Campaign:BTC/Ashisha Maakerni
Description[edit]
The Ashisha Maakerni was created by the Imperial Army Intelligence in 1117 to provide covert support to assets and homegrown resistance organisations in the Corridor Sector. Headquartered at Corfinium, the unit organised the recruitment, training, transport, supply and operations of agents outside the Domain of Deneb. Its record of cooperation with the Imperial Naval Intelligence and other agencies of the Imperium was poor.
In practice the scope of operations were directed against the Dzarrgh Federate with some agents operating as far as the Irrgh Manifest. Beyond that, the difficulties of transport and communications made effective, timely operations impossible.
Background[edit]
The withdrawn of the Corridor Fleet in such a complete fashion caught everyone at Deneb by surprise. That it would be leaving was known - that all of it would go was not. The Imperial Army - along with all other services - was caught completely on the hop. The entire operation was pulled together in haste and this showed in its early activities. One of the major hinderances was the fact that the Imperial Navy and IISS were kept in the dark about its existence for some years - and thus transport for the agents and their communications was improvised via a number of freighters and mercenary vessels. The only safe route for agents and messages was via the neutral United Followers of Augurgh and thus the focus of operations gravitated in that direction.
The agency was quite good at gaining information - but the agents gained information that would be useful in a major ground invasion - and no such invasion was envisaged. What were staged were a number of raids Khouth in 1127, Greenrok in 1129. Planned spoiling raids in 1130 were deferred due to the news of Virus. The emphasis then changed to the destruction of Federate port infrastructure such as the raid on Koergfoes in 1136.
Where the agency did particularly well was in nurturing the resistance groups on Khouth, Hesarus and Serk.
As the planning to slow Virus progressed, the emphasis changed from looking to weaken the Vargr states to trying to strengthen their fighting capability while denying infrastructure to the Virus plague. It also looked at how many more Imperial citizens could be brought within the Regency boundary. This put their objectives out of step with those of the resistance groups who sought to remove the Dzarrgh Federate and enable rule of their own planets in place.