#counter-terrorism

In the table-top role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade you play a vampire trying to stay alive while feeding on humans. There are various factions in this game and one of the newer ones is called The Second Inquisition. It’s the name given by vampires to human counter-terrorism agents who have become aware of the existence of vampires. These agents use the resources at their disposal to hunt and kill vampires, just like they would terrorists. 

All playable Operators from the first person shooter Rainbow Six Siege have biographies that could be used to describe an agent of the Second Inquisition.  Furthermore several operators are from locations that are important in Masquerade, such as Los Angeles or Paris. 

I am writing all of this in the hopes that a V:TM Storyteller looks at the wiki for Siege and throws some operators at their players. Also, Here’s five of the Operators, their callsign, real name, Counter Terrorism Agency, how they would act (after shock and disbelief) knowing that Vampires Are Real, and which clan they would join if they had to choose:

Operation Phoenix was an operation run by the C.I.A during the Vietnam war, that has been referred to as a ‘computerised genocide’ program. The aim of Phoenix was to conduct infiltration, ‘counter-terrorism’, interrogation and assassination in order to undermine the National Liberation Front (NLF) or Vietcong and destroy its infrastructure.

It was considered less a component of ‘war’ and more a systematic method of torture, murder and genocide conducted by the United States. The strategy made a point not to target soldiers, but instead actively targeted civilians and operated under laws that allowed for the detention of ‘suspected communists’. Some of the strategies used by the United States in their regional interrogation centres were truly horrific, they included gang rape, rape with animals such as eels or snakes, rape with large foreign objects, electric shocks through wires attached to the victims genitals or tongue, suspending prisoners in the air by their arms which were tired behind their backs, and mauling by dogs.

One of the intelligence officers working at a centre described these sadistic methods, including:

The use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee’s ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead. The starvation to death (in a cage), of a Vietnamese woman who was suspected of being part of the local political education cadre in one of the local villages…The use of electronic gear such as sealed telephones attached to…both the women’s vaginas and men’s testicles [to] shock them into submission.

Excerpts from a recent piece for The Nib I created with Dr. Nazia Kazi about the U.S. government’s racist counter-terrorism policies in the post 9-11 era. Please give it a read! 

Black Activist Jailed For His Facebook Posts Speaks Out About Secret FBI Surveillance: Rakem Balogun spoke out against police brutality. Now he is believed to be the first prosecuted under a secretive US effort to track so-called ‘black identity extremists’

Photographs:

Rakem Balogun in his hometown of Dallas, Texas, days after being released from prison