FTA3 Espionage

Thousands of years of simulated existence failed to snuff out those essential human vices: the desire to observe, pass judgment on others and then at the behest of society, enforce that judgment. Groups likewise observe one another, pass judgment and enforce their desires on each other through influence, subterfuge and violence, sometimes discreetly but more often not.

The human being which, in all its permutations has failed to evolve beyond the status of a social animal, continues to use tools of observation, judgment and enforcement in the pursuit of myriad goals. Those emerging anarchist polities may have abolished their institutions of policing and carceral states, but continue to investigate crimes, protect the community with militias and hold councils to enact their particular visions of justice. Certain genera Homo Extremis may download their mental patterns into a substrate of self-organizing nanomachines and abolish biological death, but their new existence presents other risks: deletion, copying, theft and torture of mental duplicates in absentia and other horrors unimaginable to those who live in the blasphemous corpus of the Real, requiring network security with unfathomably bloated budgets.

It is often said that no person is safe from bad actors. Such phrases are often said by spies and policemen, who would obviously like to enjoy the milk and honey of state funding in a time of crisis.

Navigation

1. From the Ashes 3
2. FTA3 Thread Index
3. FTA3 Military and Combat
4. FTA3 Ship Design
5. FTA3 Economy
6. FTA3 Espionage
7. FTA3 Ethos & Politics
8. FTA3 Research & Development
9. FTA3 Exploration

Continue to Table of Contents:

Tools and Concepts in Espionage

The Agency

The Agency is the ‘ship’ of the espionage rules, though rather than using standard templates each one is fairly unique. Agencies are created by spending an Espionage Token and gain 6 points to spend on their attributes. They can be further upgraded by spending additional Espionage Tokens, which grants an additional 3 minus Y points, with Y being the number of Espionage Tokens previously spent on upgrading that agency the same year. Rapidly setting up a brand new service has sharp limits and diminishing returns, even pouring all the resources of the state to build.

All players may choose to begin with a single Agency with 12 points for free. There is no limit on how many Agencies a player can have: they are fundamentally conduits for action that require Token spending to be useful, and having too many things covering the same purview can be deleterious to performance or provide leverage to a hostile power.

Agency Statistics

Agency Statistics represent core competencies in one of four categories of action, each significantly important in the scope of espionage operations. Statistics are assigned every time a new Agency is created, and whenever tokens are expended to upgrade an existing Agency.

Agency statistics have no inherent maximum or minimum, though if an attribute drops to 0 or less the agency becomes Compromised, and cannot be utilized for any actions for the rest of the game year. Agencies with extremely low negatives are particularly dangerous, being essentially exploitable targets for other players’ intel operations.

Agency Decay

Agency statistics decay in the following circumstances:

• Every year, all Agencies lose 1 point from their highest statistic if they are above 12 total points, not including specializations
• Whenever an Agency engages in an intelligence operation, it loses 1 point (player choice).
• Whenever an Agency is the subject of an intelligence operation, it loses at least 1 point (attacker’s choice) and may lose more.
• If the territory the Agency is headquartered in goes into low Stability (3 or less) or is subject of a violent attack, it loses 1 additional point from their highest statistic that year. Flag of Freedom ignores this penalty.
• If the territory the Agency is headquartered in is conquered by a hostile power, the Agency is destroyed. However the player may spend an Espionage token to have everyone evacuated, allowing the Agency to evacuate and limiting the damage to 5 Statistic points (defender’s choice).

Operations

Operations comprises the ability to plan, engage in and protect the secrecy of espionage actions.

Each point of Operations:

• Counters a point of a relevant Intelligence Gathering to prevent early warning.
• Allows an additional intelligence operation to be ‘well planned’ per Game Year.
• Allows an additional military asset (warship, ground unit, etc) to be ‘well integrated’ into the Agency without harming effectiveness.

Security

Security provides passive protection from hostile actions, and provides effectiveness in counterintelligence operations.

Each point of Security:

• Increases the difficulty of hostile actions.

Intelligence Gathering

Intelligence Gathering provides passive warning of hostile actions, as well as analysis of hostile actors and debris to determine responsible parties when the state or organization is subject of an operation.

Each point of Intelligence Gathering:

• Provides a potential pool of human (or near-human) assets that can be subverted to improve espionage and other hostile actions against a target nation, upon request.
• Provides improved technical analysis of signals, footage, debris and other artifacts and detritus to determine the origin and potential intentions of a hostile party that was not previously identified.
• Grants increased early warning of potential hostile actions, and limited understanding under fog of war.

Deniability

Deniability is a special mechanic to give a legitimate cover of “no I didn’t” for as long as possible. It is not a blanket ability to refuse responsibility in every single way, but a way to mitigate consequences, control narratives and prevent immediate unilateral intervention by a coalition looking to make some justified conquests.

Deniability works as follows:

• Higher deniability provides better control over domestic narratives. At high ratings, your people may simply not care, patriotically view your actions as a necessary evil for the sake of the nation or have a completely warped understanding of reality thanks to your strong psychological operations division.
• Deniability provides a ticking clock, delaying the authentication of documents, debris, etc by unvarnished, unbiased third parties. While it can be penetrated by strong TECHINT or a defector (cultivated via HUMINT), in theory it provides a long buffer by which point the worst anger will have subsided and you will have made concessions and agreements that make reprisal undesirable.
• Deniability allows the cultivation of a number of proxies equal to its rating. Proxies are non-government groups which can act on your behalf, occasionally, but are mostly self-motivated and self-interested. Proxies do not reveal your backing initially, but as they take casualties, are subject to intelligence operations or become large and powerful enough to negotiate on the level of nations and powerful organizations, that loyalty may subside. Caveat emptor.

Deniability Clock

“We didn’t do it, but you deserved it and if you don’t watch yourselves we’ll do it again!”

The Deniability Clock is a mechanic that exists to mitigate the immediate consequences of intelligence operations, particularly disproportionate responses by larger powers against their perceived inferiors for minor slights or skullduggery, as well as the formation of large unjustified coalitions responding to minor slights with the well-honed knives of partition. Of course, there are natural limits to such things: particularly grandiose acts of terrorism, surprise attacks on military infrastructure and the killings of heads of state: these are all basically just acts of war and one gets what they deserve for pushing on them.

The Deniability Clock instead is meant to delay response for a player who has invested in the relevant statistics, buying time to negotiate deals and for tempers to cool.

