SAINT is the Star Army of Yamatai's intelligence corps. It is responsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of human, signals, sensors, technical, and financial intelligence to Star Army commanders across the galaxy. Additionally, SAINT provides counterintelligence services to safeguard the Yamatai Star Empire's national security.
| Star Army Intelligence | ||
|---|---|---|
| Established | YE 22 | |
| Director | Nakaide Shida | |
| Allegiance | Yamatai Star Empire | |
| Subordinate to | Star Army Command | |
| Headquarters | Vicky | |
Founded in YE 22, soon after the formation of the Grand Star Army, SAINT grew in operational size and scope to become a fleet-level command by YE 38.
Like much of the Yamatai Star Empire and Star Army, SAINT can trace its roots back to the PNUgen Corporation. Specifically, many of the first SAINT agents were former agents of the Pagoda No Uesu Intel and Security Division. One such founding operative was Jadg Wolf, who would eventually lead SAINT as a Taisho. PNUgen Intel's mandate was to “keep a watchful eye over others' kingdoms and companies, and promising specimens they might have.”
Chujo Motoyoshi Misato was appointed Director in YE 30. She was captured by the Sfrarabla Mishhuvurthyar Xhrafuklurp (SMX) in the same year and presumed dead, leaving SAINT without a named director for two years.
SAINT operations were notably ineffective from the late YE 20s to early YE 30s, leading to Yui's YE 32 appointment of Tamahagane Mai. Mai's appointment came after a series of SAINT-sponsored missions appeared to have been compromised. Following Mai's retirement in YE 34, Nakaide Shida was chosen to continue the Tamahagane scion's successful directorship.
Directors Shida and Mai before them put in place many reforms that strengthened SAINT and the Star Army as a whole. Devious agendas were rooted and the entire intelligence community was overhauled and streamlined into an effective machine that could endure both the external demands of defending Yamatai and weather any internal conflict that the disloyal would bring to the Star Army. Thus, associations with any sort of political activity is culturally despised within SAINT. Organizational trust is primarily vested in proven apolitical leaders and officers hailing from those Yamataian Clans that remain entirely aloof of societal power struggles.
In YE 41, the SAINT emblem was modernized alongside other Star Army Organizations such as Star Army Logistics and Star Army Personnel Command.
Shida was dismissed from the Directorship of Star Army command in YE 44.7, amusingly, due to internal politics in the Yamatai Star Empire. The move was a surprise following Shida's decade of direct work with Taisho Yui and success as Yamatai's longest serving spymaster. In Shida's place, Motoyoshi-Kotoku Sui was made interim director. But by 44.8, Shida was reinstated following a personal review of the situation by Yui.
The Director of Star Army Intelligence is directly subordinate to the Taisho of the Star Army. SAINT's strategic headquarters system is Vicky in the Samurai Sector, located on an icy planet bearing the same name.
Following an intelligence directive1) in YE 34 by then-director Tamahagane Mai, SAINT personnel have been broadly required to possess a “standardized body,” which is the most current revision of either Nekovalkyrja or Minkan biology. However, soldiers from other species are sometimes permitted to serve with SAINT — most often as Operatives not assigned to SIFT units — when operational requirements indicate indigenous personnel are best suited to accomplish the mission; SAINT strongly recognizes the usefulness of assets for intelligence gathering regardless of their planet of origin.
While many SAINT personnel were originally trained in other occupations and hail from disparate Star Army backgrounds prior to Operative Selection, Star Army soldiers following an intelligence career path have these occupations open to them:
SAINT characters will find the following information useful:
Star Army Intelligence is organized into four directorates. The Executive Intelligence Directorate oversees SAINT's three dependent departments, each tasked with separate but complementary duties that include information gathering, classified research, paramilitary intervention, and intelligence analysis.
The existence and names of specific SAINT operational units listed below, such as the Special Deployment Force, Special Investigations, Black Spiral fireteams, and the Alert Emergency Group—Intelligence Service, are strictly unknown outside of SAINT and Taisho-level organizations limited to Star Army Command and Star Army Operations. These types of black operations units generally appear as temporary designations in official communications outside of SAINT.
