Background:
A terrorist organization with roots in a planet dominated by a dictatorial government tolerated by the Feds. Initially a group of pacific people who insisted in better relations with aliens and the replacement of the dictatorship for a democracy, the Carmine Hand was born after the totalitarian state began to supress their peaceful activities with violence, eliciting equal violence from their side.
As the organization grew, it began to gather more followers and agents across other systems which had planets under the rule of similar regimens, as well as sympathizers and helpers in democratic planets who sent them supplies in order to advance their causes, causing the Family to grow and become a well-known organization in some areas of human-occupied space, using their limited resources to implement guerilla warfare and infiltrate key structures in some planets.
With time, different passions started to burn within the organization and a few branching groups started to act under its name with different, ill purposes, their members entranced by the killing and the chaos. The Carmine Hand itself started to lose ground as a joint-force of several rulers made their move, seizing various bases and supplies, even if most of their agents were able to flee the onslaught.
The future of the organization seems grim.
Training:
Field agents were usually trained in various skills, depending on the area they would operate. Basic practical martial arts - and, in the case of the elite forces, advanced combat - were common, as well as mechanics, gun-wielding and moving silently. Aside from the field personnel, a few of the members were trained as indoctrinators, generally taking up higher positions in the Family. The indoctrinators were usually raised/trained as intellectuals, with a wide assortment of knowledge and studies leading them to a final phase where they were taught how to persuade and deceive, gathering followers to the cause and sending them to their certain deaths at times.
Emmanuel was apparently being raised to be a indoctrinator, and was not very happy about it.
Symbols, signals and identifying traits:
Few things identify the Carmines, although they use a few spionage and counter-spionage tactics which had fell into disuse even before the Solarian empire suffered its demise, trusting that the modern times saw people focus on the high-tech aspect of the underworld, forgetting about spoken codes and signs.
Some of the members, usually high-ranked, wear gloves with a large circle and several juxtaposed pentagrams inside it. A few extra details may appear to indicate seniority, but in general they are a garment of status and are rarely ever used outside bases, safe areas or any place where donning one of them may net the wearer some benefit. Some members may have more than one pair, and colors may vary from individual to individual, but the symbol is always present.