Maskirovka

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The Maskirovka, named after the russian word for "feint", is the intelligence arm of the Capellan Confederation. It is perhaps the most feared intelligence apparatus in the Inner Sphere. This fear has been one of it's greatest weapons and helped prevent many attacks from outside the Confederation or from within it. Despite it's utter failure during the 4th Succession War, Chancellors still trust the agency like no other.

Organisation

The Director of the Maskirovka is responsible for the Maskirovka’s operational focus and for personally reporting its findings to the Chancellor. Director is almost never more than a single jump away from the Chancellor, often traveling with him on the Pearl of True Wisdom, the Chancellor’s personal DropShip.

The heads of the Maskirovka’s two main branches—the Huang Di Shi Zhe (the Chancellor’s Hand, formerly the Capellan Operations Branch) and the Huang Di Yi Zhi (the Chancellor’s Will, formerly the Special Serviecs Bureau)—report to the Director and on rare occasions to the Chancellor. The various Zang sub-departments of each branch report to their respective heads, in a strict tier of command that repeats down to the staff level.

Divisions

Even the Maskirovka was touched by the Chancellor’s Xin Sheng reforms. Like the bulk of Capellan society, the agency gained a number of Han-influenced conventions. These are most noticeable in the revised department titles, but also in Maskirovka operations.

Under Maximilian and Romano Liao, the Maskirovka suffered vicious purges to its ranks and serious setbacks in funding. By the time Romano Liao executed Lady Chandra Ling in 3036 and appointed her consort, Lord Tsen Shang, to oversee the agency, the Maskirovka had been reduced to a shadow of itself, forced to use brutality and fear as its main weapons to keep the Confederation’s enemies at bay. Sun-Tzu Liao has attempted to reverse that trend, increasing the agency’s funding and resisting the urge to “shoot the messenger” when given bad news. Though both Dina Ferrara and Sasha Wanli attempted to improve the organization, only after the successful reintegration of the St. Ives Commonality was the Maskirovka able to overcome its institutional bad memories and begin to grow.

Command

Maskirovka Directorate

The Office of the Director is the top of the chain as far as the Maskirovka is concerned. Only the Chancellor has higher authority over the agency than the Director does. It is the Director’s duty to keep the Chancellor and his Strategic Military Director appraised of all concerns or threats, within the Confederation and outside it.

Of all the recent Directors, only Nancy Bao Lee has overcome the inertia of the Maskirovka bureaucracy to get the agency operating on a par with other Successor State intelligence agencies. Her directives have gone a long way toward improving the ability of operatives to fulfill their missions without direct oversight or fear of reprisal, though she has not shirked from the harshest punishments for failure.

Training

The Maskirovka is headquartered on Sian, where it remains within easy reach of the Chancellor. The Zang shu er trains its operatives away from the capital on a personal basis—no dedicated training facility exists for foreign-service operatives. Most are selected from a target world’s population and turned into “sleeper” agents. The largely bureaucratic staff of the Maskirovka’s nonoperations departments are trained on Sian in small secondary facilities. No centralized training facility has ever been approved, the theory being that the loyalty engendered by such an institution could undermine larger loyalty to the state.

History

Formation

Created in 2396 shortly after the founding of the Confederation itself, it was responsible for executing many of the purges of the Capellan people by the successive Chancellors over the years.

The Deimosis

The Maskirovka was created using an older organization, the Deimosis, as a base. The Deismosis had been created during the era of the Capellan Hegemony as a government agency responsible for co-ordinating matters between the internal states of the Hegemony, including conducting internal censuses. As the power of the Hegemony and the influence of it's governing Agoropolis grew, so did the power and remit of the Deismosis. By the time the Hegemony came to an end and was replaced with the Capellan Commonality, the Deimosis had involved into an internal secret police organization responsible for the protection of Hegemony policy against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Succession Wars

The Maskirovka played an important role during the Fourth Succession War, as a deep-cover Federated Suns agent, Justin Allard, infiltrated the agency and eventually rose to become one of its leaders. From this position, he helped to orchestrate the downfall of the Confederation during the Fourth Succession war.

Maskirova organization table

Division	Information
Ma Si Jia Ruo Na Dong Shi Bu (Maskirovka Directorate) Citizen Nancy Bao Lee
Huang Di Shi Zhe (Chancellor's Hand) Citizen Aaron Ward
	Zang shu er (Chancellor's Ear) Citizen Hyun-Ki Takeo
	Zang shu jiao zha (Chancellor's Cunning) Citizen Sven Borkavich
	Zang shu jian (ChanceHor's Sword) Citizen Lavina Hastings
Huatig Di Yi Zhi (Chancellor's Will) Citizen Thomas Jarra
	Zang shu zhe (Chancellor's Shield) Citizen Zahra Sanora
	Zang shu sheng (Chancellor's Voice) Citizen Shaiming Xuan Loc
	Zang shu cheng (Chancellor's Eyes) Citizen Mikhail Sigmund
Si Wang Te Gong Dui (The Death Commandos) Jiang-jun Michael Hyung-Tsei

Bibliography

• A Guide to Covert Ops