Administration

“Unde ordo amicitiæ” – motto (“for the order of the alliance” [Latin])

Administration covers all non-branch specific, or joint operations of the Terran Alliance Armed Forces. This includes Military Intelligence, Joint Fleet Command, Military R&D, and Resource Acquisition. Administration is based almost completely on Luna, at the Tycho Base, with the exception of the Military R&D and Resource Acquisition departments, which can be found in other locations as well. Administration is notable that it is the only department of the TAAF that employs civilians, but not in Archives, Joint Fleet Command, or Military Intelligence. Administration is not represented on the Joint Chiefs, and reports to them as a whole.

Accounting (ACC)

The Accounting Section is run by the Paymaster General of the TAAF. Pay scales for TAAF soldiers are on the Rank Structure and Advancement page.

Archives (Arch)

The Archives section maintains all of the TAAF’s records. No files are ever deleted deliberately; the Archives section has virtually infinite storage space at its disposal, although battle damage and sabotage has corrupted some files. Retrieving information from Archives is quite time-consuming, as the Artificial Intelligences that search the Archives are increasingly temperamental and when they are replaced with new AIs become just as temperamental as the old ones in short order. Presumably this has something to do with the data that the AIs manage.
Every TAAF member’s record is contained in encrypted form on their dog tags or in some cases, in subdermal implants. This record contains the soldier’s training, postings, qualifications, medical and psychological evaluations and commander’s comments and notes. All of this data, save the medical records, is automatically locked before battle, to prevent enemy agents decoding the record in the event of capture.

Internal Affairs (IA)

Internal Affairs agents investigate criminal activity and disciplinary problems within the TAAF. It is not a counter-intelligence section, but is closer to a form of military police. The two do work closely together, and many officers believe that Internal Affairs is nothing but a puppet of the Military Intelligence department. Internal Affairs agents have considerable discretionary powers when it comes to investigating their cases, and are able to demand full co-operation from even high-ranking officers. IA officers are trained to be the equal of the best civilian law enforcement agents, with a full knowledge of forensics and other investigative techniques.

Joint Fleet Command (JFC)

JFC is headed by Admiral Stephen Henderson. JFC is based at the Tycho Facilities, and oversees the smooth operations of all cross-branch operations.

Judge Advocate General (JAG)

The JAG’s office provides legal counsel and advice to military staff and officers. This not only covers civil cases, but also gives advice to officers in the field – the legal consequences of war have become just as important as any other. This is especially true for vessels dealing with corporate-run colonies; have been numerous high profile and massively costly cases where corporations sued the TAAF for damaging expensive equipment or sites. JAG officers also run the military courts.

Military Intelligence (MInt)

Military Intelligence is a massively powerful and influential organization. It has moved far beyond its original mandate of providing strategic intelligence to the other armed forces, and has absorbed many of the responsibilities of civilian intelligence agencies – it now monitors events within the Alliance as well as foreign powers, and works against terrorism and sedition as well as military threats.
The head of Military Intelligence is an O-8 ranked officer, referred to as the Chief of Military Intelligence. Military Intelligence is headquartered in a secure bunker away from the Tycho Base.

Observation Directorate (ObDir)

Observation Directorate’s role is gathering information. Undercover operations have changed greatly since first contact. It is impossible to infiltrate human agents into Proximan society, let alone Teuthidoid society, and if it was discovered that spying was being attempted on either race it would not be well received. And if the Proximans and Teuthidoids are any indication, the rest of the galaxy most likely follows suit in being biologically different from Humans. Human intelligence – the gathering of information using undercover operatives – has been greatly limited, although there are plenty of people who are willing to sell information to MInt in exchange for the hardest credit in known space.
Observation Directorate’s stated goal is to gather data on threats facing the Alliance from both within and without. It is considerably better at identifying internal threats than external ones.
ObDir also works in conjunction with the Navy’s SpaceCom.

