Departmento Praetorum

The Departmento Praetorum is a division of the Administratum. Described as a paramilitary organization, the Praetorum acts the secret police and internal security force of the Imperium, responsible for maintaining Administratum rule over the Imperium of Man. It is the largest intelligence agency in the Adeptus Terra, although it lacks the equipment or authority the Inquisition holds. Despite this, the Preatorum is feared by citizens of the Imperium, whether innocent or not, for its ruthlessness and sheer brutality in clamping down on heresy and descent. Praetorii have the authority to arrest and sentence anyone they believe to be a threat to the security of the Imperium, bypassing the judicial system entirely. Other units operate surveillance stations, filled with psychers attached to massive cognatiors. These station transmit the thoughts and feeling of the inhabitants of entire star systems, with the intention of grading the loyalty of the Imperium's subjects. The largest subdivision, the Main Office of Territorial Guards, is responsible for the protection of key infrastructure and the civil transportation system, such as space ports, tithe fleets and prisoner convoys. They can also be deployed to war zones as rear guard troops tasked with securing key areas, such as factories and POW camps. Territorial Guard regiments are all light infantry units that rarely engage in offensive actions. The Main Office of Executive Escort provides personal protection to top level Administratum leaders and VIPs. Although not part of the armed forces, the Praetorum follows rules and regulations similar to that of the Imperial Guard, with a similar ranking system.
==History==
===Origins===
The Praetorum is not the first or only state security organization under the Adeptus Administratum. In fact, the modern Praetorum was not founded until the year 388 M39, in the wake of the post Gorgevin reforms. While the Inquisition has served as the Imperium's main intelligence organ since the end of the heresy, its status as a secret organization not bound to the dictates of the high lords and the independent nature of its agents mean that Inquisitors are mostly involved in their own separate investigation without the oversight of the High Lords. An array of security agencies under the Adeptus Terra functioned during the great crusade and later under the Adinistratum as it tightened its grip on Imperial politics. The first major secret police organization was the Interior Security Bureau (ISB), founded in 106 M34 by order of Constantius Helmwahr, then Master of the Administratum. For the next millennium and a half, the ISB was reorganized and placed under the purview of different branches, including the Departmento Magistraum (the agency responsible for criminal law enforcement and the penal labor system), the Munitorum or as an independent agency subordinated to the Estate Imperium. Its functions were intelligence, counterintelligence, survalliance and secret police work. Its agents wore plain clothes, except when combat was nesessary. During this time, the ISB was used to spy on the populace and other Adepta, particularly the Ecclesiarchy and the increasingly secessionist lords of Segmentum Pacificus, who later seceded in 596 M34 to form the United Revolutionary (UR) Council of Nova Terra, setting off the time of the Twin Empires. 
===Departmento Investigatorum: 483-998 M35===
Nolan Ephilus became Master of the Administratum in 422 M35 at the hight of the Nova Terra Interregnum. His reign was marked by conservativism, crony capitalism and escalating tensions with the Ecclesiarchy, which sought to dominate the High Lords and usurp the power of the Administratum. Ephilus strengthened the ISB, giving it Departmento status as the Investigatorum. The Investigatorum was greatly increased in size and function, now charged with the monitoring high level communications on Terra and other hubs of Imperial power. Its agents were given the power to investigate any Adept or private citizen without judicial oversight. The Investigatorum established cells in all departments of the Administratum, especially on Hive worlds and the military branches, where it looked out for signs of treachery and double dealings with the Ecclesiarchy. It even had agents in the Holy Synod on Ophelia VII and later the Ecclesiarchal Palace on Terra. Its powers were reduced and the organization was disbanded after the Cataclysm of Souls, when the Ecclesiarch once again assumed the role of dominant High Lord for the first time since the beginning of the 34th millennium. 
===Age of Apostacy: 998 M35-021 M37===
After the Investigatorum was disbanded, its main organs once again became the Interior Security Bureau and its powers were reduced due to the reinforcement of judicial oversight. Although the ISB, renamed Imperial Security Service under Goge Vandire regained some of its powers back, the agency did not take a large role in Vandire's tyranny as the insane high lord preferred to use the Brides of the Emperor or his own private vigilante groups. The ISS was split into the Officio Intelligentum (intelligence and counterintelligence), ISB (secret police) and Officio Synopticon (Surveillance and SIGNIT) in 439 M36. 
