Galaxy Recon Force Basic Official Directives
Recon teams must follow standard Imperial law. This is not because of bias towards the Imperium, but instead because these laws are static, unlike Confederation laws which vary from world to world. Mission directives will never require actions in violation of these laws.
Yes, you have to follow all of the laws to the letter. But, if mission success is in peril...well, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet. I mean, you can’t run around robbing banks and blowing up police stations. But...as long as it’s justified, if all of the legal avenues are closed and the mission is in danger of failing, you may just have to get your hands dirty. As long as you put it in your report, in case they need to do some preemptive damage control, you should be fine. Maybe.
Recon teams must have all crew positions filled aboard their space vessel. Teams are free to recommend other agents, but the final decision is made by the Sector Lead.
Recon teams are paid every 15 Imperial standard days. Pay will be held for away teams until their return. The entire team is responsible for fuel and maintenance of the spacecraft and the costs must alway be divided as evenly as possible. Repairs are the responsibility of the Recon Force operations base.
The pay sucks, there’s no other way to say it. I’m a pilot, I could be making 12 k a month, easy. Everybody gets 6. And
then you gotta take out about half of that for some H, some O filters, and some food.
It’s the missions where the money and glory is.
Crews returning from successful missions will be paid immediately after submitting reports. All crew members are paid the same exact amount. Payment is never distributed as a lump sum. Agents who do not survive a mission will have these funds forwarded as per their instructions.
Notice how they say “returning from successful missions”. They don’t even entertain the thought of a failed mission. Not that it doesn’t happen. But, if you fail enough missions, get the Force into too much trouble, or loose too many spacecraft...well, you get reassigned to the core. Not much happens in the core. In fact, I think the turnover rate is like 85% in the core worlds. Nothing to do, no money to make.
I think you’ll find out soon enough that the Recon Force cares most about two things: Was the mission a success and did you do anything that would make us look bad? If the second one is true, then you better put down all of it on your report. NEVER EVER lie on a report. They WILL find out and you will be very unhappy.
While undergoing a mission, Recon teams must conduct themselves in a professional manner. A key goal of the Recon Force is to build a relationship of trust and respect with the civilized galaxy.
Ok, here’s the deal. You’ll probably notice right away that there really aren’t that many rules. At least, not that many official ones. So much goes down behind the scenes that everything is handled on a case by case basis. It’s the way they do things.
Well, this is one of those things. See...when you’re not on a mission, you’re just a bunch of mercenaries. You work for the Galaxy Recon Force, but you are not employed by them. You are just an explorer, hired gun, private investigator, remote researcher....uh, out of work pilot even.
But, when you have that mission directive in your hand and you put on the insignia...you’re a savvy survivalist, special forces commando, remote operative, cutting-edge scientist, scout pilot ace. There is a job that needs done, a mission so important that you’ll have barriers removed. It’s your team, the mission, and a whole bunch of walls in the way that you gotta get around or punch right through.
You know Star Law, of course. You have to do what they say. EVERYone has to do what Star Law says. And the SecLeads that hand you the directive....you can’t argue with one. They have complete authority over you when you have that mission.
Sure, someone always points out that the Confed Council, Consortium board of directors...they or an immediate subordinate can give you a direct order. So can the Emperor himself or his advisors. But everything they tell you gets typed up and appears in every news publication . Public record.
The big players aside, other than Star Law and SecLeads, you answer to no one. No military, police force, government agency can get in your way. Imperial Intelligence? They can take a back seat along with the Scouts, Rangers, Imperial Navy, and everybody else. You can tell the god of the Universal Church to take a number and get in line...you’re busy.
(Myself, my team, and a few others follow directions from Crucible Defense. Another unspoken rule, but more of a professional courtesy thing. It’s great to have the clones on your side. You give them the upper hand, they bend the rules for you on AND off duty. Otherwise...well, the clones are experts of doing everything by the book. Slowly. Painfully slow. All along, flashing that perfect smile with perfect teeth. Yeah, better to be on their good side.)
