A Special Intelligence Fire Team (SIFT) is a type of semi-autonomous black operations unit used by Star Army Intelligence. Similarly composed to the Special Operations Fire Teams they were developed from, SIFTs are based around team of 4-5 operatives plus any required support staff. Like SOFTs, Intelligence Fire Teams are highly skilled at boarding actions, covert actions, and direct combat, and are further specialized to perform specific tasks in support of intelligence gathering or counterintelligence operations. They are capable of power armored operations but often perform their duties without such equipment.
SIFTs are among the most highly compartmentalized units in the Star Army of Yamatai. Their operations are typically unknown to each other or any individuals outside of SAINT's command structure, and personnel lists are not made available to any entity without Taisho Yui's approval.
The SIFT designation was created in YE 44 as a way of differentiating between SAINT's established direct action units and those organized under the newly-formed Star Army Special Operations.
The Star Army's Intelligence Operatives have long been counted as some of Yamatai's most elite combat troops, rarely recognized and never acknowledged for the shadowy wars they wage on behalf of the Yamatai Star Empire. By-and-large, these clandestine warriors operated individually as one-man armies for the first two decades of SAINT's existence. But as warfare in the Kikyo Sector evolved alongside the Star Army's expansion in the face myriad threats, so too did the role of SAINT operatives in the field.
During the Second Mishhuvurthyar War, the Geshrin intelligence operative Nicholas Saiga organized a collection of operatives to scuttle the Star Army controlled shipyards at Sbuhfaba before they could be re-captured1). Those sappers were wiped out in the course of their mission and did not destroy the shipyards entirely, but did damage the facility enough to render it unusable to the adversary for several months. This marked the first time SAINT soldiers were organized into a cohesive military unit rather than being sent out as individual spies and assassins, and though the SAINT team was killed, the lessons learned from Sbuhfaba demonstrated that black operations could be an effective tool through which the SAINT could gather intelligence, perform counterintelligence operations, and psychologically disrupt the Star Empire's foes.
| Quote from [11th Squadron] Episode 2: Blind |
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| “Crews and captains of the Eleventh,” the Shosa’s voice sounded, breaking the brief seconds of anticipation, “for those of you who have not met me, I am the Star Army Intelligence officer assigned to coordinate with your unit for the time being. You have been chosen to complete a task that is, what Star Army Command and SAINT hopes, will, though its completion, prematurely eliminate one factor that would give the Mishhuvurthyar an undue advantage in their war of aggression.” A sound of confirmation burped from the volumetric display and over the address system as Nicholas input the commands to unlock the mission’s details for access by the captains. “Your mission, as your commanders can now see, will be to transport explosives and personnel, which are aboard your vessels, to the formerly Mishhuvurthyar-controlled shipyards at Sbuhfaba.” |
Soon after, Saiga organized the 482nd Strategic Operations Battalion to undertake missions similar to those undertaken at Sbuhfaba. This next iteration of Star Army special operations was more solidly successful and was totally contained within SAINT's hierarchy, allowing for greater agility and airtight coordination between operational participants. Although called a battalion, the 482nd was more a collection of proto-SOFT units made up of operatives who had served together throughout their careers. Saiga and his 482nd were so successful in harrying the Mishhu on occupied worlds that even the foul and jaded souls of NMX partisans felt a true sense of terror and dread the likes of which only their Yamataian victims experienced until then.
