User:NewOriginalSchwann/Sandbox
Policing and security in the Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations is managed by a Byzantine mass of bureaucratic agencies and regulations which, in some cases, date back to the Alliance’s founding in 2140 -- making some Solarian security agencies older than every other human (and most non-human) nations in the Orion Spur. The oldest of these agencies is the massive Solarian Interstellar Policing & Crime Prevention Agency (SIP-CPA), a system-spanning organization with millions of employees that is responsible for coordinating inter-system policing in the Alliance. Other similar agencies include the Solarian Interstellar Security Agency (SISA), a more recent agency formed for the purpose of domestic intelligence, and the Solarian Interstellar Intelligence Bureau (SIIB), a much older agency that serves as the Alliance’s highest security authority.
History
The history of interstellar policing and security in the Solarian Alliance is as old as practical human space travel itself, although it only became formally institutionalized with the formation of the Solarian Interstellar Policing & Crime Prevention Agency in 2140. Prior to this point interstellar policing had primarily been carried out by individual countries and organizations based upon on Earth, which had become increasingly impractical as humanity branched out first into the Sol System and then beyond it with the advent of practical warp engines in 2130. The SIP-CPA proved itself to be significantly more effective than the smaller agencies that had preceded it and this success would eventually lead to the founding of its sister agency, the Solarian Interstellar Security Agency (SISA), in 2157.
But these two agencies would eventually find themselves overworked and overtaxed by the rapidly expanding Alliance as the 22nd century ended and the 23rd began. The Alliance’s push to expand its borders had clearly overcome their capabilities by the mid-2220s, requiring the creation of an entirely new agency in 2228: the Solarian Interstellar Intelligence Bureau (SIIB), an agency tasked solely with ensuring the security and stability of the Alliance’s distant colonial frontier. Due to the increasingly shaky control of the Alliance over its distant colonies the SIIB was given nearly unlimited authority and almost no oversight in its mission to ensure security and stability, and the Bureau almost immediately turned to what it referred to as “strong methods” in order to ensure loyalty to Sol remained. While the SIIB -- despite its methods -- failed to prevent the outbreak of the Interstellar War and subsequent formation of the Coalition of Colonies it remained active due to its deeply-seeded intelligence networks across the Coalition, effectively proving its usefulness to the Solarian government despite any moral qualms they may have had over its techniques.
Following the Solarian collapse after Violet Dawn the Alliance’s security, policing, and intelligence agencies remain as valuable and important as ever for the now-shrunken Alliance, though they now find themselves scrambling to deal with the aftermath of Violet Dawn even a year later. The Alliance’s security -- and its future -- may very well depend upon them, and none wish to be found wanting by history.
Domestic Agencies
While much of the Alliance’s day-to-day security is managed by local planetary policing agencies such as the Venusian VPPF and Callistean CMPD situations often arise that go beyond the authority a planet or system and require greater authority to resolve, such as issues with piracy and smuggling in the Middle and Outer Rings before the events of late 2462.
Solarian Interstellar Policing & Crime Prevention Agency (SIP-CPA)
Founded in 2140, the Solarian Interstellar Policing & Crime Prevention Agency, or SIP-CPA, is the eldest of Sol’s Intelligence trinity, and the one most often overlooked by the Solarian media. Primarily concerned with rear-echelon administrative and management duties, the SIP-CPA lacks the glamor and fame of “field” organizations like the SISA, but loses none of its importance because of it. After all, without the analysts and number-crunchers of the Intelligence Trinity’s unsung backbone, the vaunted doorkickers of its sister branches would have no reference from which to direct their own talents.
The SIP-CPA’s first and most pertinent duty is to coordinate, assist, and facilitate the operations of planetary and system police forces across the member states of the Alliance. The first of these tasks is the one for which the Agency is most well-known, and which occupies the largest single chunk of the SIP-CPA’s quarterly budget and manpower reserve. Across the Alliance, many thousands of clerks, couriers, and routing staff are in constant communication on behalf of their local departments, both within systems and between stars, transmitting case files, wanted notices, and endless quantities of paperwork through the informational spiderweb tying the Alliance together. This focus on coordination also applies to the national police agencies of the Alliance, with SIP-CPA coordinators being found in every large-scale joint security operation.
