Imperium's Final Option

Members of the secretive, insular, and greatly feared General Imperial Security Team, each of you is hand-picked for competence, tenacity, and luck from a wide range of backgrounds. Granted far-reaching powers, great authority, a broad mandate, and numbering less than 300 personnel, including support staff, the GIST is the Iridium Throne's tool of last resort. When answers simply must be found and solutions imposed, the Emperors and Empresses call for GIST.

You all have been summoned to the Imperial Palace by order of Empress Ciencia a mere two weeks after the assassination of Emperor Strephon.

It has been a confusing and tumultuous two weeks. First, on 132-1116, Archduke Dulinor initiated a coup against the Emperor by simultaneously launching attacks on the Emperor (then out of the Imperial Palace at at the prestigious Imperial Academy for Gifted Students with a relatively light force of IBIS and Imperial Guard watching over him) and his heir, Grand Princess Ciencia (at an IISS research station on the edge of the system reviewing a classified project, with a somewhat beefier force of IBIS and Imperial Guard watching her); in addition, Dulinor attempted to capture Princes Varian and Lucan while killing their parents. Empress Iolanthe appears to have been collateral damage. Dulinor succeeded in killing Emperor Strephon, but the attempt against Grand Princess Ciencia failed due to classified security measures in place at the research station (including three companies of Imperial Marines in full Battle Dress) Dulinor was unaware of as well as the epic efforts of her bodyguards.

Of course, Empress Ciencia was out of communication for several days as her security detail (now augmented by the security personnel and Marines assigned to the IISS research base) sought a safe way to return her to Capital. In that time, Archduke Dulinor proclaimed himself Emperor by Right of Assassination. The Moot refused to ratify Dulinor's proclamation, and the entire Imperial Guard refused to acknowledge Dulinor as a legitimate Emperor. When Empress Ciencia announced her presence on Capital from the Hall of the Order of Starship and Crown, the Moot immediately ratified her as Empress, and the Imperial Guard (forewarned by her bodyguards) stormed the Imperial Palace, killing off between five and ten times their numbers (no one is quite clear) of Dulinor's mercenaries to claim Dulinor's head and deliver it to their new Empress...as well as rescuing her two grieving cousins.

Her Palace reclaimed, her Guard loyal, and the Moot behind her, Empress Ciencia has announced that she will not only push ahead with her father's reforms, but expand upon them. In addition, she has charged the various Imperial Intelligence and Imperial Security agencies with rooting out any other traitors to the Imperium as well as "other major threats", minutes after returning to the Imperial Palace and avowing her faith to her father's reforms. The various agencies have been busy ever since.

Which is where you come in.

Members of the secretive, insular, and greatly feared General Imperial Security Team (GIST), each of you is hand-picked for competence, tenacity, and luck from a wide range of backgrounds. Granted far-reaching powers, great authority, and a broad mandate, you are watched closely by the specially-created Section 7, a cooperative affair between the Imperial Security Service (ISS) and the Imperial Bureau of Internal Security (IBIS), to ensure your loyalty, for a traitor in the GIST could cause immense harm to the Imperium.

Numbering less than 300 personnel, including support staff, the GIST is the Iridium Throne's tool of last resort. When answers simply must be found and solutions imposed, the Emperors and Empresses call for GIST. Exempted from most of Imperial Law, to include local and Imperial restrictions on equipment (and psionics), and vested with the authority to detain, question, and--if necessary--execute almost anyone, about the only thing GIST cannot do on its own authority is employ WMDs and start wars. And GIST is almost always granted an Imperial Warrant when deployed outside of Capital. Of course, should GIST personnel be found to be in the wrong by Section 7, their superiors, and--ultimately--the reigning Emperor/Empress, they can be (and usually are) summarily executed.

You and your summoned fellows are the stand-by Ready Unit of the GIST. All of you have been with GIST for four years, and were the 977th 'class' of personnel to be selected by GIST and pass their insanely rigorous training. In those four years, you have, as a Unit, been dispatched on missions twice, both highly classified and both resolved successfully.

Now you are presumably about to be dispatched on a vital mission by the new Empress.