Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on Tephrike.
Image Credit: Here.
Canon: N/A.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: Amidala Asylum, Dominion of Light, Disciples of the Vader, The Republican Guard is the Strongest, Phoebe, Cassius, Red Coral City, Tephrike, Yuuzhan Vong, Kreia, Force-Dead, Yun-Ne'Shel, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Palmyra's Wail.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Organization Name: Extraordinary Commission for Preternatural Regulation and Control. Often just called Regulators.
Classification: Security & Intelligence Agency, Anti-Force-User Organisation.
Affiliation: Republican Guard, Tephrike, Popular Front for a Democratic Tephrike.
Organization Symbol: An outer circle represents the chaos and disorder of the Force user, and an inner circle that stands for the harmony of the barrier against it. This symbolises their role as the shield which keeps chaos away.
Description: The Republican Guard has strong views on Force-users. Since a lot - though by no means all - of the Tephriki's misery can be laid at the doorstep of competing Force religions, this is understandable. The constant warfare between the Jedi and the Sith is interpreted as a proxy for a cyclical, genocidal religious war between two equally matched groups of powerful fanatics that leads to the 'mundanes' getting slaughtered by the billions. They may have a point. Force cults are prohibited and the Force is regarded as a disease. Individuals who manifest Force powers are brought to the Asylum. There, they are subjected to brainwashing, drugs and a good bit of mental trauma to associate the Force with bad things. Those who are deemed sufficiently stable are released into society.
The Extraordinary Commission for Preternatural Regulation and Control is the body responsible for enforcing the Guard's Force-User policies. The Commission maintains special facilities to incarcerate Force-Users that have been identified by the authorities. The most well-known is the Amidala Asylum, located underwater near the rebel movement's 'capital'. On average, the typical Force-User incarcerated there will have been identified very early and thus had little training, or none at all. Typically, they come to the attention of the authorities after using their powers on instinct. To concentrate all Force-Users in Republican Guard-protected territory in one area would be extremely risky. The Force-Users deemed most dangerous will be sent to ancillary facilities not known to the public.
The rebels have Yuuzhan Vong in their ranks, but their attempts to cure Force-users and pass on the Force Dead condition are rather risky. So they resort to mental conditioning to suppress Force use first and make their charges associate the Force with bad things. Particularly difficult cases are turned Force Dead. Some inmates volunteer for the process, as it offers the quickest way to leave the facility. Moreover, it means they will be cleared of any suspicion and be fully welcomed back into society. Inmates are given drugs to suppress their preternatural abilities.
The Republican Guard treats the Force as a disease or curse. The party line is that someone born with this condition is not responsibe for it. However, they must detained for their own good and that of the community, until they are deemed safe and can be released. Guards, agents and administrators are expected to be strict, but not unfair. It goes without saying that this rule is not easy to adhere to. The agency has a broad mandate to investigate all paranormal phenomena that occur within rebel territory. It is also responsible for cordoning off areas contaminated by preternatural influences.
The Regulators regard themselves as an educational, punitive, surveillance and security organ that is supposed to protect Non-Force-Users from Force-Users, but also Force-Users from their own curse and from uninformed Non-Force-Users who cannot separate the mage from their curse. In short, officially the Commission is obligated to intervene if say a Force-Sensitive who has not done anything wrong is attacked by a mob. However, Force-Sensitives may not leave the containment facilities without having been freed from their curse. The families of inmates have visitation rights, but this is a privilege that can be withdrawn in the case of bad behaviour and is only valid for less dangerous Force-Sensitives such as those held in the Amidala Asylum.
The Regulators have guards, field agents, administrators, medical professionals, psychologists, researchers, teachers, archivists and others among its ranks. They do not have a lot of military muscle, but maintains specialised field teams and can request support from regular rebel troops, militias and the security police. Where possible, the rebels use persuasion and education to compel Force-Sensitives in rebel territory to go with them or persuade families to let them take in Force-Sensitive children. But if that does not suffice, they resort to coercion and force. However, forcefully separating young children from their families and locking them away on the basis of their genetic makeup has taken a psychological toll on agents. Regulators are Force-Dead, though the group also has many Non-Force-Users.
Another task of the Regulators is the identification and destruction or containment of Jedi and Sith artefacts, texts, holocrons and the like. These items are regarded as cursed, especially if they have been enchanted with sorcery. It is not just the living Jedi and Sith the people must fear, but the living history of the millions that came before them. As long as their teachings and their artefacts exist, untrained neophytes can be corrupted and follow in the footsteps of the Jedi and Sith tyrants who set Tephrike ablaze and whose madness caused the deaths of millions. Thus their heritage must be erased. The Regulators and the partisans as a whole does not employ Force-Users, which means destroying certain types of enchanted artefacts is difficult for them. They are fond of tossing them into active volcaneos. Burning sacred texts also tends to work. The Regulators have containment facilities for those devices that cannot be immediately obliterated.
GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Headquarters: Red Coral City, Tephrike.
Domain: The Regulators do not lay claim to domain per se. It is a policing organisation that serves the Republican Guard, a revolutionary movement on Tephrike. Thus it has a presence in major settlements controlled or influenced by the rebels. It administers a number of penal facilities and re-education centres. The Commission tries to build trust among the population, depicting itself as a protector against the tyranny of the Force.
It has a lot of support among people loyal to the Guard. However, relations can be a lot more hostile in areas liberated from the Vaderites and the Dominion, whose population ma ybe regarded as suspect due to being indoctrinated by the Force cults. One of the tasks of the Commission is assessing religious groups in rebel territory. The Republican Guard is not an anti-religious, atheistic organisation, but prohibits Force worship.
