Tomanian Imperial Security Bureau

"All suspects are guilty, otherwise they shouldn't be suspects." - Director Eärfalas

The Imperial Security Bureau( Quenya: Varnassë Sambë Valanieva) or simply VSV, is the main body of Tomanian securtiy and operating as a standard intelligence agency, the VSV works in conjunction to the Imperial Committee for the Preservation of a Pure Tomanian Society and for Cultural Cleansing, charged with maintaining morale and loyalty among members of military , Party members, and civilians.

The VSV stations moles among the officers of all capital ships in the Imperial Navy and amongst the leaders of the Imperial Army; their duty is to report on any possibly treasonous activities or sentiments present among others of the ship's crew (especially the commander), and to execute them if they act upon them. The VSV serve more of a police function than Imperial Intelligence, with a more public presence. VSV operatives are not afraid of identifying themselves as VSV agents.

The VSV Central Office is a mammoth complex in Imladris. All communication and coordination is handled through the Central Office. The VSV also is responsible for wiping out any memories of the Ardatoamni.

Modus Operandi

The VSV is considered by some as the most powerful internal security organization ("secret police") to have ever existed, with its external intelligence department as one of the most effective global intelligence services in the world while it was headed up by Claritia Eärfalas. Like most other intelligence agencies, the VSV operated both legal and illegal residencies in its target countries. Legal residencies operated out of the local Tomanian embassy under the cover of diplomatic immunity, and legal residents were thus free from prosecution if discovered to be spying. At best, the legal resident’s position to gather information would be compromised, and either the VSV would have to recall the resident or the resident would be expelled by the host country. In contrast, illegal residents operated without the benefit of immunity from prosecution. The VSV, especially in its early years, often placed more worth in its illegal residencies than its legal ones, primarily due to the ability of illegals to more easily operate undercover and thus infiltrate VSV targets.

At legal residencies, operations were divided into four major sectors: political, economic, military strategic intelligence, and disinformation, called active measures in espionage parlance (PR Line), counter-intelligence and security (KR Line), and scientific and technological intelligence (X Line). Other major operations included the collection of SIGINT (RP Line), illegal support (N Line), and a section dealing with émigrés (EM Line). Illegal residencies tended to be more decentralized and lacked official organizational structures.

The VSV divided its intelligence personnel into agents, who provided the information, and controllers, who relayed the information to Orthanc and were responsible for keeping track of and paying the agents.

To give cover for its illegals who were often born in Tomanian colonies, the VSV constructed elaborate legends for them, involving them assuming the identity of a "live double," who handed over his or her identity to assist in the fabrication, or a "dead double," whose identity was based on a real (though deceased) person but was heavily altered by the VSV itself. These legends were usually supplemented by the agent living out the role given to him by the VSV in a foreign country before arriving at his final destination; one of the VSV favorite tactics was to send agents bound for the United States through its Ottawa residency in Canada.

VSV agents practiced standard espionage craft such as the retrieval and photographing of classified documents using concealed cameras and microfilm, code-names in communication to disguise agents, contacts, targets, and the use of dead letter boxes to relay intelligence. In addition, the VSV made skillful use of agents provocateur, who infiltrated a target’s entourage by posing as sympathizers to the target’s cause or group. These agents provocateur were then used to sow dissent, influence policy, or help arrange kidnapping or assassination operations.

The Directorates

The VSV is organized into several directorates, with certain directorates assigned a “chief” status due to their importance. Some were:

• The First Chief Directorate (Foreign Operations) — responsible for foreign operations and intelligence-gathering. This chief directorate had many sub-directorates of its own; such as the Commission of Operations which is responsible for passing on the directions of the Central Office directly to the Provincial Officer for each of the various VSV branches. All coordination between the different branches within a province, or between Bureau resources in separate provinces, are dictated by the Commission of Operations.
• The Second Chief Directorate — responsible for counter-intelligence and internal political control of citizens and foreigners in the Empire.
• The Third Chief Directorate (Armed Forces) — controlled military counter-intelligence and the political surveillance of the Impeiral armed forces.
• The Fourth Directorate (Transportation Security)
• The Fifth Chief Directorate — also responsible for internal security; originally combated political dissent; later assumed tasks of the Second Chief Directorate, such as controlling religious dissent, monitoring artists, and the censorship of media.
• The Sixth Chief Directorate (otherwise known as the Internal Directive)
• The Seventh Directorate (Economic Counterintelligence and Industrial Security)
• The Eighth Directorate (Surveillance) — handled surveillance, providing equipment to follow and monitor activities of both foreigners and Imperial citizens. Surveillance is the largest branch of the VSV, with nearly 35 percent of all personnel in the Bureau. Surveillance is tasked with uncovering people or activities that are aimed at the State, or in aiding foreign nations, or that may obstruct the Empire's plans. Many of Surveillance's targets are later turned over to Investigations for more thorough action.
• The Ninth Chief Directorate — responsible for communications, monitoring foreign communications, and the cryptologic systems used by VSV divisions, VSV transmissions to overseas stations, and the development of communications technology.
• The Tenth Directorate (Guards) (later the VSV Protection Service) — 40,000-man uniformed guard force providing bodyguard services to the principal Marduuk leaders (and families) and major Tomanian government facilities (including nuclear-weapons stocks). It operated the Tomo-Morindiran Underground Passage, and the secure government telephone system linking high-level government and Marduuk officers.
• The Eleventh Directorate (Interrogations) If a subject caught by Investigations is suspected of still hiding the information the VSV wants to know, the subject is shipped off to the Interrogation branch. The information they uncover is sent to Investigations. The subject, however, disappears and no one outside Interrogation is really willing to find out just what happened to them.
• The Fifteenth Directorate (Security of Government Installations)
• The Sixteenth Directorate (Communications Interception and SIGINT) — upgraded from Department to Directorate, operated Tomania's government telephone and telegraph systems, thus ensuring successful interception of all communications of interest to the VSV.
• The Border Guards (Eighteenth) Directorate — 445,000-man border security force dealt with smuggling along Tomaina's borders with terrestrial, naval, and air force contingents.
• The Operations and Technology (Nineteenth) Directorate encompasses all the laboratories and scientific research centers for creating bugging, taping, and shooting devices (including Laboratory 12 which developed poisons and manufactured psychotropic substances).