===Age of Redemption: 021 M37- 332 M39===
The Imperium's warring factions agreed to settle their differences and at the Council of Amorra agreed to reuinification. New High Lords were chosen and the Ecclesiarch Julius II, Inquisitorial Representative Ekaterina Augilla and Master of the Administratum Sandor Volecht signed the Concordant of Co-operation and Mutual Assistance, which guaranteed the independence of the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum's status as the preeminent secular authority in the Imperium. The new High Lords launched the cull, a massive purge of heretical and unreliable elements in the Imperium's Adepta. Volecht formed the Departmento Securitatum by combining the Officio Intelligentum, Officio Synopticon, the ISB and Malcador the Sigalette Guards Regiment into a single organization. The Securitatum assisted the Ordo Hereticus in the Cull, organizing the arrest of heretics and crushing dissidents. The Securitatum during the age of Redemption was very similar to the Investigatorum and played a key role in the Redemption Crusades, providing intelligence and internal security to the crusader forces and rooting out heresy at home. Unlike the Investigatorum, the Securitatum was organized along military lines: men were issued uniforms and followed similiar rules and regulations of the Imperial Guard and Navy, such as ranks based on those of the Imperial Guard. The inclusion of the six millennia old elite Malcador the Sigilette Guards Regiment, which provided protection for top Adeptus Terra leaders, their families and guests of honor, cemented the Administratum's status as the leading agency of the Adeptus Terra, making the two agencies effectively synonomous. The Securitatum is rumored to have been involved in the failure of the Children's Crusade, an attempt by idealistic peace activists to march to Terra and demand peaceful reforms, such giving false information to the pilots so that their ships would be lost in the warp or waylaid by pirates. Some historitors even suggest that the entire crusade was a false flag operation, in which the Securitatum worked with elements of the Inquisition to eliminate all heretical elements in one single swoop. 
===Gorgevin era: 332-387 M39 ===
The Redeption Crusades came to a crashing halt in 114 M39, when the High Lords declared the crusades had come to an end. The result was revolt: zealots hungry for violence, soldiers who knew no life other than war and powerful industrialists who had made a fortune through the Crusades, rebelled en masse, effectively turning the crusades onto the Imperium itself. From 114 to 321 M39, a serious of strongmen fought for control over the Imperium, High Lords were frequent vicitims of assassination and warlords carved out their own petty empires. These two centuries of anarchy came to a close when the Imperium came under the rule of a populist faction of the Senatorum known as the Popularii, which siezed control over all the Segmentum hubs and crushed the rebels in the seven year war. Among these men was Alexander Gorgevin, a former Ordo Malleus Inquisitor who left his rosette behind to join the Popularii and restore order to the Imperium. Gorgevin became Master of the Administratum and First Secretary of the Senatorum Imperialis, a temporary position that was meant to make sure honest adepts were given appropriate power. However, Gorgevin used this new and what most thought unassuming position to place his cronies and former acolytes into key positions, while fostering rivalry and discontent amongst the other adepta, chiefly the Mechanicus and Ecclessiarchy. By 332 M39, he was the undisputed dictator of the Imperium with near unlimited power, which he used to crush his opponents, real or imagined, ushering in an era of unprecedented genocide and terror unseen since Goge Vandire or even the Horus Heresy.