| Quote from [YE38: Astral Reverie] The Terror |
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| Star Army Intelligence was, as a rule, an extremely precise organization. Much like a Nepleslian quack's scalpel or the needle affixed to the tip of Saiga's new tentacle, SAINT’s missions usually pricked somewhere vital and then moved on. The 482nd Strategic Operations Battalion—a unit whose name was far larger than its makeup—was more akin to a kanabo or grenade, though. It would still hurt all of those little bits, but strike at them indiscriminately. In the Star Army they say “All Things Cost Blood.” And so, just after the Second Mishhuvurthyar War started, the 482nd was formed to make the enemy pay what they owed. |
By YE 37, the Special Operations Fire Team theory had been developed by Star Army Command, which was at least partly based off of knowledge garnered by SAINT black operations outfits like the 482nd and the Black Spiral 44th Fireteam. These type of SAINT units were adapted to fit into the new Star Army doctrine of approximately five operative “operators” and a handful of support staff. From there, however, SAINT SOFTs quickly diverged in both task and purpose to best accomplish combat tasks in direct support of clandestine intelligence operations. This resulted in the coalescence of two permanent black operations units: the Special Deployment Force (SDF or Tokutenku2)) and Alert Emergency Group—Intelligence Service (AEGIS). Both units would become Yamatai's most elite (and absolutely unknown outside of SAINT itself and Taisho Yui) combat operations units capable of undertaking the Star Army's most dangerous and vital missions.
SDF commando and AEGIS rescue units were deployed often during the Kuvexian War of YE 38 to YE 43, both deep into enemy territory and on the Kikyo Sector's battlefront.
The YE 39 Operation Bakuwana saw a SDF team under Chusa Shibui Mame, Deployment Chōchō, pose as a group of pop music idols based on Planet Anisa. In quick order, Shibui-chusa's operatives successfully set up a spy network to combat Kuvexian infiltration and subversion taking place upon Yamatai's breadbasket world.
Longtime SAINT operative Candon Howard Suites took charge of a SAINT team present during the Fall Of Himiko in YE 41. This unit fell under SDF classification for the duration of the event. Candon Suites and his companions were able to successfully exfiltrate back to friendly territory with vital intelligence from the lost Planet Himiko. As part of the same YE 41 push that took Planet Himiko, the Kuvexians invaded SAINT's secondary headquarters system of New Vicky. The YSS Kōkatsu delivered an SDF team under Saiga-chusa to destroy the SAINT facility there, and the mission ended in success.
In YE 42, Saiga-chusa was given command of all available Tokutenku and AEGIS teams in the sector3) as part of a SAINT relief force sent to help defend against a Kuvexian attack that would become known as the Third Battle Of Nataria. The SOFT contingent of this SAINT flotilla proved pivotal to the Star Army's victory, with Saiga's own commando squad successfully infiltrating a Kuvexian coffership to cancel all payments that kept the Interstellar Kingdom's mercenaries fighting4). AEGIS units had been present and employed outside of their usual mission parameters for the defense of Nataria, but were luckily on hand to lend their expertise to post-battle search-and-rescue work.
| Quote from [Yamatai] Third Battle of Nataria (YE 42) - Kuvexian Retreat |
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| “Confusion and anger rapidly spread through the ranks of the Kuvexian Mercenaries, who started a rapid exit of the Nataria system. The last of the Kuvexian ships that could leave did so, leaving behind thousand and thousands of wrecked ships, fighters, and transport shuttles in the rush to escape. Meanwhile the Star Army and Nepleslians had lost over 90% of their ships as well, and the battle in space quickly became an ad-hoc search-and-rescue operation as the surviving ships started sending out rescue crews to their fallen sister ships while conducting mop-up operations and hunting down any lingering Kuvexian ships that hadn't been able to escape due to damaged FTL systems.” |
At the Battle Of Glimmergold, Candon Suites again took charge of leading Special Deployment Force troops in the field under orders from Deputy Director Jinja5). At Glimmergold, the Kōkatsu carried Saiga-chusa and SAINT SOFTs into battle, this time as SAINT's flagship to coordinate needed operations on-the-scene as a precaution against being cut off from communications to the Kikyo Sector hundreds of lightyears away 6)
| Quote from Seizing The Opportunity (Kuvexian War Final Battle/Battle of Glimmergold) |
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| Turning back to Jinja and her infantry it seemed right to speak. Afterall, he wouldn't have their last memory of him be a weak, old man. “Sisters. Brothers. It has been my genuine honor serving with all of you. May all of you return safely, and if not, die with honor. Today we save our Empire… Today, we save Yamatai!” He shouted, left hand rifle held skyward. The fireteam cheered as Candon leaned back, falling into space and flying off into the void while lining up perfectly with the delicate trajectory that would carry him through the portal to the Glimmergold system. With only time to to be alone with his thoughts he found that the anxiety of combat he always felt was not present. Even the myriad of sins he'd committed throughout his life ceased haunting him and faded into the background of his mind which drifted instead to things he hadn't thought about in a long time.” |
The divergence of Special Intelligence Fire Teams from SOFTs came as the result of a report7) by SAINT Deputy Director Jinja Emi summarizing SAINT's participation in SASO and critiquing the latter organization's attempted absorption of the former's long-standing black operations units. Despite committing SAINT to continued support for their younger Special Operations cousins, Chujo Jinja's report on behalf of the entire Executive Intelligence Directorate was poorly received and caused the temporary ouster of SAINT's leadership.