As a consequence, the Commission must assess whether any spiritualist or religious sects fall under this definition. While the Republican Guard has established an ideological vanguard state, it is much more open to critique and ideological difference of opinion than its main rivals. The official party line is the 'Transitional Theory of Equalism'. It posits that the authoritarian, illiberal tendencies of the partisans are part of a transitional stage.
True democracy cannot be established while the fortress of liberty is fighting a life and death struggle against the Jedi and Sith tyrants and much of the population is not ready for greater responsibility. Thus the Guard's role is a dual one - it defends and liberates the people and educates them. Eventually it will transition into an Equalist republic, defined by democratic rule by a free people. This argument is self-serving and justifies an authoritarian regime, but is not wholly propaganda because the Guard does allow limited democracy, though largely on the local level. The rebels have a secret police, political prisoners and purges, but it is not even close to that of the Dominion or the Vaderites. As a result, the Regulators have limits on their power.
Notable Assets: Operates a number of penal facilities and re-education centres. The most well-known is the Amidala Asylum. The Regulators operate a small research facility in Fort Vigilance, though the fortress is not controlled by them. They also maintain a detention centre in Vortanstad, working with the provisional administration set up by the partisans in their zone.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Hierarchy: The Regulators are headed by a Director, who is assisted by a varying number of Vice Directors. One level below that, their hierarchy is based on departments to handle separate cases. The First Directorate is responsible for locating latent Force users and making them safe. The Second Directorate deals with refugees or prisoners. It carries out operations to identify and transfer cultists and Force-Users among POW and refugee camps. The Third Directorate is responsible with regulating the sanctums and asylums. The Fourth Directorate takes responsibility for identifying, destroying or locking away Force artefacts and archival materials related to Force cults.
The Fifth Directorate represents the domestic cultwatch and assesses religious groups for signs of being corrupted by the Force. In addition, it has departments for subjects such as supply, legal affairs, and so on. The Sixth Directorate is a science department. It tries to study the Force from a scientific perspective and carries out research to 'cure' those sensitive to it. The Sevent Directorate handles propaganda and agitation. Finally, the Eigth Directorate is feared by all the others because it is charged with investigating their conduct. Owing to their paramilitary origins, the Regulators use military-style ranks.
Membership: Must be a Tephriki and a member of the Republican Guard partisan movement. Members must be Non-Force-Users or Force-Dead. Past military service is preferred, but not a requirement. Having an officer from the partisans or two officials from the Popular Front vouch for a candidate is beneficial. Each recruit undergoes a thorough security check. The vetting process goes hand in hand with physical and mental aptitude tests. Recruiters expect a candidate to have a good understanding of the dangers posed by the Force. In particular, they look for people who have experienced it first-hand.
Recruits who have Force-Sensitive family members are considered problematic and may have to prove themselves through particular dedication. Certain roles in the organisation require a candidate to be Force-Dead. There are no species or gender barriers though. The Guard regards itself as a multispecies movement that promotes equality. Yuuzhan Vong are overrepresented though, since they are inherently Force-Dead. Personnel may be drafted from Republican Guard regulars and partisans, local militias, the Commission for the Preservation of the Revolution (CPS) or Popular Front cadres. The Regulators have a broad variety of employees, ranging from guards to medical professionals and administrators. As a result, professional requirements will obviously differ depending on a recruit's role. However, the hours are long and their work is often dangerous. The Guard is, after all, a vanguard revolutionary movement at war.
Unsurprisingly, the Regulators are very cautious when it comes to recruiting agents and informants. All recruits go through extensive background checks. These focus on an individual's profile, character, vulnerabilities, motivation as well as their circle of friends to ascertain whether they are the right person for the job, as well as the reasons that make the candidate in question want to work for them. Recruits must go through a special training period to acquire the skills to perform their tasks. Required skills can include interrogation, surveillance, agent handling, photography, coding and decoding, drawing maps, linguistics, escape and evasion. Once a candidate has completed the training programme, the handlers will make an individual assessment.
Overall, the Regulators are not a large organisation. While Dominion and Vaderite propaganda depicts it as an oppressive octopus - rather hypocritically, considering both are totalitarian police states - in truth, the Regulators are understaffed. The partisans mainly holds sway in rural areas and in underwater settlements. There are rebel-controlled towns and villages where the Commission's presence is at the bare minimum, or it is has no presence at all. But at the same time the agency's job is not to monitor the entire population, just a small strata of it. Nonetheless, the group is reliant on denunciations and thus the cooperation of the local population.
Climate: The Commission's self-perception is that of knights of the revolution. Its members fight to destroy the tyranny of Jedi and Sith. But the fact that the partisans have spent most of their existence as a small revolutionary vanguard assailed by enemies has fostered a strong siege mentality. Force-Users are a danger, and so the Commission fights the war on the inner front to ensure they cannot usurp power from the common people. At the same time, they should treat untrained Force-Sensitives and even young apprentices of the Force cults as victims of a curse who deserve help.
This has fostered a degree of cognitive dissonance. It is worth noting that officers who operate in areas far away from the centre are in practice given a lot of leeway. This can lead to problems with rogue operatives who take matters into their own hands. Some implement policies more radical and brutal than the centre would like, while others are more liberal. The latter may, for instance, deliberately or inadvertently ignore Force-Sensitives whose abilities are too minor to be worthy of note. By contrast, the former may even order the execution of mere apprentices who do not represent a threat because they are 'too dangerous to be left alive'. The agency has tortured, carried out extrajudicial executions and forcibly incarcerated prisoners without trial. Tephrike's civil war is a dirty war defined by different shades of black and grey.
By the same token, there are agents who have protected Force-Sensitives who never rebelled, particularly children. These are agents who earn the trust of their charges, set examples, lower tensions and do not tolerate abuses. These are, in many respects, the ideal agents, even if their contributions unfortunately receive less recognition. Corruption is also a problem - not the least because the rebel movement is poor and currency is worth little on Tephrike. For this reason, the punishments for taking bribes are draconian.
