Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

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Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Siege »

The purpose of this thread is to provide a brief look and a smattering of basic information on some of the more unusual military, paramilitary and civilian units, organizations and outfits that can be found in the world. The thread is not limited to one particular side of the Iron Curtain, so expect both Warsaw Pact, NATO and other, less clearly affiliated, entities to pop up here.
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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THE ACTIVITY
The US Army Intelligence Support Activity (or 'The Activity' for short) is a special operations unit that was officially disbanded by the US Army in 1989. In actuality The Activity was transferred to Special Conditions Command as part of the Special Access Program that established SPECCON. Since the transfer the unit has operated under codenames that change at least once every two years to preserve deep cover. Known codenames are POWER GEAR, PALE LIGHT and GRAY FOX.

SPECCON was formed in the mid-‘80’s as a direct result to the catastrophic destruction of a Norwegian and an American research base in the Arctic in 1982 by what turned out to be a parasitic alien entity dug up from the ice. As the United States more and more found itself facing unusual threats that required novel ways to handle and control, President Reagan decided to establish the secretive Special Conditions Command to do just that. SPECCON then was assigned its own commando unit, The Activity, in order for it to be able to deal ‘anomalous phenomena’ that might be lurking ‘out there’.

The baptism of fire for The Activity came in ’91, when a SETI@HOME client computer in Tampa, Florida accidentally decoded what turned out to be an invasive memetic attack of extraterrestrial origin. The memetic virus took over a city block before it could be contained, and The Activity had to liaise with the supragovernmental agency Entete in order to defeat it – by ordering a blockbuster bomb dropped before the virus could spread. The sordid affair was then covered up as an exploded faulty gas main.

The Tampa Dossier set the tone for many Activity operations to come. When they arrive upon a scene it often has to deal with situations that require a solution right here, right now before things get much, much worse, The Activity therefore never hesitates to employ excessive force, and so people are likely to die, and things are likely to be blown up.

In the 19 years it has been active for SPECCON, The Activity has dealt with rogue hypertech, extraterrestrial threats and the remnants of Gosely’s CIA and their experiments. It stands guard over the FEVER DREAM gate system and XK-Masada, maintains three bases on CONUS, has extensive ties to Entete, and its brass has access to command codes that authorize the use of lethal force up to and including the deployment of tactical nuclear weaponry to counter grave threats to national security. The existence of The Activity is rated as Top Secret, and kept from the public at large.

NOTE: The Activity is not to be confused with the so-called ‘men in black’ (which they are not; The Activity is a strictly military organization comparable to the Green Berets or Navy SEALs).
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

Post by Magister Militum »

The fact that you manged to sneak in a reference to The Thing has made my day, Siege.
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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I wonder how they relate to Unforeseen Consequences - since that too saw the deployment of tac nukes on an out of context problem.

When I was researching for my own stuff, I did come across these guys - Gray Fox, a secret US spec ops unit that deals with clandestine stuff, from S. America to Afghanistan, etc.

Gray Fox! It can't be....!
USAISA was the official name of the unit from 1981 to 1989 ; previously it was known as the Field Operations Group (FOG), created in September 1980. In 1989, the then USAISA commander sent a telex "terminating" the USAISA term and his Special Access Program GRANTOR SHADOW, but the unit continued under a series of different codenames which are changed every two years ; known codenames include CENTRA SPIKE, TORN VICTOR and GRAY FOX.
^ wiki

Mang, those guys have a knack for AWESOME names!
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

Post by Ford Prefect »

Words cannot begin to describe how awesome these codenames are. CENTRA SPIKE? TORN VICTOR? Holy shit.
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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Orbital Insertion Rifle Troops
The OIRT are the Soviet counterpart to USMC Space Cavalry in that they are elite troops who enter a given theatre by dropping in from orbit (as their name already suggests). Unlike SPACECAV, who do so aboard Hot Eagle orbital insertion gunships, the OIRT primarily makes use of drop capsules however.

