Campaign seed: Imperial Missions Force

[rancke]

I recently saw season one of Mission:Impossible. The result was this little campaign outline. As always when I post these sort of tidbits, anyone who'd like to expand on it is welcome to do so.

IMPERIAL MISSIONS FORCE

The Imperium is said to rule the space between the stars, leaving the member worlds to govern themselves almost any way they want. Provided they follow a few basic rules, fulfill their treaty obligations, and leave foreign policy to the Imperium, they can be as murderous and repressive as they like.

Well, the Emperor may be able to live with that, but the duke of this duchy is not. Far too many of the governments in his duchy act in ways no honorable man can countenance.

That's why the Duke is financing Imperial Missions Force. Ostensibly it is a clandestine organization aimed at the Imperium's external foes, but most of its missions are aimed at righting egregious wrongs on member worlds. Four or five agents constitute the core group. More loosely attached are over a dozen other specialists that can be called upon to help, although policy dictates keeping the action team as small as possible, so usually only two or three extras are used.

Of course, should any of the team be killed or captured, the Duke will disawow any knowledge of them.​

Enjoy.


Hans

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Being a big Mission: Impossible fan, I love this idea! (The original series, not the abominations with Tom Cruise!) Hans, you should do up a whole adventure book: the PCs start as some of those extras, then work their way into being the main team over the course of several adventures.

 

[kuros]

We could fold this into my other thread pretty easily:

Local system Barons are in bed with slavers and/or pirates, are violating civilian rights in the name of profit, or dealing/manufacturing black market products.

The Duke wants the PCs to go into each system, figure out who in the line of succession is corrupt and who isn't, and weed out the local aristocracy until someone who understands noblesse oblige is sitting on that thrown. Then move on to another sector of their choosing and start your gardening again.

This campaign would grow more and more difficult with each successful mission, as the other Barons become more suspicious, as information about the team is gathered, etc.


DAMN. That is sexy. Now I want to play.

 

[rancke]

Local system Barons are in bed with slavers and/or pirates, are violating civilian rights in the name of profit, or dealing/manufacturing black market products.

The Duke wants the PCs to go into each system, figure out who in the line of succession is corrupt and who isn't, and weed out the local aristocracy until someone who understands noblesse oblige is sitting on that thrown. Then move on to another sector of their choosing and start your gardening again.

Imperial high barons have no more right to interfere with the local autonomy of their worlds than the duke has. A corrupt baron would be concealing Imperial crimes from his duke. A duke would have no need to deal with such a baron covertly (though gathering the evidence to convict the baron might require covert work beforehand; OTOH a special investigator with a ducal warrant and a couple of cruisers to back him up would also be an option).


Hans

 

[Fritz_Brown]

A duke would have no need to deal with such a baron covertly (though gathering the evidence to convict the baron might require covert work beforehand; OTOH a special investigator with a ducal warrant and a couple of cruisers to back him up would also be an option).

Except, perhaps, there isn't any proof. Or, both sides are bad guys (that was a favorite idea in M:I) and you want them to actually bump each other off, instead of getting the Imperial hands dirty. Or, the baron is a favorite of the Archduke. Or, he has lots of loyal folks in the local (Imperial) fleets from which you would have to draw those cruisers. There's loads of "good" reasons.

A lot of the M:I stuff was slightly contrived. (OK, some of it was *really* contrived.) But, the idea was that these folks had to slip in and make it look like they hadn't been there when it was all over - no govt traces, noone could remember just who they were, usually the bad guys doing themselves in, etc.

 

[Piper]

Would this fit?

A planetary dictator was recently overthrown by a military coup and executed. While the coup has some support, a fair percentage of the citizenry still holds allegiance to the old regime, especially to the dictators son, who remains a popular figure.

In order to prevent this son from becoming a focus of rebellion, yet unwilling to kill him for fear of heightening opposition, members of the junta have had him arrested on trumped-up charges and imprisoned.

If the son can be released and escapes off planet, he can become the nucleus of a government-in-exile, receiving funding and support from "patriotic citizens" (basically a puppet of the Duke).

The prison break will have to be carefully planned and executed as any trace of off-planet involvement would be likely to trigger a xenophobic reaction among the populace in response to "off-worlder interference".

 

[rancke]

Except, perhaps, there isn't any proof. Or, both sides are bad guys (that was a favorite idea in M:I) and you want them to actually bump each other off, instead of getting the Imperial hands dirty. Or, the baron is a favorite of the Archduke. Or, he has lots of loyal folks in the local (Imperial) fleets from which you would have to draw those cruisers. There's loads of "good" reasons.