Bureau of Human Intelligence (HumInt) – The Human Intelligence section is the ‘classic’ spy section of MInt – these are the people in trench coats and dark glasses meeting earnestly in parks and cafes. HumInt spends over 30% of its budget on bribes to informants and spies. About four-fifths of its efforts are concentrated on the Alliance itself. HumInt is more then willing to spy on allies of the Alliance, even with the risks involved.
Bureau of Data Collection (DataCol) – Data Collection is closely associated, unsurprisingly, with the Bureau of Data Analysis. Together, the two represent the single largest concentration of computing power in the Alliance. Data Collection’s role is gathering information electronically – Com taps, intercepted radio transmissions, monitoring programs on the computer networks, hacking into computers and so on. Practically every message sent in the Terran Alliance can potentially be monitored by DataCol, while the technicians have had just as much luck (Read: None) compromising alien computer networks as their colleagues in HumInt have had in compromising alien societies. Like HumInt, DataCol spends a great deal of effort intercepting and monitoring traffic within the Alliance, although it does allocate a slightly greater amount of funding and effort to the alien governments.
Bureau of Telepathic Inquiries (TPI) – When psionics were first discovered, the intelligence agencies of the world snatched up as many telepaths as they could. Telepathy had the potential to completely revolutionize espionage – and as the only thing that could effectively block a telepath was another telepath – or a well-trained person, control of the new breed was of vital importance. A telepath bureau was established with almost unseemly haste. It bloomed for a brief time, accomplishing more in a few months than whole divisions had done in years. This all changed when new laws were passed preventing random telepathic scans without due process, and the TPI’s activities are now restricted to scans of prisoners, but rumors abound of their use in special operations activities as well. The TPI acts in conjunction with the SDA.

Operations Directorate (OpsDir)

Operations is the ‘active’ section of Intelligence, undertaking short or medium-term missions to deal with specific problems. OpsDir has its own special forces and also makes extensive use of the Army’s SpecOps Units. All the Operations Bureaus are considerably smaller than their counterparts in Observation or Analysis, but are invariably made up of the most elite operatives available. A highly trained and skilled Operations agent can do more for the Alliance than a whole division of Marines.

Interdiction Bureau (IDict) – Interdictions Bureau are the troubleshooters of MInt, responsible for maintaining security of the Alliance and its informational gathering efforts. They work with Internal Affairs to locate traitors and spies, but it is the Interdiction Bureau that actually secures the enemy agents. Interdiction is also responsible for bugsweeping and electronic security, co-ordinating Special Unit raids on enemy communications assets and so on. If the Bureau of Special Operations is MInt’s sword, then Interdiction is its shields. The IDict unofficial motto is ‘smert’ shpionam’ – ‘death to spies’.
Bureau of State Security (StateSec) – The Bureau of State Security is responsible for the safety of the Grand Duchess, Consuls, Senate and other key Alliance officials, as well as any visiting alien dignitaries. StateSec is also responsible for the Council Guard aboard the Grand Duchess’s personal transport.
Bureau of Special Operations (BuSpOps) – Special Ops Bureau is the most militaristic (if that term can be meaningfully applied to a section of a military organization) of the bureaus. Its purpose is to design and carry out covert and special operations for long-term strategic or informational goals. Special Operations agents roam far beyond enemy lines, capturing key documents or sabotaging enemy intelligence assets. MInt SpecialOps works with the Army SpecOps detachments within each Battle Group to co-ordinate unconventional attacks on enemy assets.
- Covert Operations Division (DivCovOps): Another in the seeming infinity of Special Operations divisions, Covert Operations is responsible for Intelligence’s long term ‘off-the-grid’ activities, such as the establishment and maintenance of secret research facilities and transportation operations. Covert Operations also handles long-term assignments, like secret expeditions to retrieve alien technology or artifacts too inaccessible or dangerous for private entities to retrieve.
- Cover Entities Division (DivCovEnt): This section maintains the MInt’s false-front companies and corporations. Haverson Shipping, New Frontier Investments, SVI, and Cobra Transit are all owned and operated by MInt, along with dozens of other smaller organizations. Obviously, this information is classified, and most characters won’t know about these corporations’ true identities.
- Counter Terrorism Response Command (CTRC): CTRC works against domestic terrorism throughout the Terran Alliance. It works with civilian law enforcement agencies, as well as Internal Affairs.
Bureau of Clandestine Operations (ClandOps) – The Clandestine Operations Bureau specializes in undercover and psychological operations. Most of its operations are short-term ones, but it has a few deep cover agents that have been in position within enemy organizations and foreign powers for years or even decades. ClandOps personnel keep to themselves, and the reports back from this bureau are notoriously sketchy. No one, not even the Operations Director himself is wholly aware of what ClandOps are currently up to.

