TAROT Cups

The men and women of the Cups Division are scientists, technicians, doctors, and other technological experts. (Rather unexpectedly, computer specialists are members of the Coins Division, rather than the Cups Division; this fact has been the topic of many off-hours discussions among [{TAROT|Tarot's]] lab rats.) Given Tarot's use of cutting edge (and sometimes beyond-cutting-edge) technology, the organization requires a small army of people who can operate, analyze, build, maintain and repair, and even invent high technology items.
Aside from rare specialty agents like the Stiletto and Gladius agents (in the [{TAROT Swords|Swords Division]]), the various agents of the Cups Division are the most highly educated and well-trained of all of Tarot's personnel. Unusually, not all Cups Agents experience Tarot's "basic training" program; while Tarot prefers to have athletic, physically fit agents at its commend, it makes no sense to kill a 50 year old freshly recruited physicist by putting him through "basic" if all he's going to do is work in a lab afterward.
As with the other divisions, the Cups are ranked by their suit (from Ten of Cups, a recruit trainee, to Ace of Cups, the head of the entire division). Unlike the ranking among the Swords, an individual Cup's rank is more akin to a Civil Service Pay Grade level rather than a military rank. A Cup's rank indicates the level of his responsibility, not how many people he can order around.
Cups are most commonly recruited directly from their fields of expertise. Most have some personal, grudge-based reason for "turning to crime" (for example, Canadian physician Avery Holden, one of the four current Two of Cups, joined TAROT because the pharmaceutical research company he co-founded was stolen out from under him by one of his partners; the company in question is now a TAROT front and the partner's body has never been found). Others join for the money, or for the lack of legal oversight (Tarot's scientific research isn't hampered by silly things like professional ethics, after all), or simply because they are born lawbreakers.
Cups agents sometimes accompany combat teams into the field and carry weapons on those occasions, but they are there more for backup than as actual fighters. When a field mission is called for, a Cups agent is usually equipped with the standard Sword combat body armor, but back at base can usually be found wearing a lab coat over their utility uniforms. (The color scheme for the Cups Division is the standard gray with green accessories.)
The current Ace of Cups is Liu Quinxia. Dr. Liu is an able administrator and a dedicated scientist who's current pet project, Project Myrmidon, naturally gets all the funding it could ever want. Dr. Liu originally joined TAROT because the organization's attitude toward human genetic experimentation was even more "enlightened" that that of his former employer, the government of the People's Republic of China.
==Subdivisions==
The Cup Division can be sub-divided into the following smaller groups:
===Communications===
Tarot's Communications agents typically spend their days monitoring communications and breaking codes when they aren't maintaining and repairing communications equipment. They are also often tasked to go into the field with squads of Sword or Wand agents to coordinate movement and telemetry. At such times, they are usually stationed in a disguised civilian vehicle on the perimeter of the operational area.
===Forensics===
Forensic specialists provide the same service for TAROT as they would working for a law-enforcement agency: they build a detailed picture of past events through analysis of evidence. In addition, TAROT occasionally calls on its Forensic Specialists to cover up (or ruin) evidence at a crime scene. They are also skilled at planting evidence to incriminate someone else. They are occasionally sent into the field with strike teams for this purpose.
===Maintenance===
Barring the Logistics agent (in the Coins Division), the TAROT Maintenance Agent is perhaps the least glamorous of all the possible jobs a TAROT agent could have. The irony is that they, like the Logistics agent, are one of the most essential types of agents a base employs. In general, Maintenance agents never leave their base and never involve themselves in field operations... just in the aftermath.
Maintenance Agents repair and maintain all equipment used by the the other agents in a base. Some Maintenance Agents are weaponsmiths, or energy systems engineers, or computer network engineers, or mechanical engineers. In any case, no TAROT base can function without them.
==Medical==
Surprising at it may seem, [{TAROT]] agents sometimes actually get injured while on the job, and when that happens they call on Medical specialists to help them out. Out of all of the Cups agents, Medical specialists are the ones who most often go into the field. They are recruited from the ranks of failed medical students and those medical professionals who had their licenses yanked because of malpractice or ethical violations.
==Research==
TAROT's Research agents are brilliant, if sometimes slightly sociopathic and unethical, scientists and technicians who use their know-how to build and keep the organization's technological edge. Research agents almost never go into the field; the only occasions that would drag a Researcher out of his lab would be the discovery of some utterly unforeseen technological problem that calls for his expertise.
Category:Agents
Category:Tarot Villains