Summary: A brief side foray into a cinder of shadows, the International Intelligence Agency.
Marvus Staelens Archangel was my name. Perhaps I was raised with it and every bit of it was true, that I had a good and spoiled life before happened upon this job and took this burden.
Maybe… Maybe I after so many years had to be reprogrammed and indoctrinated to be fully-committal to the vision of the Federation.
Mine's a body full of implants – neutered not for pretty, but for utility. This was to make sure I kept absolute focus to my surroundings and my peripheral vision.
Humanity always believed that its own free will could only be tolerated because it's a human body. But alas, we disproved ourselves, we…made ourselves well above that, at least some of us.
The privileged few are sometimes the cursed – shocker, but heh, we learn to deal with it. By blood am I bound to serving the Federation, since – I guess – being their finest agent, taking down subversive parties in splintered states during the Federation's baby steps days. Few scruples could be attached to it…but the alternative was letting us Feddies lounge on its ass helplessly watching as the others moved on without us and we rotted.
Hundreds of years of rediscovery and gradual advancement was a total blessing for us Pacs; we could pursue art, weapons, even technological grafts that virtually every other nation was incredibly behind on.
I just got vibrations from a lesser Flag Agent conducting ISR Romeos on the Peripheral state of Manchuria. Always had a thing with covert spies bringing down its public facilities…damn them.
My masters had been stressed out on this kind of job; all those coffee hours and staring at monitors and maps, that's gotta take a toll. Only so much pressure on a nation you can sustain, so much instability before shit comes to roost and spoil.
I said, "Continue the assembly, begin drone claw ops…and somebody get this man a lager of '26 Salvemini Scarlet."
Drone claw ops are just intellegencia speak for sending missiles and bullets down to those little holdouts. We like to get the sensationalist news media's criticism of us…and I admit we did sometimes, but nowhere near as frequent as what those tabloids come off on, stupid jerks. Our Deep Laws stop us from screwing with the press – because it's dictator-type shit – and instead enable us to manipulate the news to foxing the truth as best we could to our favor.
Let's just say the D/Vs have been expendable but can be thrown around a lot, especially useful for air raids. Those tail fuckers are ridiculed for their high loss rate, but they work wonders when you make weapons on them.
And the Salvemini pop?
My favorite, along with the name itself. If there's a thing we can still thank Cascadia on at a time like this, rather than curse and defecate and piss at them, it's their really top-quality wine. Sold a lot in Mongol land and our precious Steel 1 – or should I say the Khan – keeps a whole cabinet – hell, lorry stall – in his little castle, which is the envy of distilleries stuck with the brilliant-but-unpreferable Saki from Heijo.
Yet it can do…only little in assuaging my worries about the Alliance's Citadel Scutarius Service or some Peripheral asshole setting off some lost Arrow from an Empty Quiver, making us having to do Oceania on repeat.
I might have been given augments to keep my service going, to keep my spy experience and technique alive…but…what the Cabal did to Trinity Bay, the hellfire engulfing all in its wake…I still sweat at night just thinking of it.
All the power, all the strength…and yet I still feel like a servant and a chained one with so many limits as to make the eggheads frown in shame, think for a crucifying moment that all their efforts on me have been for nothing.
I try to remind myself every day: Fine agents need to be groomed, they take time and money to be trained, give or take years. Sometimes, it's wasted, sometimes, we strike gold (I can testify), but there's only so much even supers like us can shill out.
Through conventional means, the best of the best are impossible to keep around forever. Like an AI, I could be a useful tool for the people above, the best pawn they could ever fashion. This is my path, my future…my honor and pride, what my life had been molded too.
And I'm okay with it. Any government conducting eyes and ears half shut instead of wide open – half measures basically – they're just slowing progress down.
I was the ultimate ideal of the loyal agent of the Federation – the person every other spook aspires to. But honestly? I wouldn't wish my experiences on my enemies mostly.
We have to be flexible, deal with threats wherever or whoever they are.
I then take a look around.