Following an exchange of communiques8) between the reinstated Jinja-chujo and SASO Chair Chujo Iemochi Feyani, during which the SAINT Deputy Director clarified many classified facets of SAINT's relationship with the wider Star Army, the separation of SAINT's legacy black ops units away from SOFT categorization and SASO oversight was cemented. Instead, the SDF and AEGIS would be retained under SAINT's exclusive command and categorized as SIFTs going forward.
In the time between SASO's YE 43 formation and Jinja-chujo's one year report in YE 44, SAINT maintained approximately half of all SDF and AEGIS units in parallel with SASO to compare the efficacy of special operations sorties in support of intelligence operations between organic SAINT units and SASO derivatives. This allowed SAINT to doubly retain the institutional knowledge of its two direct action units, which were counted among the Star Army's most veteran special forces, even as SASO attempted to dismantle and reinvent them.
Notwithstanding the brief difficulties caused by SASO meddling, SAINT's black operations units continued to undertake missions in service of the Star Army without any significant disruptions to their work. In YE 44.9, an AEGIS rescue team was sent to help Task Force 1 investigate leads pertaining to the lost SAINT gunship YSS Yuurei.9)
The first month of YE 45 saw two SIFTs under Nicholas Saiga, by then promoted to Taisa, deploy with Task Force 282 for operations to assist allies from the Uesureyan Star Empire in a reconquest of the Kessica System to take it back from the Mishhuvurthyar.10) Their part in the operation was simple: infiltrate a Mishhu-held space station and neutralize its sensor arrays so that the joint Star Army-Uesureyan task force could begin their invasion free from the threat of accurate planet based anti-starship fire. After destroying an NMX Scout and breaching the station, Saiga's team was able to take control of the starbase's sensor networks and clear a path for their friends to begin planetfall.
| Quote from [YSS Kaiyō] Mission 26 pt. I: Fuyubi |
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| Sanzugawa Mikan quickly marched over to the now-vacated control console and began her work even as the other operatives continued their determined tactical check of the gnarly bio-organic chamber that they had laid claim to. From her Mindy 4's collar, she pulled a retractable connection cable and jammed it into the computer for a direct interface before her hands began dancing across the keys and toggles that directed the system's functions. Beside her, Saiga-taisa loomed over the console and watched readouts scroll upon its orange volumetric screens while she hacked. “They'll be coming for us, Chus—Taisa,” Mikan told her old friend, speaking calmly over the team comms channel. He'd been a chusa for an entire decade prior to his recent promotion, and she was still getting used to calling him by his new rank. “Like on Arzank II.” |
As part of the same operation to re-take Kessica, the Ranger-turned-operative and former YSS Kaiyō II crewman Ittô Heisho Wulf Soban worked alongside SIFT operatives to scout Mishhu-held towns and cities on the planet's surface.11) Additionally, Soban-heisho pinpointed anti-aircraft control nodes prior to their elimination by more conventional units. The work of Soban-heisho and the other operatives was instrumental in ensuring Task Force 282's Rikugun Legion element and their Uesureyan allies operated with the most up-to-date intelligence regarding topographical features and enemy dispositions in advance of engaging the Mishhuvurthyar entrenched planetside.