The Regulators have a strict, and regimented working environment. Personnel must adhere to security protocols warranted by their workplace, position and clearance level. Depending on the nature of the infraction, failure to comply with these orders can be punished with written/verbal notices, court marshaling, or in more extreme cases, capital punishment. While the Guard does not really have rule of law, it strives to achieve rule by law. As a result, there are no random purges and members are not at risk of expiring simply for speaking their mind.
However, agents are under a lot of pressure to identify, apprehend, contain and re-educate Force-Sensitives in rebel territory. The Commission is a bogeyman for the Dominion and the Vaderites, and so members who are captured by either faction face a very real risk of being tortured or summarily executed. Officials of the Commission may follow partisan units into newly captured territory to educate the population, identify and incarcerate Force-Sensitives among them.
Naturally, they must also watch out for Vaderite or Dominion agents and stay-behind cells. Thus the risk of being killed or maimed is very real. This also extends to the Commission's informants. As a result, a certain degree of proficiency in self-defence and basic marksmanship is expected, though most of the Commission's members are not soldiers per se . All crucial information is carefully compartmentalised. Handlers are responsible for the wellbeing of their agents and are expected to terminate the disloyal.
The Regulators have access to Implaneters and makes use of Yorik-Kul to contain particularly dangerous Force-Users, especially trained Jedi and Sith, and dampen their Force abilities. The rebels do not consider the eventual loss of sentience too much of a problem if the Force-User is a full-fledged Jedi or Sith and refuses to 'see the light', especially if they are believed to have committed crimes against the rebellion. However, it is not allowed to use the device on say a child in rebel territory that just happens to be cursed with the Force.
While the Regulators revile Jedi and Sith, it teaches that some Force-Users have realised the error of their ways and tried to fight against both cults' tyranny. Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are presented positively. They were idealists and noble rebels, but were duped into perpetuating the tyranny of the Force. When Luke realised the harm it had caused, he resolved that it was time for the Jedi to end and burnt the sacred texts. Alas, that was not enough because Jedi Rey refused to heed his words. They also like Kreia, having come across a recording that purports to tell the story of the Jedi Civil War. It is quite distorted, but has given them the idea that she wanted to free the galaxy from the shackles of the Force.
The Commission does offer its Regulators, as the employees are called, certain amenities. For instance, it helps them get accommodations and access to daycare services. Currency is worth little, but there are material benefits. However, the Regulators also work long hours and the risk of being targeted by anti-Republican Guard agents is a real one. Captured Regulators, including those innocent of crimes, are routinely executed by Vaderites or Dominion Inquisitors. The camaraderie between Regulators has created a clan-like system of mutual protection in the Commission. This has strengthened the esprit de corps, but also impedes investigation of abuse. Moreover, it makes it more difficult for Regulators to defy unjust officers. Workers in the security forces are now less inclined than cadres in any other administration to embed themselves in the organisation.
The Commission has its own sports association. The Republican Guard lacks the means to have big sporting events and regards sponsorships as contrary to its egalitarian views. But they view sport as a good way for training and to promote healthy minds and bodies. Team sports, swimming, athletics and hunting contests are particularly popular.
Reputation: A figure of hatred and revulsion for the Vaderites and the Dominion of Light. This is no surprise, since the first are a human supremacist Sith cult and the second is a totalitarian Jedi theocracy. Both factions, in their own way, believe that Force-Users are superior to Non-Force-Users and have a divine right to rule. The reputation among the people of the Republican Guard is more complex. By and large, the Extraordinary Commission is seen as a necessary evil. Ironically, there are extremists who believe it is too lenient and relative liberals who believe the Commission, while needed, has lost sight of its original mandate, focusing too much on punishment rather than education.
There are families in rebel territory who have willingly given their Force-Sensitive children to the Commission to protect them from what they see as their curse. However, others have tried to hide them, revile and fear the group. This is treated as a serious crime. The Commission's agents are popular staples in the Republican Guard's films and literature. Needless to say their activities are heavily romanticised, but they also provide a good template for police procedurals and spy stories.
Broadly speaking, debate in the Guard's upper echelons focus on whether the Commission is doing too much or too little and to whom it should be accountable to, not whether it should be doing its job at all. There is a general consensus that the Force is evil. It is not uncommon for the rebels to interpret the Force as akin to a malevolent eldritch abomination. But not the solution is another question. The Communards, the most radically democratic faction, see it as a failed institution. However, they do not want to let Force-Users roam freely.
They view the Force as incompatible with democratic institutions, as there cannot be freedom in a world that has a small elite of people with supernatural powers. They demand that all Force-Users be turned Force Dead. Those who resist should be shot. The Vanguardists, the dominant faction in the rebel movement, uphold the institution as the best solution on the table at the moment. Letting Force-Users practice their powers is unthinkable, but murdering them wholesale is considered wrong. The Guard is at war and cannot allow a potential fifth column to form in its midst.
There is also a more moderate faction, whose members call themselves the Progessivists. Outsiders refer to them as Integrationists, which is often used in a derogatory manner. Regardless of the label, they believe that the Commission's harsh methods are self-defeating. They feel that Force-Users can be educated and rehabilitated so that they just choose not to use the Force and live normal lives as law-abiding citizens. They have some studies the other groups are highly dubious of. Needless to say the Commission has poor relations with the Progressivists and successive administration have tried to minimise their role in the group's sub-divisions as well as in the watchdog bodies responsible for vetting its activities.
Curios: A badge with their symbol on it. That is easy enough to stamp out from the cheapest tin.
