13th Independent Special Investigations Battalion (Unit 13)

Even as mankind's moral standards warp at the hands of the state, the cosmic order remains constant.

Nature cannot be bound or controlled by human governments. It calls for us to fight; it calls for our freedom.

In the forgotten corners of the self, and the shadowed extremes of the world where the state cannot reach, we find our weapons.

Recruitment flyer for the 13th.

The 13th Independent Special Investigations Battalion is a trap. Posing as a revolutionary occult militia, it infiltrates cults, occult forums, and other groups interested in the paranormal. In reality, the 13th is a cover for Unit 13 of the JCP.

Stated: To wield supernatural phenomena, which the state can neither control nor understand, in a new democratic revolution.

Actual: To monitor, recruit and control radical elements in the pseudoscientific community for the ideological security of the Russian and Chinese states.

In the early 2000s, a new threat came to the attention of both the Russian and Chinese states. With the rise of the internet and the increased exposure of their populations to western influence, a new class of young, politically-active radicals was developing, bringing with them subversive readings of Marxist and other communist literature.

Alongside other measures to combat this ideological concern, analysts noticed that many of these dissidents were congregating around arcane and occult communities—groups purporting to explain, document or even cause inexplicable phenomena and anomalies. Various explanations were proposed, most plausibly that these groups were simply more open to dissident voices. With the dawn of the JCP, both governments decided to cooperate to infiltrate, disrupt and harness these scattered movements, rather than attempting the futile task of eradicating them completely. A new task force was created to spearhead these efforts.

Founded in 2002 as Unit 968, it took the name '13th Independent Special Investigations Battalion' as cover, and was correspondingly redesignated to Unit 13. In the following years, it has built a strong domestic intelligence network, and also been used for deniable espionage against western pseudoscientific organisations.

Unit 13 falls under the JCP, along with the more official—although still highly classified—Unit 871, which is filled with state loyalists. Whereas Unit 871 sees the paranormal as a tool to be used by the state, many of Unit 13's members believe it is genuinely mysterious and impossible for any government to control, and thus a perfect weapon to use against authoritarianism.

It is heavily influenced by western cultures, including those represented by the NATO factions—ANCOM, GRAIL, and the Bundesgeheimnissesamt. Members recognise these nations as fundamentally flawed democracies corrupted by the evils of capitalism, but democracies nonetheless, and seek to emulate their libertarian ethics. They are also often deployed to surveil or infiltrate these factions as entirely deniable agents of the state.

There is little respect in the unit for private interests, including Petrogon and SPRHD, and opinions on environmentalist movements such as Sceau d'Or and Terra Indomita are mixed.

Unit 13 recruits exclusively from radical groups that claim to have experience with the supernatural.

Generally, Unit 13's recruits believe that they are joining a genuine revolutionary militia. By the time the truth is revealed after several months of training and initiation, the state knows everything about them, including where to find and how to harm the things they care most about. Most frequently, they simply threaten the new agent's parents. Very few refuse or have too little to lose to be effectively controlled, and those that do are swiftly and silently disappeared.

The senior leadership of the unit are all highly loyal to the JCP and their respective states, often drawn from party and military officials. They were not tricked into joining, but instead responsible for establishing the trap in the first place. Player characters will not be able to fill these roles, although they might be lower-ranking officers.