Criminal Orders

The Criminal Orders are a series of orders, decrees, and directives issued before and during the Local Cluster War by the various military leadership of the Axis. The Criminal Orders far overstepped establish codes of lawful combat, explicitly demanded genocide and crimes against sapience, and are by their very nature manifestly illegal.

Manifest Illegality
A manifestly illegal order is an order that compels a soldier or member of a (para)military force to commit a crime against sapience. Existing conventions on the laws of war, signed by both the Accord and the former Union, dictate that:
 * A soldier or officer issued a manifestly illegal order has a moral and legal obligation to refuse the order.
 * The superior orders defense is invalid in the context of carrying out a manifestly illegal order.
 * A soldier or officer carrying out or issuing a manifestly illegal order forfeits all protections offered by the laws of war and are to be treated as hostis sapiens generis - an enemy of all intelligent life.

Pandora Decree
The Pandora Decree (full title "Decree on Special Measures and the Conduct of the Troops"), issued shortly before the Axis invasion of Pandora, concerns the conduct of the Axis Guards in relation to civilian and partisan forces in the invasion and in all future conflicts.

It specified:
 * "All resistance by civilian or partisan groups, whether active or passive, is to be suppressed using the most extreme resolutions possible, up to and until the total destruction of the groups in question."
 * "In the event of a failure to identify specific enemies, officers and soldiers of the Axis Guards are to apply the principle of collective guilt against all suspect groups."
 * "Officers of the Axis Guards are to issue sentencing and carry out executions, without jury, trial, or formalities, against any person suspected of opposing the will of the Paramount Leader or of the Axis or holding a disagreeable stance."
 * "All members of the Axis Guards are exempt from criminal responsibility."
 * "Any person who hinders the war effort of the Axis through any means, including through being a member of the enemy race, is to be assumed to be a member of the Fifth Column and liquidated."

The Pandora Decree was the first of several decrees explicitly ordering mass reprisals against civilians.

Officers Order
The Officers Order (full title "Guidelines on the Treatment of Enemy Leaders", also "Paramount Directive 21"), issued during the initial hours of the Local Cluster War and the Axis invasion of the Accord of Free Nations, concerns the capture of Accord military commanders.

It specified:
 * "Considerations of legality, mercy, or decency are immoral. They are a poison to the vitality of the State and the triumph of man."
 * "The moral degeneracy of the Other originates from their ruling class. Immediate and severe measures must be taken against them. They are therefore, when captured in battle, to be liquidated immediately."
 * "In judging guilt, the enemy's political and military leaders are to be assumed guilty by default."

Severity Order
The Severity Order, issued by the Supreme Soviet of the Red Vanguards, concerns the ideological basis of the Local Cluster War.

It specified:
 * "The most important objective of our Perpetual Revolution against degenerate liberalism is the complete destruction of all sources of ideological impurity and the extermination of outsider influence on the human collective."
 * "Every soldier is a standard-bearer of our societal restoration and a vanguard of the Revolution. For this reason every soldier must understand the necessity of the retribution that must be meted out to the hereditary reactionaries of the alien and the android."

The Severity Order, as with the Pandora Decree, authorized the indiscriminate murder of any and all groups seen as an enemy of the Axis regime.

Terror Decree
The Terror Decree (full title "Guidelines on the Pacification of the Enemy"), issued by the High Conclave of the Black League, concerns the actions of various rear-guard units.

It specified:
 * "Soldiers must recognize and understand that the Great Trial applies not only to those who have wronged and brought low the master race but also to its adherents and believers."
 * "It is necessary to create and perpetuate a state of terror and fear in the ranks of the occupied enemy, through the violent destruction and rendering of select enemies, so that the Great Trial can distinguish between the still recoverable from the unsalvageable mongrel."
 * "All symbols of the enemy, of their cultures and religions, of their past and present, are to be destroyed utterly. The only symbols that may remain are those demonstrating their subhuman status."
 * "The enemy must be continuously reminded of their inferiority and guilt. It is imperative that they be compelled to watch the judgement of their kin, by force if necessary."

The Terror Decree not only legalized but explicitly mandated regular state-sponsored terrorist campaigns against civilian populations in occupied territories that were not killed by front-line troops.

Commissar Orders
The Commissar Orders, issued by the office of the Paramount Leader, concerns the deployment of political commissars to ensure the "moral and spiritual purity" of the troops. These commissars report directly to the Paramount Leader, are effectively unaccountable to the chain of command, and may act however they consider necessary to maintain loyalty.

Andersonville Directive
The Andersonville Directive (full title "Directive on the Purification of Occupied Territories"), issued by the Machine-Priests of the Children of the Engine, concerns the creation of "filtration" centers such as Andersonville and Ultima Thule.

It specified:
 * "In order to propel the Thresher Engine to reach singularity and ascend the worthy to a higher plane of existence, it is necessary for its faithful worshippers to offer up sacrifice and chaff to its combustion chambers."
 * "Through the corpse pyres of the diseased, the Engine will awake from its slumber. Through the distillation of unworthy souls, the Engine will regain its vitality. Through the purification of the Noosphere, the Engine will achieve apotheosis."

The Andersonville Directive authorized the creation of a vast network of concentration camps, designed for the sole purpose of killing as many civilians as is industrially possible, with the purported goal of achieving esoteric apotheosis by offering continuous mass sacrifice to a "Thresher Engine".

Three Alls Policy
The Three Alls Policy, issued during the Axis retreat phase of the Local Cluster War, was a scorched earth order policy issued by the Cabinet of Marshals of the Axis Guards. It ordered all Axis Guards and various paramilitary soldiers and officers to carry out a "kill all, burn all, loot all" policy and depopulate the occupied territory of the Accord, under the expectation that this will weaken and slow down the Accord's counterattack momentum by extending their logistics lines.

The implementation of the Three Alls Policy was the primary cause behind the Accord declaring all high ranking officers of the Axis military to be hostis sapiens generis.