Extradimensional Combatant Agency

## The Extradimensional Combatant Agency

Founded by Codrales cur'Hussel & Lop Aspinacha

When the research divisions finally cracked the curator data bank open the information within held information much needed but also terrifying; while it did contain information critical to creating countermeasures to face the Unbidden it also spoke of other universal terrors... some data spoke of all devouring swarms of drones that consumed galaxies whole while other segments revealed information of shapeshifting monsters who feed on sentience, reducing space bound species back to the dark ages.

So after suffering a harsh military defeat and facing rising waves of defeatist notions the leading Chancellor and Prime Minister founded the ECA (2319.06.10) to restore public confidence.

The ECA project was backed and funded by several nations though most funds were provided by the Commonwealth; plans for this sort of agency had been drafted decades ago and had been intended to be a galactic agency with allegiance to no nation, due to galactic politics and the need to maintain technological superiority though, this notion was scrapped. Now only nations who are both contributors to the agency and share a technological agreement with the Commonwealth may access the data banks of ECA.

### Founding days

Ultimately the project is intended to become a specialist force that is called upon to counter threats not of this galaxy, starting off as a small agency with limited resources though, the agency began more as a tertiary research department; recruiting as many scientists and engineers as possible to begin dissecting, analysing and testing new technologies, as a new agency it could not call upon renowned or veteran scientists to its ranks as they were occupied with the larger research projects.

This isn't to say that the recruits were not able scientists or all of them inexperienced, they were proven professionals - not ragtag scientists and madmen, though they did have some more eccentric members who we'll discuss later - the recruits were all more 'fresh-faced' and had not been in their fields long enough to have their thinking limited by standard science (switching from science that you'd be performing for over 30 years to seemingly reality breaking science can be hard)

Expected to some day be a combative force the agency also reined in several potential agents and operatives, again due to the young age of the agency it did not have the influence to bring in experienced soldiers or operatives and took in the younger and more mouldable soldiers of the next generation. There was however one aspect of the agency that would be grounded with experienced souls, the leadership.

## Further info

### Role/Jobs

Co-Director of ECA

The ECA is headed by two directors, both holding equal authority over the entire agency; it is the directors' responsibility to manage the organisation and make the important decisions, these directors are accountable to the Prime minister first, the Chancellor second and the finally to the science council.

It was determined that the agency would need strong, experience and decisive yet balance decision making; two directors thus took the position: one old and experienced with the arts of leadership and bureaucratic minutiae, well established in the operations of secret agents and agendas; the other director a more versatile and innovative leader, more skilled in the not so covert operations and possessing the PR skills to smooth over the rougher parts of ECA operation.

So it was the old timer Avery Kowalczyk, a veteran of the covert craft, who filled the role of experienced leadership; for the innovation and fresh mindset though the role fell to Stisor Numer, a Vrinn who'd established himself as the next upcoming (secret) star in the field of operations with a charismatic tongue to match.

### Avery Kowalczyk

Formerly retired operations director Avery was brought back into the fold by popular recommendation, the man responsible for the silent running behind the scenes; not shy to make the tough choices or lose the moral high ground to ensure the safety of the Commonwealth and its citizens... both of these things mind you, Avery was born into a nation of high hopes, ideal and prospects; he is not the stereotypical cold blooded shady director from an spy movie, to this day the old ideals still hold. Every citizen matters and collateral damage is never acceptable, unavoidable in the worst circumstance perhaps but never something deemed acceptable. That said he isn't one to hold a moral high ground, lives have been taken or ruined on his orders...

> *"It's not something to be proud of and I won't say it's the right thing or that someone has to do it, but with over 1000 billion lives in the galaxy, more than 300 in the Commonwealth alone... some people out there just don't... 'click' with the rest of us"*
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## Stisor Numer

We'll be in and out before they count to 10

## Further info

### Role/Jobs

Co-Director of ECA

Stisor was one of the few Vrinn to experience a slightly different life to the rest of his brethren, while the BioSoc Division had made every effort to ensure they did create horrifying lifeforms their was always the chance for a brand new species to experience some genetic turbulence; Stisor was born with an odd manipulation that propelled his ageing process faster than the more complex organs could grow, while he was the age of a 30 year old just 8 years into life his organs were not. Fortunately the brain and bone structure aged with him.

