. A few reject state control over Awakened bodies, hate specific agencies, or claim to protect locals from “foreign” doctrine.
Corruption. Officials sometimes hire deniable crews to do what would be politically costly if traced.
Typical criminal breaker work
Relic poaching. Racing patrols to fresh Gates, cutting out relic frames before sealing, or lifting dormant cores during quiet cycles.
Monster-part harvesting. Butchering leviathans or tunnel swarms to sell plates, glands, and glow sacs to processors.
Off-book sealing. Quietly stabilizing a small Gate near a client’s facility to keep permits clean, then billing in cash or barter.
Convoy predation. Hitting salvage trains, ice convoys, or rig tenders between seal rig nets; jamming beacons and using “calm light” to mask.
Credential fraud. Forging unit tags or borrowing an inactive team’s ID keys to move through checkpoints.
Seal rig sabotage. Rare and hated. It means tilting a seal post or mistuning a seal rig to force a rival off a claim.
Human crime. Smuggling, protection rackets around market strips, and forced labor. These crews are hunted hardest.
Tools, tricks, and tells
Masking kits. Foil-lined tarps, wet soot, and low-watt scramblers that blur thermal and Gate signal reads. Cheap, imperfect, common.
Patchwork rigs. Salvage exo-frames braced with rail steel; pressure laminate plates; jury-rigged sealing wands that overheat fast.
Borrowed light. Captured beacon heads or “lamp heads” used as area calmers to push through drift. Risky but effective in short bursts.
Dead drops. Ammo, filters, and ration caches hidden in culverts or tunnel alcoves, marked by simple charm graffiti.
Clean money habits. Payment in Platinum Credits, Credits, or Cred-Bits through burner ledgers; swapping to barter in high-watch zones.
Quiet maps. Hand-copied route books with notes on seal rig schedules, quiet periods, patrol timing, and “no-go when singing” warnings.
How they organize
Crews (5–20). One lead, one sealer, one scout, two to six killers/handlers, a fixer, and a driver/pilot. Crews form and dissolve around money and trust.
Cells (20–80). Several crews, a shared medic and tech, plus a bookkeeper who moves currency and favors.
Networks. Broker chains that sell intel, safehouse space, false tags, and buyers for parts. Most avoid combat and treat crews as “clients.”
Fronts. Salvage co-ops, security firms, or “ranger lodges” that launder gear and contracts. Some are community-owned and help locals; others are shells.
Codes and lines they won’t cross (usually)
Not all criminal breakers are the same. Many follow simple lines to keep doors open in hard times:
Don’t tip a seal that protects civilians.
Don’t steal med shipments, filters, or evacuation water.
Don’t open a Gate to make money.
If you start a fight with monsters, finish it.
Pay locals fairly for guides and fuel.
Leave shrines and memorials alone.
No forced labor. No slave trade.
If a quiet period turns, call it in, even to enemies.
Return tags of the dead when you can.
Never sell untested relics to idiots.
Crews that keep these rules can sometimes bargain with patrols or serve quietly as auxiliaries during a wave of monsters. Crews that break them are hunted without pause.
Markets and the black economy
Monster parts. Plates, glands, threads, and oils go to legal processors and “shade shops.” Prices swing with season and doctrine.
Relic scrap. Frames, seals, and crystal nodes move through brokers who have standing buyers in industry or research.
Maps and timing. Patrol schedules, seal rig maintenance, and quiet-period tables sell fast and high.
Passage. Seats on silent trucks, boat space in fog corridors, helicopter lifts during storms, and winter rail hides.
Protection. “We keep your village off the patrol map and push the swarm away for a fee.” This breeds resentment and reliance.
Money: The strong currency is the Platinum Credit.
1 Platinum Credit = 10 Credits (Cr)
1 Cr = 10 Cred-Bits (cb)
Common sense examples used on the ground:
1 cheap bunk overnight along a guarded corridor: ~8–12 cb
1 hot meal + water filter refill: ~4–7 cb
1 clinic visit for stitches/antibiotics (no imaging): ~6–12 Cr
1 day of crew hire for perimeter watch (per person): ~2–5 Cr
1 short, quiet helicopter lift between outposts: ~3–7 Platinum Credits
1 illegal sealing wand refurb kit: ~5–9 Platinum Credits
Prices change with threat level, weather, and recent Gate activity.
Regional patterns (snapshots, not absolutes)
@United States (the US Gate agency)
The US Gate agency expects registration, unit discipline, and documented salvage. Crime centers on off-book salvage and convoy hits in thinly covered corridors. Some sheriffs and council heads quietly hire gray crews in storm seasons. Task forces of rangers and licensed Breakers target forced-labor crews and seal rig tampering. In big storms, even tough agency officers may put “results first” and use reliable gray crews as temporary auxiliaries under strict terms.
@China (the Chinese Gate agency)
The Chinese Gate agency runs a tight Grid with defense rings and calm scripted announcements. Criminals here avoid spectacle and specialize in credential fraud, quiet poaching inside quiet periods, and laundering through state-owned fronts. Government information offices target brokers, not crews, to cut the money lines. Crews that avoid human targets and never tamper with seal rigs can last for years.
@Russia (the Russian Gate agency)
Under the Russian Gate agency, Breakers are ranked and sworn. The Russian warning network and rail rings make open robbery risky, so criminal crews lean toward frontier poaching and ice-road smuggling. Some former conscripts run “silent brigades” that harvest leviathan plates under aurora haze and sell to rig yards. Seal rig sabotage draws a total response, so most crews avoid it.
@Brazil (the Latin American Gate agency)
Federal response uses ranger-Breaker cadres and “green roads” through re-wilded zones. Criminal breakers here are often river specialists: fast canoes, shallow-draft cargo boats, and fog-line ambushes. Many live half-legal lives, harvesting monster fiber for co-ops one week and fencing glands to a cartel-linked broker the next. Forced-labor crews on river hubs are the top target; mixed strike groups hit hard when they appear.
Africa (the African Gate agency)
The African Gate agency moves by convoy brigades and mutual aid. Criminals chase convoy theft, relic strip-mining around dusty seals, and militia “taxes” on aid routes. Because the agency stretches thin, communities sometimes host gray crews for protection. If a crew keeps the ten lines above, officers may forgive old sins in exchange for a public seal and a safe road. Crews that prey on towns get caught when convoys return in force.
@South Pacific Ocean
Carrier wings, island-hopper fleets, and global detachments patrol blue water. Criminals are relic trawlers, rig raiders, and abyssal poachers. They hide in storm fronts, tug broken buoys out of lattice lines, and sell to ship-to-ship brokers. If they tip a seal or cause a backlash near a port, navies shut lanes until the crew is found.
How authorities hunt them
Signal tracking. Seal rigs watch for Gate signal traces. Recycled gear and masking help, but long jobs leave trails.
Money pressure. Blacklist ledgers, seize fronts, and squeeze brokers; pressure communities with relief tied to cooperation.
Amnesty windows. Offer time-boxed pardons for crews who turn in forced-labor bosses or seal rig saboteurs.
Auxiliary contracts. Fold reliable gray crews into emergency duty under strict terms, then review each case after the wave of monsters.
Public lines. Everywhere, the same red lines hold: no seal rig sabotage, no slave trade, no med theft. Crossing them brings the hammer.
Community ties
Criminal and gray crews last because they solve immediate problems: a swarm turned from a farm, a seal done at night, a winter convoy escorted when official help never came. Villages repay with diesel, food, and silence, and over time this becomes a local pact. The pact ends when crews tax too hard, hurt locals, or bring monsters back. Then communities call in the uniforms.