The Executive Intelligence Directorate (EID) is SAINT's command and control element and is overseen by the Director of SAINT, who is ranked Taisho per Star Army Regulations Update 38-2. Because the Director usually advises the Empress and Taisho of the Star Army on matters of national security, day-to-day operations fall to a Chujo serving as Deputy Director.
Three permanent Offices of the Assistant Director exist, each headed up by a Shôshô in charge of SAINT's subordinate directorates. Additionally, the Director may appoint Associate Directors on an ad hoc basis. These officers are usually Shôshô and lead specialized task forces or flotillas of black SAINT warships.
A Taisa from the Star Army Investigators and their attending staff serve in the Compliance Office at SAINT's Kyoto headquarters. The Compliance Office's formal duty is to keep the intelligence service's operations within protocol. In practice, the office only compiles its reports after receiving redacted mission summaries.
The Planning and Execution Office advises Star Army Operations during the formulation of Operational Plans. Records Division keeps a complete history of the Empire and SAINT's actions and disseminates the official accounting of declassified operations. The Internal Investigations Service handles all matters of discipline within the SAINT command. Intelligence service training is managed by the SAINT Training Activity.
EID's functions are:
Yamataian Operational Military Intelligence (YOMI) is SAINT's largest component and provides traditional signals intelligence and counterintelligence services to the Star Army of Yamatai. YOMI's army of researchers, analysts, and intelligence officers work tirelessly to provide their commanders with the most up-to-date information and form the backbone of any Star Army operation. YOMI is led by a Shôshô, who serves as an Assistant Director.
YOMI itself is divided into the Fleet Intelligence Executive and Counterintelligence Executive. The vast majority of YOMI's personnel toil in secured offices across the Empire, examining source material provided by operatives from the Strategic Initiatives Network. Much information is also provided by fleet based reconnaissance squadrons and soldiers. Many larger ships and starbases are assigned an Intelligence Officer, who run small departments of enlisted analysts aboard their duty posts and often double as handlers for clandestine operatives in the fleet. When assigned to the Legions, YOMI analysts run intelligence shops at the Star Army Century level and up.
YOMI's functions are:
Whenever a Star Army soldier sees a comrade in black panels and feels that chilling feeling shoot down their spine, tall tales about members of the Strategic Initiatives Network (SIN) are usually to blame. Although most SAINT officers and technicians spend their entire career in front of a volumetric station analyzing raw intel and writing memorandums, most citizens of the Kikyo Sector imagine SIN operatives when they think of SAINT. Assassination, espionage, subterfuge, wetwork, any any kind of covert mission falls under the the Network's umbrella. Despite common belief, the Network is actually SAINT's smallest directorate by manpower. SIN is led by a Shôshô, who serves as an Assistant Director.
SAINT operatives are assigned to the Field Division upon the completion of INDOC and acceptance as a full agent. The Division is responsible for every clandestine operative's actual and false identities, and its officers usually act as the only connection undercover SAINT soldiers have to reality. All operatives assigned to the fleet—whether as overt advisers or covert agents—fall under their ship captain or unit leader's direct command and must pursue all duties assigned to them in their capacity as soldiers of the Star Army of Yamatai. Operatives assigned to the Legions usually undertake long range reconnaissance and surveillance missions that do not warrant a full team's deployment.
Special Personnel Projects functions in a similar fashion to the Field Division but only works case files for non-SAINT personnel. SPP is in charge of all paramilitary irregulars used in classified operations. Known even within SAINT for its brutally efficient use of coercion, many horror stories can be traced back to the control methods used by SPP handlers.
SAINT's direct action combat teams are organized as the Special Deployment Force. Called the Tokubetsuna Tenkai-Ryoku or “Tokutenku” in Yamataigo, these elite groups tackle the Empire's toughest missions. Operatives assigned to the Tokutenku often know their squad mates intimately, having served with the same group of agents periodically for years.
