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Advenarum

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Advenarum
Advenario Administratio
The official seal of the Advenarum
Agency overview
Formed25 January 1951; 77 years ago
TypeIndependent (a component of the Department of Civilian Intelligence)
Employees50,000
Annual budgetClassified
Parent departmentDepartment of Civilian Intelligence

The Advenarum Administration (Caphiric Latin: Advenarum Administratio), also known as the Advenarum, is one of the two civilian foreign intelligence agencies of the Imperium of Caphiria. The Advenarum is part of the Department of Civilian Intelligence (DCI), the collection of intelligence agencies that operate outside of the military and report directly to the Imperator and the Caetus Legati.

The Advenarum is tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world and is primarily focused on providing national security information for the Imperator. The Advenarum has many unique characteristics; it has no domestic law enforcement function, is primarily focused on overseas intelligence gathering, and is the only agency within the Caphirian government authorized by law to carry out and oversee covert action at the behest of the Imperator with carte blanche discretionary power. It exerts foreign political influence through its tactical divisions, such as Task Force VII and Division DCCLXXVII.

The Advenarum has also supported many foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training on torture, technical support, and was involved in several regime changes, terrorist attacks, and planned assassinations of foreign leaders. Starting during the height of the Cold War, the Advenarum has increasingly expanded its role, including covert paramilitary operations. In 2011, the Advenarum began a partnership with Quicksilver Industries to create a highly secretive task force known as the Octoriantes, whose main function is for the "coordination, deconfliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations."

The Advenarum has been the subject of many controversies, including human rights violations, domestic wiretapping and propaganda, allegations of drug trafficking, and alleged complicity in acts of torture and extraordinary rendition.

Purpose

The Advenarum has five purposes outlined in the DCI bylaws:

  • Counterterrorism
  • Nonproliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction
  • Warning/informing American leaders of important overseas events
  • Counterintelligence
  • Cyber Intelligence

In addition, the Advenarum maintains an internal and public list of "tasks of national security importance." The public tasks include researching and developing all the necessary information to defend the independence, integrity, and security of Caphiria from threats from abroad, including in implementing international agreements. The Advenarum also performs activities in the field of counter-proliferation of nuclear materials or materials found to be strategic, and information activities for security outside Caphirian territory, to protect Caphirian political, military, economic, scientific, and industrial interests, as well as detecting outside the national territory espionage activities directed against Caphiria and activities aimed at damaging national interests.

Organizational structure

The Advenarum is divided into an executive office with 5 primary directorates, which are split into divisions with a broad directive, and each division is given a specific task. The 5 directorates are:

  • The Digital Directorate
  • The Tactical Directorate
  • The Science & Technology Directorate
  • The Support Directorate
  • The Analysis Directorate

Executive Directorate

Overseeing the Advenarum and in charge of day-to-day operations is the Executive Director, who is appointed by the Imperator with Senate confirmation. The Executive Director reports to the DCI Director (who, along with the INS Director, reports directly to the Imperator). The Deputy Director is formally appointed by the Executive Director without Senate confirmation and is generally considered a political position, making the Deputy Director the most senior position for career officers.

The Executive Directorate also supports the Caphirian military by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating with field activities. Each branch of the military service has its own Deputy Director. The Deputy Director of military affairs, a senior military officer, manages the relationship between the Advenarum and the Unified Tactical Commands, who produce and deliver to the Advenarum regional/operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the Advenarum.

Analysis Directorate

The Analysis Directorate is tasked with helping "the Imperator and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all the available information on an issue and organizing it for policymakers." The Directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three focusing on policy, collection, and staff support.

Division Directive
Intelligence Analysis Division Responsible for analyzing and reporting on intelligence and collecting guidance on how to handle intelligence matters
Information and Auditing Division Responsible for the collection and management of intelligence materials
Social Research Division Responsible for conducting public opinion polling and surveying the population
Comprehensive Intelligence Analysis Division Responsible for the analysis and interpretation of intelligence materials
Imaging Intelligence Division Responsible for collecting and interpreting images of political, economic, and military targets in various countries through both traditional practices and through the incorporation of satellite imagery technologies
International Intelligence Division Responsible for strategic international intelligence collection

Science & Technology Directorate

The Science & Technology Directorate (DS&T) was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations or, as they became more overt, to the military services. DS&T plays a special role in the Advenarum since it provides a wide range of data and intelligence to all other directorates. From here, the various other directorates can take this information, analyze it, and effectively procure it to their needs.

DS&T has morphed into a vastly elaborate directorate since its original inception in 1941, primarily due to the increasing data dependency many countries have used since the Great War. The volume of intelligence that is sifted through to find what is needed can be quite cumbersome. To help with this data overload, DS&T has rapidly grown within the intelligence community.

The Science & Technology Directorate is organized to accommodate classified personnel based on their technical strengths. Depending on their background and area of expertise, DS&T has:

  • Operations Tradecraft: Create solutions to current technical problems using existing tools and designs
  • Technical Research: Researching to find solutions to existing problems by means of theoretical analysis
  • Technical Development: Ensuring current projects and intelligence officers are correctly managed through analysis
  • Technical Analysis: Conducting "all-source analysis" to reduce the possibility of security faults, especially for the on-ground intelligence officers

While the organizational structure of DS&T is structured around an expertise agenda, meaning employees are placed into one of the four departments based on their previous knowledge and future aspirations, this directorate can be more easily understood by dividing it into two functionalities. The first is the processing and analysis of collected information, and the second is the future advances and innovations in technology.

