It's an interesting fact that bureaucracies tend to
develop subgroups whose mission statements aren't reflected by their
names. Interesting, but not too
surprising: contrary to popular belief, impersonal bureaucracies are made up of
people, all of whom have opinions about what their job should actually be. When enough of them agree, their focus collectively changes. This is just as true for celestials as it is
for humans, actually: in fact, if anything it's truer for celestials. Being immortal, both angelic and demonic
bureaucrats have had centuries or even millennia to perfect their unique style
of bloodless (usually) warfare. Most
Superiors have learned to not get hung up on names: getting the job done is the
important thing.
However, things can get... well, not out of hand,
but complicated. The Acquisitions
Department is a prime example of this.
Nobody intended for them to get embroiled in a virtual cold war with
Heaven's other espionage services.
Heck, nobody intended them to become an espionage service in the first
place. It just sort of happened.
To acquire and maintain the materials necessary for
Trade's continuing smooth operation in the War.
Yes, the above is a fairly vague mission
statement. That's sort of the idea,
really.
The Acquisition Department is made up primarily of
Servitors of Trade, with the usual imports from Revelations and
Protection. It is organized under
standard bureaucratic lines. While Marc
usually picks the head of the organization, the department heads and mid-level
operatives operate under a combination of seniority and ability. As is quite common in other organizations,
the informal network of favors, alliances and influence can often mean more
than actual rank: the Archangel of Trade is tolerant of the practice, as long
as things do not get out of hand.
Whatever Trade has, plus a respectable amount of
whatever Revelations and/or Protection has, plus a much smaller (yet
measurable) part of whatever Acquisitions can barter, buy, cajole or 'acquire'
from other organizations. Nobody's
really sure about what fingers are in what pies, and Acquisitions goes to some
trouble to make sure that such ignorance is never alleviated.
As is seen below, the Acquisitions Department is not
precisely in the best of odor, outside of Revelations and Protection. Their actions during the Purity Crusade
generated a certain amount of ill-feeling at the time, and seeing as angels are
immortal, well...
Still, there's no denying that the younger
generations of angels see the situation in a somewhat different light. After all, Acquisitions is forthright in its
desire to operate in the best interests of the War, and it is careful to never
use blackmail of any sort when dealing with other Heavenly organizations. It also pays top dollar for information
received. Many transactions are perfectly
public and aboveboard, and the Inquisition has not forbidden the practice of
working with Acquisitions, so where's the harm?
Of course, there's something to be said for being
prudent and discreet about such things, too.
In contrast, Acquisitions has not even a 'guardedly
neutral' relationship with any Infernal or Ethereal group. There are too many angels that wouldn't mind
passing evidence of such a relationship over to Dominic, and fairly solid rumor
suggests that Marc has... other... mechanisms in place to handle that sort of
thing. Or so it's said.
The Acquisitions Department started fairly
innocuously, as such things go: it was created in the second century AD under
Trade. It existed as a sort of
clearinghouse for artificers: there were many individual groups that were
working on the creation of various types of artifacts, and there was a certain
amount of duplication of effort going on.
Trade had noticed this (as they were the ones usually contacted for
specific resource requests): it seemed only logical to set up a department that
would keep an eye out for redundant projects, the better to arrange joint
efforts. It worked out fairly well, all
things considered: over the next few centuries, Acquisitions ended up being
involved in a great number of Heavenly industries, to the benefit of everyone involved.
Then came the Purity Crusade.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, the Purity Crusade
was many things, to many different entities - but one thing that is often
overlooked was how it was an unparalleled departure from the normal artifact
acquisition/creation process. Items of
all sorts were brought in from the field as booty, enigmas or metaphorical
unexploded munitions... and the Host's artificers were hard-pressed to handle
the sudden inrush. Almost overnight,
every Archangelic organization involved in the Crusade had set up research and
replication projects, and three centuries of patient coordination became
fundamentally irrelevant to the new problem at hand.
