[GAME] Surveil a Superspy Setting!

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 48
What are the missing holes in the org chart?

Answer 48
Some of the "Missing Sections" aren't really missing; to disrupt enemy intelligence, some of the numbered sections of Directorate S are unused, like MI13 and MI18.

Question 51
What sections aren't part of the main 7? (roll 1)

[benz72]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Answer 48
Some of the "Missing Sections" aren't really missing; to disrupt enemy intelligence, some of the numbered sections of Directorate S are unused, like MI13 and MI18.

Answer 48 (part 2) [is this allowed?]

S1 is reserved for a 'Command Directorate' comprising a formal head of the organization and his organic support staff. The current absence of such a directorate could point to a recent power struggle within the organization, a deliberate obfuscation of leadership responsibilities for security reasons or an ingrained habit of the directorate heads being unwilling to more formally subordinate themselves to a single central authority and insisting on the continuance of the Central Control Committee as an operable status quo. Rumors abound.

S5 was the original finance directorate, set up to provide passive income to the organization through investment and security marketing. Parts have been divested or absorbed by other directorates based on the changing operational needs of the overall organization (e.g. offering subscription security services made the organization too much of a protection racket and once set up the investment endowments did not require an entire directorate to maintain so those assets were transferred into S?.

S7 is the now shuttered directorate that attempted to incorporate mercenary units to simultaneously provide the organization with a powerful rapid response military organization and deprive their potential opponents of same. The expense, unreliability and alarming political pushback from national military organizations ultimately closed this directorate.

Departmental Summary
Committee of Central Control (Formally S1)
Section S2 - Strategy, Policy & Analysis
Section S3 - Office for Internal Investigation
Section S4 - Community Relations Directorate
Section S5- Finance (Disbanded)
Section S7 - Military Operations (Suspended)
Section S9 - Technical Intelligence and Operations Group
Section S10 - Prime Activities Command
Section S12 - The Rational Intelligence Group
Section SA - Communications
Section -10 - The Imaginary Intelligence Group (unlisted)

Cleanup question, Is there a good way to rationalize S4 and SA as separate independent entities, or should I disband S4?

[TGLS]

Well, originally I appended partial to Answer 48 to allow anyone to extend it, but then just made 51 to allow minor (and perhaps disbanded) departments.

With regards to S4 and SA, Communications is deliberately a very redundant section, and primarily focuses on interfacing publicly. Community Relations seems to favor covering things up. Communications writes memos to inform the CIA of valuable intelligence they've gathered in the Amazon. Community Relations creates a cover story for a forest fire in the Amazon that happened during the gathering of the intelligence.

[Daigoro]

NB: I've added d6 rolls to post 40/qns 49&50, and extended the list in q50.

Re Answer 48:

Originally Posted by benz72

Answer 48 (part 2) [is this allowed?]

Discussion is most welcome. I don't know if you've been following along with the other iterations of this game, but the d6 sentence rule was put in to encourage shorter answers because there was a tendency, as a thread progressed, to longer answers which slowed down turnaround. That said, it's meant to be a creative endeavour, so if we want to delve deeper into something, go for it.

S1 is reserved for a 'Command Directorate' comprising a formal head of the organization and his organic support staff. The current absence of such a directorate could point to a recent power struggle within the organization, a deliberate obfuscation of leadership responsibilities for security reasons or an ingrained habit of the directorate heads being unwilling to more formally subordinate themselves to a single central authority and insisting on the continuance of the Central Control Committee as an operable status quo. Rumors abound.

How about this...
The original director was the fourth richest man in the world, who wanted to oversee the directorate's mission and stay true to its humanitarian purpose. However, after a short while, he realised that (a) it took too much time to properly oversee, as he was also acting as CEO for aMUSE; (b) intelligence is harder than it looks, and smart as he is, he couldn't learn all he needed to; (c) he was too reluctant to make some tough, life-and-death decisions; and (d) he couldn't resist the temptation to point the apparatus at his business competitors, labour unions, suppliers, government regulators and such. Thus, he devolved his powers to a democratic decision making body of intelligence experts with input from various stakeholders. Of course, whether he came to this realisation of his own accord or was led to it by members of the council is also up for debate.

S5 was the original finance directorate, set up to provide passive income to the organization through investment and security marketing. Parts have been divested or absorbed by other directorates based on the changing operational needs of the overall organization (e.g. offering subscription security services made the organization too much of a protection racket and once set up the investment endowments did not require an entire directorate to maintain so those assets were transferred into S?.

We could also look at how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation works. It's split into two entities- the foundation, which does all the charity work, and the the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, which manages "the investment assets and transfer[s] proceeds to the foundation as necessary to achieve the foundation's charitable goals." The trust owns more than $20B in shares in Microsoft, Walmart, Fedex and other companies.

For us, that would mean that S5 was spun off as an external trust, which pipes money to the Directorate to be disbursed internally by a budgeting department (the Sub-committee of the Committee of Central Command for Budgetary Management?) Thus, decisions about where funds come from and how they are used are kept quite compartmentalised. We might need to look at how such a trust is itself managed though.