I agree that there can be reasons for a covert operation or two against the odd Imperial noble, but I don't see it as having enough substance to be the theme of an entire campaign. YMMV.


Hans

 

[Hemdian]

Rather than create an organisation, I would be tempted to have the Duke co-opt an existing one, such as the local office of the JSB (or the local office of the Intelligence Branch of the IISS). For some political and some personal favours he gets professionally trained agents ... as long as ‘head office’ never find out.

To add a fly in the ointment I’d have Naval Intelligence (who have a different agenda) covertly supporting one or more of the Barons. And add some megacorp interests and the whole situation becomes a very delicate mess for the PCs to unravel.

Thus the importance of the *covert* nature of the operation.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I agree that there can be reasons for a covert operation or two against the odd Imperial noble, but I don't see it as having enough substance to be the theme of an entire campaign. YMMV.

Oh, no, no, no, I agree. It would be only *one* of the adventures for this group. There is plenty other things that need doing out there, too!

Would this fit?
//BIG SNIP//

Very nicely done.

 

[Piper]

Very nicely done.

Thank you, Fritz.

There are a number of ways to expand this into a campaign. Having liberated the prisoner, the next steps would involve missions to undermine the junta and build popular support.

The team could be called upon to engage in several types of covert operation: recruiting local operatives, smuggling money, propaganda materials or weapons onto the planet. The "leaflet bombing" campaign from MT COACC could be useful to track the efforts of an ongoing hearts-and-minds campaign.

Missions could be launched against the junta itself, targeting senior members for character assassination (or the regular kind), bribery or blackmail. Some officers might be convinced to switch sides out of loyalty (or self interest).

Twists could include another off-planet organization secretly supporting the junta such as a megacorporation or rival intelligence service (nods to Hemdian). The team would also have to work to keep the level of violence under control. The Duke would probably not consider a civil war to be in anyone's best interests. Then there's also the true loyalties of the son: will he "stay bought" or is he working an agenda of his own?

Regards

 

[DangerousThing]

Rather than create an organisation, I would be tempted to have the Duke co-opt an existing one, such as the local office of the JSB (or the local office of the Intelligence Branch of the IISS). For some political and some personal favours he gets professionally trained agents ... as long as ‘head office’ never find out.

To add a fly in the ointment I’d have Naval Intelligence (who have a different agenda) covertly supporting one or more of the Barons. And add some megacorp interests and the whole situation becomes a very delicate mess for the PCs to unravel.

Thus the importance of the *covert* nature of the operation.

Yes. And if the slavers were actually run by somebody higher up the ladder, the group might have to covertly get the information the information from the Baron without alerting the higher ups. This was the one of the sort of things that the MI team specialized in. If they wanted the Baron taken out it might be for something completely different that might not be suspected.

I think that a lot of plots were too contrived because it was only an hour-long show. The best of those shows deserved a novel rather than a TV shows. However, I will say that they used the visuals of the day rather well, and I always liked the scenes of them leaving, removing the masks and quick-changing their clothing so they looked like somebody else.

I've never had a group that wanted to do that sort of thing. It takes a mind who can think outside the box and most players I know want to relax a bit.

 

[kuros]

Imperial high barons have no more right to interfere with the local autonomy of their worlds than the duke has. A corrupt baron would be concealing Imperial crimes from his duke. A duke would have no need to deal with such a baron covertly (though gathering the evidence to convict the baron might require covert work beforehand; OTOH a special investigator with a ducal warrant and a couple of cruisers to back him up would also be an option).

I'm not totally up on the official Trav setting. But who said anything about legal? This game I'm suggesting would be about morality and perspective. Someone in charge of the economic health in a large region of space hires the PCs to become the tools of his moral outrage. Whether or not he has the legal authority to inflict the changes that he wants, whether or not the players agree with him, etc etc, that's all grist for the mill in my book -- depends on the people and their mood at the time.

I agree that there can be reasons for a covert operation or two against the odd Imperial noble, but I don't see it as having enough substance to be the theme of an entire campaign. YMMV.

This concern is why I suggested throwing an interstellar economics angle into the plot. What's good for the sector isn't necessarily good for the star system.

Very nicely done.

You could always throw some El Hazard in there too -- genetically secured orbital satellite weapons that the government-in-exile could operate if they could get his DNA into the control facility.