My skin was as bleak as the dimly lit room – got some scars whose causes I don't even remember anymore. Lots of ways to help folk, sometimes through hurting other folk, sometimes through putting yourself in the line of fire. Or in my case…blast radius and a side dish or pistol whipping.
I then peek at the armory containing my old sneaking suit. God, how I missed it – the old memories of Oceania, the Andesian snow, the Bhutani muck, all of it. The sentimental value is the god of small things there.
Enough reminiscing, I got priorities and I need to observe the telemetry. Heard too that the Cascadians are growing a lot bolder with piercing through the damn Bering and into Anadyr.
I decided to walk through the door – blinding light cleaning the slate of my scarred face, making a mirror mess of me at certain angles.
The computer on the desk I used was nothing but an old model for backups – we IIA agents tend to keep them around – so the real one, I've stored in the basement of this little safehouse which I can't really tell anyone the location.
My eyes also flutter out, as if in solidarity with my body language, to bring down so much into my lap.
I then boarded the computer and it showed FNN and UCS clashing around with images and reports. I grin a bit at them; all that propagantastic spinning and not-lying, all those weasel words to make the Cascadian Conflict weaker than it was, it made me appreciate…being the one to carry the burden of truth.
That was the price you expended when you join up with the IIA; the truth won't always be righteous, clean, or even balanced for everyone.
Brightness was a present to the entire room, and it looks like it's starving of furnishings. This would be fit for some kind of Air Force or FG armory, not some vacant absent-minded IIA hideout.
My latest telemetry data came from Agent Belltower. Officially, he's just some Army RTO under the command of one Actual of the fabled Brock Regiment - Captain Richard Flowers.
That Dick guy, his record's good, plenty of successful exercises, no-nonsense, and he's the type of man to be reserved in terms of literally and proverbially playing around; says he'd only be informal with people of paragon-esque moral standing with a skill to match. Granted, he definitely agreed with the unrestricted transport warfare that we pulled in Oceania – only in part.
He thought that Faustie and Lizzie just went too far with their little operation, that they cared more about putting other people down than actually intimidating the enemy through proper ways and means.
His troops like the way he thinks – being of Calcuttan spirit and blood, he's used to the hot deserts and the dystopic storms and thunders that his homeland gets a lot. Doesn't have the accent to match, though – heard he likes adapting in both psychological and mental factors. "Beat the larynx with all you got," he said.
Authored by Federation Intelligence Ministry Frumentarii Division Agent Marburg "Belltower" Ehrman
Agent's eyes only – LIMITED DISTRIBUTION
Occupation:
Pacific Federation Unified Ground Forces radio telephone officer
International Intelligence Agency Cohesion Commissary spook officer
Federal Files Archive Library → Indirect Action: FIIA (Federation International Intelligence Agency)
History
"Blue stars I don, give us hope our vile enemies begone. Soon, no longer shall conflict, suffering, and death rule this world, but handshakes, plenty, and life prosperous. So far our path will take us, yet solely Heaven will know…beyond fire and dust lies the rising sun." Commander Valentin Gaulther, Flight Leader of FP-01 "Crimson"
In the cutthroat world of political control, this world asunder, the Federation was back then fledgling and struggling to find meaning in its existence, an objective – one it would realize for itself as the shepherds of the human race after the Global Burning – the Calamity as we know it. Theirs is a vision of genuine thought, of achievement at any cost for the sake of human survival.
Yet, it did not take long for the threads of this fractally broken world to mess the kitchen up. Obviously, being in part hardened corporates who as always sought self-profiteering through the veneer of genuine noble intent (though, as inherent by them, weaseling via policies such as all those live war games for a start), it was as expected; countries raised suspicion and stink on this upstart multinational alliance, and with their sizeable metropoli and battlement, skepticism arose over who this new superpower was.