Members of the Commission also receive a guide with the absurdly flowery name 'The Regulator's Guide to the Pernicious and Corruptive Entity Known as the Force with Special Reference to the Manifest Horrors Entailed'. Or 'The Regulator's Guide' or just 'The Guide' because in typical Tephriki tradition the official name is so damn long. The book describes the Force is as a parasitic hivemind that cultivates its prey by offering them powers, until they burn themselves up and become one with the Force. In short, it is an elder horror that makes Faustian bargains, but inevitably ends up consuming those who use its power and feeds off pain and misery.
The Republican Guard is poor and the rebels do not want to draw special attention to the Regulators, who are often targeted by Dominion or Vaderite agents. So rather than receice flamboyant uniforms, a Regulator tends to wear a fairly generic, but practical paramilitary-style uniform that does not set him or her apart from normal rebels. Commlinks do exist on Tephrike, but the rebels like to make use of the tamper-resistant Villips, though these are not available for everyone.
Rules: Honesty, diligence and loyalty to the partisans and their mission are paramount. Agents of the Commission must diligently carry out their tasks, obey their superiors and be always on their guard against Vaderite or Dominion infiltration. They must obey the security protocols and regulations that can be expected from working in a military or paramilitary environment. However, these procedures are even stricter than normal because Tephrike is a war-torn planet and the Republican Guard is a vanguard revolutionary movement.
They are supposed to be hard against Force-Users, but not unjust. This is easier said than done. Officially they are supposed to protect the people from the mages and the mages from the mob's wrath, the Force's corruption and the lies of the Force cults. Commission agents who work in re-education facilities and asylums are supposed to be strict with their charges, but also report abuses and protect them if need be. It is forbidden to undertake the procedure to 'cure' a Force-Sensitive without official sanction from above. Certain agents may be required to assume false identities and disguises to complete their tasks. It is considered a serious crime not to report rogue Force-Sensitives in Republican Guard-controlled territory.
The same applies to the possession of cultist literature, artefacts and the like. The Guard considers itself a movement that fights for the freedom of all common people, so the Commission's rules forbid discrimination on the basis of gender or species. All free people should be united in opposing the tyrannical rule of human supremacists, cultists and sorcerers. The central leadership assigns Commissars to the Commission to ensure its members' actions conform to the law and the spirit of Equalism.
Goals: Enforce the Republican Guard's Force-User policies. Protect the common people from Force-Users and Force-Users from their own curse, as well as the mob and the pernicious influence of Jedi and Sith. Educate Force-Sensitives and research and apply ways to free them from their curse. Guard and provide for their charges.
MEMBERS
Jaqat Gosir (NPC) - the leader. Director of the Commission and a Quarren female. Ironically, Gosir herself was once a Force-User and is a former inmate of the Amidala Asylum. Unable to control her powers she was turned Force Dead. The medical procedure nearly killed her, but she was free of her 'curse'. Her empathic powers had caused her to suffer greatly, so she came to see the Force's loss as a blessing. It turned her into a strong advocate of the institution.
She is very organised, strict and can come across as rather cold. She has been described as shy and aloof, but also hard-hearted and with a frightening commitment to rooting out the internal enemies of the revolution. The loss of her empathic powers means she is no longer tormented by crippling headaches from feeling the emotions of the people around her.
However, it also stiffles her ability to express emotions properly. Thus while she does feel concern for the Force-Sensitives under her care, especially the very young ones, she has trouble expressing it. Her detachment and objectivity is also a bonus for her job though. She has no patience for the vainglorious who boast about their special powers. Jaqat is very suspicious of the Progressivists and has repeatedly blocked their reform initiatives or tried to discredit their findings.
Aleria Yim (NPC) - the scientist. A Yuuzhan Vong Shaper. As part of her escalation, she has sacrificed one of her hands and replaced it with a Shaper hand. She wears a full-body oozhith. Yuuzhan Vong had to adjust to conditions on the planet after ending up stranded there. As a result, their traditions differ quite a bit from those of their ancestors.
As a Shaper, she is the equivalent of a bioengineer and researcher. She supervises experiments to understand the Force 'condition' and 'cure' it. She follows the Yuuzhan Vong Gods, but deviates from the strict protocols Shapers used to be guided by. Aleria reveres Yun-Ne'Shel, the goddess of life and creativity. Yun-Ne'Shel hoped to build a paradisal existence, peaceful and harmonious, with her new tools. Her vision was shattered by Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla, the Twin Gods and the deities of war and trickery respectively. These two gods introduced pain and suffering into the Modeler's paradise.
Aleria is someone who values ingenuity, creativity and inventivenes. Her position makes her responsible for assessing whether a Force-Sensitive should be turned Force-Dead or not. The Force is the Great Adversary, and it will require the mind as well as force of arms to defeat its puppets. But the true war is being fought on an even greater, cosmic scale. She aims to overcome the Force by fusing science and Vong biotechnology, but is hampered by the fact that the rebels are poor and have meagre resources.
Bhurrsk Ssege (NPC) - the administrator. One would probably not expect a Trandoshan to be given to bureaucratic and academic pursuits, but Bhurrsk is a bookworm and one of the chief administrators of the Commission. He grew up in the Dominion of Light, where he was born into a group of Trandoshans who had been relocated by the Ashlanites to 'civilise' them. While the Dominion was a multispecies society, it was a monocultural one. All must be the same - and ideally the miracle of life should take place in a 'medically sanctioned' way.
His birth was unsanctioned, which made him a 'Random'. Taken away from his parents, he was sent to a 'boarding school' to 'aid his assimilation'. The school was poorly maintained and the teachers were patronising clones from the city whose treatment of the 'Randoms' was tinged with supremacism. Poor maintenance and disease led to deaths among the students. Disconnected from his people and forbidden from speaking their native language, he could not fit in among his people. It drove Bhurrsk to rebellion and into the underground.