Analysis Directorate (AnDir)

The Analysis Directorate takes the wealth of information gathered by Observation and processes it. MInt produces a constant stream of updates, giving the government and other military branches up-to-date reports on current foreign and domestic matters, especially fleet and army movements, political events, potential flashpoints and trends.

Data Analysis Bureau (DAB) – DAB is the analysis counterpart of DataCol, crunching vast amounts of gathered information. Billions of conversations and messages are scanned by AIs for keywords and phrases. Economic reports are analyzed for trends and evidence of military activity. Data Analysis’ AIs are among the most advanced in the Alliance.
Archives Bureau (Arc) – ‘MInt never forgets’ claim the Archives Department. The Archives section – its main computers buried deep in an old coalmine – maintains copies of everything that passes through DataCol and DAB. Massive files are maintained on practically every topic. Rumours insist Archives collect files on every human in the Alliance, copying credit trails and intercepted transmissions into the computer’s virtually infinite storage space. In truth, Archives only stores information that its AIs and staff believe will be useful in the future as well as official MInt records. There are all sorts of strange files in the archives, waiting to be discovered.
In addition to the electronic archives, the Bureau maintains museums and warehouses of alien technology, recovered weapons, souvenirs of past missions and so on.
Political Bureau (PB) – The Political Bureau’s role is to repackage the products of the Data Analysis and Long Term Projections bureaus for use by the civilian government. The bureau also serves as an interface between the Alliance Government and the rest of Military Intelligence.
Long Term Projections Bureau (LTP) – Long Term Projections is exactly that – contemplating the fate of the galaxy over the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty or even fifty years. These projections are rarely accurate – Earth simply does not know enough about the galaxy to predict future events with confidence, and known space has changed completely just in the past year– but they do serve as a useful guide for Alliance policy. There is a certain level of SDA cooperation, with mages and psions talented at precognition aiding LTP from time to time.
Analysis Special Projects Bureau (ASPB): Ay any given time, the Analaysis Bureau is undergoing research on any number of topics. Here is a selection of some of the current and past endeavours.
- Registry was the bland name given to the ambitious plan to log information on every human in the Terran Alliance, including DNA samples and psychometric data. Registry was placed on indefinite haiatus following an executive order from the Council of Ten, but the research files for the project still exist.
- The Linguistics & Translation Project recruits translators who can speak Proximan (as well as talented linguists in general, to prepare for the inevitable encounter with other civilizations.). Computer translation often misses subtleties of contextual meaning that humans pick up on – and MInt is all about subtlety.
- The Cultural Operations Project is seen as a joke by many within MInt, as the operatives here spend their time studying what is sometimes termed ‘fluff’ – social mores, entertainment programs, trivia and so on. The hope is that by understanding this ‘fluff’ a greater understanding of cultures can be reached.

Technical Directorate (TechDir)

The technical directorate’s role is support of the other directorates. Analysis and the Bureau of Data Collection requires the most support from Technical; most of the technicians here are computer engineers, but there are a few who work in the far more interesting fields of espionage and counter-espionage. TechDir does have laboratories where highly-funded mad scientists work on new gadgets for spies and SpecOps troops.

Research & Development (TechRnD) – Technical Research and Development’s main focus is on computing technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence. TechRnD has an absurdly huge budget, but most of this is channeled off to the Black Projects.
Archaeology & Xenotechnology (ArcXen) – Private corporations are not the only human organization interested in the legacy of alien races. MInt believes the key to human security may lie in the ruins of some abandoned world. Most of ArcXen’s work goes straight into the Black Projects, although the existence of the section is common knowledge within MInt. ArcXen is known to operate following the guidelines of a document known as the “Catalina Report,” written by the original head of ArcXen (Captain Catalina Romano) before her retirement in 2026. The details of the Catalina Report are heavily classified.
Resources & Support (ResSup) – Resources & Support maintains MInt’s assets, such as bases and computer networks.

