Quaestionarius Corps

Quaestionarius Corps
Type	Intelligence Agency
Motto	Veritas, Justitia, Securitas

The Quaestionarius Corps is the intelligence agency of the Imperial Legions and is tasked with monitoring internal affairs alongside conducting counterintelligence operations.

History

The Quaestionarius was created in the aftermath of the Second Imperial Civil War. The founding members of the Quaestionarius were the few Conséc agents that remained within the Imperial Legions after the agency’s dissolution and subsequent re-branding, but who also denounced all loyalty to theBlood Eagle in order to escape further punishment by House Aquila. Because the Accords of Peace forbade House Aquila from ever having an intelligence agency comparable to Conséc, the newly created Quaestionarius was limited to be entirely focused on counterintelligence and internal affairs.

War Against the Artificials

On the opening of the War Against the Artificials, the Quaestionarius Corps was as blindsided just as the rest of House Aquila. There had been little suspicion of the synthetic soldiers disloyalty and their morale was unwavering. Once their true nature was revealed, and fear of infiltration by synthetics became the primary concern, the Corps was given permission to carry out an extensive overview of security within the Convocation and the Legio Summo Imperio. Once the initial fighting had died down, the Quaestionarius started to form new protocols to detect possible synthetics - an arduous task and not one that would develop a fool proof technique. The Corps worked closely with investigators from House Crux and House Serpens, and investigations on all those in positions of importance became commonplace as the paranoia of infiltration spread.

With the synthetic soldiers having access to communication protocols as well as general encryption security used by the Legions, it was decided that the agency would to be given the task of reworking the entirety of those systems. This became an increasingly important task as the war carried on because, with synth forces intercepting orders and disrupting communication systems, the war was on a knife's edge. By 3188 the agency’s new protocols were installed across all legions, the process took nearly a year and faced several complications along the way but finally the Imperial Legions would have secure communications to keep them safe from synthetic infiltration, at least for now.

The Convocation rewarded the officers of the Quaestionarius Corps mightily for their work during the war. Many historians agree that if not for the work done by the Quaestionarius, the Legions would have faced an almost impossible task fighting against the synth and House Cygnus forces.

War with the S.T.O

After A.C.R.E’s invasion in the Battle of Diomikato, all records kept by the Quaestionarius were purposely destroyed to keep them from enemy hands. It is currently unknown if any backups exist and to what extent if they do.

Soon after the invasion, the last message from the Speaker of the Convocation, Promagistrate Primus Tullia Iunia, was released sector wide. The message included a call to all members of the STO and factions involved with organisation, to leave their factions and join the Imperial Legions. The rally offered an official pardon to anyone who answered the call, and it was the responsibility of the weakened Quaestionarius Corps to assess the sincerity of these new recruits. Already the influx of requests for investigations on navigators in the Imperial Legions, alongside the loss of the of the agency's Primus, put the Corps under heavy strain.

Unrelenting pressure was put onto the agency when the remnants of the Convocation arrived on Hroa. Occupying Fort Hydra, they formed the Convocation in Exile and ordered the Quaestionarius to aid in securing the facility - now with little sign of respite, the agency was stretched extremely thin. The subdivisions of Pervado and Voluntatis resorted to sharing their resources, cooperating on the many tasks given to the overwhelmed Quaestionarius Corps.

Despite their huge losses during the invasion, the Intelligentia were still involved in the strategic planning of the war. Realising that Diomikato was becoming a perfect quagmire for A.C.R.E, senior analysts recommended the equipping of the various paramilitary groups that had recently spawned, giving the legions on the ground much needed respite and valuable intelligence on the movements of A.C.R.E. forces. Several dozen Umbra teams were ordered to travel to Diomikato and help setup the guerrilla networks on the planet; it was through this network that the intelligence vital for Operation Absolution was discovered - operation that would see the defection of thousands of C.O.R.E. troops to the Imperial Legions on Diomikato.

The Quaestionarius were absolutely vital during the war, hundreds of agents were awarded the Eagle's Reach for their service. Even after the war was officially declared over, the agency continued in their efforts at keeping Aquila secure. They continued processing the C.O.R.E troops who had defected, absorbing them into the Legions proper, and they were involved in processing the many prisoners of war taken during the final days. Finally they began once more look to potential future enemies and flashpoints, always wary of the next conflict to affect House Aquila and the Imperial Legions.

Structure

Every member of the Quaestionarius Corps is given the rank of the same name - though it is often shortened simply to “Q”. Internally this rank is further modified through the use of standard legion rank seniority, with the lowest rank being Septimus. It should be noted that the exact hierarchical structure of the Corps is kept secret for security purposes.

At the head of the Quaestionarius is the Q Primus who is the director of the entire corps. Then below them are the Q Secunduses who form an advisory council called the Council of Secundus. The council is also in charge of electing the Q Primus, while they are elected by the rest of the Quaestionarius; these elections takes place every four years or in the case of an emergency, such as the Primus being killed in action.

Subdivisions

The Quaestionarius is divided into four subdivisions that determine an agent's role within the Corps. Every agent resides within one of the subdivisions which are each headed by a Secundus, while the Q Primus oversees all subdivisions as the agency’s director.