Gorgevin's main weapon was the Securitatum, which was merged seven years into his reign with the Magistratum and the gendarmes (previously under the control of Sector or Segmentum Masters), giving it a monopoly on all law enforcement and security duties, in addition to the vast system of labor camps. The Securitatum, or Securitate as it was known as at the time, carried out mass executions, deportations, liquidated entire abhuman species and subjected trillions of people to slave labor in order to build huge public works projects and industrialize new worlds under Gorgevin's "Campaign to Revitalize and Restore the Strength and Majesty of Mankind". In addition, Gorgevin, using his allies within the Inquisition, seized control of that organization as well, and used it to strengthen and enhance the Terror. By the end of his reign four ecclisiarchs, two fabricator generals, 10 speakers of the chartist captains, all but two members of High Command, almost all the segmentum command staffs, three Grand Masters of the Assassins and even two Inquisitorial representitves had been either exececuted or mysteriously disappeared, usually denounced by their underlings to the Inquisition or Securitate. Even the Securitate was not immune: of the five men who served as Prefectus of the Departmento Securitatum during this time only one survived: Valentin Cassevelanos, the rest were stripped of their title and excecuted as well. The madness came to an end when Gorgevin's own cronies in the Administratum and Inquisition had him poisoned, to prevent him from launching more purges and possibly igniting a civil war with the Mechanicus and Ecclesiarchy. Many of the best, brightest and most talented of mankind were killed or imprisoned, causing the Imperium to undergo decades of stagnation due to incompetent leadership and the resulting brain drain. Although Gorgevin's death was initially announced to be from natural causes and was buried with full honors, his legacy was subject to the Edict of Obliteration, with all statues and paintings of him being gradually removed and his name edited out of the history books. Only the most learned of Imperial savants know about this shameful chapter in the Imperium's history.
===Departmento Praetorum: M39 389 to present===
In the aftermath of Gorgevin's death, various factions scrambled for control over the Imperium. Eventually, Valentin Cassevelanos, Gorgevin's last Securitate chief, was arrested on order of his rivals and executed for his role in the terror and genocide of Gorgevin's despotic regime. The new High Lords then signed the Edict of Mathann, which barred Inquisitors from joining the Adeptus Terra or any ruling Imperial institution, and that any Inquisitor that leaves or is expelled from the Holy Ordos be declared a heretic and subject to execution. The Securitate was reigned in. Its functions were split once again into Magistratum, responsible for criminal law enforment and the newly renamed Praetorum, responsible for intelligence and state security. The Praetorum took on its modern form: it was charged with intelligence, counterintelligence, secret police, gendarme, survalliance, SIGNIT and guarding the leaders of the Administratum. Since then, the structure of the Praetorum has not changed.
==Organization==
Unlike most Administratum Departmentos, the Praetorum is highly centralized, its agents reporting directly to the Master of the Administratum and is not subordinate to local authorities. Its leader is the Praetor Prefectus, who on occasion will serve on the Senatorum Imperialis as a representative of the Master of the Administratum. It is divided in seven main offices:
===1. Main Office of General Security===
The General Security Main Office is the department charged with intelligence, counterintelligence, secret police and special forces. It is the most well known and prestigious agency, its adepts are well trained and fanatical, leaving no corner for traitors and heretics. It also operates the dreaded Liquidation Teams, death squads sent to warzones with the sole purpose of exterminating entire segments of the civilian population deemed at risk of heresy or defection. 
*Intelligence: Espionage, threat analysis, active measures behind enemy lines
*Counterintelligence: Internal security, secret police, repression of heretics, infiltration of other adepta
*Military Counterintelligence: Maintain loyalty amongst the ranks, preventing infiltration and spying on officers and soldiers
*Templars: Special forces, called Templars, that engage the enemy using infiltration, sabotage and psychological warfare
*Field Units: Operates rear guard security and scorched earth units called Liquidation Teams.
===2. Main Office of Surveillance ===
The Surveillance Main Office is responsible for monitoring the great masses of mankind. Unlike the First Main Office, the 2nd Main Office does not engage in investigation nor has armed units at its disposal. Its operatives install surveillance systems and monitor them for signs of heresy. The Second Main Office is also responsible for analyzing ripples in the warp to predict potential threats. It is commonly known by the nickname "synopticon".
*Psychic Surveillance: Maintains stations that process the thoughts and feelings of the entire population.
*Audio Surveillance: Installs wire taps and servo skulls in important areas to keep an eye on potential threats and heretical activity
*Personal Surveillance: Maintain surveillance on potential suspects and hot spots where heresy is believed to be rife
===3. Main Office of Territorial Guards===
The paramilitary gendarme of the Imperium, units consist of light infantry formations assigned to guard key areas in the Imperium. Territorial Guards are most numerous on Hive worlds, Fortress worlds or Research stations, anywhere with a strong Administratum presence. They also guard administrative craft, such as the tithe fleet, interstellar civilian transportation and prisoner convoys. They do not guard merchant vessels or other privately owned space craft.
*Civil Protection Troops: Troops assigned to guard large public places on key worlds and protect state property. They are usually equipped with anti riot gear.
*Customs and Port Security Troops: Guards space ports on key worlds. These troops are oath bound to protect the regions they are assigned to and can only move to the defense of other regions by order of their superiors.
*Transport troops: Guard the Imperium's state owned transportation system, tithe fleets and logistical ships that carry supplies.
*Convoy troops: Guard prisoners and settlers in transit to their destination
*Industrial Security troops: Guard chemical plants, power stations, strategically important industries, research stations and secret installations
*Rear Security troops: Responsible for rear guard protection during wartime and anti-partisan operations.
===4. Main Office of Executive Escort===
The 4th Main Office is responsible for the personal projtection of the Imperium's leadership. They form the security details that surround important officials while in public and protect their homes, property and family. Its divided into three officios, two of which are more akin to military formations. 
*Malcador the Sigalette Guards Regiment: Responsible for protecting the leaders of the Administratum and in times of emergency can supplement the Custodes in the defense of the Imperial palace.
*Executive Security: Provides bodyguards to segmentum and sector Administratum prefects and their families.
*Transit Security: Operates Terra's high level secret freeways, used only by the elites of the Imperium and Adeptus Administrarum
===5. Main Office of Communications and Censorship===
This main office is responsible for receiving, storing and censoring classified information, and maintaining high level communication systems used by the leaders of the Administratum, Imperial High Command and their sector, segmentum and, in certain cases, planetary equivalents. 
*SIGNIT: Responsible for controlling the communication systems in the Imperial palace and other centers of Imperial control, such as High Command.
*Censorship: This office oversees the censorship of confidential information and protecting state secrets.
*Security: Responsible for intercepting enemy communications and decoding this information to gain intelligence on enemy troop movements
===6. Main Office of Infrastructure and Supply===
Infrastructure and Supply is responsible for the logisitcs of the organization and as well as managing special projects and processesing property and items seized by heretics. It agents are most engaged in beaurocratic work and are never in the field. It is the lease prestigious main office, although its head is considered to be one of the most powerful men in the Preatorum's leadership. 
*Economics: Processes goods seized from heretics and traitors that have been apprehended and sends them back to Terra for processing
*Infrastructure: Organizes logistics of the organization, plans publics works projects and supply of Praetorum units
*Membership: This office is responsible for operating the payroll and pension system for both active and retired agents.
*Finance: Responsible for financial affairs of the Praetorum
===Combat formations===
====Malcador the Sigilette Guards Regiment====
The half million strong Malcador the Sigilette Guards Regiment protects the leadership of the Administratum and guests of honor. This formation is one of the oldest in the Imperium, founded after the Emperor's internment to the Golden Throne from the remnants of Malcador's Chosen. It was considered an independent military formation before becoming part of the Securitatum during the Age of Redemption. The Sigilettes are the only Praetorum unit that is fully equipt for military engagement. Elite members of the regiment wear black power armor that closely resembles that of the Solar Auxilaries of old. The Chosen Band, the elite of the regiment, are equipped with a power halberd and fully automatic bolt pistol, and receive training in hand to hand combat from the Adeptus Custodes themselves. 
====Templars Abyssus====
Better known as Void Commandos, these special forces are amongst the most elite un-augemented human soldiers in the galaxy, comparable to the very best of the Militarum Tempestus or assassins of the Officio Assasinorum. In combat they wear power armor that is similar in appearence to Imperial Naval security or Inquisitorial storm troopers, but with Praetorum insignia. They are equipped with bolters, hot shot lasguns, power swords, combat knives and an assortment of grenades. Despite wearing power armor, this particular form is extremely light weight, with heat sensors, allowing the commandos to detect potential adversaries and weapons that automatically aim at their targets. Void commandos are chosen from either the Schola Progena or amongst the regiments of the Imperial Guard. The aspirant must be a certain height and have near perfect senses. Their training takes five years and is grueling: only one and 1,000 survive. As part of their initiation, the aspirant is released on the death world of Catachan, given only a knife and pistol, and forced to make it to an extraction zone. Those that survive are made into commandos and sent on their first engagement.
Void commandos are given sensitive missions, often by order of the Master of the Administratum himself, considered impossible for normal soldiers. They are typically dropped behind enemy lines or aboard hostile ships, where they are sent to eliminate their target: wheather it be an Ork warboss or the heart of a Tyranid mother ship, the Void commandos excel in stealth, close combat, explosives and marksmanship. They are given terms of service of fifteen years and only a handful of commandos have survived their service, with the mortality rate being close to 100%. 