The Soviet method of insertion has some advantages (it is quicker and does not rely on a semi-decent airstrip to land) and of course also some disadvantages (the landing is best described as *very rough*, the capsule does not maneuver much, meaning it’s easier to shoot down on terminal approach - then again, the capsules are heavily armored and come in very fast, fast enough to slam through buildings). The biggest reason why the Reds prefer capsules however is that they have developed them in several sizes, from small four-man pods to massive capsules that allow 25 men to disembark a space station simultaneously.

Like the US’ “space marines”, OIRT are elite shock troops. They are kitted out with some of the best gear the Soviet Union has to offer: rigid body armor over strength-enhancing muscle suits, eyepieces that allow the soldier to peer into the IR spectrum, AK2000 assault rifles, sometimes even the Dragunov SVDL laser rifle.

Most of these Rifle Troopers are selected from VDV airborne units, who the Stavka believes are already familiar with the basics of aerial assault into enemy occupied territory. They are then further trained until they also understand what it means to fight in zero-G, because OIRT are expected to be able to board enemy space stations and other objects in space as well.

Nonetheless, the OIRT have only rarely been seen in action against Western troops, instead being withheld during most conflicts as an ‘ace in the hole’. During the Russian Crisis there were units of OIRT loyal to both Marshal Sechalin and Nadya Kiralova, and they were deployed several times. Most notable were the assault by Ultranationalist forces on Sary Shagan Strategic Weapons Testing Grounds, the Murmansk Raid (by loyalist OIRT) and the Siege of MIR (involved OIRT battalions on both sides).
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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The Siege of MIR.


Goddamn it, the Soviets are fucking epic. And it appears that they have a distinctive space cavalry advantage over the Americans, being able to deploy entire squadrons of Solid Snakes from their motherfucking space capsules. With Laser SVD!
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

Post by Magister Militum »

Shroom Man 777 wrote:The Siege of MIR.


And it appears that they have a distinctive space cavalry advantage over the Americans, being able to deploy entire squadrons of Solid Snakes from their motherfucking space capsules. With Laser SVD!
Except that the Soviets lack the flexability that obrital insertion gunships can provide, such as fire support in the case of landings in hostile zones. Of course, that would be offset by the Soviet's own advantages in using drop pods.
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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As always, there is a sort of balance to the Soviets and the Americans. They are different, and their methods both have advantages over the other. Given that the Russians have armoured muscle suits, do the Americans also?
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

Post by Nekomata »

You know, I love this verse of yours... but the more I read it the more troops feel inadequate. Despite FTL drives and such, I think the Matan marines would be very hard pressed to invade your Earth...
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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Ford Prefect wrote:Given that the Russians have armoured muscle suits, do the Americans also?
Shroom asked me the same question and my initial answer was 'no', but right now I'm sort of wondering why not. High-strength materials are proliferating quite rapidly through the CSW world, and considering the gadgets the USA is building it shouldn't be beyond them to construct something similar. So they probably have them, although their nanosuits are probably distributed only to supercommandos, not to 'ordinary' marines.

(And now I need to find a way to write Crysis-type suits into the 'verse...)
Nekomata wrote:Despite FTL drives and such, I think the Matan marines would be very hard pressed to invade your Earth...
Well, it is a planet where the contingency plan for a lost war sometimes involves 'in case of Soviet conquest, unleash Cthulhu, just to spite the enemy'. ;)
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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And if 'feeding contaminated food to the elderly' fails, the Americans can beat the Russians' Mineshaft Gap over America by taking refuge in a planet in the other side of the galaxy. Where the ratio wil be ten women for every man!