Among the hurdles and hoops the Federation had to overcome included signals intelligence and espionage. In a world where the fields of battle had regressed to medieval times or only the necessary fraction higher range than that, ISTAR and radar was weakened at most world regions due to thermal interference, and so, like knights with wings, most of everything had to be collected and recorded with the most persistence – a segment of it being to avoid repeating the mistake of the forefathers, which was a failure to compress and archive necessary data to bring the world back to what it was.
The International Intelligence Agency was formed to guarantee the first line of defense for the thinking talking heads of the Federation, an MI entity supervising its brains. The agency was founded on July 8, AC 347, and has no clear headquarters; sometimes stationed right near Crystal Kingdom – the HIGHCOMM of the Federation top brass – and sometimes on mobile transport such as cargo jet planes and surface-based ships in order to improve flexibility.
The IIA – as to shorten it – has over the course of the Federation's existence provided and developed strategic systems and other software for the sophistication of SIGINT and ISR equipment. They had leveraged and monitored the formation of the various federal branches, reporting contracts in advance from mercenary groups and sneaking agents to the Periphery. Special project budgets are sent out in advance in order to advance the Federation's agenda of monitoring and controlling its advancement.
Subversion and manipulation is the name of the game when it comes to the Periphery and dealing with other superpowers, leading to spy cold wars with the IIA often coming out on top. They maintain tabs on high-profile private military forces and public officials of the topmost echelons.
A sample list includes (DAM stands for "data availability margin"; graded from 1-100):
/Admiral Mathieu Bonin (ref. High-value Individuals: Victoria (Section 5A)); DAM 72.22
/Captain Deborah Gossller (ref. High-value Individuals: Magadan (4E)); DAM 71.11
/Charliona Services (ref. Sanctioned Groups: CHSV (Charliona Services)); DAM 20.05
/Commander Andrea Shepperd (ref. Rival Superpowers: UKA/ESA (United Kerneuropa/Evropa Systems Alliance)); DAM 20.12
/Commander Valentin Gaulther (ref. High-value Individuals: Cascadia (Section 2A)); DAM 90.13
/Conrad Security (ref. Sanctioned Groups: CSEC (Conrad Security)); DAM 81.9
/General Loreena Faust (ref. High-value Individuals: Cascadia (Section 2B)); DAM 80.10
/HPBC (ref. Registered Armament: Energy Weaponry); DAM 5
/Icarus Armories (ref. Companies and Guilds: IC (Iccirus Holdings)); DAM 87.09
/High Regent Arthuretta (ref. Fortress States: RAL (Republic of Albion)); DAM 95.07
/"Maester" Lord Strannick (ref. Blacklist: MRCC (Mercenary Cabal)); DAM 18.06
/Major Thorold Stratfon (ref. High-value Individuals: Magadan (Section 4D)); DAM 90.10
/Marvus Staelens Archangel (ref. Flag Agents: MSA (Marvus Strelec Archangel)); DAM 99.4
/Morgan Security (ref. Companies and Guilds: MORG (Morgan Group)); DAM 73.13
/Oceania Foundries Group (ref. Companies and Guilds: OFGR (Oceania Foundries Group)); DAM 100
/President Tuchel Mabiala (ref. Rival Superpowers: WAC (West African Concordat)); DAM 49.07
/Sicario Mercenary Corps (ref. Irregular Groups: SCMC (Sicario Mercenary Corps)); DAM 21.20
/Thorn Rose Group (ref. Irregular Groups: TRG (Thorn Roses Gang)); DAM 79.88
/Wildshot Gang (ref. Irregular Groups: WSG (Wildshot Gang)); DAM 60.33
Ridicule was heaped on the IIA's excessive naming length, and there were numerous petitions to shorten the agency's name to simply the "Federation Intellegencia Internationale" or "Federal Supreme Intelligence," all of which had been foregone for higher budget and priorities.
Formulation
The IIA is your typical intelligence agency, given a substantial manpower command boost for being funded by none other than the Federation. Your current branch is the Cohesion Commissary (C2) – so-named because of its Siberian origins and influence for seizure-by-necessary means.