By the his birth age of 6 the issue had been resolved and in the mean time it was found that it had had a positive effect, his brain had become adept at rapid unconscious movement that was faster than any purposeful action; the reaction times he showed were beyond the times of any normal being, well suited to becoming a soldier he was scooped from school (at the request, not demand) of Commonwealth services to be trained as an operative.

During his training he displayed the aptitude for leadership in the field and skilful use of unorthodox weaponry; by the time the ECA was founded he had established himself as a specialist in the more unusual fields of covert work, a perfect candidate with potential for growth. So he was marked up as the other Co-Director, as a new born in the grand scheme of things he was the junior member, while he shared equal power with Avery it was recommended he listen to his advice but not to refrain from bringing his own ideas to the table.

His new outtake on things was what might be needed most when dealing with creatures not of this galaxy, not even this reality. He might be considered somewhat more innovative yet also radical, while not crazy or possessing a shot moral stance, he is not exactly one for the bureaucracy of covert operations or for his love of patience.

### Location, location, location.

The agency is officially located on Zanaam as this is the only planet where the ECA have a building known to the public; expectantly though, it also has several covert facilities across the Commonwealth and deep space.

### Departments

The ECA is divided, theoretically, into three groups; these groups often overlap in their work and personnel are often transferred between groups temporarily, so the divide is really just a management thing.

* R&D: Research & Development; this department holds all scientists together in one group rather than separate them based on their field of science, it also contains engineers who possess a more scientific degree of knowledge than standard engineers... because they need to also understand the science at least on a technical level to hope to 'develop' anything.
* Public Agents: The galaxy is full of strange elements, even more so now with the unbidden, the main government body cannot be expected to handle *every* incident; as a semi-autonomous organisation the agents of ECA are more widespread and able to be on the scenes faster than official government agents are. These agents are the QRF to points of interest, they are not military specialists or 'Men In Black', they cannot just appear and take matters into their own hands; the agents rather act as guides and advisors to the actual authorities.
* Field Agents: The combative force of ECA. As a new organisation this has yet to find it's footing but it is certainly the department responsible for countering the unorthodox enemies faced.

## First Steps

Off the bat the agency was provisioned with a select few research facilities and covert bases of operations that were spread across the Commonwealth and other nations that backed the project, besides that the project was left completely to the will of the two directors; well, they also had a potently large subsidy of credits to kickstart whatever path the ECA took. Up first on the list was recruitment.

### Recruitment

To the benefit of the agency, it was founded and located within the most technologically ascended nation in the galaxy; to its detriment, it was also founded and located within a nation whose intellectual resources were presently stretched thin coping with the pressure of the Unbidden crisis. Military resource was also, surprisingly, a somewhat rare commodity; ever since the implementation of highly automated militaries there was a lack of professional soldiers that were not already 'spoken for', to adequately fill the positions the ECA, it seemed, would have to get slightly unorthodox with their recruitment methods.

#### Scientists

If the ECA was to ever become a agency specialising in combating the unorthodox then it was damn sure they needed bright minds specialising in making sense of the unusual and ways to combat it, this left room for a wider degree of candidates as particular interest was given to scientists & intellectuals of the more unusual calibres. Many junior scientists, yet to fall into the more mainstream science departments, often spurred their own independent research projects; the ones that showed particularly unusual interests and determination were prime candidates, convincing many of these junior scientists was often easy enough as the ECA offered a place for scientists who had been considered perhaps too eccentric.

#### Operatives

The ECA's purpose is primarily combative, it required combat capable operatives to fill this function; a major problem however, was that there were few individuals out there suited to the role of special forces. While there many ex-soldiers from previous wars, these soldiers were ill trained for special operations combat (soldiers of previous wars were also often sustained through combat drugs and enhancers, many suffered PTSD and the prospect of combat was not appealing).

Thus the ECA's attention was drawn to the policing authorities of the Commonwealth, many marshals had experience in investigative work, tech skills and degrees of training in combat; the marshal services at this point in time were largely overstaffed as technology made personal less and less prominent, marshal policy however required large personal presence for emergency events and thus had kept many on. Drawing from this service was an easy way to recruit already trained and disciplined individuals.

While recruiting marshals served to fill ground operational roles, it did not fulfil an equally important role, void operations; the void was in itself a large field of potential for danger, thus the ECA needed to be prepared to combat void-bound threats. For this role though, no second rate recruits would do, void combat was notoriously known as an elite game where only the best survived (Hence the saying: 'Mess with the best, die like the rest'). This meant the ECA was in need of a force that was off-the-bat an elite fighting force, it would take some copious amounts of string pulling by Avery to simply arrange for the chance to recruit the renowned Kosciuszko Squadron of CADW.

