HAPSIS

HAPSIS operates as the Imperial Contact Division under the authority of the Imperial Office. It is distinct from Legion Intelligence and Special Security. The division's intelligence trade is internally referred to by its members as the Carnival. Agents are designated by alphanumeric codes; Edouard Albé holds the designation Special Agent 2, referred to as A2. The division maintains a long institutional memory, having been the first to recognize that humanity was dealing with multiple distinct ancient civilizations by collating reports from disparate sites across the galaxy in the early Empire. Even allied nations, including Jadd, are not trusted with HAPSIS knowledge of the Monumentals. The Chantry Synod on Forum is aware of the Watchers' existence through its oversight of the Sentinel fleet at Nairi.

HAPSIS fields at least one Rhea-class light frigate as a command base for surface operations. The division obtained coordinates of the Vaiartu site on Sabratha from the Cielcin. The division deploys legionnaire personnel to field operations, as well as scholiast operatives and intelligence officers. It has access to advanced technology miniaturized at Blackmoor, one of Imperial Intelligence's headquarters, including quantum telegraph pairs -- matched transmitter-receiver devices that exploit quantum mechanics to send signals instantaneously across any distance. Fewer than one hundred such pairs exist across the entire galaxy. The HAPSIS contingent assigned to Hadrian's force operates aboard Demiurge alongside Ghoshal's Sollan soldiers and Annaz's Irchtani warriors. HAPSIS personnel aboard Demiurge include centurion-rank officers and multiple decades of legionnaire-class agents. The contingent maintains comm logs and holographic recordings of major incidents -- including the Sabratha attack -- that serve as corroborating evidence for Hadrian's accounts to allied parties such as the Jaddians.

HAPSIS was among the forces present at Cressgard, where it helped take the operation codenamed Echidna. The division maintained a presence on Emesh in connection with the native population and ruins there. It identified the builders of ruins at Nairi as the Vaiartu -- also called the Stonebuilders and the Enar -- and distinguished the Firstborn (builders of the Quiet's ruins) and the Monumentals (Watchers) as separate ancient civilizations. HAPSIS observed the unnamed binary system VA-91:35 DB-639 for approximately forty years before the events of Ashes of Man, detecting at least six reversion bursts indicating starship traffic.

HAPSIS's history with the Monumentals extends at least three thousand years. Following the Atropos Expedition's discovery of a living Watcher on Nairi under orders from Emperor Sebastian XII -- during which the entire expedition died on the surface -- HAPSIS quarantined the planet, built a research base, studied the Monumental for centuries, and ultimately killed it using a sustained electromagnetic pulse. In preparation for further encounters, HAPSIS developed Operation Gnomon and the codenamed weapon Perseus, a modified NEM209-type electromagnetic pulse atomic device. HAPSIS managed knowledge of the Watchers for millennia through the fictional mask in popular culture.

Operation Gnomon was activated at Phanamhara on Sabratha. The mission investigated the deaths of site workers, including the refraction of engineer Doctor Mann's body across higher-dimensional space, and discovered a Watcher entombed beneath the Phanamhara pantheon. When Cielcin forces awakened the Watcher Ushara, Albé defended HAPSIS assets and executed an electromagnetic bombardment from orbit, disrupting Ushara's manifested form. Lord Director Oberlin was killed by a knife-missile during the Cielcin assault.

Following Sabratha, the HAPSIS contingent attached to Hadrian Marlowe's force accompanied him through the mission to Latarra and the assault on Vorgossos. During Vorgossos, Albé provided a quantum telegraph pair to signal detonation of sapping charges beneath the reservoir, killing the Mericanii daimon Brethren. By the time Hadrian operates Demiurge under a Jaddian alliance, HAPSIS personnel have spent years aboard the ship mapping its interior. The HAPSIS contingent participates in the subsequent battle at Vorgossos, during which Sentinel-Commander Kedron's forces also board Demiurge; Albé orders the HAPSIS contingent to engineering stations. HAPSIS comm logs and recordings of the Sabratha incident serve as evidentiary corroboration when Hadrian presents his intelligence to Kaim-Olorin's Jaddian council.

Friedrich Oberlin, Lord Director, was killed by a knife-missile during the Cielcin assault on Sabratha. Cassian Powers previously held the Director position and was absorbed into the organization following the Second Battle of Cressgard. Edouard Albé is designated Special Agent 2 (A2) and serves as the senior HAPSIS officer with Hadrian Marlowe's force. By the time of the battle over Vorgossos and subsequent operations, he has aged more than ten years since Vorgossos, having spent much of the intervening voyage awake rather than in fugue. He grew up in Devil's Rest on Delos in a family that served the House Marlowe for generations, attended Mountbatten Academy on Avalon, and became a civil intelligence officer before joining HAPSIS. He is a Museum Catholic who wears ivory-rimmed spectacles and carries a silver medallion at his throat. He spent years aboard Demiurge alongside Annaz's Irchtani and Ghoshal's men mapping the ship's interior. Archil holds the rank of centurion and commands at least two decades of HAPSIS men aboard Demiurge; he is killed during the confrontation with the Vorgossene Free Captain delegation. Priscian Lascaris served as Oberlin's personal secretary and was a HAPSIS man who studied Vaiartu inscriptions and oversaw sensory equipment installation at Phanamhara. Tor Rassam, a scholiast and the galaxy's preeminent expert on the Vaiartu Kingdom, has served the division longer than Oberlin himself. Tor Carter, a scholiast and HAPSIS operative, spent thirty-one years at the Phanamhara site. Irum was a HAPSIS legionnaire stationed at Phanamhara. Sir Damien Aradhya was one of HAPSIS's best agents, described as such by Emperor William. He commanded the starship Atropos on an expedition to the Vaiartu pilgrimage site on Nairi, ordered by Emperor Sebastian XII. His entire expedition died on the surface; his reports were recovered from the orbiting Atropos by a Legion recovery ship decades later. He named the entombed creature the Monumental and concluded the Vaiartu built the city to worship it.