On the barren planet of New Khatovar there is a patch of forest, as impossible as that may seem ... just as impossible it is for the whole planet to be devoid of any breathable atmosphere ... save for that thousand square kilometers.
In the middle of that patch of greenery stands an imposing structure of wood, steel, and stone. It's not in a clearing or anything of the like ... it's simply built around the trees, using them in the construction as much as the raw materials delivered.
In front of the main entrance, a set of huge and imposing obsidian gates, stands a simple pedestal on which a plaque wrought of iron and silver rests. The inscription thereon - 'So that we are never again unwarned.'
This is Spookhouse. Or rather, their HQ.
The creation of this institution seemed to happen overnight, in the late year 2491 of the Humanx calendar - six years after the events that concluded with the disappearance of the Darkvoid, and on a planet that had been one of the most harshly hit by those events.
It's goal - investigation of the increasing number of supernatural events throughout the Spiral, in cooperation with other services similarly inclined. With a very liberal interpretation of the word 'investigation' being the operative principle.
Spookhouse agenst are often the most unlikely and varied people, quirky but by no means incompetent.
They have the authority to operate within the Humanx Commonwealth, the worlds of the Manticore alliance, and the Andermani Empire, and a silent agreement with the other political entities to allow them operation of limited scope within their field of influence.
This is mainly due to patronage extended over the organization by certain members of those societies. The ones of whom this is assumed count within their ranks Duchess Dame Lady Honor Harrington of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, one Hotaru Tomoe - special advisor to the Commonwealth President, Dr. Katsuhiko Stingray, head of Stingray Enterprises, Croaker - Captain of the Company (they _did_ leave them the planet, even if they were going to abandon it anyway.)
The current (2493) Commander-in-Chief of the organization is a Manticoran noblewoman - Dame Integra Winters Helsing, formerly head of the Order of Hellsing which now makes up a substantial part of Spookhouse. She is a shrewd tactician and strategist, a hard taskmaster to her subordinates, and generally not someone you want to have a bone to pick with.
The Chief-of-Operations is an illusive individual going by the name of 'Caleb'. No further information is available on him
While personal reports are always to be handed off at the New Khatovar, and a fair bit of the field agents resides within Spookhouse HQ itself, auxilary headquarters on planets such as Neo-Edo, Caladan, Grayson and Xiang Hua allow for greater range of operations and better response time.
A flotilla of small, fast ships, mostly "Pryde" Class warp-shuttles, is used for interstellar transportation. These ships are only lightly armed though, at least that's what the spec-sheets say.
In scope, they're rather small for an organization with such an operations radius, but they don't really need the manpower of, say, the WWWA since the brunt of their investigations concerns so called 'weird shit' (they do have a working relationship with the appropriate WWWA division, going as far lending out some of their field agents on occasions. On the last such assignment agents Victoria and Lewton aided WWWA TC team in uncovering a cultist organization on Golgotha.), and they make do handily enough.
...<snip> Right. That's done. More or less.
... hmm, hey Nate, any idea what the younger Ikari is gonna be doing at the time Act V comes around? Or is he going to be six feet under?
-Griever
... nine out of ten times it's a freight train. The one time left it's a fair bet that it's a commuter train. The light at the end of the tunnel is higly overrated.
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Wicked Tribe likes this plan! They are proud to be a part of it! Let's go!
Especially since I've got Hellsing on the brain now -anyway-. Do you know where I could find the Crunchy Cheese translations of the first few volumes, BTW?
> ... hmm, hey Nate, any idea what the younger Ikari is gonna be doing at the time Act V comes around? Or is he going to be six feet under? <
Not a clue, although something at the back of my muse keeps insisting that it would be interesting to force them into the 'castaway' bit and have them hook up with an Inner Sphere mercenary force.
Blessed be.
-n
(Catty - It's space opera. Relax. Don't think about it too hard.)
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Just to be clear on all things, Spookhouse agent Victoria's preferred weapon is the Harkonnen Armor Works' 30mm anti-everything infantry blaster cannon. This infmaous popgun, capable of downing mecha and even small starships, is the last HAW gun to be produced before the fall of House Harkonnen during the rather ignominious collapse of the Taiidani Empire.
Agent Victoria got it from Dame Helsing's manservant, Walter DeDoreantz. Where *he* got it... you're better off not asking.
---
Mr. Fnord, Map Boy and Chief Vorlonologist
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
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> Just to be clear on all things, Spookhouse agent Victoria's preferred weapon is the Harkonnen Armor Works' 30mm anti-everything infantry blaster cannon. This infmaous popgun, capable of downing mecha and even small starships, is the last HAW gun to be produced before the fall of House Harkonnen during the rather ignominious collapse of the Taiidani Empire. <
...
HA! I love it! And what's really beautiful is, all you need to do is accept that it's Engrish!
Anyway, the effect you see Alucard's little toy pull during the first fight, in the church? The -Big Fucking Holes-? That's pretty typical of a Taiidani blaster. His guns are unusual in that they have an array of crystals in a replacable rack, in the position that would, in a projectile gun, be the magazine.
The drawback of this arrangement is that these smaller crystals aren't self charging, are considerably more expensive per unit than the conventional kind, and burn out about ten times as often.
Blessed be.
-n
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>Especially since I've got Hellsing on the brain now -anyway-. Do you know where I could find the Crunchy Cheese translations of the first few volumes, BTW?<
I've gotta scour the locales around my place of residence to find Hellsing _period_. My fanboy-fu on this matter is currently limited to googled up infos, reviews and the like. I put it in because, like a lot of things, it seemed like a good idea at the time. That, and Integra seemed like the person best suited to running this sort of outfit. She has experience in handling quirky (that's putting it mildly) subordinates.
Originally I'd planned to have my ressurected(as of Act V) avvie run the outfit ... then I figured that if there was still as much as a shred of the old baseline personality in him he'd be willing to help set it up, pull a few strings (how did you think Stingray got involved? And he _was_ pretty much a constant fixture with Black Company recon div. during Acts II and III. I'm going to have to set up a meeting with Hotaru in one of the stories to justify that angle though.) ... and promptly dump the responsibility onto someone who can actually handle it.
After which he got down to working on the interesting side of things. He did pull a Caleb after all, so it's only fair that he made use of the name, even though the character's focus is going to change at that particular time. Actually, in that regard one may say that he pulled a Raziel rather than a Caleb, but the latter is a much more obscure reference.
One more supernatural, even one with a vampiric wraithblade grafted onto his essence, is hardly going to stand out with the sort of crowd that's going to be employed _there_, even if he occasionally acts as Chief of Operations. After all, Alucard is much more flamboyant.
That aside, the particular mechanics of armaments used by the agents is open to debate, but fairly much anything goes.
They take being prepared seriously enough, heck, overkill is actually encouraged as default sometimes. Better to get winded lugging around a Howitzer Ersatz like Victoria does, than get caught unprepared when something really nasty starts coming your way. Though some agents, like Kiriranschero for example, don't really have _that_ problem.
Same with origins and specifics. I'd wanted to put Shinji as their resident 'psychic bloodhound' but the Inner Sphere suggestion is better now that I think of it. I think I'll just use Kaos for it. He's quirky enough.
Hmm ... *chuckle* ... nobody placed 'agent' Lewton. Tsk. Oh well. I'd though that if we're going to have a werewolf, we may as well use one that's reasonably interesting. And every investigative organization needs a Bogie substitute IMO.
-Griever
ph33r th3 1n5p1r4t10n
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