Would-be mercenaries with serious underworld connections apply to the Yoshitoni Institute, a highly secret installation run by the Orion Syndicate. Located on an obscure asteroid in the Kellinan Reach, the Institute—jokingly named after a notorious Human killer and saboteur famous for his brutal role in the reorganisation and expansion of the Syndicate in the 2220s—offers individually tailored training programs for aspiring mercenaries, assassins, insurgents, torturers, and bounty hunters. Students learn the most advanced tactics and train with the latest weapons and equipment. The Institute is open only to those with the underworld connections to learn of it and gain admittance. Its dean, an Orion named Ellefrin Vrax, known for his perverse sense of humor, runs Yoshitoni as a winking parody of legitimate educational institutions, complete with a cap-and-gown graduation ceremony. His perverse sense of humor aside, Vrax offers a rigorous and complete training program, exposing his students to the most advanced tactics and the newest equipment and weaponry.