Vatican Incident

Vatican Incident
Vatican Incident was a key catalyst for the open war that is later known as the Great War (Apocalypse). During the time of the Cold War between G-Sec and InSOP, the Incident was meant to be a rudimentary field test for G-Sec’s newly found The Pennant division to test the subjects’ performance against InSOP operatives. What  was meant to be a field test later proved to be one of the bloodiest engagements between the two parties, even though it was a relatively small scale operation.

Pre-Incident
It is known that by this time in the timeline, G-Sec’s The Pennant unit was in development to be a counter-offensive for Infinitum Corporation's InSOP operatives within the Illuminati base of operations, Vatican. It is also known that the project needed a high supply of human subjects, infants and children younger than 3-4 years of age for indoctrination and medical procedures that would transform them into full-fledged The Pennant units. Due to the project’s religious nature, Vatican was chosen as the recruitment center. Priests and bishops were the epicenter of this recruitment process. However due  to the extreme measures inflicted on human subjects that might be considered as “inhumane”, priests and bishops weren’t told of the true nature of this recruitment.

People were persuaded by believing that they were in a war against Anti-Christ and their belief was the only way to stop the impending doom. Thousands of people offered their babies and children in hopes of saving them and everyone. Priests were bringing the collected subjects to archbishops who, without the priests’ knowledge, handed the children to G-Sec's R&D division for The Pennant unit.

Indoctrination
G-Sec prevented priests’ intervention by using their faith, indoctrinating them into thinking it was forbidden for priests to question the being of children as it would be a direct revolt against the will of god in this battle of salvation. Since it was considered a sin, most of the priests did their duty without question.

Although the exposure to the outside world was extremely limited within Vatican borders, it was clear that priests and other people would eventually hear of Infinitum Corporation as well and that would hinder the development of The Pennant project. In an effort to divert people to Vatican, G-Sec also indoctrinated people against Infinitum Corporation, picturing it as the source of evil and InSOP as their agents of mayhem.

Cause of the Incident
Due to the lack of exposure to children dedicated to the cause, seeds of suspicion was planted among some priest. One of which was Father Patrick, who began to question the well-being of a certain child he developed an attachment to. Being unable to resist the temptation, Patrick broke the rule and descended down within the crypts of Vatican’s underground dungeons which was transformed into the R&D labs for the pennant project. To his shock, he uncovered that the children they were gathering in hopes to save them were going through incredibly violent procedures to become utter killing machines that are The Pennant. His guilt got the better of him and in an attempt to redeem himself, he planned to rescue as much children as possible from this inhumane fate. Enlightened with the answers, Patrick figured that the Infinitum Corporation might not be the source of evil as told by the archbishops and cardinals. With an act of desperation, Patrick went down the labs again. One by one gathering un-processed children on sight, along with all the documents and data he came accross about the project before sending a distress signal outside the Vatican. Because he (any other priest for that matter) didn’t know anything about Infinitum Corporation, he activated a random radio communicator within the Vatican quarters, hoping that Infinitum or someone would pick up the signal.

InSOP Intervention
Unfortunate for Father Patrick, little did he know that Vatican was under a radio silence, similar to Russia before the Great War (Apocalypse), and every signal going in and out of Vatican was under strict surveillence. G-Sec noticed the leak and apprehended Father Patrick. However, Infinitum Administrative AI got hold of a portion of this transmission before G-Sec cut the link.

What little known about Infinitum Corporation at that time is that, since the descrete operations conducted by InSOP revealed an inhuman (and possibly extra-dimensional) source for the cause of Russian radio silence before the War, Infinitum Corporation was suspecting that a bigger “divine” plan might be at play. Thus the Infinitum Administrative AI had a secondary task of locating respected theologians and biblical experts along with great scientific minds, as scientists might be inefficient in exploring this uncharted territory.

The transmission contained various data on “The Pennant” project. Including a brief info on the purpose of the project, along with some of the procedures human subjects go through. A particular document contained data on a nano-machinery controlled by a central control system, “HIVE”, and the potential source of this nano-machinery might be an intact “wing” of some sort made out of unknown nano-machines. This revelation placed the transmission on top priority among other on going Administrative AI protocoles as this might reveal some info on “the bigger plan”.

An InSOP team assembled and sent to the distress signal. Little did they know that G-Sec was already aware of InSOP arrival as they captured Father Patrick and the transmission he was sending. Unable to prevent InSOP intervention, G-Sec leader Robert Anderson (a.k.a “Patchwork” Anderson) decided that the situation was a great chance to field test newly born The Pennant unit in action. Combat ready The Pennant units were immediately gathered and an ambush for InSOP operatives was set. Unaware of this new power, InSOP operatives landed right on top of the ambush. As they were unprepared for the viciousness of The Pennant units, attacking the infidel agents of mayhem, InSOP team was decimated. Apart from the InSOP team, huge amount of collateral damage was done to the neighbourgin civilian settlements. The data transmission from the team members reached The Providence and revealed this new and formidable enemy to the Infinitum Corporation.

Demonic Intervention
It was, and still is, believed that demonic influence might be the accelerant for the cause of this incident. However still uncorroborated, it is rumored that Father Patrick was influenced by demonic agents in order to develop doubt and temptation against the rules and word of god. It is said that these whispers made him harder to resist his temptation to revolt and send that distress signal. It was also rumored that G-Sec leader Robert Anderson was also influenced by demonic agents, in conjuction with Father Patrick, to ultimately make this incident a key Catalyst of the Great War.

The existence of the demonic Council of the Damned was not revealed at that time. However, it was later revealed that the Council had tasked specific members to oversea the war effort on Orthodox Terra and accelerate the Russian invasion, along with the process to engage in open war.

A less known rumor regarding the intact “wings of some sort” mentioned in Father Patrick’s distress signal points to the Council of the Damned's secondary objective, which was said to be to study their former physical form. Being unable to attain and interact with their former nano bodies, Council’s “The Fallen” members plotted to set the chain of events that would later become the “The Pennant” by making G-Sec find an intact angel wing of unknown source. Their goal was said to be to reverse engineer the wings’ nano-machinery to attain that power once again. However being unable to interact with the nano-machinery, Council used G-Sec, without them knowing, to study the wings and gather info on them.

The rumors indicate that the Council of the Damned lieutenants Hraka and Malekth were the ones to influence Father Patrick and Robert Anderson respectively, in order to fullfil the Council’s demands.