The clock is measured as follows: measure up the difference between attacker’s Deniability vs the defender’s Intelligence Gathering. The numerical difference (if positive for the attacker) is how many game years they get before their complicity is revealed. If the defender’s gathering score is higher, the attacker is revealed immediately after the attack resolves.

Proxies are a special Agency Asset class that work differently from standard deniability. They are instead tracked separately and have their own conditions for exposure.

Finally, Deniability hinges to some extent on the discretion of the launching state. The most extreme acts will in fact break the most strident measures of secrecy. Practically speaking, if your actions cause a calendar day or a named harbor to become perpetually associated with infamy, there isn’t much you can do. Moderators will always tell the player if a certain act is Too Loud.

Extending the Clock

The Deniability Clock is not meant to be played with or extended, generally. Even using the correct assets, having a well-designed Agency and planning carefully can’t buy you unlimited time. Despite this, there exist three ways to add Deniability Clock time:

• Plot Armor: Spending a Plot Token (and only a Plot Token) will make narrative intervention to buy you time. The amount depends on the event that is generated by the Plot Token and how serious the operation being concealed is, but consider a minimum buff of 50%.
• Burning the Agency: Burning your Agency to the ground right after it carries out a loud attack produces a lot of loose ends, especially since it means having to orphan or liquidate every single asset connected to it at the time of the op. The potential gain is similar to Plot Armor, with a minimum of 50%... but will also create a lot of burned agents and left-behind special forces to join the mercenary business.
• Betrayal: First strike betrayal of close allies will always help you out. As allies (PC or NPC), add a 50% buff. Betraying close allies (PCs who cooperate with you on intel, Blood Brothers) adds a 100% buff. You can only claim this bonus once per game.

Loudness

Loudness is an overall measure of how noticeable the actions taking place over the course of an intel operation really are. To a conspiratorial, web weaving mindset, certain acts, outcomes and means of achieving them will always be Too Loud and to be avoided (or mitigated) at all costs- but not all people are endowed with identical sensibilities, so it’s the responsibility of the moderator to work with the player to explain their understanding and establish a good consensus.

Loudness is broken down into 3 general phases:

• Planning Loudness represents the noise of putting assets into place. Conducting an all-hands fleet review before you carry out a big surprise attack on an enemy harbor is loud. Buying all the antitoxin to a specific nerve gas to cripple civilian response to a terror attack is loud.
• Operational Loudness represents the noise of conducting the mission. Having a fleet punch down a capital tramline all at once screaming the national anthem is loud. Gassing a stadium during an internationally televised concert is loud.
• Outcome Loudness represents the noise and fury that follows getting what you want. Taking out a whole regional harbor before your war declaration has hit the presses is loud. Killing a hundred thousand people in a highly public and televised manner to sow fear and terror is loud.

Loudness is mitigated in a few ways:

• Operations and Operational Security directly mitigate all loudness.
• Deniable and Q-Ships do not contribute to Planning Loudness.
• Cloaked ships do not contribute to Planning Loudness if they haven’t been to port since the operation began planning. They do not contribute to Operational Loudness.
• Spec-Ops Ground Units do not contribute to Operational Loudness.
• Taking out comms buoys and suppressing courrier ships will directly mitigate Outcome Loudness.
• Proxies can mitigate loudness at all stages, though Outcomes less than the other two. People might not blink at a crime family dumping a few activists in a ravine but no amount of ‘boys being boys’ will forgive killing a head of state.
• Rumpus states have roughly halved loudness: not being taken seriously cuts both ways.
• Certain special events or system conditions such as space storms may limit maximum loudness by sheer isolation.

Upgrading Agencies

Once rolled, an Agency is a feature-complete tool for intelligence with basically full access to the mechanics, requiring no further investments other than regular expenditure of Tokens to upkeep its statistics. Agencies have a number of ways to expand and improve their functionality, called Specializations and Assets.

Specializations

Specialization Progression Table

	Mission Successes	Mission Failures/Counterintelligence Successes
1st Unlock	1	2
2nd Unlock	3	6
3rd Unlock	6	12
4th Unlock	10	20
5th Unlock	15	30
6th Unlock	21	42
7th Unlock	28	56
8th Unlock	36	72
9th Unlock	45	90
10th Unlock	55	110
11th Unlock	66	132
12th Unlock	88	176

Specializations are the manifestation of institutional know-how and culture as organizations gain experience through trial and error, and hone in on particular functions. Security organizations get better at security, information gathering services begin to infer details by accumulating masses of data and so on.

In addition to the specific effects described in their writeup, each Specialization acts as a permanent +1 to the Attribute it corresponds to. Unlike regular attributes, these are not diminished in the regular action of conducting or being the target of intelligence operations.

There are 12 specializations, which are unlocked as Agencies successfully complete operations. Mission failures also contribute to the development of specializations, but half as quickly, as do successful defenses against hostile espionage actions.

The results are cumulative: four failures and four successes (effectively 6 successes) is enough to unlock a 3rd specialization.

Operations Specializations

Operational Security (OPSEC)

The ability to maintain secrecy and mitigate OSINT observation of troop numbers, assets, etc.

• Passive Benefit: Your agency is functionally immune to OSINT from powers without the OSINT Specialization or relevant assets.
• Active Benefit: INFORMATION BLACKOUT - You can completely suppress all internal documentation for a single operation at a time. Doing so is conspicuous (people know something is up) but obscures details to anybody without assets on the ground or inside your Agency.

Operational Capacity (OPCAP)

OPCAP is the logistical overhead of your operations, and how well your agency can maintain them. Stealing Data and Killing Senators isnt easy to do at the same time, all while on a shoestring budget, after all.

• Passive Benefit: One operation at a time does not cost a Token to start. It is treated as ‘well-planned’.
• Active Benefit: ALL HANDS - You can combine your ‘well-planned’ operations, providing a stacking bonus to effectiveness that scales.

Operational Coordination (OPCOR)

OPCOR represents how your agency integrates with the militant arm of your nation, and how effective they are at utilizing those military assets.

• Passive Benefit: Your agency can integrate military units instantly and without any penalties to their operational effectiveness.
• Active Benefit: ZERO-DARK THIRTY - You can rush a single operation at a time with no serious impacts to loudness or chances of success.