Tomanian Internal Directive

The Internal Directive branch is the group responsible for watching the Imperial Committee for the Preservation of a Pure Tomanian Society and for Cultural Cleansing, another example of multiple layers of control and authority overlapping one another in Tomania.

It is unknown whether or not the Internal Directive division has the authority to monitor the High Consul, though it is known that they do not consider the High Consul to be above suspicion.

According to the Imperial Security Bureau, they believe that Imperial Committee for the Preservation of a Pure Tomanian Society and for Cultural Cleansing’s ambiguity in regards to rules and procedures for policing its own members, Internal Directive was able to take advantage of the situation to expand their power. Directive agents are isolated from the rest of the Committee for Pure Tomania and has thus developed their own jargon and their own interpretation of the Order of the New Age. Other branches of the Committee for Pure Tomania has complained about the autonomy of the Internal Directive and their actions, but neither Elrohir Cúthalion nor Lord Hedikai have yet made attempts to stop it, as they apparently support the work of the Internal Directive.

Internal Directive calls their field agents "anari," while they call their investigative staff "eleni." The division also has developed their own collection of terms to differentiate between the ways they conduct a specific investigation.

To "audit" is to conduct an investigation in which the target and everyone around him knows the investigation is being conducted.

"Finesse" is conducting an investigation by asking the target's help in rooting out other traitors in the hopes they will give away incriminating evidence in their eagerness to point the finger at others.

"Scattering" is the method of grabbing someone whom you have no evidence of foul play of, and then observing the behavior of the person's associates to see if any of these react in suspicious ways.

"Crustbusting" is the method of harassing a suspect in the hopes he will do something criminal.

"Cultivation" is the method of allowing a suspect with only minor wrongdoing to proceed unhindered so agents would catch the suspect and any associates in a larger crime, and "irrigation" was covertly staging events so a "cultivated" suspect would have a greater opportunity to commit a larger crime.

Finally, to "Forim" is to set a suspect up in a no-win situation in which he must commit a crime. The Internal Directive agent will then promise to forgive the crime if the suspect did a few favors; favors which inevitably causes the suspect to commit some other crime.

Division for the Suppression of Dissent & Defectors

One of the VSV’s chief preoccupations is the suppression of unorthodox beliefs, the persecution of the Tomanian dissidents and defectors, and the containment of their opinions The VSV also tracked down writers who published their work anonymously abroad.

If a Tomanian were to dissent the government would have their family arrested and executed. Also, in 1990, Hedikai declared that along with the family of the dissident another thousand random people would also be executed. The Bureau of Lottery was established for this purpose. The idea behind this is that if someone wanted to defect and had no family to leave behind, or he got his family out with him, one thousand innocent people would be killed for his one action. To say the least there have only been two defectors in since 1990. One in 1990, believing that the Marduuk party would not have one thousand random citizens executed, and the other because he did not believe the Marduuk would do it again.

Use of Torture

For centuries Tomania has been widely known for her use of torture, an ‘art’ that the Empire has perfected over the millennia. The VSV is very found of ancient and outdated forms of torture, and to execute, victims. Scaphsim is reported as one of the VSV’s favorite ways to kill a subject, also the Judas Chair, the brazen bull, the instep borer, and the iron maiden, impalement, ripping limbs off, hanging, burning, putting subjects in rooms full of mosquitoes and various other insects, are amongst the more common uses of torture. For Christian subjects, reversed crucifixion, filleting, “crowned” and “lased” with barbed wire, boiling, quartered, mauled by lions, etc. were among the top five-hundred ways to “deal with Christians”.

According to manuscripts given to Agents of the Security Bureau it states: “use any means necessary to retrieve information” and “may use any method to execute traitors, enemies, and dissidents”.

Scientists under the employ of the Imperial Security Bureau have invited drugs that increase nerve sensation, so that the torture would become far more painful, anti-shock drugs, so that the victim would not pass out due to shock, hallucination drugs, and various other highly potent biological drugs.

Leading Figures in the SVS

• Claritia Eärfalas - Director-in-Chief of the Imperial Security Bureau
• Soren Revedien - Deputy Director of the Imperial Security Bureau
• Abryan Erestor - Director of the Internal Protective
• Daeron Calafar - Director of the Foreign Insertion Directive
• Olwen Fintherum - Director of the Division for the Suppression of Dissent & Defectors