Goddamn I love bringing that up!
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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SiegeTank wrote:Shroom asked me the same question and my initial answer was 'no', but right now I'm sort of wondering why not. High-strength materials are proliferating quite rapidly through the CSW world, and considering the gadgets the USA is building it shouldn't be beyond them to construct something similar. So they probably have them, although their nanosuits are probably distributed only to supercommandos, not to 'ordinary' marines.
Computer coordination is probably a possible reason. Soviet computer technology is superior to American equivalents, after a fashion, and muscle suits would probbly require some half-way sophisticated coordination. You don't want to accidentally break your arm just by pointing.
(And now I need to find a way to write Crysis-type suits into the 'verse...)
Just offhandedly mention a 'Saint Industries' producing prototypes. ;)
Nekomata wrote:Despite FTL drives and such, I think the Matan marines would be very hard pressed to invade your Earth...
Well, it is a planet where the contingency plan for a lost war sometimes involves 'in case of Soviet conquest, unleash Cthulhu, just to spite the enemy'. ;)
Though a well-developed techno-thriller of a universe, at times CSW is just pure pulp (which is quite awesome. It is also at the absolute bleeding edge of what I could consider possible in the real world. Seriously, it's getting science blood on its toes. :)
Last edited by Ford Prefect on Fri Oct 03, 2008 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

Post by Nekomata »

Which is exactly why I like it, working to keep my verse plausible while ignoring my basic instincts wears me out. :lol: Every other day I have to tell myself not to turn my verse into a cross between starship troopers/gundam with furries. :roll:
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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KGB Special Augments

Like cosmonaut is the Soviet counterpart to astronaut, the Soviets use the word augment for what is in the Western world known as a cyborg: a cybernetic organism - that is, an organism that has both artificial and natural systems.

Cybernetic technology, or the augmentation of humans through the application of technology, is a field in which the Soviet Union is distinctly ahead of its competition. The most famous example of Soviet augment technology is of course Colonel Gennady Muranov - better known as Comrade Hammer - whose gradual transformation from mangled human being to superhuman killing machine took 19 years to complete.

Colonel Muranov is not the only cyborg in Soviet service however. The Orbital Insertion Rifle Troops boast several elite battalions of augmented spaceborne, and the KGB in particular has always had a distinct interest in the augmentation of its operators. It was that interest that has spawned the 'Special Augment' agents.

KGB Special Augments are next-generation covert agents enhanced through technological means. The cyberware available to such augments is quite varied, and not all operators are augmented in the same fashion; after all, depending on mission specifics, a special operator might need different equipment. Available cyberware however is divided into two categories: 'headware' and 'bodyware'.

Headware is cyberware tied directly into the mind and central nervous system. The most important of these cybernetics is the data-jack, a brain-machine interface which allows direct communication between computers and the human mind. Second-most important is arguably a series of chips that allow for 'overclocking' of the human mind. An operator such equipped can significantly speed up signals processing in parts of his brain, resulting in massively quicker perception and associated improved reaction times. However, such overclocking takes a great toll on both mind and body, and is correspondingly very dangerous. Other headware are such things as brain processors, mind-data storage devices, pain editors and wireless transceivers.

Bodyware is essentially a modern form of prosthetics, and can include such things as artificial limbs, art-muscle, optical implants, fibre-optic nerves, subdermal armor, reinforced bone structures, built-in weapons, comm-rigs, voice synthesizers, sonar implants, or GoldenEye laser targeting systems.

Some of these implants are barely out of their prototype stage however and can have odd effects on the augment. Nonetheless, they vastly increase the capabilities of KGB operators in the field, making them into foes that are not to be underestimated. The total number of Special Augments however is still low, and most KGB agents are still run-of-the-mill baseline humans.
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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No... it can't be! You were killed in Grozny Grad!


I wonder just how totally badass these guys can be, with all sorts of mono-fillament fiber optic killy tentacles and crazy superhuman reflexes!