Division Directive
S&T Administrative Division Responsible for managing science and technology projects
S&T Operational Services Division Responsible for technical support of field agents, including the development of exotic weapons
S&T Intelligence Division Responsible for inspecting mail and telecommunications
S&T Technical Division Responsible for conducting research and development projects
Clandestine Information Technology Division Responsible for eavesdropping devices and production of forged documents or sensitive information
Advanced Projects and Emerging Technology Division Responsible for further development of tools and projects that come out of R&D

Support Directorate

The Support Directorate provides necessary "housekeeping" administration functions that are consistent with the need to keep their details protected. These functions include personnel, security, communications, and financial operations. Most of this Directorate is sub-structured into smaller divisions based on role and purpose, such as the Security Division, which is concerned with personnel and physical security. Other major divisions include the Division of Communications and the Division of Information Technology.

Originally, the Advenarum was made responsible not just for covert action during the cold war but for such action during major wars. As a result, it became necessary to establish logistical support for these operations before the start of a conflict, but politicians did not want to duplicate existing military support systems. The compromise was that the Advenarum should be able to draw, on a reimbursable basis, on military supply stocks. This evolved into the modern worldwide system of support bases, which usually could be tenant organizations on military bases.

Division Directive
Security & Support Division Responsible for directing and supervising the activities of office agents, field agents, personnel, and VIPs
Communications Division Responsible for the overall management and administration of confidential communications
Information Technology Division Responsible for the overall collection and management of intelligence materials
Enterprises Division Responsible for the operation and management of Advenarum-owned front companies, enterprises, and other institutions

Digital Directorate

The Digital Directorate's focus is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the Advenarum's espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection, and covert action operations. It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with information technology infrastructure and practices cyber tradecraft. This means retrofitting the Advenarum for cyberwarfare. The DD officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the Advenarum's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard the Imperium. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as open source data) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support the technical and human-based operations of the Advenarum. Little is known about how the DD specifically functions or if it deploys offensive cyber capabilities.

Tactical Directorate

The Tactical Directorate provides intelligence assistance, integration, and coordination across the Imperial Armed Forces and serves as the national authority for the coordination, deconfliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the Intelligence Community. It is considered a "restricted" directorate because the Tactical Directorate is additionally responsible for covert operations and paramilitary operations with which the Imperium does not want to be overtly associated. The Tactical Directorate operates at the sole discretion of the Imperator.

Currently, there are three components to the Tactical Directorate: Task Force VII, Division DCCLXXVII, and the Octoriantes.

Task Force VII

Task Force VII is a joint operation between the Imperial Legion and the Department of Civilian Intelligence and conducts various specialized missions such as counterterrorism, hostage rescue, special reconnaissance, and direct action (short-duration strikes or small-scale offensive actions), often against high-value targets. Task Force VII conducts direct action missions such as raids, ambushes, sabotage, targeted killings, and unconventional warfare (e.g., training and leading guerrilla and military units of other countries in combat).

Division DCCLXXVII

Division DCCLXXVII (777) is responsible for covert activities related to political influence, psychological operations, economic warfare, and cyberwarfare. Tactical units within Division DCCLXXVII can also carry out covert political action while deployed in hostile and austere environments. A large covert operation typically has components that involve many or all of these categories and paramilitary operations. Political and "influence" covert operations are used to support The Imperium's foreign policy. As overt support for one element of an insurgency can be counterproductive due to the unfavorable impression of Caphiria in many countries, in such cases, covert assistance allows Caphiria to assist without damaging the reputation of its beneficiaries.

Octoriantes

The Octoriantes is a joint operation with Quicksilver Industries to create a highly secretive task force whose main function is for the "coordination, deconfliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations." Very little public information is available about the Octoriantes other than they are elite special operations forces units that perform highly classified activities.

Training

The Advenarum maintains four official training facilities across the Imperium - Camp I at Castrum Rynalia, Camp II at Castrum Zaithar, Camp III at Castrum Novaleri, and Camp IV at Castrum Sarivir. However, it is at Castrum Sarivir where the primary education facility - the Baphipolis, is located. There are an additional 14 undisclosed facilities around the country.

The Baphipolis teaches courses on various intelligence-related subjects, ranging from chemical weapons manufacturing to foreign languages. Students include Advenarum new hires, experienced officers, support staff, and other individuals from the intelligence community. The school holds between 300 and 600 courses each year. Each course typically runs for two weeks or less, except for the basic training of new hires (designated "rego"), which lasts several weeks, and language courses, which run between 21 and 44 weeks. Officers of the Advenarum receive training throughout their agency careers, and course offerings are continuously updated to keep pace with current events. Courses are held in a traditional classroom setting or may be conducted online. Subjects taught at the school have included chemical weapons manufacturing, communication skills, defensive driving, dirty bombs, the geography of critical regions, information technology, intelligence community, money laundering, project management, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, weapons proliferation, and weapons training. Additionally, 16 language courses are taught at the school

Budget

While details of the budget are classified under Article XIX, general information has been available since 1971. In 2027, the Advenarum had an operating budget of approximately $500 billion in "disclosable funds" and a reported $3.5 billion of "non-disclosable discretionary funds." These numbers have not been confirmed, or indeed, addressed by the agency at all.

Operations

See also

Agencies with a similar function: