V.A.S.C.U.

Organization Name:	Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit
Pronunciation: 	
Other names: 	VASCU
Type: 	Third-tier Conspiracy
Founder: 	J. Edgar Hoover
Founded: 	November 2, 1953 (as SCIU)
Endowment: 	Teleinformatics
The Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit, commonly abbreviated to VASCU, is a conspiracy of hunters who actively work within the FBI. They have jurisdiction over all crimes that involve serial and mass killings, and also boast an advantage other branches of the bureau do not have: all of their agents are naturally gifted psychics. These agents are able to channel their talents into VASCU's Endowment, Teleinformatics.
==History==
VASCU has its origins in a number of secret branches within clandestine government operations around the world. The general inspiration is seen as the Society of Twelve Keys, the Scotland Yard branch formed to hunt down Jack the Ripper. In America, the FBI formed the Repeat Crimes Unit (RCU) specifically to hunt down serial killers; it only last a few years before almost all of the agents were killed in an operation gone horrifically wrong. Undaunted, J. Edgar Hoover tried again, reforming the RCU as the Serial Crimes Investigation Unit (SCIU) on November 2, 1953.
Different process was used to hunt down killers under SCIU, one that gave the agents greater jurisdicition, put safer backups to prevent another massacre, and relied more on the used of psychological profilers to help in cases. It wasn't until Dr. Barbara Wintergreen, a researcher into psychics, arrived in 1973 that the branch underwent a significant change. Her research using drugs to allow naturally-gifted psychics to use their powers to a greater extent causes waves through the branch. Early agents using these methods were often untrained and ended up as casualties more often than not, and the FBI saw them as failures. Wintergreen left, feeling her recommendations to train agents were ignored, but the SCIU continued to begrudgingly use the remaining agents who underwent her process. After wave of successful slasher captures with these agents, the FBI took her ideas seriously again, and began restructuring the branch again, now into the entity known as VASCU.
==Purpose==
Highly secretive in its operations, even from other branches and departments of the FBI, VASCU has become one of the world's foremost authorities on motives, tracking, and capturing almost any type of serial killer imaginable, including those who have become supernaturally gifted.
==Organization==
As a tiny percentage of the human population has any sort of psychic sensitivity, VASCU lays claim to all possible FBI recruits with any hint of psychic talent; often this talent is the only way these agents have any sort of qualification to join the Bureau, as they probably do not even meet the other strict requirements to be an agent. In addition, similar tests are run clandestinely during veteran agents yearly physicals; agents who unknowingly develop their sixth senses will be quickly transferred to VASCU whether they want to or not. These agents supervise the other recruits and help keep the limited skills of the more underqualified agents from screwing with investigations and interrogations. In both cases, the real reason for their selection or transfer will rarely be discussed until they are members of the unit.
As a branch of the FBI, agents must answer to the agency and to American law, meaning normal serial killers are to be brought in alive, if possible, and given a fair trail. There are a few exceptions, usually with serial killers who have acquired dark, inhuman powers that make them next-to-impossible to watch in a normal prison environment, or with flat out supernatural creatures. A special facility exists in secret in Lansing, Michigan to hold those killers with superhuman abilities, and is the only one in the United States billed as an "ultramax" level prison.
Although it is a very small operation, VASCU does contain three departments. The Field Liaison Department helps handle agents working with local hunters, usually undercover as a member of the cell or compact. The Operations Department is the largest and most active of the three, doing much of the research, investigation, and capturing of target suspects. Finally, the Special Project Department handles extremely unusual or dangerous cases, particularly those involving killers of unusual supernatural strength or cunning.
*HTV: World of Darkness: Slasher, p. 56-73
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