Board Thread:Custom Lore Development/@comment-26084195-20170211015028

Naval Intelligence is a shadowy organization within the Terran Alliance. It was founded on March 23rd, 2078. It was formed as the result of the first attempted Europa colony’s destruction in what is now known only as the Europa Incident. The very same year, construction began on Phobos, the larger of Mars’s moons. Ever since then, Naval Intelligence has been vital to the success and even survival of the Terran Alliance. It was Naval Intelligence that destroyed the Rin stargate during the War for Sol, which was vital to the Alliance war effort. Truth is, Naval Intelligence is in many ways the unsung hero of the Terran Alliance. While the Army and Navy get all the glory, the agents of Naval Intelligence creep through the shadows and do the Alliance’s dirty work, in and out like a flash. They’re so discreet that about half the Alliance population is completely unaware or only vaguely aware that they exist. They have performed a great number of valuable tasks for the Alliance. And not just intel-gathering, acquisition, sabotage or assassination. Surveillance and counter-espionage are also specialties of theirs. They have been instrumental in countering the Dominion’s campaign to convert Alliance citizens, the Directorate’s espionage attempts, as well as countering Rin spies at every level of Alliance society.

From these descriptions, you probably see Naval Intelligence as some sort of guardian, cloaked in shadows. However, Naval Intelligence is by no means a selfless organization. Far from it. They aren’t just hiding the skeleton’s in the Alliance’s closet; they are the closet. Naval Intelligence is well beyond the control of any Alliance institution. No corporation has any hold over them, none of the other intelligence agencies such as MI5 or MI6. Even Parliament and the Prime Minister have only the foggiest idea what Naval Intelligence is doing. In fact, Naval Intelligence will sometimes rig elections. After all, a government of the people is ludicrous. The public does not know what is best for the Alliance, only Naval Intelligence could possibly know the full details of that. While the Prime Minister is the overall leader of the Terran Alliance, make no mistake that the Director of Naval Intelligence is the most powerful Terran in it. And of course, the people are always watched, 24/7, even if they don’t know it. Naval Intelligence is really part of the reason everyone in the Alliance lives such a good life. Naval Intelligence is a big part of the reason crime rates in the Alliance are so low. Naval Intelligence has traded the citizen’s privacy for security and quality of life.

Furthermore, Naval Intelligence often engages in practices that most others in the Alliance would find appalling. Of course, they are not strictly speaking evil, they simply take the most efficient path to get the results that would most benefit the Alliance, regardless of any moral implications. Sometimes this may result in things such as torture or sabotage that causes civilian casualties. They have also appropriated much alien technology, sometimes even ancient Metaform technology. Once or twice, they have gotten their hands on something even more mysterious and borderline arcane.

There is an ongoing rivalry between Naval Intelligence and the Directorate, with the shadowy agents of these two unscrupulous organizations performing a deadly dance around one another. And when the two clash, you can bet there’s gonna be collateral damage.

Praetorians: When Naval Intelligence needs to send somebody into a warzone to ensure a job gets done right (which happens more often than you might think), they send a Praetorian. When Naval Intelligence needs to perform clandestine operations, they send a Praetorian. When Naval Intelligence needs to perform some kind of nefarious activity within the Alliance’s own borders, they may just send in a Praetorian. The Praetorians are the most likely Naval Intelligence member to be encountered by non-Alliance personnel. They are capable of overpowering a Centurion in combat, and are certainly a lot stealthier. They too are equipped with substantial cybernetic augmentations, however, these are both more complex and less obvious. They are also a secret guarded even more closely than the Centurion’s suite. A Praetorian could walk among the citizens of the Alliance, completely inconspicuous. That is part of the point. And of course, a Praetorian in the midst of combat is a fearsome foe. For starters, they are equipped with matte black composite armour, lightweight but powerful, with a special armour weave in between the plating for flexibility and protection alike. Embedded in the chestpiece is a shield generator of similar strength to a Centurion’s. However, in addition to the shielding, they are also equipped with a stealth field generator, a cloaking system more efficient than that of the Centurions. Their headpieces are semi-solid black helmets similar to that of the Centurions, but with prominent goggle-like protrusions, which are tinted green. These provide just about every imaging format you could imagine. They have access to very nearly every form of weapon in the Alliance, from the humble laser rifle up to the deadly PGR-2X. They are also equipped with a number of similar equipment, from thruster packs to breaching charges to plasma grenades. What makes a Praetorian so deadly is their training in acrobatics. Their defensive measures are really more like back-up plans at that point.

