The Forbidden City

A small settlement, when compared to nascent powers like Columbia, the Forbidden City resides in the mists of Zhongguo.
Where that is, who can say? No one, other than those that claim to come from and work in its interest, has even seen the city itself.
They simply use outlying settlements for transactions, seemingly choosing them at random for meetings and hand-offs. Despite this, it's clear that this group has some sort of backing, as their spec ops squads are legendary.
The Forbidden City doesn't seem to have much production capacity, but what they produce is highly advanced, though equally experimental. Even if the technology isn't reliable, it is worth a great deal to the highest bidder.
Theoretically, at least a few colonies throughout the system are under the Forbidden Cities' control, but where or who they are is unknown to the wider population. If they actually exist at all.
Due to its secrecy, many aspects of it's society are complete unknowns. Even down to the ratio of Organics to AMPs, or what sort of models they make use of in their operations. One thin that is known is that the leadership, whoever they are, will do a great deal to obscure or destroy information about the Forbidden City and it's movements, up to and beyond the violent death of it's own agents.