Naturally, Acquisitions was not happy at this new
state of affairs - after all, they were still receiving resource requests, only
now more loudly and often - and they were even unhappier to discover that the
old methodology of open research was now decried. Purity declined to share its research with Dreams, on the grounds
that the latter had too many links with the pantheons (which meant that Purity
would not share its research with anyone sharing their research with Dreams, or
anyone sharing their research with anyone sharing their research with Dreams,
and so on). Dreams refused to give Purity
any aid that would result in the slaughter of neutrals. Creation declined to do the same, on the
advice of Flowers (which had an axe to dull with War, Purity's closest
ally). Judgement was wary of letting
the rest of the Host play with items deemed dangerous, as was Destiny (using
admittedly different criteria). Anything
acquired by the Wind was effectively lost to researchers for an indefinite
period. And so on, and so on... the
Acquisitions Department was stuck in the middle, unable to either determine the
validity of the steadily increasing resource requests, or get it through
anyone's heads that they really, really had a need to know certain things.
So, they started playing spy.
The justification was easy, and backed up all the
way to the top to Marc himself (a point that would become important later): if
a particular organization wanted resources from Trade, they could blessed well
keep Trade informed as to why they needed those resources - and if they
didn't feel like saying why, well, Trade still needed to know. If that meant getting information (and quite
quickly, samples and/or prototypes) on the quiet, so be it. From there it was a small step to creatively
inserting Acquisition agents in the artifact pipeline, the better to get
information right from the start: needless to say, all sorts of interesting (if
not strictly germane - to Trade, at least) information was also
acquired. The Acquisitions Department
was scrupulous in making sure that similar organizations in Archives, Destiny
and Lightning were also kept informed: after all, they had comparable interests
and requirements, no?
Of course, when this finally came to light, the
general reaction among the Host was that of outrage. The controversy got as far as questions being asked in Seraphim
Council - and was shut down cold by an unsmiling Archangel of Trade, whose
memorable response (some would say 'rant') catalogued, in full, no less than
thirty-four thousand, six hundred and twenty-three incidents where Trade had
been importuned (without explanation or justification) for resources for
essentially identical projects. The
only Archangel whose Servitors were not included in said rant were those of
Revelations - everyone else was guilty, and Marc was not shy in saying so, in
quite exhaustive detail.
The end result of all of this was the assignment of
one group to handle artifact examination and research (Jean's Mechanical
Committee, later to morph into Revelations and Design). Marc's Acquisition Department was never
formally charged with anything - but they were quietly taken out of the
artificing loop: all further work in that field would be given to the
Mechanical Committee, who would make their own resource arrangements with
Trade. Presumably, the thought was that
without their primary reason for being the Acquisition Department would fade
away on their own with a minimum of fuss, muss and embarrassment all around.
Possibly it might have, save for the Archangel of
Trade: Marc does not often get annoyed, but when he does the results are
memorable. From his point of view,
there was no reason to split up a department that had operated above and beyond
the call of duty to do really valuable work for Heaven: the Archangel of Trade
is a firm believer in maintaining good morale.
He therefore directed Acquisitions to continue to act as a clearinghouse
for information: at first, only with Revelations (the one organization that had
no major problems with the Department in the first place), but later with any
Heavenly group willing to do business.
The Department's drift back into espionage was
inevitable. Aside from everything else,
there were still individual members of the Host that were willing to trade for
information, for everyone's mutual benefit.
Later, of course, there was also the minor matter that even in Heaven
there exists a need for neutral ground.
Acquisitions gradually got into the business of providing a discreet,
private locale where Servitors of political opponents could swap information -
provided that all sides were willing to provide copies of said information to
the Department. Such contacts led to
more elaborate information transfers, the reestablishment of the influence
networks and all the other usual accoutrements. Some time ago, the head sub-department (Collations) was separated out and made into Marc's formal
intelligence agency: Acquisitions continues to handle Heavenly interactions,
but they were happy enough to get rid of corporeal operations. After all, they aren't spies.
The current term of art would be 'agents of
influence', you see.