The Trandoshan treats word as a scalpel, a sharp instrument of reason, underpinned by an insistence on the truth of Equalism. Bhurrsk is nicknamed the assessor. He is responsible primarily for assessing religious groups. Unlike certain anti-Force movements, the Republican Guard is not atheistic, but obviously opposed to Force-based religions. Thus the group has to assess whether a cult falls under that definition or is skirting the line.
This is where Bhurrsk comes in. Of course, the 'Free Territory' is far from a completely bureaucraticed society. If it were his job would be a lot easier. Its boundaries are ever-shifting and it is under constant threat of Vaderite or Dominion bombardment. Moreover, infrastructure and communications are poor. What administration the Guard is able to put in power is often ad hoc - villagers' assemblies, workers' councils, revolutionary committees. Personnel shortages have forced the Guard to rely on administrators who served the ancien régime.
The Guard champions the emancipation of the masses, but worries that the allegedly superstitious beliefs of former Vaderite or Dominion subjects could bring down the movement from within. All this means is that Bhurrsk is a bureaucratic troubleshooter who goes where he is needed. He starts subtle when dealing with supposed cults. First he has agents infiltrate and attempt to learn about the sects and groups. Some are agents provocateurs who try to trap them. All of it is carefully recorded and noted. Sometimes he is more direct to make an example.
Dashora Lhazak (NPC) - the teacher. A Cathar Regulator who comes from a family of refugees and grew up in the maquis. She takes an active role in educating and psychologically analysing Force-Sensitive inmates, especially children and young Padawans, and writes educational material. Her role encompasses education, psychology and profiling. She has a strong maternal vibes. Softly-spoken and composed, she is the kind of person who sets a room at ease.
The Regulator tries to convince her charges through a series of different methods to 'reject the tyranny of the the spirits' and sincerely mentor them. But she is also prepared to send them off for more 'intensive -re-education' if persuasion and therapy fail. She provides her superiors with psychological profiles so that they can better control them. Dashora is very interested in the emotional health of her charges, as the Force seems to be triggered by feelings of intense of stress, anger, fear, emotional disorders etc. But it is not enough to control emotion; the 'cursed' must become emotionally mature and learn to cope with stress so that they do not succumb to temptation at the first opportunity.
Her methods clash with some of the more militant Regulators. Dashora rarely wears uniform and dislikes Regulators who think they must be in full battle gear in every room to do their job, and constantly intimidate the cursed. That only creates a permanent source of anxiety and stress that muddles the analysis. The Cathar questions the theories of the Progressivists, but regards their findings as interesting enough to be worthy of study.
Dashora made herself a name when she was put in charge of teaching the son of a Sith Lord who had been captured young. The boy had a strong Force potential, but she was able to sway him from the destructive ways of the mages. Now he has been stripped of the Force but is touted as an example. The Guard has a memorial of the wickedness of the Force and he gives tours there.
Zhaelor Lah - the zealot. A Yuuzhan Vong male and borderline zealot who has become renowned for tracking down and locating Force-Sensitives in hiding and rooting out Jedi and Sith cults and destroying their tomes. His success rate is impressive, as is his body count. He has been responsible for shooting Force-Sensitives, even Padawans, under the grounds that they were too dangerous to be left alive. He is a figure of hatred for the Progressivists.
But he is neither mindless nor insane. Zhaelor was born in Vaderite territory and experienced the Vaderites' genocide against his people from an early age. He grew up in a world that despised him simply on account of his species, and believed he was worth less than dirt because he was an 'abomination'. He made himself a name as a fearless partisan leader and hunter. For a while he was a judge on a people's tribunal. In this capacity, he openly proclaimed that he was guided by the interests of the revolution and not bound by legalistic proceedings.
Zhaelor is a strong supporter of imposing mandatory Force-Deadness. One cannot allow freedom when the Force is inherently corrupting, swaying even the purest. It is an abomination unto nature itself. He fears the Commission is only doing damage control and not doing enough to hold back the darkness. Zhaelor commands his own special ops team of agents and investigators. He does not discriminate on the basis of species, for speciesism is a tool used by evil magi to divide the people. So his strike force includes many non-Vuuzhan Vong members. Intense, commanding and charismatic, he is skilled at riling up the people to participate in witch hunts.
Ynaric Qe'lar - the archivist, a Force-Dead Caamasi female and the person responsible for securing, cataloguing and containing forbidden texts and all that. Arcane such as sacred Jedi texts and Sith holocrons are handled by her department. Ideally, she is supposed to destroy most of what she finds. Items that cannot be destroyed must be hidden away and rendered inaccessible, lest the malevolent eldritch entity known as the Force corrupt innocent minds.
But even though the Force cannot affect her, the knowledge can still be tempting due to her curious nature. She keeps a stash of items locked away for private study. She is a bit annoyed by the fact that holocrons cannot be activated by her, but she has been studying books about alchemy, which she feels is something she should investigate. Her fascination with arcane matters comes from the forbidden nature of it and, to put it plainly, pride and arrogance. She thinks she knows the most about these items, so she can study them best. Another reason is the fact that she has witnessed the sheer destructiveness of the Force. Ynaric has witnessed first-hand the destruction the Force can cause - vaporised cities, millions dead, cursed nexi - and she does not believe science is enough.
Like all Caamasi, she can share share vivid memories called memnii. Aside from overseeing the archives, she has also supervised archaeological digs to unearth and secure ancient temples and other sites that are of value. Ynaric grew up in Republican Guard territory, being raised in a settlement that had been under the rebels' sway for a long time. Because of their rarity, mental abilities and reputation her people serve as scribes, high placed clerks or advisors. She was volunteered to become Force Dead.
Bahadur - the idealist. A Mon Calamari and in many respects the ideal Regulator, but receives less recognition. When he was young, a childhood friend manifested the Force, bringing a lynch mob to their doorsteps. The Commission was dispatched, and instead of siding with the mob or letting them kill his friend, the they tood between the mob and the mage and took the child to the safety of the Amidala Asylum. Ever since, Bahadur has admired and wanted to be that sort of Regulator, who protects even the lowest and weakest.