Beyond this primary duty, the SIP-CPA is also responsible for ensuring the Alliance’s many varied member police forces are up to standard, in training, equipment, and in their honor. Where a given member state cannot provide sufficient funds to their force, it is the SIP-CPA who will send supply and material requests up the chain. Should a unit’s skill or behavior prove insufficient, it is the SIP-CPA who will provide the training personnel and opportunities needed to improve them. And if an officer should betray the law they swore to uphold, it is the SIP-CIP who is called to serve as a neutral arbitrator in the case. These tasks have given the personnel of the Agency a somewhat mixed reputation, especially on planets far from the Jewel Worlds, where some independently-minded security forces resist what they see as bureaucratic meddling from Sol.
Much less well-known is the SIP-CPA’s third function, that of the largest intelligence-gathering network within the Alliance. Where the SISA focuses on targeted investigation and direct action, the SIP-CPA instead utilizes a “wide net” strategy of passively acquiring as much information as is possible. Webcrawlers, bugs, and paid informants are only a handful of the methods used by the Agency in the course of its operations outside the public eye. All the while, as is a (non-publicized) right of the SIP-CPA, all of the data acquired in partnership with planetary security agencies is dutifully collated, copied, and dispatched to Sol for further categorization and analysis. While the Agency rarely acts on this information itself, actionable intelligence collated by the SIP-CPA has served as a stepping stone for the other members of the Intelligence Trinity more times than can be feasibly counted.
Outside of Sol, the SIP-CPA maintains campuses and facilities across nearly every Solarian member world, though with a higher density of infrastructure within the Jewel Worlds. Universally located near command centers of local police units to facilitate rapid communication, SIP-CPA intelligence campuses are typically compact but vertically developed, often including several high-rise buildings entirely dedicated to the clerical work which encompasses much of the organization’s mandate.
Domestic Agencies
While much of the Alliance’s day-to-day security is managed by local planetary policing agencies such as the Venusian VPPF and Callistean CMPD situations often arise that go beyond the authority a planet or system and require greater authority to resolve, such as issues with piracy and smuggling in the Middle and Outer Rings before the events of late 2462.
Solarian Interstellar Policing & Crime Prevention Agency (SIP-CPA)
Founded in 2140, the Solarian Interstellar Policing & Crime Prevention Agency, or SIP-CPA, is the eldest of Sol’s Intelligence trinity, and the one most often overlooked by the Solarian media. Primarily concerned with rear-echelon administrative and management duties, the SIP-CPA lacks the glamor and fame of “field” organizations like the SISA, but loses none of its importance because of it. After all, without the analysts and number-crunchers of the Intelligence Trinity’s unsung backbone, the vaunted doorkickers of its sister branches would have no reference from which to direct their own talents.
The SIP-CPA’s first and most pertinent duty is to coordinate, assist, and facilitate the operations of planetary and system police forces across the member states of the Alliance. The first of these tasks is the one for which the Agency is most well-known, and which occupies the largest single chunk of the SIP-CPA’s quarterly budget and manpower reserve. Across the Alliance, many thousands of clerks, couriers, and routing staff are in constant communication on behalf of their local departments, both within systems and between stars, transmitting case files, wanted notices, and endless quantities of paperwork through the informational spiderweb tying the Alliance together. This focus on coordination also applies to the national police agencies of the Alliance, with SIP-CPA coordinators being found in every large-scale joint security operation.
Beyond this primary duty, the SIP-CPA is also responsible for ensuring the Alliance’s many varied member police forces are up to standard, in training, equipment, and in their honor. Where a given member state cannot provide sufficient funds to their force, it is the SIP-CPA who will send supply and material requests up the chain. Should a unit’s skill or behavior prove insufficient, it is the SIP-CPA who will provide the training personnel and opportunities needed to improve them. And if an officer should betray the law they swore to uphold, it is the SIP-CIP who is called to serve as a neutral arbitrator in the case. These tasks have given the personnel of the Agency a somewhat mixed reputation, especially on planets far from the Jewel Worlds, where some independently-minded security forces resist what they see as bureaucratic meddling from Sol.
