Special Personnel Projects is a small division of Star Army Intelligence dedicated to the monitoring and guidance of irregulars. The division has existed since SAINT's inception.
SAINT creates and employs SPPs when its own personnel do not fit a certain mission or series of missions.
The Star Army of Yamatai's use of irregulars is minute and infrequent, and SAINT reflects that history. However, SAINT's objectives require it to be more liberal than a strictly military unit.
SPP is one method of achieving this kind of diversification. The division assigns SAINT officers, either intelligence officers or operatives, to monitor and guide the use of specific forces or units, deemed “projects” by practitioners of the craft. The division itself is monitored by a Taisa who answers to SAINT's deputy director.
At its peak, SPP boasted a roster of several hundred officers guiding thousands of grouped and single irregulars. By the late YE 30s, SPP had fallen to several dozen officers and a few hundred irregulars.
Among its most famous projects was the crew of the YSS Miharu, who had some SAINT clearance during their missions leading up to the Battle of Yamatai.
SPPs most often come in the form of small units who already are into a mission of which SAINT has a vested interest. Those units know the mission, its parameters and progress, and are considered the best fit for completing the mission. For an officer to grant SPP status, it must be considered not possible to pull the units off-mission and replace them with operatives. It also must be not possible to wait out the unit-in-question's mission and follow up with SAINT personnel.
Functionally, little changes inside the unit. Command structure stays in tact up to the unit's commander. Whatever reinforcements or supplies existed before go unchanged unless absolutely necessary for mission completion. The nature of the original mission does not change.
Above the unit commander, change is far more radical. The unit in question is slipped out of its immediate fleet structure and upgraded to reporting to only its monitoring officer (if applicable) and the highest ranking officer in the unit's chain of command (typically a Shôshô and above). With the upgrade comes much increased independence, freeing the unit to far more extreme measures to accomplish a mission. SOPs are relaxed. Protocols are suspended.
The mission supersedes all.
SAINT's main contributions are bolstered intelligence resources to the unit in question, and legal and procedural cover for the unit's actions.
In the case of the Miharu, SAINT recognized that the crew was on the trail of one of its most hated foes. It would have been impractical to take the crew off that mission and replace them with SAINT operatives, and Miharu's crew was too close to something big to count on any less than their maximum success.
Thus, SAINT granted the crew SPP status, giving them clearance to access SAINT databases and information while also freeing them from standard Star Army practices and procedures. The crew was free to take any measure necessary to stop Eve and her terrorist cabal.
Admirals could complain or question the actions later, but SPP status meant they could not take action against the crew for what was done during that mission.
For these units, SPP status is attached to the mission. When the mission ends, SPP status ends with it.
SPPs also can be single persons. Many times, these individuals are analysts or operatives who do not complete SAINT training, but they have significant value to the organization.
These individuals are given conditional SAINT status tied to their service as SPP. They can wear the panels and patch, invoke classification of their actions, access secure databases, use SAINT equipment and have restricted assassination powers.
The limits are that these powers are tied to their work for SAINT. For instance, an SPP analyst working on Elysian insurrection groups could utilize the first three powers to keep their work secret from all but their monitoring officer and the deputy director and director of SAINT. However, they would have no assassination power.
An SPP operative, working on destabilizing a Phod terrorist cell, would have assassination powers to complete the mission and legal cover from SAINT. They would have some database access, but no right to wear the uniform or invoke status.
This functionally means SPP status has different effects, depending on the mission or assignment.
In Yukari Freeman's case, her SPP status transferred from unit to individual to keep her working on assignments related to Eve, Melisson and the Umbral.
SAINT does not draft nonmilitary or civilian personnel into becoming SPPs, instead using only current or former SAoY members. This comes with the benefit of always having a well-trained unit or individual, but it comes with some risk of culture shock. With absolute power can come absolutely dire consequences.
Units come with fewer problems. The status ends with the mission, and SAINT works hand-in-hand with these regular (made irregular) units to ensure the status is appropriately utilized. Though there is potential for criminal or dishonorable acts by an empowered unit, SAINT errs on the side of caution when reviewing a unit for SPP status. Post-status, the unit is covered from its commanders, but SAINT can and has marked units as unacceptable for renewal. To date, all units marked as such have been because of logistical challenges (unit is too broken up from original SPP makeup) or underperformance.
Individuals are more problematic and therefore rare. SAINT maintains a pool of SPP operatives, all of whom are former SAINT agents, while the rest are analysts working with fleet task forces, or SAINT operatives or cells.
Compared with the rigid and permanent structure of a SOFT, SPPs on a unit level are temporary and amorphous. An SPP unit can be as small as a fireteam or as large as a battalion. It can be made up of starships, troops, vehicles and any combination inbetween. It maintains its own structure, whereas a SOFT yields to the fireteam structure.
To date, SAINT has not granted SPP status to a unit larger than a company or starship flight.
Parameters also differ. A SOFT falls under Star Army Command as well as SAINT and organically executes missions within itself. An SPP unit might evolve a mission this way, but more often already is on or within a mission when it is given its status.
SOFTs also have wider powers of assassination, espionage and intelligence-gathering, while SPP units are expected to stay on-mission until its completion, and they lose their powers at the end of that mission.
Individual SPPs can have more in common. SPP operatives tend to function as their own cells much like SOFTs do, but they have a more narrow scope of duties and remain mission- or location-specific. SOFTs have flexibility and capability SPP operatives do not, with the ability to create and complete any number of missions Command and SAINT want them to complete.
This page was originally created on 2015/12/07 14:48 by Doshii Jun.