Security Specializations

Infrastructure Security (INSEC)

The protection of the built environment, digital networks and other assets of the state.

• Passive Benefit: Non-complete damage (i.e.: wasn’t destroyed, in lost CI/DI or repair cost) to Landmarks, Territories or Convoys received from hostile operations is halved if your agency was defending against it.
• Active Benefit: NEVER FORGET - If a Landmark, Territory or Convoy or other meaningful structure has been the target of an hostile operation but wasn’t destroyed, you may declare it Secured. If it was destroyed, you can always rebuild for 80% of the time and cost to build or a GM assessment of the value (OPF structures are subject to GM fiat and may be exorbitantly expensive and involve a quest to gather materials).

Personal Security (PERSEC)

The protection of named individuals within the government and armed forces, as well as other persons of interest.

• Passive Benefit: It is basically impossible to insert human assets into your state. Actively conducting operations, as well as active powers provided by other Specializations, can bypass this.
• Active Benefit: INTERNAL AFFAIRS - When you become aware of a Double Agent, Defector or similar human asset operating in your territory, you can instantly acquire a Special Agent with a close relationship to the hostile asset. These do not cost Tokens to create, but you may only have one at a time per agency.

Public Security (PUBSEC)

Nominally the goal of most domestic agencies, PUBSEC in particular focuses on the protection of the public, their exposure to dangerous information and people, as well as their methods of contact with foreign entities.

• Passive Benefit: Hostile operations to destabilize your regime or territories can never inflict more than half the Stability of a single territory, unless you are already at 3 or lower.
• Active Benefit: SECTION 9 - Non-Militia Special Forces assigned to this Agency have Show the Flag inside your own territory and that of any allies who cooperate with you in intelligence

Intelligence Gathering Specializations

Human Intelligence (HUMINT)

The development of informants, defectors and other human assets.

• Passive Benefit: You can ‘flip’ captured human assets without an operation. This takes 1d6 turns of intel resolution, longer for high cost (2+ Token) and/or Secured assets.
• Active Benefit: OUR MAN IN X - Whenever there is a major event (the GM can clarify what is major or not), you can declare you have an asset of any type on the scene. This asset is temporary and lasts as long as you keep interest in the event.

Technical Intelligence (TECHINT)

Analysis of the situation via technological systems and understanding. Also covers SIGINT, decryption, measurement and signature intelligence and geospatial intelligence.

• Passive Benefit: You can reuse captured technical assets. This takes about a quarter to swap the keys over.
• Active Benefit: Q DIVISION - One operation at a time has a ‘budget’ of 1d3 (GM roll) free technological assets, which spawn instantly and cease to exist after the resolution of the op.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

Understanding of a situation via publicly available knowledge, interpolation of data from press releases and trade publications, financial information and hear-say on the tradelanes.

• Passive Benefit: Your open source intelligence gathering pierces the OPSEC specialization’s protection.
• Active Benefit: BELLING THE CAT - Gain an Espionage Token the first time you produce a significant OSINT writeup on your own active intelligence operations that year.

Deniability Specializations

Domestic Deniability

The ability to mitigate the domestic consequences of intelligence operations. Domestic Deniability is significantly more effective than Proxies and Foreign Deniability, but only applies domestically.

• Passive Benefit: In territories that have your Culture, Stability loss caused by backlash from failed or Ethos-contradicting espionage operations is capped at 2.
• Active Benefit: TRUTH SOCIAL - Once per Year, you may completely eliminate the consequences (Stability Loss, Insurrections, ect) of one of your operations domestically. Any foreign consequences still remain, but your population simply accepts whatever reason you gave without questioning it.

Foreign Deniability

Secret assets, open source technology, cloaking and other means to delay (but not prevent) the discovery of foreign intelligence operations.

• Passive Benefit: Every power (PC or NPC) that voluntarily corroborates your alibi/denials adds to your total Deniability Clock time.
• Active Benefit: FALSE FLAG - When using Deniable or foreign-built assets in an operation, you can lay evidence to imply another power is responsible. Credibility of such evidence will be based on resources allocated to the operation, and lasts as long as the Deniability Clock.

Proxies

Proxies are foreign agents, non-state actors and other assets that can mask your activities. Proxy-based deniability lasts as long as they do, though both the survival and loyalty of such cutouts is inherently more questionable than your own forces.

• Passive Benefit: Your proxies are more competent and able to use non-Deniable equipment and funds directly from you without it tying back to you.
• Active Benefit: PRODIGAL SON - One of your proxies gains the full benefits of your Doctrines, Agency specializations and other intangibles. The enhanced proxy is more resilient and loyal than normal, able to survive serious setbacks and willing to fight it out to the end.

Assets

Assets are human resources, secure locations, specialized tools and other forms of capital used in the execution of espionage operations. While an Agency is assumed to contain any number of employees or members who act on behalf of the group, human assets are exceptional examples of such people, talent to be cultivated, protected and compensated for the relevant efforts. Likewise, technological assets represent above-standard issue equipment, archeotechnological devices and one-off prototypes that cannot easily be reproduced.

Assets are not acquired without significant effort: while any intelligence agency can reliably train assassins (indeed, most ‘assassins’ are simply any competent, disposable associations on the margins of an agency’s rolodex), Special Agents represent a significant investment of genetic, cybernetic, or pharmacological enhancement to personnel. Therefore, Assets have to be Unlocked before a state can reliably produce them. Certain Specializations or Doctrines may allow unlocks to be bypassed on a limited basis.

Unlocking Assets

Assets are unlocked in one of several ways, becoming permanently available to an Agency of that player’s choice.

• Spending an Espionage or R&D token unlocks any one asset type and produces a single prototype.
• Achieving a Specialization also unlocks an Asset type for that agency.
• Certain factions may reward players with Asset unlocks which they may apply to any one of their agencies.
• If an asset is claimed as an exploration reward, it also becomes permanently unlocked for an agency of the player’s choice.

It should be noted that asset unlocks are on a per-Agency basis. Burning Agencies also burns all their core competencies, including institutional knowledge to train specific kinds of agents or build certain kinds of assets.

Asset List

These asset lists are not exhaustive. New asset types may become available over the course of play, created by events or player research.