Naval Intelligence Agents: The Men in Black. I mean, literally. They are focused on dealing with internal threats to the Alliance. Especially threats regarding aliens. They are the black suited men with sunglasses that show up in the dead of night and somebody goes missing, leaving absolutely no witnesses and nobody ever questions it. Of course, they only deal with upper level type stuff. The lower level stuff is left to MI5 and the more mundane intelligence agencies of the Alliance.

Blackwatch Praetorians: Buckle up, kids. Because this is where things start to get really crazy. There are only a few Blackwatch Praetorians in existence, and each and every last one of them is kept in a stasis pod in a chamber deep within Deimos. One of them is nearly 500 years old, and the first Praetorian to ever exist. They are only ever awoken when they are needed. The last time was during the Rin’s second attempted invasion of the Milky Way, a Blackwatch Praetorian was ordered to assassinate the supreme commander of the invading Rin forces. They proceeded to do so, and then were placed back in stasis. Each remains asleep to this very day. They have no set equipment. They have no set weapons loadout. They awaken, and they are given the right tools for the job. The only consistency? They are given the absolute best the Alliance has to offer, even stolen alien technology. Infiltration, sabotage, assassination, espionage, they can do it, and there’s nobody better. They are soulless. Emotionless. Completely lacking morals or empathy. They are the perfect killers.

Needle Rifle: This formidable kinetic energy weapon is only ever used by Praetorian Snipers or Blackwatch Praetorians. While they bear superficial similarities to to rail-rifles sometimes used by others, the Needle Rifle, also known as the Gauss Rifle or by its technical specifications, PGR-2X, is altogether more deadly. This is a large, long-barrelled rifle with a complex imaging scope. Through this rifle, a thin, dart-like projectile is magnetically accelerated to a stupefying velocity, causing catastrophic damage on impact. While the projectile is somewhat lighter than railgun counterparts, its speed is far higher and it has far greater armour penetration capabilities. These projectiles are manufactured by a special private corporation dedicated solely to the production of Naval Intelligence’s materials, with a pristine, nano-engineered surface to reduce air friction and thus are not followed by a telltale trail of ignited air when fired. The weapon is also entirely silent. This, coupled with a Praetorian’s shrouding tech, means that only the entry wound of a victim can be used to determine where the shot came from. These weapons are also more efficient and accurate than a railgun rifle. Tales are rife of beings key to a war effort against the Alliance being found dead with tiny entry wounds in their head and massive, twisted exit gashes caused by the freak velocity of these projectiles.

Disguising: There are many methods by which an Agent or a Praetorian can disguise themselves. Often times, advanced surgery is used to hide the identity of a Naval Intelligence operative, and this method is highly effective. However, sometimes, more drastic measures must be taken. Sometimes, a Naval Intelligence operative must disguise itself amongst an alien species. When this time comes, they must utilize nanopaste. Nanopaste is a highly advanced technology, it only came about rather recently, and is restricted to the use of Naval Intelligence. Simply apply it to the skin (it must be thicker in some areas than others), and program the desired pattern into the nanobots, and shazam! You look exactly like the desired alien. The paste is smart, so it mimics exactly what a member of that species would do in a given situation. If an operative disguised as a Murrcioun becomes agitated, its ears fold back. If they become cold, their lips will likely turn blue. Of course, this technology cannot change a Terran into something overly different. They can’t turn into Jolnar (which are literally really big heads) or Arborec (Beings that are actually living plants). 