Much less well-known is the SIP-CPA’s third function, that of the largest intelligence-gathering network within the Alliance. Where the SISA focuses on targeted investigation and direct action, the SIP-CPA instead utilizes a “wide net” strategy of passively acquiring as much information as is possible. Webcrawlers, bugs, and paid informants are only a handful of the methods used by the Agency in the course of its operations outside the public eye. All the while, as is a (non-publicized) right of the SIP-CPA, all of the data acquired in partnership with planetary security agencies is dutifully collated, copied, and dispatched to Sol for further categorization and analysis. While the Agency rarely acts on this information itself, actionable intelligence collated by the SIP-CPA has served as a stepping stone for the other members of the Intelligence Trinity more times than can be feasibly counted.
Outside of Sol, the SIP-CPA maintains campuses and facilities across nearly every Solarian member world, though with a higher density of infrastructure within the Jewel Worlds. Universally located near command centers of local police units to facilitate rapid communication, SIP-CPA intelligence campuses are typically compact but vertically developed, often including several high-rise buildings entirely dedicated to the clerical work which encompasses much of the organization’s mandate.
Solarian Interstellar Security Agency (SISA)
The middle child of the Solarian Intelligence Trinity, the Solarian Interstellar Security Agency, or SISA, was founded as the “action” counterpart to the SIP-CPA. Where the SIP-CPA performs intelligence gathering and administration on the strategic level, SISA was created with the intent of directly assisting and supplementing Alliance member police forces on the ground. As the only member of Alliance Intelligence Trinity to have official law enforcement authority, SISA serves at the long arm of Alliance domestic security, operating armed field offices on nearly every world in the Alliance. The Agency holds jurisdiction over hundreds of Alliance federal crimes, and maintains both the Solarian Alliance Terror & Extremism Watchlist, and the list of the Alliance’s most wanted fugitives.
The most commonly seen units of SISA across the Alliance are its Special Agents, federal law enforcement officers entrusted with the rights to conduct investigations, serve warrants, and make arrests, regardless of Solarian jurisdiction. Special agents are granted significant legal leeway in the pursuit of these objectives, being permitted to install wiretaps, search property without notice, and even assume full control over a case should it be deemed necessary. Crimes which will merit the involvement of SISA include terrorism, large-scale drug trafficking, sapient lifeform trafficking, and serial murder, among several others. As a general rule, an intervention by SISA means that a case is of serious importance to both the local jurisdiction and the Alliance as a whole.
Said intervention, however, is not always appreciated by the local forces SISA is ostensibly supporting. SISA agents have developed a somewhat mixed reputation among the Alliance’s holdings, with more Sol-skeptical forces seeing them as haughty know-it-alls who take command over cases and assert their authority at the expense of the local police unit they are assisting. This issue is further compounded by SISA agents often being rotated between posts across the Alliance, leading to a degree of separation existing between them and planetary agencies. While the SIP-CPA strives to smooth over such conflicts wherever they arise, a level of distrust still exists between a number of Middle Ring security forces and SISA.
Like the SIP-CPA, recruiting for the SISA is a pan-Solarian process, though SISA places much higher emphasis on physical fitness and practical skills than the SIP-CPA. Once accepted, prospective recruits are transported to one of several expansive training centers within the Jewel Worlds to be educated in the fine art of federal law enforcement. Modeled after the Solarian Navy’s own “Alliance-Wide” system, this method of centralized training is designed to instill loyalty to SISA and the Alliance over one’s homeworld, along with standardizing the training and education of SISA’s personnel. That this method also serves to maintain the gap between SISA and its planetary charges is viewed as an unfortunate necessity in the eternal struggle to guarantee the safety of the Alliance.