Military Units (Free Unlock)

Limit: 5 + (Operations x2)

Allows for the integration of military units into Agencies to function as flagships, stealth insertion craft or provide some muscle for a raid. These units are considered to be well-trained and integrated into the command loop of espionage, providing their full benefits as units and suffering no penalties unless particularly inapplicable. While the CIA Death Star is a perfectly valid option, this system is meant to represent Zumwalts and Navy Seals (assuming maximum theoretical competence for both). If an Agency ever winds up over capacity in military units, they must be removed from service (for the agency) or transferred to another one.

Military units assigned to an agency are subject to Supply, as in the regular ship rules. Check LINK HERE OR SECTION TAB for more information.

Human Assets

Limit: Intelligence Gathering

Grants a number of special agent types that can enhance intelligence operations. Human Assets do not cost upkeep, but if an Agency ever goes over capacity on them they are expected to be put on stand-by (unavailable for the rest of the fiscal year), reassigned to another Agency or retired.

Defectors

Defectors are an advanced category of human asset, who have been persuaded that spying against their home country will allow them to enter a better life in yours.

• EFFECT: Defectors double a single total score, offensive or defensive, against a specific polity for the duration of one Operation. Then, they demand some means of escape (typically via another Operation, safehouses or the assistance of Proxies) and cease to be of use.
• ACQUISITION: Human Asset operations to acquire defectors.

Embassy/Consulate [Unlocked for Free]

While mostly known as places to get a new passport and send some letters, Embassies are often dens of spies working for the foreign services.

• EFFECT: A safehouse without a stat boost, but an anticipated level of diplomatic immunity.
• ACQUISITION: You have one with everyone, and you should theoretically have consulates in major cities and trade stations too. If it takes me more than 5 minutes to figure out if you don’t have one or not, you have one. You always have one. Jesus Christ.

Safehouses

Managed by a loyal long-term infiltrator and staffed by local helpers, a safehouse provides shelter to operatives before, during and after operations take place, as well as a good place to stash defectors.

• EFFECT: Grants a single-point Statistic boost to an agency when built (list bonus per safehouse), and provides protection to other human assets.
• ACQUISITION: Human Asset Operation to build a Safehouse.

Deep-Cover Agent

A special category of agent meant to enter a hostile state and infiltrate its highest functions. Deep-Cover Agents are powerful tools, stronger and more effective than Defectors and reusable. On the other hand, the lack of a clear exit strategy means they are prone to ‘going native’ and their exposure in a botched operation could be catastrophic.

• EFFECT: Deep-Cover Agents can fully replace the effect of any other Human Asset, but are fully reusable. As their cover careers progress there’s a chance that their clearance and access to classified materials increases. There’s a 5% chance any time a Deep-Cover Agent is used that something bad happens.
• ACQUISITION: Human Asset Operation to place a Deep-Cover Agent.

Double Agent

A special category of Human Asset that takes time to activate. A Double Agent operation creates an ongoing defense against a hostile state attempting to create a Human Asset in your own state, with a chance to make the resulting agent a double agent.

• EFFECT: Double Agents expose any intelligence operations they are involved with, and can cause them to fail on-demand. Double Agents generally require an exit strategy, involving an operation to extract them, a safehouse or similar measure. As they often operate in your territory, this is somewhat simpler to manage than a regular Defector.
• ACQUISITION: Human Asset Operation to create a Double Agent.

Special Agent

Highly trained intelligence operatives, Special Agents are often (but not exclusively) highly trained and augmented sophonts, inhuman by deed if not by nature. They are to the Agency what the cloaked ship is to the fleet, a powerful if brittle (for the expense involved) tool.

• EFFECT: Special Agents provide a reroll to a single operation they’re attached to per year. They are fairly durable but have a non-zero chance of going off-radar if an operation goes bad or loud (or both).
• ACQUISITION: Spending 2 Tokens creates a Special Agent.

Access Agent

Agents are inserted into the crew of a high-value military asset or the social life of a high-value named person (such as a researcher or head of state). When the Access Agent uses emotional or sexual intimacy, they are sometimes referred to as a honeypot.

• EFFECT: Access Agents consistently provide the whereabouts of whatever thing they were attached to and make espionage actions involving them much easier.
• ACQUISITION: Human Asset Operation to create an Access Agent.

Informants

Informants are a typical boots-on-the-ground type of asset that provide small improvements to intelligence gathering.

• EFFECT: Informants can be called upon once per Game Year to improve an Early Warning result by one step. They can even be called upon if you have no Early Warning at all, revealing hostile operations against you by the power they are embedded in. Informants have a 50% chance of getting burnt when called upon.
• ACQUISITION: Human Asset operations to acquire informants.

Technological Assets

Supply Cache

A single-use Supply Base in the middle of nowhere. Stealthed and off-the-books.

• EFFECT: Functions as a hidden Supply Base for one, maybe two missions (assuming a round trip). Usually scuttles after the fact, though occasionally they might persist as interesting space detritus that gets colonized by cosmobarnacles or sundogs a thousand years later.
• ACQUISITION: Spending a Token.

Spy Satellite

Hidden satellites provide up-to-date observation on goings on in a specific planetary neighborhood.

• EFFECT: Gain passive observation over a specific planet for FISCAL TIME UNIT. Intelligence Gathering operations require no additional on-the-ground assets to work.
• ACQUISITION: Technological Asset Operation to place a Spy Satellite.

Punishment Sphere

Using the same virtualization technology that was the basis of the Spires, the Punishment Sphere reconstitutes and perpetually tortures a perfect simulacra of an individual or group of individuals. Poorly understood noetic-resonance effects allow these experiences to be asynchronously beamed directly into the minds (or virtual mindstates) of the individuals in question, traumatizing them into uselessness. Most polities arrive at a policy of declaring these machines illegal one way or another, for moral or security reasons.

• EFFECT: Make a single unit or asset useless for a single FISCAL TIME UNIT, or if used as part of an intelligence operation, nonlethally ‘kill’ a target for an extended period of time. The asset is then expended.
• ACQUISITION: Have good relations with an elder race or their black market smugglers. Spend a Token.

Secret Weapons

Exploding shoes, designer diseases meant to eliminate entire lineages and fountain pens that kill you instantly: since the dawn of spycraft the spy has imagined himself the modern Prometheus, armed with killing tools from the imagined future.

• EFFECT: When conducting an operation involving harming a specific target, there is a 50% chance it works perfectly with no complications, a 1% chance of backfiring and a 0.5% chance of serious collateral damage. The asset is then expended.
• ACQUISITION: Spending a Token.

