What does an Intelligence Officer do in Roleplay?

[Scot]

In most Yamatai RP"s I see a need for Intelligence Officer, so I am taking a crack at one (while making it a dysfunctional Neko is for the submission itself).

However I kind of wondered what one would do SPECIFICALLY in roleplay. I read it's a profession that is a specialist of some kind. Is it an interrogator, like the one that makes threats to get info out of captives? Or like a tactician who gives advice about things on the knowledge he/she knows?

Or is it like a James Bond like person (minus the action)?

 

[Kim]

It depends on the ship. I've seen interrogation and tactician advice done more often than anything else.

 

[raz]

On a frontline Star Army warship, the intelligence officer sorts and presents intelligence before battle and processes incoming reports for the tactical department during battle.

 

[Doshii Jun]

I know that Yukari was trained as an intelligence officer. Was she ever used that way? Not really.

Intelligence officer, as raz describes it, becomes a hard position to fulfill in roleplay. An intel officer essentially foreshadows a battle and offers cheats to players — something a GM probably wouldn't appreciate. Nyton, as he's been developed on Miharu, has led to some revelations and pointed questions about the plotship's plot and its various threads, which has fleshed it out really well. But in some ways, that's more Fred rewarding Blas for putting in that effort.

An intel officer could make a really good second-in-command?

 

[Scot]

I kind of figured how Raz put it, made Intel officer more of a GM job considering the character would have information knowledge before going in.

When I think of intelligence in an army setting, I get the feeling of that guy who takes people to a back room and slaps him with the glove, or cracks radio transmissions and listens into enemy conversations, essentially intelligence gathering.

If it's main purpose is only sorting info, I can understand why it's vacant on most ships, considering it sounds like an automatic job (and the wiki description doesn't exactly help explain fully what the job entails).

 

[Wes]

The intelligence officer's primary job is to know stuff...basically gathering and drawing conclusions from it for use in advising the commanding officer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_intelligence

Think of Exsedol Folmo from Macross.

 

[Edto Xar'Sivaree]

I feel an Intelligence officer would be able to read into the Meta of a situation a little more as a player, to communicate information to the team. "Like hey, be weary. Reports say there may be potential Mishuu activity around here" If the GM were to mention something skittering in the shadows.

That would at least make the position viable