His parents told him to forget about his friend. His family had a lot of prestige for its dedication to the revolutionary cause. Force-Users were evil witches and that was that. However, Bahadur joined the Commission as soon as he could. He is in it for the job, not the rewards and power. His family family don't understand why and thinks he should be more ruthless.
In terms of personality, Bahadur is disciplined and firm, but also empathic and kind. He is eager to do the nice thing when it is the right thing, while regretting it when the right thing is not the sympathetic thing to do. Justice over empathy, from a caring person who believes both are possible. He is the 'idealism through struggle' sort and a protector archetype.
Bahadur has protected both Force-Sensitives and mundanes. He has not won glory through frontline action, but has tracked down rogue mages and Regulators. He was one of the agents who protected Amidala Asylum inmates from an angry mob during the Nether event. He tries hard to be and largely is the 'ideal' agent of reputation. This has earned him mockery and scorn from those who 'know better', but he also gives by his credo. He has a strict code against abusing magi or tolerating Regulators who do.
In his early days as a Regulator, he severely punished a Force-Sensitive for a crime they later turned out to be innocent of. Bahadur still fears and distrusts the Force, but feels a lot of guilt due to this incident. It is too late to undo what he did, so doing his duty shall be his penance. He was responsible for prosecuting a Regulator who was illegally lobotomising Force-Sensitives to 'make them safe'.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Rebellions, it is said, are built on hope. But they require more than passion and fervour. This may be less uplifting than a tale about plucky rebels defeating arch-villains in thrilling duels. They require organisation, supplies, logistics. And means to suppress real and perceived internal enemies. While some rebel movements have adhered to the rules of war more strongly than others, each has a less pleasant side. The outbreak of the Gulag Virus had a profound impact on almost every inhabited world in the Galaxy. The repercussions for Tephrike were extreme. The planet's fragile democracy had already been under fire due to racial and social tensions. Moreover, the planet was highly dependent on galactic trade. Things turned from bad to worse as the survivors warred amonst themselves. Tephrike's small Jedi enclave tried to impose order and fight the darkness, but ended up becoming the very evil they fought against, while insisting that they were righteous.
Influenced by a warped interpretation of the old Jedi code, they sought to bring the planet under the control of a radical Jedi theocracy, the Dominion of Light, which took totalitarian control to new heights. Inevitably, there was opposition. The common people of Tephrike were caught between a rock and a hard place. It was only a matter of time before Force blind rebel groups united and formed their own faction, the Republican Guard. Like the Jedi and the Sith, this faction turned to an idealised past. The Dominion of Light saw itself as the successor of the Jedi Lords, Lord Hoth and Mace Windu, the Disciples of the Vader regarded themselves as the heirs of the 'Dark God' Vader and the Republican Guard believed it was restoring the Old Republic.
Prior to these cataclysmic events, Red Coral City had been a rather minor settlement. Founded by Gungans and Nautolans, it had been one of many aquatic settlements created by aquatic aliens who'd settled on Tephrike. It only really made the headlines when the locals complained that the activities of a foreign corporation were causing serious damage to the sea and the wildlife in it, leading to protests, Its obscurity turned out to be a blessing because it was spared much of the initial destruction that took place. However, social unrest, food shortages and the plague forced the local administration to implement harsh measures to keep order. The small town was soon faced with a refugee crisis. Desperate to escape the fighting, refugees bribed smugglers to help them get into the settlement. Strict border controls were imposed, not the least because the natives feared that they would be inundated.
Like many areas dominated by aquatic aliens, Red Coral City's inhabitants supported Tephrike's old, federal government, which was losing ground to the Force cultists and warlords. Furthermore, the Dominion of Light launched punitive expeditions to bring the underwater towns into the fold. Fear of fifth columnists was rampant and led to the lynching of suspected spies. Moreover, refugees told horrific stories about the deeds of the Windian Jedi.
A canny Quarren politician called Zoho Koquon took control. He would go down in history as the Founding Father of the Republican Guard. He swept to power on a tide of revolutionary fervour and proclaimed a policy of total resistance. Rebel movements coalesced around Koquon's New Sons of Freedom. They called themselves the Red Coral Commune. It was they who gave birth to the Republican Guard, which defended the town from Dominion invasion.
But there was another force lurking in the shadows. At the time it was called the Special Commission on Force Matters and officially part of Red Coral City's police force. Its head was a Twi'lek called Tae Saresh. He was a professional policeman by trade, who excelled at his craft. Saresh was an old friend of Koquon and deeply concerned about fith column agents and saboteurs. He was enlisted to assist with general police and spy work, but took a special interest in the Force User issue.
He had gained renown for investigating a series of grisly murders connected to cultists and foiling an assassination plot. Saresh deeply distrusted the Force, but was not a zealot. His main goal was to create and stabilise the fledgling rebel movements to root out the internal enemy. Thus he intended for the department to create stability. He disapproved of the lynchings and extrajudicial executions of alleged fifth columnists that occured as a spy mania gripped the city.
However, for this he needed control. The Special Commission soon outgrew its humble origins as a sub-department of the criminal investigative police. Saresh disapproved of wanton violence, but carried out mass incarcerations of Force-Users. The Commission worked around the clock to track down, profile and interrogate Force-Sensitives. At the time, it did not have carte blanche to arrest people on the basis of their Midichlorian count. Koquon supported Force-User registration and exclusion from public office, but not all-out suppression. Indeed, in these early days the Commission even employed a few 'sanctioned' Force-Users. Unsanctioned 'magi' were supposed to receive drugs to suppress their abilities and be monitored. However, alarmist reports of real and imagined cultist activity fanned the flames.