Deep Space Observation Satellite

Built in the Oort Clouds of systems of interest, DSOSes provide passive observation of places of interest. Cross-referencing light bounce from 1-2 years ago with more recently flight logs purchased from data brokerages or secured via OSINT provides further insights. DSOSes are long-lasting and hard to locate but easy to blow up once discovered.

• EFFECT: See what someone was up to 1-2 years ago. With good OSINT, also gives an accurate view of what they’ve built up since.
• ACQUISITION: Spending a Token.

Darkspace Terminal

While roads to nowhere may seem counterintuitive when there remains an entire (post)human cosmos to retake, these gateways allow agencies to build hidden redoubts in interstellar space. Connecting to zones potentially a dozen light years away from any known star, they are protected by obscurity and the sheer time it would take for light emitted by station mastheads and drive plumes to reach civilization. Darkspace Terminals were made famous by a censured species known as the Marenghi, who would abduct entire planetary populations on their glassships to hidden hospital stations where inimitable atrocities would take place.

• EFFECT: Access a lot of nothing. Each gate can ‘dial’ a single location, and also ‘call back ships’ that have previously used the terminal.
• ACQUISITION: Spending a Token.

Darkspace Black Site

A gravitational anchorage that makes it possible for ships with the coordinates to A-Drive to interstellar space.

• EFFECT: Requires a Darkspace Terminal. You can build infrastructure in the middle of nowhere and ships can A-Drive to your location without using the Terminal. Less secure, particularly if someone steals the coordinates from your CIA-flagged cargo haulers.
• ACQUISITION: Spending a Token.

Dark Exordium

Exordiums, so-called Oracle Machines or Deep-Time Augers, are machines created to access messages sent from the future. Infocorruption weapons deployed by [REDACTED] during the collapse of the High Human-era OPF has made mechanical prognostication a fraught science and these captured whispers may contain curses by those defeated in that bygone era.

• EFFECT: The GM works with the player to present a worst-scenario for every aspect of their intelligence operation. Provides a stacking reroll to the operation, but has a 1% chance of backfiring (2% if a Special Agent is assigned, as fate blesses and curses great men with interesting lives).
• ACQUISITION: Have good relations with an elder race or their black market smugglers. Spend a Token.

Pattern Box Cache

Pattern Boxes (sometimes called Theseus Boxes or Shell Matrices) are a black box OPF-era technology theorized to be some sort of asynchronous transmat portal. Ships and only ships (as Pattern Boxes rarely work on anything without a significant displacement) can be totally gutted and cast adrift for extreme periods of time. Upon the activation of the Box, the ship is reconstituted to its prime functional state and is immediately ready to use. Pattern Boxes have been used a few times to smuggle entire armadas deep inside enemy territory over a matter of decades, the perfect tool to stage a coup or launch a rebellion.

• EFFECT: Scrap a single ship, recouping resources as appropriate. The ship remains unusable (obviously) until recalled into being with the Pattern Box.
• ACQUISITION: Have good relations with an elder race or their black market suppliers. Spend 2 Tokens.

Black Chamber Cache

The archeotechnological devices known as Black Chambers produce so-called Carbon Copies of sapient beings, perfect duplicates that scan correctly down to nanometer-precise analysis of brain patterns and biometrics. These are not clones and suffer no issues in terms of shortened telomeres or other genetic disorders, but complete copies. Their minds however are completely different, often created to-spec by their users. Over time these differential patterns exert themselves and their brains diverge physically from the originals, as does the regular wear-and-tear of life. For whatever reason Black Chambers cannot easily replicate extremely dense species like Chelonians, leading to a preference for ‘heavy’ races in high-security positions.

• EFFECT: Perfectly duplicate an existing non-ship unit or asset. Has no mechanical benefits beyond this, but may have some uses for intelligence.
• ACQUISITION: Have good relations with an elder race or their black market suppliers. Spend a Token.

Proxies

Limit: Deniability

Proxies are cutouts and buffers between agency involvement and immediate identification of their activities by other parties. Proxies are generally assumed to already exist in the world in some form before the players bring them into being: they are not created whole cloth by the agency, even front companies emerge from intelligence agencies presenting themselves as financiers to organizations that would have sought to create them regardless.

They provide complete deniability in the terms suggested by their SECRECY section, so PMCs will only affect domestic deniability, cults will generally cover up unless founded by a spiritualist state (in which case the fiction is paper thin) and so on. Proxy-based deniability always fails in two cases, however: if destroyed by a hostile state (a controlling state can purge their own proxies without any issues) or if infiltrated by a hostile party. Deniability can also falter in logical conditions, such as mistreated PMC forces being captured or cults betraying their sponsor state for co-religionists, though this is moderated on a case-by-case basis and will usually require an operation and/or expenditure of espionage or diplomacy tokens.

Finally, even with any amount of cloaking, carefully unmarked hulls or proxy forces acting as cutouts-to-cutouts, too much heat will always blow the lid on an op. A shot heard around the world will usually result in every party down the chain ratting you out to save their own skins.

Private Military Contractor

Privatizing the edges of a conflict is the least credible way for a state to distance itself from any atrocities taking place but provides a level of separation that can be accepted by a domestic audience. Mercenaries are often veterans and their hangers-on, and develop relevant complexes: when they feel forgotten or disrespected, they tend to take it poorly and go to various lengths to redress these grievances, imagined or otherwise.

• EFFECT: PMCs become a de-facto independent, self-sufficient force that can be hired by other players to make you a tidy profit. They are a great clearinghouse for old equipment and political unreliables, but are only loyal provided you maintain your support: money, a steady trickle of equipment and work that isn’t obvious suicide missions.
• SECRECY: Only affects domestic opinion.
• ACQUISITION: Spend a Military, Espionage or General Token and assign some units to create their initial roster.

Crime Syndicate

Criminal organizations emerge naturally in periods of instability or weak government, taking up duties left behind by the authorities in marginal regions. Doubly so when the state declares a particular substance, act or state of being to be illegal when it is desirable or necessary- syndicates prosper in such repressive climes. Sometimes states will fund their own mafias, creating a loyal and controlled opposition to suppress the real rebels. One should be careful to not make them too powerful- an allegedly patriotic mafia may have plans of their own for the nation running, against the wishes of the government.

