Work Text:
2563 MEREDITH FREEPORT THREAT ACTOR COMPENDIUM v1.0.1.3
PERSONAL ADDENDUM, ATTACHED BY SPARTAN-D054 FOR CODENAME: AUDITOR
Please read this section carefully, and attach to any/all follow up document control versions from v.1.0.1.3 onward, including command chain disseminations.
The agent (Junior Lieutenant Andra Kearsarge, SPARTAN-D054) recognizes it is not customary for field agents to add personal notes to official reports, unless it is of absolute necessity. But the agent believes the following addendum preceding the requested Meredith Freeport threat assessment is necessary as a further HUMINT-derived warning the agent can provide, that few others can.
After a decade in military service, and having traveled the galaxy beyond what the agent’s parents ever dreamed possible, it is increasingly difficult to discern truth from fiction regarding activities and events at a distance. Even the agent is fallible to false information. The agent cannot corroborate the official Naval Intelligence finding and record on Forerunner Domain activity from 29 October 2558 to 13 December 2559, the latter marking the official date of death for the Created A.I. overlord Cortana. And no less confirmation is possible regarding any events relating to Forerunner technology within the Meredith Freeport-designated “Pale Zone” before the survey mission start date.
A frank summarization: the Meredith Freeport is full of unreliable, suspicious sources of conversation further limited by the diversity-multiplicity challenge posed by the colonial city state entities and organizations. The agent’s training did not adequately prepare her for the target environment but the agent made do to the best of her ability. There also remains a concern the addendum will be lost in translation as details are omitted altogether under circumstances relating to the reinstated Official Secrets Act.
It remains of a reasonable, if simple, deductive reasoning to say Cortana’s death and the collapse of the Created in 2560 had much more tangible and objective effects in the galactical political arena. Maybe more than the Covenant empire’s Great Schism. The Created collapse marks a beginning to new Napoleonic struggles. Such a metaphor is weak on context, but the kind of fighting on the human territorial periphery increasingly called the “New Colonial Frontier” fits the definition where observed alliances and loyalty are matter of agenda and circumstance than unifying personal or ideological factors.
It is hard to call our own human government the “Unified Earth” or the “United Nations” while the homeworld remains in a quasi-fiefdom risk environment between stubborn AI holdouts and the hardened human conclaves who refuse to fall back into administrative line. However, frontier gossip remains forever pitched towards an anti-Earth slant and it is better that such complexities and nuance be left to subject matter experts in the Inner Colonies to make cleaner judgment on.
Below this section is a comprehensive list and reports of local/long term threat actors with connections and gatherings within Meredith Freeport’s solar neighborhood. These include entities capable of staging attacks on a weakened United Nations Space Command and civilian counterparts and partner organizations.
Noteworthy and dangerous include War Master Atriox and his Jiralhanae-dominated Banished, a threat which remains atop the Naval Intelligence hit list. The Banished operate on Meredith Freeport seeming through a New Colonial Alliance offshoot/proxy; the appointed “Second Chapter Reclaimants,” led by a resurfaced Captain, or Commodore. Daniel Clayton formerly of the U.N.S.C Navy. The truth and connection between his incarceration at Midnight Facility and his eventual escape remains unclear. Much of Meredith Freeport is dominated by his Second Chapter Reclaimants with increased collaboration with the suspected Created offshoot/splinter elements within the Freeport’s digital infrastructure, operating public works and security, in exchange or towards unknown ends. Bringing clarity to their identity and activity will require more time, and caution.
Another item of concern includes increasing numbers of former Covenant client species along civilian travel paths on Meredith Freeport. The uptick or macro-behavior includes increased dimorphism and diversity among present Kig-Yar mercenaries, rumored Unggoy legionaries belonging to an entity called “Wimid” a possible Unggoy deacon of some renown, and Banished-aligned militias appearing with greater frequency—both alien and human. The motivation for this gathering presence of aliens on Meredith Freeport is still unknown.
Commodore Clayton also allowed the safe harbor of Far Harvest Legion ships and activities in the last year, the faction belonging to self-declared Commodore and Chairman Jefferson Khoren—better known as disavowed O.N.I officer Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Korn. Since 2560, public records declare or suppose his flagship made port 23 times, a Phoenix-class landing support ship named the Bewitched Paragon. Since the emboldened invasions of Covenant species’ homeworlds in 2560 by the Banished, the agent suspects a major deputy of War Master Atriox operates in or near the Meredith Freeport. The unknown entity likely seeks collaboration with subversive human elements likely to enable a significant Banished movement into Inner Colonial space, and as locals claim, the “human heartland.”
A particular thorn is a four-fold increase in gene therapy-laden human operatives taking work for the Freeport factions—forms of stably-augmented mercenaries which invite concern of lost secrecy of Spartan augmentation techniques from projects ASTER, CHRYSANTHEMUM, and ORCHID. A noteworthy social element to emerge is the cultural likeness or pursuit of Spartan “copy cats,” maybe assisted by the rapid iteration and proliferation dumping of Created-improved bioengineering compounds onto the colonial black market.
The agent has never met Ilsa Zane, but her likeness is everywhere. New Colonial Alliance propaganda continues to use the proto-SPARTAN-IV as recruitment material while also reusing the Master Chief, John-117 as an undefined rebel superhero archetype. Posters and war drives tend to display the words, “This could be you tomorrow.” While civilians and mercenaries probed aby N.C.A activity are aware of the misrepresentation, they all seem in on the joke. Maybe the appearance of a rebel Spartan gives thee residents some manner of twisted hope.
It maybe not too long before another “supersoldier factory” emerges on Meredith like the major site terminated by U.N.S.C forces a few years back, In conclusion, with a series of threats like those mentioned and featured in the compendium, the agent recommends an extended deployment of a full company of Spartans with support elements geared towards counterinsurgency operations as the best response to prepare for, but not yet deploy, to Meredith Freeport under the current circumstances.
• • •
Threat Actor Compendium opens begins on Page 6.
Source Notes:
[1] Kearsarge B, A (S-D054). Meredith Freeport Threat Actor Compendium (2563).
[2] Office of Naval Intelligence, official date of record (2563)
[3] Office of Naval Intelligence Section 0, internal thesaurus, “Pale Zones” (est. 2499)