Foreword: Recently Exhack and I have decided to begin "fleshing out" the criminal and mercenary population. Traditionally nearly all the culture comes from PC nations, while the entire galactic criminal/merc sector is limited to-- well, they aren't much. What few factions wandering about are usually just generic thugs with guns and antique military equipment. Leaders may vary, but they're all pretty much the same. There are a few exceptions, but the diversity of the criminal sector is still a tiny fraction of what it is among the legitimate sector.
Anyways, we thought it might be a neat to start beefing up and diversifying the population so as to:
1) Make the criminal/merc sector an actual threat instead of just stormtrooper-like NPC fodder for plotships
2) Give the criminal sector the same uniqueness that legitimate nations have, to help flesh out the setting.
3) Give them the same opportunity for competition and factional politics that nations have (but within the criminal underworld).
Here is the first of a few submissions.