The Office of Standards and Modernization (OSM) is the primary agency of the Star Army of Yamatai tasked with ensuring the readiness of all issued equipment throughout the Star Army by both monitoring the condition of said equipment and by administering the distribution of updated or new equipment items. Given the size of the Star Army and the rapidity with which it updates its equipment, the job of policing the readiness state throughout the Star Army is a serious and difficult task. As such, being assigned to OSM a weighty challenge but one critical to the Star Army, entrusted only to officers who have proven themselves loyal, diligent, and highly effective as leaders and to highly trained and dedicated specialists in the enlisted and warrant ranks.
Held by officers with the rank of Shôshô, the position of Assistant Director for Standards and Modernization (ADSM or AD) has one of the shortest chains of command in the Star Army for a task so widespread. To ensure that the integrity of the OSM is maintained, the Assistant Director reports directly to the head of Star Army Logistics, even when OSM operations occur far away from the immediate purview of Logistics and OSM Headquarters on Yamatai. Being a logistics specialist is not a requirement for being appointed ADSM, as the position is mainly administrative.
The OSM is split into two components. The first is the large central staff and legal team needed to craft and maintain OSM policy, examine changes in Star Army and Imperial law, and to coordinate the efforts of the rest of the OSM, both internally and with the rest of the Star Army. The Deputy Assistant Director for Standards and Modernization (DADSM or DAD) , a Taisa, leads this effort, with the Chief of Staff and Chief Advocate reporting directly to him or her. The Chief of Staff, a Chusa, maintains the day-to-day running of the OSM, including human resource issues, site maintenance, and budgetary responsibility. The Chief Advocate, a Chusa or the civil service equivalent, manages the OSM’s legal team, tasked with ensuring compliance with all pertinent law and the assistance of military prosecutors when logistics related cases come before military tribunals.
The Executive Deputy Assistant Director for Standards and Modernization (EDADSM or EDAD), also a Taisa, runs the operational side of the OSM. Operational matters are broken down into Sections corresponding with the rest of the Star Army.
The five Sections - Standard Fleets, Expeditionary Fleets, Central Defense Fleet, Support Organizations, and the Internal Accountability Division - are each headed up by a Section Chief holding the rank of Chusa. Each Section is further broken down into Bureaus, with the expectation of the Central Defense Fleet Section and the Internal Accountability Division. The Central Defense Fleet Section Chief personally leads the staff and auditors tasked with ensuring Central Defense readiness, both because of the Fleet’s tight cohesion and its concentrated positioning at Yamatai. The Chief of the Internal Accountability Division is tasked with ensuring readiness within Star Army Logistics units and storage areas and to ferret out any corruption or professional misconduct within the OSM itself.
Each Bureau Chief holds the rank of Shosa and has direct authority over ensuring the readiness of units under their jursidiction. The Standard Fleets Section contains a Bureau for each Fleet, as does the Expeditionary Fleets Section. The Support Organizations Section contains Bureaus for each organization except for Logistics and Command. Logistics inspections are handled, as already mentioned, by the Internal Accountability Division, and the ADSM personally carries out Command inspections.
Otherwise, the Bureaus are individually responsible for keeping track of issued equipment and assigned personnel in every unit within their purview. Scheduled fitness and readiness reports prepared by commanding officers throughout the Star Army are forwarded to the Bureaus for review. Should particularly concerning evidence come to light in one of the reports, the Bureaus may dispatch an unscheduled Audit Team to perform an inspection of the unit in question. Otherwise, Audit Teams are cycled on a schedule to visit each unit in the Star Army once per fiscal year. Most inspections are mundane and at most result in suggestions and advice to the command officer of the unit being inspected. In the event that more drastic measures are needed, the Bureaus are responsible for collecting and cataloguing evidence of criminal activities and drafting a précis then forwarded to the Chief Advocate. From there, Legal recommends further action to the DAD, though by that point cases are almost always referred to military prosecutors to be presented before a tribunal.
While the exact size of an Audit Team depends upon the size of the unit being inspected, the core members remain the same throughout. In command is an Inspector, a Taii who needn’t necessarily be a logistics specialist, as with many roles within the OSM. That highly specialized knowledge and proficiency is provided by the Inspector’s Aide, typically an Ittô Juni or Chui who has spent their career in Logistics. The rest of the team is composed of Auditors, a collection of personnel of either Petty or Warrant Officer rank. The smallest Audit Teams usually include at least one criminal investigator and one logistics specialist aside from the Inspector and Inspector’s Aide. Extremely large Audit Teams can be composed of hundreds of personnel, including forensic scientists, IT experts, or even intelligence operatives. Though the Inspector is merely a Taii, a very low rank in circumstances where the unit being inspected is commanded by a Taisa or even a Taisho, the extremely delineated chain of command means that the Audit Team is completely isolated from any influence from the unit being investigated. That said, most units have a good relationship with Audit Teams. Inspector training emphasizes the importance of maintaining friendly rapport with the subjects of an inspection, lest even innocent members of the Star Army become reticent to cooperate with the OSM. But to those who truly have committed criminal acts, the dedication and thoroughness of an Audit Team almost always entails the unraveling of any plots or conspiracies, however mundane.