The Special Deployment Force was classified as a Special Operations Fire Team until YE 44 and the creation of Star Army Special Operations, which forced SIN to re-organize the exact same operatives into their extant teams under a unique operational doctrine divorced from SOFT. This change allowed SAINT to retain its operatives as Special Intelligence Fire Teams lest the Star Army's most veteran special operators be tasked away from their intelligence mission with their units destroyed, and did not effect operational efficacy because Tokutenku units had doctrinally diverged from SOFT guidelines almost immediately after their creation.
Due to the amorphous and unpredictable nature of clandestine work, shameful organizations like Black Spiral and the Tachibana Clan started as SIN divisions. Both Director Shida and their predecessor, Tamahagane Mai, have made it a top priority to correct the prideful culture that led to the creation of such groups. Their efforts have been largely successful.
SIN's functions are:
The Research, Investigations, Supply, and Extraction (RISE) corps is the SAINT directorate charged with organizational support duties. From science to exploration of the unknown, this division makes sure front line SAINT assets only have to worry about the mission. RISE is led by a Shôshô, who serves as an Assistant Director.
RISE was originally built around a Star Army Research Administration-SAINT research cooperative known as the Hera Group. This legacy collective produces and develops new equipment,2) reverse engineers technology, advises commanders, handles restricted bio-engineering projects, and generally provides SAINT with any sort of scientific knowledge its personnel require. Every SARA scientist in the Hera Group is SAINT qualified just as every SAINT operative assigned there is as knowledgeable as most SARA scientists.
A Logistics Liaison's Office ensures that all SAINT ships, stations, equipment, and personnel are fully served by Star Army Logistics. The Office is responsible for the maintenance of operational security on all classified supply missions.
The Alert Emergency Group—Intelligence Service (AEGIS) is a small section of special operators that provides search and rescue assistance to SAINT operatives or ships in need and, more commonly, is sent to secure vital personnel, equipment, or information that is in danger of falling into the wrong hands. While functionally similar to SOFT units, AEGIS soldiers are all trained in medical first aid and handling hazardous materials. Because of the unit's limited size and specialized mission scope, they are almost exclusively deployed to remote environments where standard Tokutenku teams would be ill-prepared to operate. Like their Special Deployment Force comrades, AEGIS units were separated from the SOFT doctrine in YE 44 as to avoid their destruction and any hinderance to SAINT's mission.
Sometimes the key to national security lies in the unexplained. When all reasonable, scientific, and logical methods are exhausted, SAINT's Special Investigations Office might take a look. Nicknamed the “Curio Squad,” Special Investigations personnel are chosen because they can scrutinize topics in ways that most criticize as impossible or fantastic. The squad is usually led by a Chusa.
RISE's functions are:
SAINT has installations, agents, and ships stationed throughout the sector. See Clandestine Assets of Star Army Intelligence for a listing of undercover units throughout the galaxy.
Outside of imperial palaces and governmental buildings, SAINT facilities are some of the most secure locations in the galaxy. Guarded by some of the Empire's most ruthless soldiers, these places contain innumerable secrets and the spies who collect them.
SAINT does not maintain a public ship registry. In addition to an inventory of 400 Yui 7 Scouts, the following notable ships have been known to conduct intelligence operations:
Most transportation services for SAINT personnel are conducted by Star Army Logistics craft organized through the SAINT Logistics Liaison's Office.
SAINT conducts operations autonomously as well as in coordination with other Star Army fleets and commands.
Current roleplay:
The following operations have been completed:
Past SAINT-related threads:
SAINT Operatives
Intelligence Analysts
Executive Intelligence Directorate
Strategic Initiatives Network
Research, Investigation, Supply, and Extraction
This article was created before 2011. Raz updated it to its current format on 2016/07/02 13:06. Wes and Ametheliana updated the article further on 2022/10/03.
| OOC | |
|---|---|
| OOC Manager | Ametheliana |
| OOC Thread | OOC Thread |
| Last Checked | 2023/10/01 |
