“Don’t you understand? We are the ‘last stand.’ We are the beacon that shines in the midst of chaos itself. We are the shield that protects the galaxy from those who would see it burn.”
“We are Guardian.”
To understand what type of organization Guardian currently is, one must understand how it began.
Nearly thirty years ago, the Core Worlds found themselves yet again embroiled in conflict against the servants of the Dark Side, in the form of the Sith Empire. As the remnants of the Republic sought to rebuild themselves, many within the planetary governments of these worlds saw the need to form a unified organization dedicated to one overarching pursuit - to protect the the burgeoning alliance from the threat of the Sith Empire, since it was abundantly clear the Jedi alone were not up to the task. This task force would be considered the precursor to the organization now known as the SIA, which partnered with planetary intelligence services and law enforcement agencies in an attempt to rebuild the Core Worlds and protect them from threats that would otherwise undermine their efforts to do so. Early successes built confidence amongst the few within the interim government who held knowledge of their operations, which resulted in more funding and in the task force expanding in both manpower and capability.
Eventually, the “Strategic Intelligence Agency” was officially organized and sanctioned by the newly formed government, where it shortly thereafter developed a comprehensive network of agents and operatives that spanned the galaxy. When the Empire fell into civil war, the Alliance as a whole celebrated the victory, attributing its eventual successes to war heroes, politicians, and to a larger degree; the revolutionaries of the New Imperial Order. SIA received its due from its involvement in the conflict, yet there were several within its ranks who were not content with how the balance of power had shifted in the aftermath.
The post war era had resulted in a normalization of relations between the Galactic Alliance and the aforementioned warlords and ideologues who would form the New Imperial Order. As this new Imperial power arose, with a focus on stamping out every vestige of the former Sith Empire it came across, it soon became clear to these aforementioned individuals within the SIA that this burgeoning nation would not be content with stamping out their former overlords. On top of this, the fissure which developed between the Silver Jedi Concord and the New Jedi Order had quickly set off alarm bells within the organization; namely, that the Alliance was placing its trust upon institutions that could not realistically protect them. Eventually, this small but slowly growing faction within SIA broke away to form the shadow organization known as “Guardian”.
This ‘break away’ started with several key individuals consolidating their own resources independently from the SIA infrastructure; primarily in secret bases within the furthest reaches of the galaxy. The next phase resulted in a disjointed and scattered exodus of additional disaffected members of the SIA in a variety of ways; such as in faking their own deaths, “resigning” from their posts within SIA to take private sector roles, or in simply defecting altogether and severing all ties to their former life. Key members of the Federal Assembly were then dealt with, either through similarly mysterious disappearances, or intricately orchestrated assassinations.
This brief period in history was considered a major security breach to the budding government, which resulted in a massive yet secret manhunt for many key figures of the newly formed ‘Guardian’ organization. Over the following years, SIA and Guardian would be involved in a shadow war of cat and mouse. Some agents would be discovered and either executed or brought to justice, but eventually the majority of Guardian’s defectors disappeared into the galaxy at large. Upon its formal establishment, Guardian was soon recognized as an extremist organization within SIA and the upper levels of the Galactic Alliance government; seen largely as a radicalized group of disaffected wardogs who saw the galaxy through a distorted lens. While known members of the organization remained on watchlists within the SIA for many years to follow, Guardian almost completely faded from knowledge to all but the most persistent and perceptive of overservers.
Upon doing so, Guardian structured itself slowly and with meticulous care to remain ‘non-existant’ to the greater galaxy. While the powers of the known galaxy set themselves against the threats of the Bryn’adul and the rising Brotherhood of the Maw, Guardian used such chaos to clandestinely grow its powerbase and resources - expanding in covert ways by recruiting further disaffected veterans of the galaxy’s intelligence agencies, and in more non-traditional ways such as in penetrating the upper levels of major corporations and planetary governments, and in funding the operations of private military companies for hire by the very same governments who largely thought that Guardian had melded into oblivion.
Today, Guardian has developed into a full scale shadow organization; responsible for several destabilizing operations throughout CIS, Eternal Empire, and NIO space. Over the years, they have grown evermore radical and persistent in their belief that they alone are the guardians of the galaxy, and only they can defend its people from the threat presented by those who wield the power of the force. While in the beginning, their operations tended to benefit the Galactic Alliance in some form or fashion, recent events seem to indicate that they do not restrict or discriminate if they believe an operation will achieve their greater goal of undermining “threats to society” as they see it; which suggests that they view elements within the Alliance with the same level of hostility as other entities. Experts believe Guardian is a dangerous organization that will stop at nothing to accomplish its overall goals, which include the aggressive containment of force users, and the active destabilization of governments it believes to be oppressive or otherwise a danger to the greater galaxy.
The only question is - where do your loyalties lie? Do you have what it takes, to do what it takes?