SISA - Counter-Terrorism Response Group (SISA-CRTG)
One of the most decorated and experienced tactical units fielded by SISA, the Counter-Terrorism Response Group (CRTG) specializes in hunting down the most wanted criminals the Alliance, and neutralizing them by any means necessary. The CTRG has secured an operational success rate and mission count unrivaled by any other non-military force in the Alliance, and possibly across the Spur. Over the course of its half-century and counting existence, it has proven instrumental in neutralizing major criminal threats across the Alliance, from the Martian Red Guard to the infamous “Widowmaker” stay-behind units of the Solarian Restoration Front, to triad members in Ton Gwai Pei, New Hai Phong. The CRTG has attracted controversy for its apparent lack of oversight, as the SISA director can make the call on when and where they go in without consulting local authorities -- a measure to guard against insider threats, per the agency -- and a track record of violence towards non-human residents of the Alliance, such as tajara (prior to 2462).
One of the CTRG’s most notable recent operations was its campaign against the Tajaran Revolutionary Army. Following the New Hai Phong bombings of 2460, the CTRG was the spearhead of the SISA’s subsequent effort to wipe the Tajaran Revolutionary Army from the face of the Alliance. Given a blank check by the Frost administration to prosecute “any and all responsible parties,” the CTRG would perform hundreds of raids on suspected TRA safe houses and collaborators, often with few arrestees and many bodies. Most of the records for these operations were -- conveniently -- lost in the chaos of the Solarian Civil War, leaving the exact number of casualties unknown, though rumors hold that many of the “terrorist targets” were in reality unaffiliated tajara communities struck as part of the Frost administration’s virulently xenophobic agenda. While very few CTRG operatives sided with the SRF during the Civil War, a widespread purge of its ranks carried out by the provisional government has led some to suspect it was more ATLAS-adjacent than the Department of Justice stated in its 2465 review of the team.
The Solarian Interstellar Intelligence Bureau (SIIB)
Originally created as the SISA and SIP-CPA’s counterpart in the Solarian frontier (now the modern Coalition of Colonies), the SIIB has since become the Alliance’s primary intelligence service for external concerns. As a result of this role the Bureau itself is shrouded in a large amount of deliberate secrecy, and few outside of it itself and the higher echelons of the Solarian government understand the extent to which it operates within other nations -- or within the Alliance itself. While it is known to operate in the Republic of Biesel you should not play an active or former SIIB agent as a non-antagonist on-ship character, as Bureau operatives often work directly against the interests of NanoTrasen and the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate.
Due to its role the Bureau has never had significant oversight by the greater Solarian Alliance, which has led to it developing and adopting a variety of quasi-legal methods in order to achieve its ends that are typically described as its “strong methods,” in its official documents that range from simple psychological manipulation to the so-called “truth serum,” an experimental chemical cocktail designed to extract a confession from an unwilling detainee without regards to their health. These “strong methods” the Bureau employs have greatly contributed to its controversial history, which dates back to before the Interstellar War and its original purpose as an organization designed to ensure stability in the Alliance’s colonies. The Bureau’s shadowy nature has only enhanced the reputation of these strong methods and much of the information on them is still classified, which has led to a significant amount of rumors regarding what the strong methods Bureau uses in its interrogation rooms are.
Over the years of its mandate, the SIIB would also subsume much of the authority for overseeing Alliance informational security and data classification. The only branch of the Bureau to be granted explicit permission to perform operations within Solarian territory, SIIB-INFOSEC enforces the sanctity of the Alliance’s classified materials, and was responsible for the creation of the Alliance’s modern six-tier data classification system. Unique among the SIIB’s components for its law enforcement authority, INFOSEC is charged with identifying and prosecuting breaches in the Alliance’s data security, both against internal thieves and foreign hackers. They are responsible for maintaining all ROMEO VERMILLION classification material, which is the Alliance's highest level of classification. Reportedly, only a few individuals outside of the prime minister and the SIIB's director are aware of all ROMEO VERMILLION material.