S7 is the now shuttered directorate that attempted to incorporate mercenary units to simultaneously provide the organization with a powerful rapid response military organization and deprive their potential opponents of same. The expense, unreliability and alarming political pushback from national military organizations ultimately closed this directorate.

This makes good sense. Perhaps there's an interesting story hidden in there...

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Question 51
What sections aren't part of the main 7? (roll 1)

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 49 [d6: 3 sentences each]
Which sections (if any in particular) are responsible for...?
a) Logistics and regular equipment supply
b) R&D for experimental or high-tech equipment
c) Transport
[ETA:]
d) Medicine
e) Executive Protection
f) Anything I've missed

These two questions overlap a little, so I'll just go ahead and get some of it out of the way.

Answer 51.1 - Section S6
Section S6 is the Equipment, Vehicular and Personnel Support Department, which covers a variety of duties including recruitment, initiation and training, HR, medical care, transportation, equipment, experimental weapons and vehicles and sundry other basic necessities, but it is in service to the operational sections and not part of the decision making apparatus.
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Departmental Summary
Committee of Central Control (Formally S1)
Section S2 - Strategy, Policy & Analysis
Section S3 - Office for Internal Investigation
Section S4 - Community Relations Directorate
Section S5 - Finance (Disbanded)
Section S6 - Equipment, Vehicular and Personnel Support Department (Non-executive)
Section S7 - Military Operations (Suspended)
Section S9 - Technical Intelligence and Operations Group
Section S10 - Prime Activities Command
Section S12 - The Rational Intelligence Group
Section SA - Communications
Section -10 - The Imaginary Intelligence Group (unlisted)

I notice that this now gives us a nice split between management/office departments, S1-S6, and operational/field branches, S7 and up.

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Question 52 [d6: 4 sentences each]
a) What rank structure does the Directorate use, if any?
b) What are its security classification protocols (confidential, top secret, etc)?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Question 47
Are there operations or bases in antartica?

Answer 47 - Antarctica and Wedge
[d6: 1 sentence]
There is no established military or intelligence presence in the Antarctic, as per the 1961 Antarctic Treaty, although there is some intel on covert construction of a new base by the secretive Wedge Corporation that may require deeper investigation.

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Question 53 (follow on from Ans 24) [d6: 4 sentences]
Are the Scarlet Hand using their own assets for the assassination attempt, or have they enlisted some kind of super-assassin to aid their cause?

Question 54 (follow on from Ans 24) [d6: 5 sentences]
What is the Scarlet Hand's cause?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 52 [d6: 4 sentences each]
a) What rank structure does the Directorate use, if any?

The Directorate uses two systems, one measuring experience and expertise, corresponding to "rank", and another specifying a rather corporate command structure, corresponding to "command". Its quite possible for the two to clash, with a lower "rank" individual commanding higher "rank" ones.



Question 55
Does Directorate S ever run operations against itself, intentionally or otherwise?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Question 34

Does the directorate conduct more operations in wealthy nations or in poor ones? [5 sentences]

Answer 34
There's no particular bias. There are threats from poor countries and from wealthy ones, there are targets in either, and there are operators and agents from all over the world. However, [folding TGLS's comments above about SA and S4 into canon] there does seem to be a secret cold war occurring in the Amazon now, and Directorate S are getting drawn into it. This leaves them struggling a little, as their strengths are in the Asia-Pacific theatre, and they are understaffed for operatives with skills and area knowledge for that region.

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Question 56 [d6: 6 sentences]
Where does Directorate S have its 5 Iranian nukes hidden?

Question 52 followup [whatever length needed]
What rank titles and command titles does the Directorate use? Alongside all those "Chairmen and Managers and CEO's and Directors and Chief Executives," (post #6) that is.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 54 (follow on from Ans 24) [d6: 5 sentences]
What is the Scarlet Hand's cause?

The scarlet hand proclaims as its mission "the protection and promotion of the recently oppressed", referring mostly to those on the loosing end of regime change and social reforms. In practice, they tap into the hatred and desire for vengeance of those groups, protecting human rights violators, prolonging conflicts, and championing dozens of lost causes. Secondarily, they liquidate the firebrands of such groups for use globally. Their leadership seems to have a deep desire for vengeance against both the current democratic world order and what they call "revolutionary movements", and focus on gathering power for the organization at least as much as pursuing any one cause.



Question 59
What incident most clearly brought the shortcomings of S7 into focus? (see answer 48)


Question 60
What happened to the S7 personnel when it was discontinued?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Question 33
Name three major offices for the directorate [2 sentences]

A33.3 - Manaus Field Office

A seaport 900 miles inland on the Rio Negro, the Brazilian city of Manaus is the gateway to the Amazon basin and a nexus for cocaine trafficking with Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. The local Directorate field office, located in a former news printers and established to keep tabs on the drug trade, has found itself at the epicentre of whatever's happening in the Amazon, and is busy expanding to meet the demands of fronting a secret war.

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Question 61 [d6: err, 6. I think the Google dice roller must be borked.]
What is the Directorate's motto?