Then Koquon was assassinated by a sanctioned Force-User. He had not had the time to enjoy the young rebellion's successful defence of Red Coral City. His death had a radicalising effect on the rebel movement. The Commission was able to apprehend and eliminate his assassin, but its reputation had suffered a strong blow. His death had a radicalising effect on the rebel movement, causing the Republican Guard to not just disenfranchise Force-Users, but eventually ban Force use entirely.
He was succeeded by Clone Commander Sinya Kairn, the leader of a force of clone troopers that had defected to the rebels and helped turn the tide against their former masters. Sinya governed as a military dictator and prosecuted an aggressive campaign. She arranged an alliance with Tephrike's Yuuzhan Vong, who were being persecuted by the Vaderites. Saresh adjusted to the new regime. The agency was renamed the Extraordinary Commission for Preternatural Control and Regulation. As if under compulsion to disprove claims that he had been soft on Force-Users, he and his colleagues sought to implement a comprehensive system of surveillance and suppression. But he found himself under fire.
His rival was a firebrand Yuuzhan Vong called Siun Thal, a survivor of the Vaderites' genocidal campaign against her people. Having experienced the atrocities of Force-Users first-hand, she advocated a concerted effort to 'nullify' all threats. This often took the form of encouraging pogroms. For many people in Republican Guard territory, this was a tempting prospect. Vast swathes of the planet had been devastated by the religious war between the magi. The Dominion and the Vaderites had turned Tephrike's old capital into a radioactively contaminated, cursed wasteland.
The Vaderites were ethnically cleansing the non-human population from their territory through systematic mass deportations, mass killings and enslavement. The Dominion's Windian Jedi Order was creating a slave state. It had become increasingly popular to attribute the outbreak of the Gulag Virus to a Jedi or Sith conspiracy. Both powers viewed Force-Users as superior to 'squibs', though the Vaderites were more blatant about it. In addition, Yuuzhan Vong shock troops were proving a crucial asset for the partisans and their science offered the prospect of freeing more citizens from the curse of the Force. Militants found eager converts among the survivors of Dominion or Vaderite massacres. Revolutionary terror, in their view, was a justified response to the cruelty the Force-Using tyrants had subjected them to.
Thal was able to outmanoeuvre her rival and acquire a dominant role in the Regulators. The Commission launched a fiery inquisition, aiming to stamp out cultist activity. Suppressing Jedi and Sith agents was not enough; religious cults deemed 'unmutual' and contaminated by Jedi-Sith thinking had to be eliminated. The Regulators acquired substantial powers over policing and security forces. Sinya was a successful warlord and very aggressive in expanding the Republican Guard's territory, fighting the Vaderites, warlords and others.
The Amidala Asylum, founded by General Kairn to teach Force-users to suppress their powers, became the most well-known institution. When the Guard was able to not just set up revolutionary cells in Sith or Dominion provinces, but conquer and hold territory, ancillary facilities were established. However, the Asylum remained the most notorious and well-known. Not all members of the Guard agreed with the official policy. There was quite a scandal when it was revealed that one of their commanders had set up a secret unit of 'sanctioned' Force-Users, who were kept on a leash and used as special operatives to combat Jedi and Sith. For a while the Asylum lacked viable means of permanently suppressing a Force adept's power. This made incarceration risky. Brutalised by the horrors of war, partisans operating far from the centre were more likely to shoot Force-Users out of hand. Indeed, intelligence acquire by the spooks through interrogation helped the partisans thwart a Vaderite bioweapons attack that had been tailored to non-humans.
But many innocents fell victim to the Regulators. When the partisans managed to seize a village or a small town, special squads of the Commission would root out cultist activity. Residents would be encouraged to inform on those practicing 'superstitions'. The cheapest and surest way of waging the war against the witch and the demon was by execution. The partisans had loudly and correctly denounced the massacres committed by the Dominion's tyrannical inquisition, but now gave the Regulators official sanction to shoot their victims, even without charge or trial. Such power invigorated the Regulators, and they spawned numerous offsprings.
Soon every district or town under rebel control had its own Extraordinary Commission. However, coordination remained haphzard. The remit was broad and vague. It took time until these local groups, some run by fanatics, others by more lenient moderates, were brought under the full control of the centre. Some conducted themselves as minor warlords, raising militias to cow dissent. War-torn Tephrike had more than enough armaments to equip the secret police's paramilitary forces. Finding acceptable recruits proved more difficult.
Its victims included 'cultist hostages' who had been rounded up and executed in retaliation for Vaderite or Dominion attacks. One such massacre took place in 'retaliation' for the Vaderite 'sterilisation' of the Blue Bridge Commune, which had been rendered uninhabitable. Wholesale arrests and use of torture became a staple of the system. Power with impunity inevitably attracted criminal elements and zealots unconcerned with even the fig leaf of revolutionary legality. According to Thal, the only people who could perform the secret police work of the Regulators were saints and scoundrels, and the saints had left her to deal with the scoundrels. Reports of massacres caused outrage among Republican Guard officials still committed to 'revolutionary legality', though these voices were muted. Thal would outlive her friend Sinya, who died a hero's death fighting Vaderite troops. The Vong was killed by a Dominion drone strike. However, her influence over the Regulators remained.
After some strife, the Republican Guard received new leadership, and instituted some internal democracy in the process. The Guard had shifted away from conventional warfare to a strategy of protracted guerrilla war. Ironically, one of the driving forces was a Yuuzhan Vong called Mezhan Sh'roth, General Secretary of the Popular Front. Mezhan wanted revenge on the Vaderites and the Dominion, but also realised that this would take time. She rose to the position of chancellor. These changes did not leave the Regulators unaffected.