OF COURSE, you have no actual authority. You can’t tell anyone what to do and you can’t force anyone to help you. But, there’s a legally binding document that says that you can go anywhere and do anything (legal) to get the job done. Any yes, there’s always someone that has to be a dick about it.
We’re on our way home and stop at the last station before the final jump and this Imperial Customs officer comes aboard for a surprise inspection. Not a problem, except that we have that dozen pre-catastrophe PGMP in the cargo bay that we were sent to recover. Customs officer sees this and asks me if I know how illegal it is to have this. I tell him yeah, sorry just passing through, here’s our mission directives. They read, in bold print, “RECOVER PRE-CATAS PGMP”. (Imperials, they always have to see the documents in person. Not normally a problem, just an annoying delay.)
Well, what’s supposed to happen, what should happen, is the guy hands us back the papers and says “Very well, on your way. Now.”
Instead, this jackass starts with the “you have no jurisdiction in this sector” and “our protocol directives clearly read blah blah blah” and he radios for the guards to come aboard and seize the cargo.
This can’t happen. I tell the guy that this is official Recon business, we gotta get this back to base. He draws his side- arm and points it at me, gives me the “Place your hands on your head and get down blah blah” crap. There’s a long pause. Then, the engineer quick draws his laser, sticks it in the guys ear, and says (calmly) “Get the fuck off of our ship”. This Customs Officer is totally shocked. He drops his gun, turns around and walks out of the hatch. The engineer shuts it, turns and says (with a look of fear on his face), “We need to fly. Now.” There was a delay where I forgot that I was actually the pilot who was going to do this. Took off like a sky drake out if Hades and ran a partial blockade. Made the jump.
If we were just mercenaries, free-lancers, I would have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of my days. But, like I said, when we had those papers, we were unstoppable.
We wrote it up in our reports. Nothing much was said. A month later, six marines kicked down the door of my hotel room and messed me up something good. I sat in a cell for about two weeks, along with the rest of the team. Then, they turn us over to the Recon Force SecLead. They take us back and we watch a video of some kind of legal hearing. Recon Force leads and some Navy Admirals before a committee. One of the leads stands up and says how sorry he is for the way this worked out. “Obviously, there was some miscommunication between the Recon Force agents and Naval Customs. We are constantly working to build trust among our Imperial allies blah blah...blah.” Ends up, we get paid a small bonus for our time. The Naval Customs officer gets re-assigned to a backwater crap-town somewhere. And then we’re back in business.
But that doesn’t mean we’ll get away with that kind of stuff all the time. Always have to try the path of least resistance first. I knew a guy...they were sent to some lower tech world to find something and they had bad info. So it looks like these scumbags on the bad side of the city knew what they were looking for. Guy goes into this lowlife bar and finds the thug that has the info. Thug doesn’t talk. Couple of the thugs buddies back him up. Ok, so the team leaves.
So the next step would be what? Pool some cash and try a bribe? Wait ‘till he leaves the bar and shadow the guy? Get the local cops involved? Find another guy who might know? Maybe, even, corner the guy in an alley and intimidate him, if nothing else would work. Right?
No, this guy tells the team he’ll be right back, he goes back to the place with an ACR and lights it up. Kills eight of the thugs buddies and wounds a bunch of people. Thugs spills the beans.
Mission continues to the end. Team gets back, gets paid. Within a month, the media hears about some guy, acting like a Recon agent, shooting up a bar someplace. SecLeads go before a committee, apologize, “we don’t know who this suspected Recon agent is or what he was doing there, but we are conducting a full investigation and blah blah”. Guy get’s arrested by Confed Intelligence, Recon Force washes their hands of him.
Deniability.
When you’re successful, you get paid. When you’re successful a lot, you get promoted. Promos don’t mean anything monetary. And you still can’t pull rank on anybody. But on your insignia, where it used to read “Recon Agent”, it now reads “Recon Specialist”. And then, after more successes, “Recon ELITE”. And they refer to you by that title.
You just can’t buy that anywhere.