Administrative Directorate (AdminDir)

The Administrative Directorate is based at the Terran Alliance Headquarters outside of the Tycho Colony. Administration of the various intelligence directorates can be a deeply frustrating role, as often clerks are not cleared to know what the department they are dealing with actually does.

Legal Affairs (LegAf) – While Intelligence has an exceptional (indeed, some would argue excessive) amount of leeway to bend Alliance law, there are still numerous cases where operations come into conflict with the legal system. The Legal Affairs office advises MInt staff on legal matters. Often, political pressure was put on the justice system to expedite or ignore infractions involving Intelligence.
Purchasing & Supplies (PnS) – In keeping with the high level of secrecy involved in the Intelligence sector, Purchasing & Supplies works through a number of shell companies and off-the-public-record transactions. Thousand-credit toilet seats and computers purchased for a hundred times their listed value conceal the purchase of more important items, like cutting-edge scientific equipment, biological samples for organic technology research and so on.

Military Research and Development (RnD)

RnD works in conjunction with, and in some cases in direct competition with, private corporations. RnD is broken up into different research commands, with each command having sub-commands focused on more specific areas. RnD’s facilities can be found all over the alliance, but notable locations include the Pluto Outpost and Mimas.

Medical (MedR)

MedR is always looking to advance the sciences of medicine, surgery, and combat medicine. Advances developed in MedR are the ones that make the leap from the military to civilian theaters the quickest, as any advancement in cybernetics and first-response medicine is a boon to the Alliance as a whole.

Genetic and Surgical Enhancement – Experiments are currently focusing on improved low-cost cybernetic enhancements. Genetics research is an on and off research subject, since it spends most of its time caught in legal hell, due to the issues involved with gene tailoring and manipulation.
Regeneration – While armor technology helps to cut down on limb damage, there is still interest in being able to replace damaged limbs or organs without resorting to cybernetics. Experiments in regeneration technology, in stimulating and enhancing the body’s natural ability to heal itself, are being carried out at several laboratories across the Alliance. Ideally, this technology will remove the need for clumsy cybernetics and allow injured personnel to be fully restored even when they have lost limbs or organs.
Combat Medicine – Stabilizing a critically wounded soldier in the heat of battle is a challenge for the best medic. Speed is of the essence here. From the invention of wound glue in the Vietnam War to medpacs during World War III, every development in combat medicine has focused on faster and faster methods. Currently, efforts are centering on integrating medical systems into battle armor, so that a soldier shot while wearing battle armor would have wound sealants and stimulants injected automatically, or a pilot would be treated with Anti-Rad when his flight suit detects a high-level of radiation.

Weapons Research (WepR)

Obviously, as an arm of the military, RnD spends a fair amount of its resources on researching better and more efficient ways to hurt and destroy targets. Some see it as excessive, some see it as necessary, and others see the futuristic technology that comes out of WepR and go “cool!”

Energy Weapon Research – Ever since the early days of science fiction, Man has dreamed of blowing things up with nothing but energy. While there has been success with short-duration lasers for active defense, these are still impractical for anything smaller than a large transport. Energy Weapon Research is focused on man-portable energy weapons, and has seen little in the way of success in that field. However, the MARAUDER (Magnetically Accelerated Ring to Achieve Ultra-high Directed Energy and Radiation) project, began by the United States in the 1990s, still shows promise, assuming that the issues with the durability of the equipment are ever resolved. The DFL laser used in the DEW Wing component of the SDA’s TARAWA System is the result of a research project in this field.
Kinetic Weapon Research – This department is focused on building better, more efficient railguns, light gas guns, and slugthrowers. An example of a Kinetic Weapons Research project is Project PRIESTESS MISSILE, which recently released the XR1 Prototype Man-Portable Railgun for use with select soldiers and the Rail Wing for use in the SDA’s TARAWA System.
Guided Weapons Research – This department is focused primarily on missile and torpedo systems. Experiments in miniaturizing guidance systems led to the development of the revolutionary Nano-Missile System.