• EFFECT: Criminal undergrounds soak up resentment against the government and provide a recruiting pool for skilled (and unskilled) auxiliaries to conduct intelligence operations. Like PMCs, they mitigate the domestic consequences of espionage, and can be trivially eliminated under the guise of anti-corruption purges. As a side benefit: when business is good, you might get a little money for the slush funds!
• SECRECY: Crime syndicates provide solid cover for foreign and especially domestic operations but fold hard under pressure.
• ACQUISITION: Spend an Espionage Token on any state that has recently suffered Stability Loss to spawn a new crime syndicate. Even yourself.

Insurgency

Conquered territory rarely goes happily, and authoritarian regimes often host malcontents and countercultures that are always happy to take the fight to the government. Formal resistance often develops in the shatterzones where government authority is the weakest: the mountains and the hills, the islands, and in space the shoal zones, the warrens of moons and on hostile planets. Unlike crime syndicates, controlling the opposition by founding your own rebels is often much more difficult and is only something states do when they already know they’re about to go into civil war and want to ensure the leading coalition is as weak and/or unpalatable to foreign aid as possible.

• EFFECT: Insurgencies will turn swathes of enemy territory unsafe and continue to be a thorn in the side of the state they were founded against. They tend to fight above their weight- lethal aid and other resources tend to perform very well in their hands. Should they ever win their war against the authorities, they might also readily form the new government.
• SECRECY: Insurgencies tend to be opaque and take secrets to the grave, but can be infiltrated due to a big tent, all-hands-on-deck approach to organizing.
• ACQUISITION: Spend an Espionage Token on any state that has recently conquered territory, has territory with an incompatible ethos or is at low Stability. Insurgencies will sometimes spawn by themselves when a region is conquered, aligning themselves to their former government and/or allies.

Coup D’Etat Faction

Movements that arise from the dissatisfied elite of society, whether the military, judges, merchants, priests or aristocracy seeking to depose the current leader to install a new one.

• EFFECT: A coup faction is an inert force until a moment of exceptionally weak government, at which point they stake their claim. In the intervening time until they push their luck, they are a useful vessel for foreign influence and after taking over, will remain friendly to whoever put them there unless there are serious material, ethical or geopolitical reasons not to be. Coups that fail their takeover can run off to become Insurgencies, Cults or PMCs instead.
• SECRECY: Coup D’Etat Factions tend to be pretty discrete until they aren’t. After the coup happens and the tanks roll into the capital, player culpability is pretty cut and dry.
• ACQUISITION: Spend an Espionage Token on any state with 3 or less Stability. The Coup will activate their plans, regardless of your own, if their state hits 1 or less Stability. Once they accomplish their goals, the faction dissolves and assumes control of the state. As a rule, Coup D’Etat Factions manifest through the Dominant ethos of a state. For this reason, Dominant Egalitarian states are immune to coups as their democratic institutions are too resilient to external pressure.

Front Company

A fairly common proxy for intelligence services, most fronts are shipping, import/export or security companies that can justify their outsized access to government materiel. Other types of companies may exist but may have difficulty justifying having large flotillas of warships on hand, even if they’re off-brand Deniable hulls that look like common cargo hullforms.

• EFFECT: A front company requires a large up-front investment and appears naturally on public markets, offering the services implied by their cover. Acting as an instrument for their founding agency, fronts also spy on their clients and give additional insights into whatever industry they have been put into. On the other hand, particularly large and prosperous front companies tend to get a little out of hand, seeking to accomplish the interests of their stakeholders and employees over those of the agency. Front Companies generate a single specialized token representing their area of expertise, which they spend at their own discretion (in this manner it is a fully independent NPC).
• SECRECY: Front companies are extremely secretive, particularly as they grow beyond their original scope. They are not however fanatical, and will quickly bow to pressure by a powerful state. On the other hand, a country that threatens every company with extermination unless they divulge their secrets may become something of a pariah.

ACQUISITION: Spend an Espionage or Economy Token and spend a minimum of $5000 in initial startup cash, which is efficiently converted to CI, hulls and other assets. Individualist states double the value of the initial investment, as do Prosperity states (x3 if you have both).

Cult [Unlocked for Spiritualists]

A favorite of intelligence services, cults are self-contained, secretive and hierarchical- perfect patsies to do as they like. They run newspapers, small businesses, gated communities and death squads with equal aplomb. Occasionally a cult may outgrow its bounds and come to take over entire nations, a grim result for those who might fall under their sway.

• EFFECT: A cult is a relatively straightforward proxy to use, providing one or two degrees of separation from the agency proper as orders go to leaders and then are laundered down to lay persons or hopeful outsiders on the edge of the community.
• SECRECY: Cults have very little to do with the founding state and tend to run a strict code of silence versus outsiders, UNLESS formed by Spiritualist states who absolutely cannot help themselves in making their allegiance and philosophies clear. The code of silence will still be in place, of course, but the origin of such a group will be obvious.
• ACQUISITION: Spending an Espionage or Diplomacy token forges a connection with a cult to put it at an Agency’s disposal. Spiritualist states can instead spend Unity tokens, and can create a new Cult any time they suffer Stability loss by sending schismatics and renegades away to help the cause in a faraway land. They are likewise immune to subversion by Cults, for obvious reasons.

Revolutionary Army

Like insurgencies and coups, though rather than being a product of popular or elite resentment, the revolutionary army arises somewhere at the confluence of marginalized social movements, academic speculation and reactionary elites. The revolutionary army grows outside the borders of the nation, attracting fellow travelers and emigres, building parallel power through media, fronts and enclaves in friendly states, waiting for a crisis to intervene in.

• EFFECT: A revolutionary army is like an insurgency from without, building power in the bordermarches until the state is too weak to resist. They can be negotiated with, but will settle for nothing less than becoming the new center of power in their target state. A revolutionary army is not necessarily targeted at a single state, but may aim to impose its rule or ideology across multiple states. A revolutionary army has an explicit Dominant Ethos with the benefits and penalties this implies, representing their desired social order.
• SECRECY: As with insurgencies, though hosting them in your borders makes their allegiance much more obvious.
• ACQUISITION: Spending an Espionage or Diplomacy token creates or forges contact with a revolutionary army. The conditions are identical to insurgencies with two differences: no ethos provides immunity and their Dominant Ethos must be compatible with the player states’.