Perhaps America can answer this by recruiting Freak Mercenaries, as in Metal Gear Solid type weirdos! :lol:

'course, just one lone mortal man with a bandana and a handgun can totally ruin all their shit. :P
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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I have a fair notion that their cybernetics are more or less limited to augmenting a person in the same way that a cyborg is augmented in Ghost in the Shell. As opposed to kooky ridiculousness like cybernetic tentacles. ;)

Also, Siege, wouldn't it be difficult for an augment to interface with forgein computes, which aren't really designed for man-machine interfacing?
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

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Ford Prefect wrote:Also, Siege, wouldn't it be difficult for an augment to interface with forgein computes, which aren't really designed for man-machine interfacing?
Assuming I'm getting my terminology right, there's probably a fair bunch of abstraction layers involved in brain-machine interfaces. These layers would be responsible for translating the commands provided by the augment's mind into the specific commands the computer can understand (and back again, of course). So in the end, interfacing would be as simple as plugging a cable from the augment's data-jack into the network port of the external computer: the abstraction layers do the rest (as long as they're compatible with the foreign OS, etc.)
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Re: Noteworthy Military Units of the World

Post by Mobius 1 »

As a huge fan of cybernetics (you don't say, Moby?!), I wholeheartedly endorse this article. :)
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Re: Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Siege »

NTET

NTET, better known as 'Entente'*, is an independent, covert intelligence organization. The organization was founded by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev as a part of a secret clause to the 'Hotline Agreement' in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis of '62. NTET stands for Nonconventional Threat Elimination Taskforce, and was founded initially as a joint Soviet-American organization whose task would be to de-escalate situations that could potentially have world-ending consequences. The organization's informal name 'Entente' draws on the French term Entente Cordiale used to describe the 'cordial understanding' signed in 1904 by the United Kingdom and France that marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent conflict between the two nations and their predecessor states.

Initially tasked solely with the prevention of global thermonuclear war by the two greatest powers of that time, the agents of NTET soon found that this was harder than it might appear. Indeed, Khrushchev was deposed two years later because rival politicians such as Leonid Brezhnev believed that Khrushchev did not have enough "power" to handle international crises. Before that moment however Kennedy had already been assassinated by American hardliners. The first challenge to the budding organization then was the 'Secret War' declared by President Lyndon B. Johnson upon the hawks and hardliners who had conspired against his predecessor.

It was at the high point of the 'Secret War' that the leader of NTET, known only as 'Mr. Smith', realized that his organization was never going to be effective if it was beholden to oversight by Brezhnev's ruthless powermongers of the Soviet Politburo or the hopelessly corrupt Intelligence Oversight Committee of the US Senate. The only way he could do his job was if he was unburdened by potentially corrupted political oversight. When in January of 1968 NTET operatives found themselves unduly hampered by the Committee to stop it from retrieving 4 nuclear bombs discharged by a crashed U.S. B-52 Stratofortress in Greenland -- an attempt by US hardliners to gain leverage over the President -- the organization decided to sever its ties and goes underground.

Of course this decision at the time caused great distress both in American and Soviet halls of power. In the years since NTET's 'defection' however it has proven its loyalty time and again. The threats Entente deals with are varied and usually world-threatening, ranging from rogue military operations and paranormal phenomena to terrorist attacks and religious cults, but the organization also protects and rescues the world from the consequences of the various secret projects that the governments of the world have established. Indeed it is sometimes said that in a world that seems to consist solely of different shades of grey, Entente are about as close to good guys as it gets.

In the modern world NTET forms an active 'smart mob' that communicates with specially modified video mobile phones. Although the existence of the organization is an open secret, its membership list is anonymous. The identities of its field agents unknown to even each other before they meet on a mission; the only one who truly seems to know everything about the organization is its Director of Global Intelligence. That person is currently Samantha Savage, a woman about who is something of an enigma to the rest of the intelligence community: neither her nationality, age or service dates are known. She communicates with field agents and authorities through a man called 'Ehyeh' (pronounced 'AJ'). This person is frequently speculated however to be some form of artificial intelligence, both because he has never been physically seen, and because his name appears to be shorthand for the Hebrew phrase 'Ehyeh asher ehyeh' or 'I am that I am', which is the response God gives in the Holy Bible when Moses asks for His name (Exodus 3:14).