Other formations include the Templars Psychologis, Templars Biologis and Templars Sabatorum. 
==Command Structure ==
The Praetorum is an Imperial agency, thus it is subject to a system of command that follows directly to the center: Praetorum agents are not under the authority of local administratum prefects and answer to their own commanders. Only the Master of the Administratum or Privy Council has authority over them. However, Praetorum units are duty bound to respond to heretical threats, and often fall under the tactical authority of Imperial High Command or the Segmentum leadership for strategic reasons. The Praetorum, like other Administratum departmentos, is headed by a Prefectus, assisted by four deputy prefects and the chairmen of the Main Offices. This body is called the Collegium, which functions as the organizations high command. This pattern of organization is replicated at the segmentum, sector and subsector levels. The current Prefect Imperialis is Viktor Cassius who assumed the position in 822 M41. 
==Rank and Uniform==
===Rank and Insignia===
The Praetorum has a system of ranks similar to that of the Imperial Guard or Hive world enforcers. 
*Private- none
*Private first class- bronze starburst
*Corporal- silver starburst
*Junior Sergeant- one bronze chevron
*Sergeant- two bronze chevrons
*Senior Sergeant- two bronze chevrons with silver aquilia
*Junior Lieutenant- one silver chevron
*Lieutenant- two silver chevrons
*Major- two silver chevrons with bronze aquilia 
*Captain- one gold chevron
*Lieutenant Colonel- two gold chevrons
*Colonel- two gold chevrons with silver aquilia
*Praetor Tertius- cream chevron with gold wreath
*Praetor Secundus- cream chevron with wreath and one gold skull
*Praetor Primaris- cream chevron with gold wreath and two gold skulls 
*Praetor General- cream chevron with gold wreath and three gold skulls
====Positional ranks====
#Praetor Prefectus: Imperium of Man
#Praetor Segmentus: Segmentum
#Praetor Sectorum: Sector
#Praetor Sectorum Minoris: Sub Sector
In addition to his formal rank, the Praetor Prefectus wears a cream colored sleeve diamond with the Praetorum insignia inside. The diamond worn by a Praetor Segmentus is cream with a bronze Praetourm aquilia, a Sector leader has a black diamond with a gold Praetorum aqulia and a sub-sector leader has a black diamond with a silver Praetorum aquilia. Deputies to the leadership wear a blank diamond and corresponding color (cream for Imperial and Segmentum deputies and black for sector and subsector). 
===Uniform===
Praetorum uniforms are identical to the standard "cadia" pattern Imperial Guard uniforms worn by the military and law enforcement branches of the Imperium, with the color of the uniform being horizon blue instead of olive khaki (Guard and Tempestus) or black (Magistratum and Navy). The symbol of the Praetorum, a wreathed Aquila holding a skull, is worn on the peaked caps and on the side of helmets. The branch insignia is represented by a black diamond worn on the upper left sleeve:
#General Security: a gold skull over with two vertical white bars
#Synopticon: A large eye
#Comitaus: Aquila of the Senatorum Imperialis
#Territorial Guard: Two rapiers crossed
#SIGNIT: An owl's head
#Infrastructure: Administratum rune
Members of the Malcador the Sigilette Guards Regiment are issued an alternative black service uniform with a white cuff on the sleeves with the name of the regiment written in black.
===Equipment ===
All ranking Praetorum personnel are issued a badge, las pistol and horizon blue service uniform with rank insignia. General Security and Comitaus units are given bolt pistols and a rapier. Equipment varies from unit to unit. Typically General Security and Territorial Guardsmen function as light infantry and are not expected to be engaged in frontline combat. The typical territorial guard regiment will have little in the way of armored vehicles or artillery and a couple machine gun detachments are assigned to counterinsurgency troops. Small armored vehicles and transports are also used. Some units man defensive batteries. 
In terms of armor, they are given flak or more rarely carapace armor. Units stationed in urban areas might be issued anti riot gear while those on ships will sometimes wear voidsuits or naval security armor. Like the uniforms, the armor is typically horizon blue in color, but also be navy blue or black.