Free Station [Unlocked for Flag of Freedom]

Microstates where anything goes, these crop up and vanish quickly in the scope of galactic history. Today’s hot new pirate port is often tomorrow’s floatsam as the venal and fractious nature of pirate lords takes its toll.

• EFFECT: It’s a pirate port on the edge of civilization with 1d10 CI and 1d5 DI, adding to that roll every time someone invests in it. Easy access to all kinds of freebooters and miscreants make espionage much, much easier. Anyone can invest in a Free Station, resulting in byzantine networks of patronage and allegiance. The station keeps this income and production to itself, of course, but can be coaxed to various agreements.
• SECRECY: You can buy secrecy. Other players can buy your secrets. Don’t be outbid. Of course, no small number of these stations have ultimately been destroyed by their former patrons in a bid to keep their master’s activities a secret.
• ACQUISITION: Spend any two Tokens. Flag of Freedom halves this to one.

Better Units

Higher TL spaceships and ground units assigned to Agencies provide soft quality improvements in espionage operations. Generally speaking, high-TL units can shrug off penalties from not having the right traits or modules for a particular mission, and in competitions between comparatively evenly matched Agencies, ties will break in favor to whichever side has more TL 5-6 units assigned.

Agencies and the espionage system themselves do not directly use the TL system, since these organizations can much more easily access advanced technology in excess of the norms in their own states.

Doctrine

In addition to the Specialization and Asset system (which generally applies to a single Agency at a time), there is also an Espionage Doctrine which will improve the performance of all player Agencies.

Generic Espionage Actions

These do not have loudness and are not moderated, except for resolution of outcomes.

Disruptive Operations

• Cost: 1 Token, plus any reinforcements or extra pay the player wants to assign.
• Effect: Creates a non-specific pirate taskforce that will attack a single target non-suicidally for a limited amount of time.
• Complications: It’s relatively easy to identify who hired pirates to attack a random colony.

Diplo Jockeying

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: When a player suffers Stability Loss, double the cost of their first stability increase (i.e.: double money, double Stab building output, double Unity Tokens, etc). Can be repeated multiple times in a turn, affecting one additional expenditure or territory.
• Complications: You have to shelter guilty parties responsible for the stab loss (whistleblowers, religious minorities, deposed dictators who ran off with the national savings, etc), who can be kind of annoying.

PsyOps

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: Lower the Stability of a single territory. Territory under siege is more likely to surrender.
• Complications: None

Obscure Breakthroughs

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: Hide research progress or the results of exploration Tokens can be ‘assigned’ to this in perpetuity, keeping your developments secret (until they are so obvious as to be impossible to hide) at the cost of not regenerating.
• Complications: Hurts national prestige when everything is a secret.

Security Operation

• Cost: 1 Token, plus any resources the player wants to assign.
• Effect: ‘Take care’ of any named character or group that shows up in your borders. Dead or alive.
• Complications: Caveat emptor when it comes to normalizing political assassination.

Smuggle Assets

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: Move anything, anywhere, anytime. Does not calculate based on the travel map.
• Complications: You have to abide by a potentially quite inflated travel time that scales based on ‘how much stuff’ you’re moving around.

Protect Trade

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: Sift through OSINT, foreign ministry reports, and more to maximize the safety of your trade on the Grid.
• Complications: Pirates only have to be lucky once and nobody can play perfect defense.

Assist Privateering Operations

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: Sift through OSINT, foreign ministry reports, and more to maximize the take of your pirate operations
• Complications: Actively running intelligence operations in support of flag of freedom operations makes it rather more likely someone’s going to pin down you’re taking their stuff.

The Great Game

• Cost: 1 Token
• Effect: Counter one token invested by another player in an NPC
• Complications: It’s very obvious you’re acting against the other player’s interests.

Advanced Espionage

This section covers the ins and outs of planning and executing intelligence operations, using the Agency and various other tools to accomplish those goals.

Passive Benefits

These are things that simply having a decently-built Agency and some well-placed assets provides, no actions required.

Early Warning

Early Warning is an option that appears when intel is resolved. If the defending nation has a higher total Intelligence Gathering score than the attacker has Operations, they get a warning that something is about to happen. If their Intelligence Gathering (plus Specializations) total is more than double than the opposing pool, the defender gets a rough estimate of numbers and types of assets being deployed.

In either case, Early Warning permits the redeployment of relevant assets, within reason. Ships with Fold Drives can always be moved around to intervene, while other types of assets (particularly ground units, aerospace craft and small vessels with limited A-Drives) must be reasonably close to act.

Counterespionage

Agencies, even if never used to conduct hostile operations, passively provide their controlling states with a buffer against intelligence operations. Intelligence Gathering can root out spies, while the Security statistics prevent direct attacks.

Policing and Counterinsurgency

Intelligence agencies can contribute to law enforcement and keep an eye on goings-on in civil society. Forces that are assigned to intelligence agencies will generally do better at jackboots and hearts and minds campaigns than regular forces.

There is one other advantage to clearly delineating which of your services (if you have more than one) is putting boots on the ground in lawless or contested territory: it simplifies who’s going to be defending against hostile actions by other players. The moderation team thanks you for the consideration.

Laundering Actions

Players always have the option of using their agencies and their proxies to conduct diplomacy, commerce or leak information. OOCly, they can request that a GM (even those other than the attending Espionage GM) post a relevant item in their stead to conceal that it is being done as part of the espionage system. They can also write entire IC posts as their proxies and have those posted by moderators, muddying the waters as to which organizations are working at the behest of intelligence services and which are doing so of their own initiative.

Other players always have the option of looking into the origins of such requests, but Tokens are a scarce resource and few people have the resources to look into every single off-the-cuff news item.

Planning Operations

Determine Objective and Scope

All operations have an objective, the specific outcome desired by the player: this can be killing a named person, kidnapping someone, sabotaging a landmark, damaging stability in a region, etc. The scope covers both the geographical scale of the region affected, the area of operations and the extent of the opfor.

Assassinating a local drug kingpin to raise stability in an area that got hit by a negative event in the yearly rollover is straightforward and low-scope, assassinating a head of state to send a whole region into a tailspin of conspiracy and national mourning for a year is just about the same act and tools involved but the scope is orders of magnitude larger. Particularly large-scope actions may involve multiple opposing players, such as hitting major international trade stations on the TKK or Chelonian sides of local space.