The agents of NTET are chosen and called on for their specialized skills in a variety of areas. Although the organization started out with a mixed Soviet/American roster it has long since come to include people from almost any nationality and background, from military personnel, intelligence agents, police detectives to scientific researchers, academics, athletes, former criminals and assassins. Arguably its most celebrated and succesful team of operatives is SOLIDSIX, the team of crack experts that proved instrumental in resolving the Russian Crisis. Entente further has a seemingly limitless ability to recruit personnel and requisition resources, and appears to have access to some of the world's most classified materials. This has lead many to suspect that even though the presence of an independent, unaccountable agency with strike capability makes many authorities nervous, they also recognize the fact that NTET has the skills, the reach and, more importantly, the will to act where more conventional agencies cannot.

* Previously 'Entente' was spelled as 'Entete'. I only recently figured out this was the wrong spelling; everywhere you read 'Entete' this should read 'Entente' instead.
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Re: Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Magister Militum »

Siege wrote:Previously 'Entente' was spelled as 'Entete'. I only recently figured out this was the wrong spelling; everywhere you read 'Entete' this should read 'Entente' instead.
Really? Huh, I never noticed that before.

Anyways, I really do like the updated Entente, Siege. They seem to be the only organization in CSW that is the closest to being considered truly good (and not good but with alterior motives).
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Re: Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Siege »

KGB

The KGB (a Russian abbreviation for Komitet Gosudarstvenny Bezopasnosti) is the Soviet Government's Committee of State Security. It is the Soviet Secret Service and is commonly thought of as the Soviet counterpart to the CIA, but the KGB has a far wider scope of duties and responsibility than any single U.S. Agency. In point of fact the KGB is the Soviet counterpart not only to the CIA, but also the NSA, Secret Service, many functions of the FBI, Customs Service and Armed Forces counterintelligence agencies.

The KGB originated as the Cheka, the Chrezvychainaya Komissiya po Borbe s Kontr-revolutisnei i Sabotazzhem (Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolutions and Sabotage) established 20 December 1917; its agents were 'Chekists', a nickname still used for KGB operatives. In protecting the USSR's national security, the Cheka (1917–22) often changed name and structure—becoming the State Political Directorate (OGPU) in 1923; the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) in 1941; and the Ministry for State Security (MGB) in 1946.

In March of 1953, Lavrenty Beria united the MVD (the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and MGB (the Ministry of State Security) into one body, the MVD. Within a year, Beria was executed and the MVD was again split up. The reformed MVD retained its internal security (police and law enforcement) functions (and was in turn renamed the Ministry of the Interior after the Second Revolution) while the new KGB took on internal and external security functions, and became the Sword and Shield of the Soviet Union.

The KGB is organized in 18 'chief directorates'. The first is the First Chief Directorate, also known as the Foreign Directorate, is the most notorious. The Foreign Directorate is in charge of Soviet espionage. It is responsible for the collection of all nonmilitary – and in fact much military – foreign intelligence, foreign counterintelligence, recruitment of foreigners, foreign propaganda, and disinformation.

The Second Directorate deals with nonmilitary counterintelligence, its principal goal to asssure internal political control. The third deals with military counter-intelligence and armed forces political surveillance.

The other directorates are Transportation; Ideology (censorship and internal security against artistic, political, and religious dissension, before the Second Revolution this was a particularly influential directorate but its power has waned significantly since the post-Zhadanova reformations); Economic Security (which guards industrial security and against illegal trading); Surveillance (of Soviet nationals and foreigners); Anti-Terrorism (OSNAZ); Communication (monitors national, foreign, and overseas communications, cryptologic equipment, and research and development); Guards (40,000-man uniformed bodyguard for the USSR leaders and families, guards government installations, operates the Moscow VIP subway, and secures government–party telephony); Archives; Electronic Surveillance; Bunkers (security of nuclear weapons); Communications Security (SIGINT and communications interception); Communication Troops; Border Guards; Information Analysis; and Operations and Technology (research laboratories for spy satellites, cybernetics, poisons and drugs, recording devices and many other applications).

