Speculatores

Duties and operations

The Speculatores specialize in information about pirates and rebels and carry out Rome’s classified operations. Their duties include infiltration, securing and protecting individuals, eliminating designated threats, recovering classified technology, securing secret facilities and investigating unknown subjects.

Base

The Speculatores maintain their base on Mars. Their operational responsibilities extend throughout Roman territory.

Identity and secrecy

Very few people know who the Speculatores are. Someone serving on the same ship or working in the same facility may never recognize an operative. People assisted or investigated during an operation may likewise never learn who intervened.

Operatives keep their purpose concealed until it is necessary to reveal it. They perform their outward duties, converse with others and live naturally in their surroundings while observing habits, relationships and authority to assess a target’s movements.

Field judgment and authority

Their work requires both prolonged patience and rapid decisions. They may wait even after obtaining information, then reassess whether securing a target, protection or withdrawal takes priority as circumstances change. They do not know every fact and bear responsibility for decisions made with limited information.

Protecting secrets and securing people can require force. Operatives retrieve designated individuals, eliminate specified threats and prevent sensitive technology from reaching other powers. The purpose and target of force are set by each mission; secrecy does not confer unlimited authority.

Protection may depend on a person’s knowledge or on connections still under investigation. The protected person may not know the full reason. An operative’s attachment to that person, confidence in the mission and personal judgment can come into conflict.

Operational assignments

Armed groups on Pax. Operatives trace military equipment and funding, identify intermediaries between local armed groups and outside suppliers, investigate who benefits from the violence and secure designated targets.

Sibyl-related secrets. Operatives investigate leaks of military research, tracing removed material and equipment alongside people able to decode or reproduce it. Recovery, protection of those involved and denial of hostile access form part of the mission.

Outer colonies and routes. Operatives investigate unidentified ships using Roman identification signals, military equipment of unknown origin and suspicious transactions recurring across different colonies. They establish the connections and interests behind cases designated as classified.

The Eboracum expedition. Some operatives join the expedition to protect sensitive material, technology and key experts and investigate subjects not disclosed to ordinary expedition personnel.

Mental synchronization

Their helmets can activate mental synchronization between fellow operatives. In this state, they synchronize with one another’s thoughts directly, enabling immediate coordinated attacks without the need to communicate.

Remote control

The Speculatores can also connect remotely to various military vehicles and equipment developed by Rome, allowing them to operate these systems by remote control.

Mission equipment

Equipment is selected for each mission: observation, recording and secure-storage devices, sealed operational suits, small arms, recovery containers and transport. Performance and supply are limited, and special equipment does not by itself explain unknown phenomena. Exact models and capabilities remain unspecified.

The Eboracum expedition

At Eboracum, Codex interpreters interpret the meaning of discoveries. The Speculatores investigate associated field hazards, secure material and people, and manage access within the assigned limits of secrecy. They do not disclose their identities or missions to everyone on the expedition; deployment details and command authority are shared only with a limited circle.

The mission is a formal expedition aboard Hispana, which has its own jump engine. Eboracum’s gate is not connected to the Roman gate network.

Without immediate support from Rome, operatives must decide using the information, personnel and equipment available in the field. An interpreter may wish to continue studying a subject that an operative believes should be isolated; a place considered dangerous may hold answers the entire expedition needs.

Service and organization

There is no formal discharge from the Speculatores. Service duration, total strength, fixed organization, recruitment routes and the treatment of personnel who cease field activity remain unspecified. The exact deployment purpose and extent of command authority at Eboracum are also not established in this record.