/Your current commissary is directed to monitor internal morale and constructionist structure; it interacts directly with officers and leaders of the Federation Military Forces in order to facilitate full communication between the branches and ensure the troops always have a trustworthy officer culture in the untrustworthy world of theirs.
/The Ostrog Commissary handles public affairs and responsible communication of official activity, along with coordination with law enforcement, most prominently aerial highway officers, natural disaster scouting, interception of border intrusions, and infraction accounting of each and every individual living on Federation soil.
/When a citizen of the Federation causes excess or intolerable trouble, it is indicative of a failure to represent well the daily lives of the ideal human society, to conduct themselves to the best of their ability to show the core traits and ethics that the world would want the PACFED to represent. They have had followed the regulation of civics guaranteeing citizenship and read it thoroughly, yet chose to be reported numerous times. Failure to pay speeding fines on times is one such offense, and criminals are given the choice of either penal labor with the only certitude being basic necessities with specified sentences or a stint to work off their crimes in the Reserve Divisions – a second plus chance to redeem oneself.
/The Tubalcain Commissary is in charge of monitoring special project funding, such as on the SP-34R battle frame and P[REDACTED] W[REDACTED]. It also oversees the exchange of technology as conducted between the multiple Federation subjects and the funding received; eyes and ears are everywhere in figuring out what projects make the cut and what do not, most evident with the first Icarus Armories test run of cordium-powered aircraft engines.
/The Palace Imperium is the lesser-known but important branch delivering daily briefings for the Prime Executive themself, using data and intelligence collated on the fly 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Command Chain
"Bloodbound" is the codename for the primary big boss of the IIA – formally the DII (Director of International Intelligence). Full control and supervision of the federal IIA is exercised by this individual, giving the Federation's sensory awareness the aptitude of an eagle and the heart of a demon.
Councilors of the Federation approve of budgetary monitors for branches like the IIA and the organization is hardly an independent dictatorial government contrary to popular belief; paperwork and check is all over the place with the IIA, though "Bloodbound" has free reign to keep circulating the wiretaps so as to maintain Federation-brand efficiency.
Understanding Mercenaries
Comprehending this combative culture and why does it exist is certainly valuable, but the harsh truth is that we tend to react more than we do act; too passive in absorbing countries, too stuck up in our little bubble .
We're often pitted against these stupid moneygrubbers, other intel agencies on tap, privateers who have gone rogue, perhaps even police forces.
We can, however, bypass them with bribes or deceit, eradication, or simple guarantees of service. We evidently do have Conrad Security on ground defense tab, and granted them insurance to malpractice and strike tabs.
Mercenary forces becoming more and more accepted globally in Peripheral states cannot be accepted, we care less about the profession and both the fake news guy and Mark with official Fed backing and freelance operators. This has admittedly been making it more hinders our ability to act with the freedom we were so used to for too long.
But admittedly, as despicable as this might sound…both sides have a point-point criteria that gives more gray to that world. Time will be committed to exploring some notable PMCs, whose rating I shall rate on A/S rating with plus signs. For now, I have to let my prejudice against those dime store criminals to the side, learn why the hell did they carry the Charlie Romeos so far to victory.
That's that, full measures; no sanctimonious or personal sentiments, or any form of prejudice in my analysis. There won't be any quipping around here, and if I may forget, than God damn me, I'm not so sure anymore.
This is a lot to write up through and I'll need sleep a little while longer.
The mercenary may be a diverse compilation of the disgruntled – maybe they're Feds or ex-regs who wanna seek a more productive life – but they are not to be look down in terms of skill.
Theirs is a mind-complex that believes the world is one giant collection of Aos, that it's nothing but a playground to fly around silly jet planes, and so on.
The Cabal's hidden evil was making sympathy for these criminals, you know what, about people fighting all day and all night to get money even though one contract and you're set for life?
Anyway, time for full formalities. This is a postmodern work – in terms of literary flair - examining some PMCs and first understanding why did they do what they do through their backgrounds.
A/N:
Try your luck at the references in that IIA laundry list :)
Nothing more…just expect near-daily updates :)
