there are already Templar orders running around today, they just lack the funding and drive that this one had. Here's the history of the Templars in Dark Nova, to help explain-



"During the Fall in the 21st Century, the governments of most nations lost control over vast portions of their countries. In the chaos of the Impacts and the Year-Long-Winter, local law enforcement collapsed in many regions, the militaries of the affected nations were devastated and forced to pull back to securable sectors, and the centralized governments of the vast nations Balkanized. From this chaos rose two opposing grass-roots groups: the Raiders and the Defenders. The raiders were disparate gangs of criminals, racist groups, rogue military and law enforcement units or personnel, anti-government groups, race-gangs, and opportunists with a mind for butchery and pillage. They fell upon the reeling survivors like Vikings on coastal villages during the Dark Ages- raping, pillaging, torturing, slaughtering, and taking what they wanted from the refugees because they could. Some raided out of desperation, but many others did so out of a sadistic evil intent long-suppressed by the controls of society.

The universe, be it nature or in the hearts of sentients, is not without its own balancing mechanism, however. Rising up to counter the raiders were equally disparate groups of men and women who stood up to them. Remnants of local law enforcement, retired soldiers or those cut off from their units, and survivalists or good-hearted and skilled men and women in many areas organized and trained militias to protect their communities. Most of these were ad-hoc community guard forces, but others evolved around ideological lines. As in catastrophes throughout history, religious or philosophical cults and movements are often born in the worst moments of the disaster, and the Fall was no different. These groups that rose up to combat the raiders rose from among these movements- in Europe, the King's Men fought against raiders in England in the name of the Monarchy, the Bloody Legion and the Croatian Militias fought across the mainland under the banner of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Landsknecht-inspired Red Handed Defenders assisted the German military in regaining control of their country. In America, the Minutemen of the American Revolution inspired the group of the same name, Wild West heroes inspired the Wisconsin Riders, and ancient Irish legends of heroes and warrior-poets inspired the Order of the Harp. Another group that formed and would grow to fame was the Reformed Templars, a group of men and women inspired and trained by Oliver Barton, a billionaire industrialist who claimed to be a member of a secret society of surviving Templars. While this claim has been considered to have been a wild boast without any merit, the effect that Barton had cannot be questioned.

Based out of his fortified compound in Michigan, where he had stockpiled supplies for years in preparation for WWIII as it built to a head, Barton gathered dozens- and later thousands- of men and women to his cause during the first year of the Fall. A charismatic speaker, Barton inspired his followers with romantic exhortations of the glory of the Templars as protectors of the innocent and pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. Inspired by this, he named his followers the Restored Templar Order and proclaimed their purpose to be that of the original Templars, to protect the refugees as they fled cities and areas overwhelmed by chaos and headed to the secured zones. Barton hired the best instructors he could from surviving special operations and S.W.A.T. teams to train his people, and acquired the best weapons, body armor, and equipment he could find on the growing black market. In time, this group of romantic idealists became a hardened, well-trained and well-armed elite paramilitary force devoted to Templar ideals. More than idealistic romantics, however, they went out into the uncontrolled regions to bring justice and order to regions swimming in chaos and anarchy. They proved to be quite formidable, and were responsible for thousands of minor and major victories against the Raiders.

During the Restoration ten years later, Oliver Barton wrote his final literary work- The Book of the Templars: An Order Restored- in which he laid out the framework for the future of his growing organization. With the governments reasserting power and control, often with crackdowns on freedom and democratic values, he argued that the Templars must work in secret, beholden to no government, no church, no one man or woman, but to the ideal of the Templars as those who fight evil and tyranny, and protect the innocent. With Oliver Barton’s death shortly afterwards in 2042, the ranks of the Templars swelled while the organization simultaneously went underground.

Organizing in cells of thirty, where only the Grand Master of each cell had contact with two other Grand Masters, they became a secret society that fought across the globe against the rise of the new organized crime networks and others who would prey upon their charges. In time, as humanity expanded out to the rest of the solar system, and eventually the galaxy, Templars expanded as well, finding themselves in much need as pirate gangs, predatory aliens, and other nefarious and dangerous threats emerged.

Today, the Templars do as they have for three centuries- travel the spacelanes from colony to colony, fighting against despots, slavers, criminal organizations, the Byntai and the Khurians, and doing their part to protect the innocents of the universe from its dangers. While they are openly condemned by many governments as a rogue vigilante organization, they are secretly viewed as a significant help, and investigations into their activities are always stalled without any successes. With the recognition by the Andali Confederation, Ahrugan Tribal Confederation, Australio-Pacifica Coalition, and the Free Systems Alliance as an independent paramilitary force akin to a mercenary corporation- and bound by similar restrictions- the Templars have emerged from secrecy and often work openly. Their signature anachronistic-looking Templar armor, vibroblades, and their preference for close-quarters fighting have created a legendary aura about them, and they are seen by many as a romantic ideal given form. Core World citizenry see them as something right out of an Arthurian sim, and fringe colonists see them as the saviors of the day when they show up aboard a Freetrader vessel, ride out on their hoverbikes, and take down a local crime lord or despot. Whether seen as vigilantes or Lone-Ranger-like heroes, no one can argue with the effectiveness of the Templar knights."