#### Public Agents

These agents were the point where the agency and the wider public met, this role encompassed many positions from PR agents to assistant operatives for official authorities; as such this role required people more suited to co-operation and acting as the face of ECA. Recruits were thus taken from institutions such as the Commonwealth Propaganda Division or similar institutes, many recruits thus already had the soft skills required and could be trained in extended roles later.

Many interesting characters would be assembled, individuals from many walks of life would end up here, of particular note:

* Otsilo & Amelie: Former anchors of the GCN and ex-employees of the CPD.
* Catherine Reeves & Freidek Benshal: Specialists of genetics, computing, biology, robotics and more.
* Veronika Bashirovka: Leader of the renowned Kosciuszko Squadron of CADW and to date the best air pilot in the Commonwealth, though her void piloting skills are not to be sniffed at ether.
* Kali Elafir: Heir to the Elafir estate, upon which stands The Alma Clavis, though at the time she had lost the estate to the Thadrakon rebellions seizing the loyalist realms. A psionic, a scholar and even a retired warrior.
* Isobel & Isaac: Not so much recruited, rather they were born into it... and not so much 'born' into it, rather they were created; Isobel and Isaac were a unique twin a.i. software made from the same framework yet oh so much more complicated, created by the aforementioned scientists, these a.i. were 'born' post patch and had no pre-sentient memory... life was all they knew.

### Proof of concept

Many of the above mentioned would soon be put through the paces, together the assortment of strangers would pull together to bring about the first proof of concept of the ECA project; alongside the creation of many promisising weapons, devices and armaments in just two years since the creation of ECA, they also did in seven months what the authorities had failed to do for decades... The Solarian Syndicate was dismantled and finally 'The sun sets on the Solarian Syndicate'

The dismantlement served as the first real foot in the door for the ECA, a bright future looked promising.

## Rising to prominence

With hard results on the table the ECA secured support from critics and additional funding, with it the ECA afforded the disposable income needed for experimentation; while the mainstream sciences dealt with the large issues the ECA developed more niche items like missiles and guns designed to counter the Unbidden.

As time progressed the ECA soon had cells throughout the galaxy though the intensity of cells dissipated quickly outside the eastern quadrant. All this of course was never brought up to the public, but the Council knew they had sentinels out there now looking for the unusual; unfortunately the Unbidden crisis came to a close before the ECA's research yielded any useful weapons against the Unbidden but it was not entirely a waste of time.

### Combat Ready

The ECA's scientific efforts did produce the first small arms capable of damaging the Unbidden (but the unbidden only ever attacked with large fleets in the void, hand held weapons were useless). These weapons did not have the chance to fight the Unbidden, but they could certainly be used against others.

The new weapons legitimised the ECA as an "Extradimensional" combat agency, these "Drex" guns were also available to the general army as well but due to the greater expense without much increased benefit against interdimensional beings they were widely unneeded.

### Unorthodox Science

The Commonwealth may have defeated the Unbidden but the same foe had vowed to return, while this threat was recognised the nation could not stall waiting for them; with technology to traverse to distant galaxies on the horizon a new age of galactic expansion was coming, while the Commonwealth was always ahead in the fields of science it had slowed in many fields in its efforts to stop the Unbidden. If the Commonwealth was close to galactic traversal technology then other nations (most importantly the Eternals) would not be far behind.

So while the Commonwealth began returning to a balanced focus, the ECA continued to study the Extradimensional energies; many small innovations would come about from this research, many of course would break the laws of energy / physics as the technology was based on science of an entirely different dimension, the technology included:

* High capacity batteries: Breaking the law of physics, energy itself could be compressed to 92% of its original size; a small increase but across billions of batteries of varying sizes it had an impact.

* Hard shields: Shields used to only stop high velocity objects or energy, a slow moving plane or artillery shell could still pass through unless the shield was intensified; now shields could create an extra **physical** layer that could stop any object, this was very thin however and could easily break, the main point of this extra layer was to stop aircraft flying through the shield (or at least stop the first few, a swarm of aircraft could punch through).

### The Synthetic Evolution

As the Commonwealth and Galactic Entente shifted to fully synthetic bodies ECA members largely did the same, however many were required to remain organic as some possessed psionic abilities and a diverse workforce was desirable as you never know when you'll need an organic in the line of Extradimensional work.