An operation can have multiple objectives and scopes. It’s best to list everything you can think of, that you actually want to happen than not.

Objective and Scope should ideally be composed as follows:

OPERATION POD OF VERSAILLES

• Objective:

• Kidnap the Dauphin of Grand Dolphy of Oceania (attacking a named person).
• Cause widespread panic (lower stability).

• Scope:

• The Summer Palace at Insert Dolphin Pun (landmark at X territory).
• The entirety of the Grand Dolphy of Oceania (all territories).

Allocate Resources

Every operation needs an Agency assigned, at least. With literally nothing else except an Agency, players can conduct espionage. Other resources like human or technological assets, proxies and military units can significantly improve the results. When kidnapping named persons for example, it’s always useful to have an exit vehicle prepared.

Continuing from the example operation, resources might look like this:

OPERATION POD OF VERSAILLES

• Agency: MI666 (Operations 4 [OPSEC], Security 3, Intelligence Gathering 3, Deniability 1 [Foreign Deniability])
• Military Units:

• Moon Whaler-class Cloaked Cruiser ‘Ahab’

• Human Assets:

• Special Agent Jerman Bieville
• Access Agent at Summer Palace

• Technological Assets:

• None

• Proxies: None

Present to the GM

After allocating resources, the player can optionally provide a step-by-step writeup of how they expect the operation to go, what contingencies they have in place and how they want their operatives to behave. While these are mostly qualitative differences, it’s better for the speed and quality of moderation that these things are hashed out in advance in as much fine detail as possible so that every party is satisfied.

Once ready, the operational write-up is sent to the GM via private message (ideally a regular PM convo on SB). A good format would be a PM with a linked google document, as it can both be edited in response to discussion and has a built-in log to show edit history to prevent tampering after resolution takes place.

A completed writeup for POD OF VERSAILLES might look like this.

OPERATION POD OF VERSAILLES
Deepest England is intervening in the affairs of the hated Dolph people to limit their ambitions in a mutual area of interest. To do this MI666 is authorizing a bold direct action to kidnap the Dauphin ahead of his coronation (after the planned abdication of his father, Louis) to cause a succession crisis and public panic. Mechanically this will result in stability loss, particularly in the capital region and other areas with Noble Estates (a unique landmark type the Grand Dolphy possesses).

Special Agent Jerman Bieville is deploying into Oceanian territory via gravchute and will be presented with fake documents procured by the informant at the Summer Palace. He will use the bustle of the leadup to a major presentation of the Dauphin (a pre-party to the abdication and coronation events) to enter palace grounds, neutralize the guards and exfiltrate with the Dauphin before anyone is the wiser. He will then use a Grav-Fulton to get up to the HDMS (Her Deepest Majesty’s Ship) Ahab, which will skim the lower atmosphere.

• Objective:

• Kidnap the Dauphin of Grand Dolphy of Oceania (attacking a named person).
• Cause widespread panic (lower stability).

• Scope:

• The Summer Palace at Insert Dolphin Pun (landmark at X territory).
• The entirety of the Grand Dolphy of Oceania (all territories).

• Agency: MI666 (Operations 4 [OPSEC], Security 3, Intelligence Gathering 3, Deniability 1 [Foreign Deniability])
• Military Units:

• Moon Whaler-class Cloaked Cruiser ‘Ahab’

• Human Assets:

• Special Agent Jerman Bieville
• Access Agent at Summer Palace

• Technological Assets:

• None

• Proxies: None

There are a few problems with this, to a prospective moderator: it’s very loud, given it involves a potential shooting match in the most secure grounds in Grand Dolphy territory. A future head of state is also a well-protected and constantly scrutinized target.

The moderator’s responsibility is to offer up some suggestions at this point, like using a Front Company to assist the Special Agent’s insertion into the Palace, and using a Black Chamber to create a duplicate of the Dauphin. While costly investments (1 Token apiece) they significantly improve the odds and quiet the process of the operation itself. Emboldened by the extra resources invested and the better odds, the Deepest England player decides to have the clone surgically modified with an biomodded explosive implant with a large yield as a Secret Weapon to slaughter the party in attendance, spending yet another Token and adding another objective.

Assessing and Managing Loudness

As mentioned in the Loudness section under Key Concepts, the success and utility of missions can be affected by their Loudness. While it may be tempting to go for a maximalist outcome (killing a head of state or an entire legislature with high explosives), the diplomatic consequences and failure chance may overwhelm the perceived benefits.

The actual player interface with Loudness is abstracted, the moderator simply tells them which parts of the mission are Loud and gives them an opportunity to redress them using the guidelines above.

Waiting for Resolution...and Rushing

With discussions concluded, all that’s left is for moderation to happen. All espionage is resolved every new FISCAL TURN UNIT. However, sometimes player initiative or random events may require a rushed result for an outcome the player in question desires.

In which case there’s the option to Rush, which requires spending an additional Token (in addition to the one for simply planning the Operation, and for all the assets taken to carry it out).

In the case of our example OPERATION POD OF VERSAILLES, the Deepest England player has gotten word that Grand Dolphy Louis Jean MCCCXIII de Oceania has died in his sleep and the Dauphin will be crowned well before the FISCAL TURN UNIT ends. Not only that, but security will be raised because the Oceania player had an informant in Deepest England and expended them, being alerted to the fact there is a hostile scheme against his uncrowned princeling.

The Deepest England player decides to go all-in, and revises the plan. The plot will be to replace the Dauphin with the Black Chamber clone to act as a puppet king, and the whole attack will intentionally fail to cause confusion. Since the operation was revealed by an informant, the Deepest England player is confident of his opsec and that the fine details have not been exposed yet. He makes a final revision to the orders… and rushes POD OF VERSAILLES through.

It resolves the moment a moderator has time to look at it.

The mission is chaotic and violent, killing many at the palace in the course of the attack. Special Agent Jerman Bieville is MIA (likely to reappear at some inconvenient time for the England player) but has sacrificed himself for the success of the mission. The real Dauphin is imprisoned in the Borehole of London, sealed in an iron mask, and his clone sits atop the gilded throne, a puppet of the English. There have been political consequences, which the English were more than happy to pay, but a war has been averted.

Of course with so many loose ends and so many lives lost, both sides will spend a great deal of time dealing with the aftershocks and the truth may some day come out…!