The Hand of the Void

The Hand of the Void, referred to more casually as Voiders or just The Hand, is the primary intelligence agency of the BDA. It focuses on espionage and assassination of enemies and information gathering on them, as well as keeping an eye on events outside of the Beta Sector in case they need to worry about potential future enemies.

Structure

The Hand of the Void is technically under the jurisdiction of the BDA forum. However, in reality the JaqHadan Clan Council exercises a lot of oversight over them, and they have been known to conduct their own missions following their own, murky interests.
Orders are routed to 'Fingers', the in-house term for ground operatives, via 'Conductors', a catch-all term for non-field operatives. Conductors can be providers of operational support, analysts, admins, and of course handlers to Fingers. Conductors get their orders from the appointed directors of their specialisations, but where they get their orders from and who might have influenced it is impossible to track. Fingers and Conductors often refer to their upper echelons as the Void - from nothing do their orders come, and to nothing does their information go, while the entire organisation is referred to as the Hand.
Part of the joke, of course, is that Morphess can have as many hands with as many fingers as they want - and so too does their organisation. On the other hand, the disconnected structure is purposeful to limit counter-intelligence and how much damage any defecting operative can do.

Culture

There are two rules above all others - obey your superiors, and act for the greater good at all times. If the options are to save a bystander or complete your mission, you must complete your mission, as that is for the greater good. Fingers rarely work together or interact much with other Voiders, and the decentralised way of their work means that any bases or centres they have are small and will not contain superiors, so there is a general culture of standoffish suspicion when they interact, and any interactions with civilians are almost entirely under guises.

Public Agenda

The Voiders are meant to actively work against their enemies within the sector, and passively gather information about happenings outside in order to ascertain potential incoming problems. For example, warn ahead of the Raids, but not take any action to head them off before they happened. They are also the ones to intercept anyone trying to enter the Beta-zone and the source of many of the tall tales about what happens to people that try to sneak in. Voiders are not meant to spy on their own citizens, even ones living outside of the Beta Sector.

True Agenda

The reality, of course, is that The Hand of the Void frequently breaks many of these rules. This corruption mostly comes from good places, a fear that they're leaving the BDA vulnerable in some way, that there is a threat they have been told to ignore but cannot bring themselves to. Ultimately, they feel they know better. Fingers have been known within the organisation to undertake missions including directly interfering with governments outside the Beta-zone, sabotaging and even killing some people planning to probe the borders, and spying on some of their citizens both inside and outside the Beta-zone.
For now, their uses outweigh the dangers and sins posed by these behaviours in the eyes of the BDA command, but it is a delicate balance that threatens to slip and plunge the BDA into another Civil War.

Assets

The majority of Fingers are Morphess JaqHadan as their abilities make them uniquely suited to intelligence work and are flexible enough for work of all types. Other clans and species also work in the organisation, though they tend to be more specialised in a certain kind of work, or be Conductors.
A number of Morphess in employment as Fingers will double as JaqHadan Engineers, with some of the most complex and neat engineering work done by them in comparison to the species as a whole. This extensive engineering makes them incredibly flexible and extraordinarily dangerous. Morphess Fingers have been known to code themselves to be dangerous to the touch with things such as biological weapons released from their skin at will, or to be immune to pain, and their unpredictable and alarming nature can make anyone think twice before trying to counter a perceived Finger coming for them.

History

The Hand of the Void is old, as many things in JaqHadan culture are, though not as ancient as others. A few centuries after the Founders make the Hadan into the JaqHadan, and not long since they had started differentiating into clans, some Morphess came together and formed the original Hand. While originally Morphess only, it picked up other species as time went on and eventually evolved to be the intelligence agency for the entire BDA, though the Void remained comprised of Morphess only.
When the Civil War erupted, so too did the Hand fracture. A significant number of Morphess were killed outright by other JaqHadan who were angry about their superior attitude within the Hand, and a number of Conductors killed the Fingers in their charge before they knew what was happening, regardless of which clan they belonged to. While some Voiders left the game behind to fight in the front lines, most continued to engage in a shadow war against each other, hunting each other, working to get secrets or succeeding at sabotage or assassination even as others worked to stop them.
Once the war was over, many changes were made to facilitate the rebuilding of a unified Hand. One such was a rule that for every clan or species in the Hand, there would be someone amongst the Void to represent them. More oversight was built into the command chain to try to limit abuses of power and efforts made to coax a greater variety of people to join. Despite this, and the slaughter of existing Morphess operatives at the time, they continue to be the majority within the organisation.

Type

Government, Secret Service

Alternative Names

The Hand

Training Level

Professional

Veterancy Level

Veteran

Demonym

Fingers