Despite the well-known reputation of its interrogation rooms the SIIB’s primary day-to-day work is centered around gathering intelligence through passive interrogation and observation alongside active infiltrations, which it has become extremely adept at over the centuries since the Interstellar War. The Bureau is rumored to have nearly completely infiltrated the government of the Republic of Biesel on almost every level despite efforts by Biesel’s local authorities to stop and is alleged to have had a hand in many of the crises the young Republic has suffered, up to and including the infamous Clandestine Incident of 2462. The governments of the Coalition of Colonies and Republic of Elyra are said to be similarly infiltrated, though the Bureau’s reach (or, perhaps, its interests) have not yet extended to the more isolated Empire of Dominia. While operations in the Human Wildlands by the SIIB have not been officially confirmed by the Bureau or by the Solarian government, rumors of meetings between officials of the SRF, SSMD, and SPG and unknown actors in Solarian-produced ships can be found across social media. While the SIIB's purpose in the Wildlands is not currently known, it is doubtlessly heavily involved despite its lack of official confirmation.
The Bureau’s infiltration efforts do not stop at other human governments and it has influenced non-human governments across the Orion Spur to further Solarian interests, with its skrellian and tajaran branches being the most prevalent of its non-human intelligence wings. The SIIB’s Nralakk Federation branch is the eldest and most built-up of the SIIB’s international establishments, having been created shortly after first contact with the Federation in 2332. Cooperating extensively with the Federation’s various Enforcer organizations, the SIIB’s centuries-long relationship with the nation has been extremely productive for both parties, with ongoing intelligence and technology sharing agreements keeping their relations warm. The tajara branch, however, is no longer present on Adhomai, though its influence can still be felt.
Of these two the skrellian branch is the larger and more developed one thanks to the greater amount of time that humanity has been in contact with the skrell. The skrellian branch is widely-known throughout the Bureau for its creative approaches to hiding classified information from a psionically-capable species. Bureau facilities (and some facilities that are not affiliated with them at all) are generally aluminium-lined to prevent nlom field interactions within classified areas such as interrogation rooms, and the skrellian branch was responsible for the creation of the first practical mindshield shortly after first contact. While similar corporate mindshields exist, Bureau mindshields are highly-classified and exclusive to the agency itself. Rumor has it that they are capable of turning the psionic energies of a skrell onto the skrell themselves but they, like much of the Bureau, are shrouded in rumors and falsehoods.
While smaller than its counterpart the tajaran branch has a long history of clandestine activities on resource-rich Adhomai that stretches back to the First Revolution, where it was initially active through the use of long-range observation equipment. The People’s Strategic Intelligence Service, the main intelligence organization of the People’s Republic of Adhomai, was trained by the Bureau until the start of the Second Revolution, with the Bureau’s instructors leaving before the war began. While President Hadii’s assassin was a PSIS agent, and did assassinate him with a rare energy weapon, the Bureau has repeatedly denied that it had any role in the assassination or chaos that followed. With the breakdown of normal relations between Sol and Adhomai the Bureau’s presence on the planet has allegedly lessened yet some on Adhomai still believe it operates in Crevus under the cover of the city’s non-tajara population, still manipulating events on the planet from behind the shadows.
Courts and Jails
The Alliance’s justice system is an archaic product of its bloated bureaucracy with some charged persons taking months to go to trial, though these waits are often much shorter in its core worlds. The average time a charged person spent awaiting trial within the Solarian Alliance was 19 months and 28 days. In most member states of the Alliance accused Solarians are subject to the judgement of a jury of twenty of their peers, and their trial is presided over by an elected judge of the Solarian Judiciary. However there is one notable exception to this system of justice: Mars. Since the events of Violet Dawn in 2462 the Martian judicial system -- already known for being extremely harsh on the convicted -- has been superseded and replaced by military law under the Solarian Army’s emergency government. Martian convicts are instead subject to the judgement of a Solarian Army military tribunal, which often deals out harsh punishments up to execution by firing squad. The Solarian Supreme Court is staffed by nine judges who are appointed by the Prime Minister and approved by the Solarian Parliament that serve for life or until retirement.
Prisons in the Alliance are owned and operated by the state, and vary based on location and security level. Generally Alliance prisons tend to be centered more on containment than rehabilitation, and many suffer from mediocre conditions. The Solarian Navy is the primary transport of detainees to the prisons, which has given it a significant amount of influence over the system. This influence has led many to believe the Navy assisted former Prime Minister Frost in escaping both his Venusian and Martian prisons prior to his pardoning and ascension to Sol’s Prime Ministership.