Electronics (EleR)

“Electronics” is more of a catch-all term that covers avionics, sensor systems, command and control systems, and even engines and passive defenses.

Flux Space Sensors – A joint project with the Proximans, flux space sensors are still at least a year away from even reaching functional prototype stage. Flux space sensors work on the principle that masses in realspace create disturbances in flux space. Normally, only stellar masses create discernable distortions in flux space (allowing a ship to know when it is near a star even if there is no flux space gate beacon in that star’s system), but researchers have been experimenting with scanning nearby sections of flux space for micro-distortions caused by large vessels. These sensors show promise in detecting vessels equipped with stealth technology such as those used by the Dwellers.

Psychology (PsyR)

PsyR is the most ethereal and ‘cerebral’ of the RnD branches, being completely focused on abstract concepts and other non-physical things. Psychological warfare, command concepts, and leadership skills all are researched by PsyR.

Theory of Command – This field of research is centered at the Unified Officer Training Academy at the Tycho Base on Luna. It is the theory of command and loyalty in the abstract, without direct reference to any particular branch of service or army, but instead focusses on how officers can inspire loyalty and competence, how to ensure smooth and accurate communication up and down the chain of command and so on.

Network Command (NetCom)

Network Command maintains the TAAF’s electronic communications and computer networks, as well as coordinating with TAPS for long-distance communications. Its chief responsibility is the computer networks and radio hardware that allows for communication between Earth and the colonies and stations within the Sol system. Network Command also works with the SDA for emergency telepathic communications, and with RnD in the field of quantum communications, which still holds potential for use as FTL communication links even with the lag time involved with quantum entanglement. Network Command is based on Luna, and has facilities on all major locations in the Sol system.

Public Relations (PRCmd)

The TAAF is committed to maintaining good relations with the public. The press office fields queries from news agencies and the other news corporations, as well as organizing for embedded journalists to be sent on certain high-profile missions. This department also deals with complaints and lawsuits against the TAAF, and dispatches troubleshooters and lawyers to deal with problems off Earth.

Ever since the Belt Rebellion, the TAAF has enjoyed a great deal of support from the general population of the Alliance, and while internal Alliance tensions continue to run high even over a decade after the end of World War 3, it is hoped that the PR department can resolve any new difficulties that arise and maintain the reputation of the armed forces.

Public Relations works in concert with Recruitment to run the TAAF’s annual recruiting drives.

Recruitment (RecCom)

The TAAF rarely has a problem with recruitment – the pay scales are good, the prestige associated with the role is high. Plus, its one of the only things that guarantees that you will get to go off-planet without having to sign on to a colonial team. Recruitment offices and advertisements can be seen in every major city and colony.

Resource Acquisition (RACQ)

RACQ is the department of Administration that deals with the various corporations that supply the TAAF with everything except for starships. Weapons, food, fuel, it all goes through RACQ in some way, shape, or form. RACQ operates on a planetary scale (continental scale on Earth), taking advantage of the TAAF’s massive transport ability to get the more cost-effective deals by doing additional jobs for corporations as time permits. This approach to budgeting has occasionally thrown up some odd results, such as a decidedly un-military supplies being shipped in military cargo vessels alongside weaponry. Mistakes do happen sometimes, leading to boxes of ammunition ending up where cereal should be, and vice versa. RACQ is primarily based on Grand Island, NY, on Earth, but has offices in most major areas.

Surgeon General’s Office (SGO)

The Surgeon General is the head of medicine within the TAAF. All the military hospitals and medlabs are under the control of this department. The TAAF has at least one fully equipped medbay on every capital ship and space station, and maintains some of the most advanced medical facilities for the treatment of injured soldiers on Earth, Mars, Luna, and at the Alpha Prime colony.

Worlds That Might Have Been