They lost their dominance over the militia and the secret police and were at least in theory made accountable to the revolutionary courts that had replaced the judiciary, though the latter remained nominal in many ways. The Commission branched out into propaganda to educate the population about the righteousness of its cause. It also established a department to carry out archaeological digs and secure or destroy Force artefacts, mindful of the sinister attraction such items held and the danger they could pose in the hands of Force-Users. To this day, the Regulators glorify a brave Rodian who, when cornered by Jedi, chose to riddled with bullets and fall into a lava pit with the enchanted ring instead of let it fall into their hands. In contrast to say the Dominion's Jedi Inquisition, the Regulators did not grow into a private army and remained focused on policing, though they fielded various special ops units.
The spooks remained ruthless, but their methods became subtler and more professional. The increasingly hysterical religious mania was substituted by a 'medicalised' discourse that treated Force-Sensitivity as a disease. Force-Sensitives, even children, had to be isolated and monitored for their own good, but true cultists were supposed to be treated differently from common citizens who simply had the misfortune of being born with the curse. Under the new direction, the Amidala Asylum served as a cross between a high-security prison complex, research facility and mental health institution. It enlisted Yuuzhan Vong Shapers to devise technologies to make it easier to suppress the powers of Force-Sensitives.
This also led to a policy of only employing Force-Dead guards in the Asylum. After all, they could not be mind-tricked. Family members of inmates were allowed to visit them to an extent, though such visits were monitored and treated as a privilege rather than inherent right. Because the Amidala Asylum was meant to be a showpiece and cure unfortunately diseased citizens, the Regulators maintained more remote black sites to hold captive Jedi and Sith, as they were deemed too risky to be sent to a place where they could corrupt more innocent minds. Of course, there were escape and infiltration attempts. Though its central command sustained severe casualties, the Regulators were able to survive when the Dominion's troops briefly managed to occupy Red Coral City. The settlement had originally been established by Quarrens and Gungans, and so the Republican Guard drowned the invaders by shutting down the hydrostatic field in parts of the city.
However, shortly before the Netherworld Event, Dominion agents managed to infiltrate the Asylum and help some of the inmates help. The escapees' leader was a Nautolan called Phoebe. She was identified as a Force-Sensitive as a young girl, when she used her powers to save her parents from a rock slide. The fact that she was being locked up after saving them left her bitter and resentful. She found conditions in the facility oppressive, and lived in fear of the 'cure'. The group was brought to the Dominion, where they appeared in propaganda broadcasts to speak about the evils of the system. This was a major embarrassment for the Extraordinary Commission and the Asylum. It led to a serious shakeup. However, Phoebe and her friends soon saw that the Dominion was a totalitarian dictatorship. Phoebe ended up in a Dominion concentration camp.
Like virtually every institution, the Regulators were thrown into disarray by the Netherworld Event. Regulators and inmates alike were suddenly raptured. Mass panic and hysteria ensued as those who had been left behind tried to find a culprit. Many blamed dark magicks. Little did they know that they were right, but no one knew of the mad goddess Akala and she was beyond their reach in any case. An enraged mob, whipped into a frenzy by demagogues, stormed Amidala Asylum, blaming its inmates for the calamity.
To their credit, several guards tried to protect the facility and their charges. Nonetheless, it was a bloodbath. Some of the inmates managed to escape during the chaos. Some sought to flee the settlement with varying success, but others stayed and went underground. Feeling vengeful, they formed a gang that became a menace to the inhabitants of Red Coral City, terrorising those who had scorned them. Eventually order was restored by the Guard. The disruption caused by the Netherworld Event contributed to Jaqat Gosir's ascent in the Commission. Herself a former inmate who had been 'freed' of her curse, she was a staunch supporter of the system.
The Asylum was rebuilt, but suspicion of uncontrolled Force-users only intensified. Harsh punitive measures were carried out by the Commission. It also tightened security by implementing a fail safe, a final resort to prevent mass breakouts or attacks. Taking advantage of the fact that the Force being thrown out of balance had weakened their foes, the Guard launched a grand offensive against the Dominion. It was supposed to deal the knockout blow and incite a general uprising among the people. The Regulators dispatched special, mobile squads to assist the advancing partisans by identifying and arresting Jedi and cultists, interrogating captives, educating the population and unmasking stay-behind organisations. In many ways, it was a return to the old days.
The fighting was characterised by great ruthlessness on both sides. Both groups treated it as the final struggle between good and evil. As casualties mounted, the Guard started sending inmates deemed sufficiently 'cured' to perform auxiliary duties on the front lines to support the troops. A few saw action, particulaly those who had been turned Force-Dead. However, after initial successes the offensive failed. The Guard was defeated in the bloody battle of Fortress Purity and forced to withdraw.
The debacle was a great blow to the Guard's morale. But the rebels stubbornly held on to the Palmyra's Wail nexus, even when assailed by zombies and demonic entities. The partisans held vigil over the ashes of Tephrike's ruined capital to prevent Jedi and Sith from harnessing it. The Regulators established a small facility to investigate the anomalies and destory or secure dangerous arcane artefacts. There they clashed with the Ashspawn, a race of sentient zombies spawned by the nexus. A few years later, the partisans returned to Purity and took the fortress with the help of Firemane. It was an alliance neither side had desired, and the result of Firemane being betrayed by the Dominion.
The revelation that there was life outside Tephrike and that the Dominion was vulnerable left the partisans emboldened, but also suspicious. When the partisans managed to take part of Vortanstad, establishing their own zone in the former industrial centre, the Regulators followed and began a systematic campaign to root out Ashlanite influence. With the city split in two between the Dominion and the rebels, they had no shortage of enemies to be vigilant against. Furthermore, due to the uneasy accord between Firemane and the Republican Guard, the Regulators were given the task to monitor contact between the 'space people' and the rebels. After all, the foreigners had many Forcewielders in their ranks.
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