It is difficult to say with any precision how large the KGB is. CIA estimates from 2009 say that the KGB has some 500,000 employees, not counting 240,000 border guards. The KGB is subordinated to the Council of Ministers. During the Russian Crisis the KGB under Chairman Andrei Silayev was (unexpectedly to some) for the most part loyal to the Sekhnia and Kiralova governments (some elements however, notably including Laboratories Thirteen and Sixteen of the Chief Directorate of Operations and Technology, still defected to the Ultramilitants, with dire consequences for the war. In the aftermath of the Crisis these directorates were subsequently 'ideologically purified' in the Last Purge.)
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Re: Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The NKVD! I wonder where Lieutenant Putin was. I hope he didn't get purged.

And NTET! SOLIDSIX! :D

I really like now the NTET article briefly illustrates the shortcomings and screw-ups of both sides, and the unfortunate ends of both Shroomanski Khrushchev and Kennedy. The Secret War! Brezhnev! LBJ! Moby would love this stuff, he can totally use it for MGS-style Tactical Espionage Action.
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Re: Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Shady »

The more of this stuff I read, the more I love CSW. Keep up the awesome work Siege. :D
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Re: Noteworthy Units & Organizations of the World

Post by Siege »

The Star Chamber

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"The Star Chamber symbolizes the Western European Union's disregard of basic individual rights."
- Sedition and Contents Under Pressure, AKA The Missionary, Simulect / Stateless Society
The Star Chamber is the Western European Union's secret intelligence agency. The Chamber was initially conceived in 1994 as an umbrella organization that would coordinate the member nations' individual intelligence agencies as a direct counterpart to the USSR's Cominform, the dreaded 'Red Room'. When it became fully operational on 1 July 1999 alongside Europol and the European Security Initiative, however, it more closely resembled the CIA or KGB: the Chamber had effectively subsumed large parts of national intelligence agencies, formed whole new networks that answered to it directly, and was granted broad powers to engage in "covert police and law enforcement functions, within the Union or abroad" as well as "sabotage, anti-sabotage, assassination, demolition and evacuation measures...subversion [and] assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened states".

To achieve these goals the Star Chamber has built networks of agents throughout Europe and abroad and runs a significant Covert Action division. Its paramilitary Special Intervention Groups are drawn from a pool of commandos the Star Chamber shares with the European Security Initiative. Thus a WEU special forces soldier can be part of a Star Chamber SIG team one day, and a member of an ESI GHOST team another. Because they have access to the arsenals of every WEU member nations SIG teams are capable of carrying out a wide range of operations worldwide. These missions vary from assassinations to gun running and from political instability psyops to 'regime protection', an umbrella term used for propping up of WEU-friendly regimes in Africa and the Middle East.

Star Chamber strike teams have been tangentially involved in the the Soviet civil war: primary objectives appear to have been to prolong the internal instability of the USSR, and to obtain intelligence on Soviet technological and military capabilities. After the war SIG teams carried out strikes against Ultramilitant strongholds in Somalia and Ethiopia. During the Secret War European commandos are known to have been active on American soil, where they were primarily a chaotic factor seemingly intent on increasing confusion and uncertainty among the conflicting parties. It is unknown what the Star Chamber intended to achieve by involving itself in the Secret War, but the presence of several WEU metahuman operatives in New York and Washington during the conflict indicates an unusually high level of interest in its outcome.

It has proven remarkably difficult for rival intelligence agencies to infiltrate the Star Chamber, or even to get a clear picture of its organization. The Star Chamber's internal hierarchy has changed at least five times in its relatively brief existence, and it operates with very limited political oversight. It answers to the secretive Committee for Public Safety, of which its Chair is a member alongside the Director of the European Security Initiative, the Director of Europol and several other European security executives. The Committee for Public Safety in turn is a part of the WEU Directorate-General for Home Affairs, whose Commissioner is the only one who can be summoned before the European Parliament to provide (very indirect) insight into the Star Chamber's operations.
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