Voluntatis

Badge of Subdivision Voluntatis

Q agents who work as part of Subdivision Voluntatis are primarily tasked with maintaining legion morale. The exact methods for instilling the soldiers of House Aquila with high morale is left up to the individual agents; some agents find building friendships to be the most effective method while others have been known to use intimidation - as long as the soldier remains at adequate mental fitness the means to achieve such discipline do not matter. Even with this independence, all Voluntatis agents are expected to act as counselors for the Imperial Legions, in order to help legionnaires with the traumas and other issues common to active military personnel.

Since the War Against the Artificials, Subdivision Voluntatis has also been given the duty of performing “synth checks”. All Voluntatis agents have been specially trained in using newly developed, though not error-free, detection methods. If a soldier is suspected of being a synthetic they are detained, and if proven, summarily executed.

Pervado

Badge of Subdivision Pervado

Subdivision Pervado is the smallest of the original subdivisions and the most feared. They are tasked with performing counterintelligence operations in order to maintain the security of the Imperial Legions. Pervado works closely with agents from Voluntatis to maintain a database of every legionnaire in the military, and it is the Pervado agents who deal in the interrogation of spies and other hostile actors. This close relationship has been known to cause suspicion amongst legion soldiers who worry that their Voluntatis counselor may actually be with Pervado instead.

Outside of physical threats, agents of Subdivision Pervado are also trained in cybersecurity - their duty is to prevent hacking attempts and data breaches, along with monitoring legion communications.

Intelligentia

Badge of Subdivision Intelligentia

This subdivision is based mainly in the Legio Summo Imperio, they make up the vast majority of the analysts and intelligence officers based there. Officers of the Intelligentia gather information discovered by the various legions, analyze that information, and disseminate it to the Convocation. The work done by the Intelligentia allows the Convocation and its various sub-committees to develop a strategic overlook of legion operations; the information gathered allows high level decisions to be made with the most up to date knowledge available.

Subdivision Intelligentia work closely with the recon elements of the Imperial Legions, the command structure of the Legions, as well as Umbra and the other subdivisions of the Quaestionarius. Often Umbra operatives are sent on missions at the behest of the Intelligentia to gather information, secure high value targets for interrogation, and generally be the eyes and ears of the subdivision.

Having a central office for the data gathered by the Legions allows for a more strategic overview than that of the local legion intelligence officers. During wartime, the subdivision monitors troop movement, assesses weak points in the Legions and enemies lines, performs war games, as well as providing intelligence on enemy formations and their commanders. In peace time they focus on the general overview of the Empire, predicting trouble spots and looking for areas of possible unrest. They are also responsible for analyzing the readiness state of the Legions in case of any outside aggression.

Extraterrestrialis

Badge of Subdivision E.T.

Subdivision Extraterrestrialis, sometimes called E.T., is tasked with the study of nonhuman life, with the goal of determining the overall threat they pose to the Empire and humanity. In addition to this threat assessment, the subdivision studies any and all weaknesses or vulnerabilities the various species posses, and the ways in which they can be exploited.

History

The origins of the Extraterrestrialis dates back to the Blood Eagle’s reign before the creation of the Quaestionarius Corps. When the campaign to exterminate the Cah-Binn was launched in 2905, it had been many centuries and one apocalypse since the last time humanity had waged war on the alien. To amend their lack of knowledge on the enemy, General Aquila Saifi Albert organized a team of researchers to begin collecting and studying the Cah-Binn and their exoforms to better understand how these aliens worked and how to best kill them.

When research into the Cah-Binn proved fruitless, as no uniquely exploitable weakness could be found within their species, the project was shut down. And when the war reached Cabina, the Blood Eagle decided to forgo any nuanced tactics and simply brute-force the aliens’ obliteration.

After the civil war, members of the newly created Q Corps recovered the data of the Cah-Binn experiments and brought it before the Convocation with the desire of continuing similar projects. Due to the projects failure, there was hesitation amongst the Convocation, but eventually a coalition of Provisum and Et Scutum constituents were able to pass the bill authorizing the creation of a new subdivision tasked with researching alien life.

Structure

E.T. is not, unlike the rest of the corps, based on Diomikato and is instead headquartered on Lowell Station. The space station was chosen for their operations as a precaution to ensure no aliens could escape from holding and threaten the planet’s population.

Q agents in the subdivision are grouped into two sections: the Messis and the Discis. There is no strict separation between the two sections, and as such some Extraterrestrialis agents often switch between the two depending on assignment.

• The Messis represents the outward face of the subdivision, and are responsible for conducting operations throughout the sector in support of the research teams. Messis operators typically function in teams of ten, following the decan structure outlined in the Aquilan Legions. However due to the nature of their work, each Messis Decan acts with a higher degree of independence compared to their legion counterparts. Due to the alien nature of their prey, they sometimes have to be ready to hunt in climates inhospitable to humans, because of this, agents - who are sometimes temporarily assigned legionnaires -  receive special training such as underwater combat.

• The Discis are the researchers for the Extraterrestrialis. Their duty is to study the specimens retrieved by the Messis in order to ascertain their usefulness, vulnerabilities, and threat level. Weapons testing and dissections are the most common types of research conducted by the Discis, but they have also been known to, in an effort to study specimen’s behavior, conduct human interaction trials. Often these trials include purposeful provocation of the specimens in order to test their aggressiveness towards a human subject, who is usually a Varmint grade serf - loss of life has occurred on multiple occasions.