In YE 45.4, Saiga-taisa again commanded two SIFTs — one SDF and one AEGIS squad — during an operation that would become the Liberation Of Hanako's World. Both teams were clandestinely delivered to Hanako's World by the YSS Asamoya, under temporary command of Ketsurui Aiko, with a mission to retrieve captured Star Army personnel being held by Kuvexian forces occupying the planet.12)
Soon thereafter, the Third Mishhuvurthyar War began in YE 45.6.
Like the SOFTs they evolved from, SIFTs are assigned to secretive and unconventional tasks that are of vital importance to the Star Army and specifically SAINT's intelligence mission that would be otherwise unsuitable for conventional forces like starships, SASO, or Legion units to accomplish.
The Tokubetsuna Tenkai-Ryoku are black operations teams directly organized by SAINT for support of intelligence gathering operations. They were formerly organized under SOFT doctrine and follow its general framework. Functionally similar to Star Army Command's pre-SASO SOFT units, members of the Tokutenku are selected from SAINT's pool of experienced field operatives rather than Star Army Infantry. They perform direct action combat missions of the utmost priority. Due to the nature of intelligence work, their missions often take them far away from the front lines of a conflict — and usually deep within enemy territory.
Special Deployment Force teams are designated within SAINT as a “deployment,” followed by a unique nickname (e.g. Deployment Kirin). Taisa Akechi Masakazu is Chief of the Special Deployment Force.
Alert Emergency Group—Intelligence Service teams are maintained by SAINT exclusively for the purpose of securing important persons and items on an immediate basis. They are organized generally around SOFT doctrine but individual operatives are all trained in medical first aid and hazardous materials handling procedures. These teams are held in reserve and are exclusively used to extract SAINT operatives and other important personnel trapped behind enemy lines, as well as to secure any materiel deemed too dangerous or sensitive to be safely handled by other soldiers.
AEGIS teams are given non-sequential two number designations, similar to standard SOFT nomenclature (e.g. AEGIS 21, AEGIS 99). Members of AEGIS teams are known as “rescuemen” despite being billeted as Intelligence Operatives. Taisa Josephine Anquetil, an Elysian Patrician, is the current Captain of Rescuemen for the Alert Emergency Group.
SIFT units, like SOFTs before them, are organized around a core fire team of 4-5 “operators” possessing complimentary combat specialities such as combat leadership, sharpshooting, first aid, demolitions, or engineering. Unlike historical Star Army Command SOFTs or other new SASO units, soldiers assigned to both Tokutenku and AEGIS units are fully trained and indoctrinated Intelligence Operatives on top of whatever previous training they may have received. AEGIS soldiers always have a pre-SAINT background in combat medicine or emergency services, and receive further training in hazardous materials handling upon assignment to the Emergency Group.
Each SIFT also contains a support team under its umbrella. There is always an officer in command and common support personnel include logistics specialists, shuttle pilots, intelligence analysts, information warfare specialists, and other non-combat troops. At least one combat surgeon is assigned as an on-call member of every AEGIS unit, and is part of the support team.
SIFTs are authorized to utilize any vessel, weapon, or equipment in the Star Army's inventory as is required to complete their missions. Additionally, SIFTs commonly make use of any item that can aid in the accomplisment of their clandestine assignments regardless of the item's national origin. The Hera Group, a SAINT-SARA research cooperative, provides SIFTs and other intelligence personnel with bespoke technological solutions on an as-needed basis.
This page was originally created on 2022/10/27 19:03 by Ametheliana.
