Good afternoon. Let's start with this.
You can address me as Commander Thompson. All you need to know about me is that I served in the US Army for over twenty years, as well as in the Navy and Special Forces. Eventually I was sent to train various brigades and militias in Mexico and Guatemala to train them in their war on drugs. This was about twelve years ago. I then returned home, where I was recruited by the SCP Foundation for my record and experience in unusual situations, becoming a trainer for Mobile Task Forces and even leading some missions. To make a long story short, I defected after seeing firsthand the corruption of the so-called Inner Circle within the Foundation and, more precisely, its O5 Command.
In this orientation I will try to give you a brief overview of what the recruitment of new members of the Insurgency entails. I will share some of my experience in the field both as part of the Central Command and Intelligence and my time as leader of the Recruitment Team "Bad Tongue" until my official retirement.
I'll be blunt with you: There are three types of personnel in the Insurgency. I'm not talking about Doctors, Researchers and the like, that's something another department deals with; here we'll just focus on the armed forces and the guerrillas.
The first are commonly known as the "Dispensables." I think it's obvious why. But the reasoning behind these guys is not fully understood. When it comes to recruiting new personnel, everyone starts out as Dispensables. It's not until time passes and higher-ups in Central Command evaluate the performance of the new recruits that the soldiers are then chosen.
The criteria for being chosen are no different than any other military in the world and are based mostly on performance, health, loyalty, etc. This last one, "Loyalty," I admit can vary and there are cases where some Operatives join only in exchange for a monetary exchange, but there are very few exceptions. And no, we no longer force personnel to any doctrine or oath. Those days are over.
The fact is that if they play their cards right, their skills in the field will separate them from the rest of the Dispensables. Those who make it through move on to the second type of personnel. However, those who don't, will not simply be left behind. In fact, they will also be given a place in the Insurgency.
Don't worry. If you're in this seminar, that means you're past that stage. No, there's nothing I can give you but my word to make you believe me. It's not like they have a lot of options anyway, but they are given their suits, weapons, private space, and their Alpha Level clearance. For some, it's definitely better than where they were before.
As for the Expendables, don't feel sorry for them. Most, if not all, are made up of the worst of the worst, and not in a good way. Practically anyone who is incapable of thinking things through and makes decisions based more on their emotions is part of the Expendables, so it's not surprising to find low-level criminals here as well as rapists, con artists, and "assassins" who only manage to kill someone when they have the advantage. In short, they are people who would be incapable of fighting even if their life depended on it. Calling them "stray bullets" would be an insult to them, as even a bullet fired blindly has a higher chance of killing its target.
In this group there are also all those who willingly join our cause, but for the wrong reasons. We are talking about people with such basic training in self-defense and gun handling that they would not intimidate a Palestinian child. These are the kind of people, both from the mundane world and the anomalous community, who are carried away by the name "Insurgency" and immediately believe that they are fighting to make the world a better place, without discrimination, where everyone is equal and all that shit.
So it is not surprising that among the Dispensables you find the kind of people who fight for a cause only as an excuse to hurt people and quench their thirst for blood: Corrupt policemen, Middle Eastern war "veterans", self-proclaimed Communists, ex-Antifa members and even the occasional fanatic Nationalist who doesn't even know how he ended up with us in the first place.
And if you think there will ever be a time when these guys will run out and you will have to take their place, don't panic. The Expendables will never run out, not only because there will always be idiots who will never be aware of their own actions, but because countries on many continents pay to practically take them by force; South American countries alone give us more Expendables than all the others combined. They will seriously do anything to keep us from getting rid of the Socialists in their states.
And in the end they all end up being used for the same thing: Cannon fodder. Or human shields if you prefer that term. Even the most useless specimen of the human race has some use if you are very creative. If there is one thing the Insurgency is good at, it is not wasting resources. And in the end that is all these guys are.
The second type of personnel is the one you belong to. The personnel that, although replaceable, cannot afford to lose. The money, material and time spent on their recruitment, transfer, training, clothing, food and so on is only invested in those soldiers who are worth having on our side for a long time. And if possible, for the entire time of their natural life.
These soldiers can come from anywhere, and it is common that a large part of them are made up of former members of other Interest Groups who defected for personal reasons. It goes without saying that those who defected from the Foundation have a special merit among the Insurgency, mostly for the information and even anomalies they can bring with them, and even if this information is not much, their little knowledge is added to that of other former employees of the Foundation to create a clearer picture of the way they operate. As I said, we do not waste anything.
This has to do mostly with the fact that the Foundation is always updating its security measures, containment protocols, anomaly transportation means, etc. so having new recruits who recently belonged to the SCP is always quite convenient to obtain.
But at the end of the day it is the skills and experiences they demonstrate that define whether they will be part of the Insurgency or not. If they previously specialized in some area it is more than likely that they will be placed in a similar position in their given assignment: Containment Specialists go to Item Storage, Mobile Task Force members go to Special Teams, etc. The only exception to this is of course the D-Class, where depending on your performance you can either be part of this group or end up with the Expendables.
Of course this doesn't mean that one has to have been part of a GoI to join the IC. Yes, we definitely have a preference for experience like anyone else, but as I said, manpower is hard to come by these days, so we're happy if you're willing to learn quickly and obey orders given to you without question, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
Which brings me to what I personally consider the most important aspect of this group: Camaraderie. If there's one thing that the Insurgency's soldiers, security personnel, and agents are known for, it's 1) their complete dedication to the cause, 2) risk-taking in the use of anomalies, and 3) teamwork to continue despite the situation they find themselves in. The latter seems to be overshadowed by the latter, to the point that the Insurgency is thought to be more of a group of madmen who use anomalies irresponsibly and inhumanly…and that's true, but only in very special circumstances.
Most of the time we rely on teamwork to get us through any situation, quick decision making, and competent use of our resources. All of these aspects derive from good leadership as well as the cooperation of all the parts that make up our staff; nothing and no one is more important or less valuable in this group. And only when ensuring the safety of a specific member is vital to the mission, is when the other members of the staff must be ready to work together to ensure that this specific soldier reaches his destination safely.
If you were part of the Foundation then things will not be much different: You and your comrades will give your lives for the greater good and you will go out there knowing that you will be content with having a bullet in your head to end your suffering and a nameplate with your name on it. But unlike the Foundation, we will not consider you just another cog in the machine; your memory and your experiences will become an example for future members, not just as a cautionary tale or a little anecdote, but as the story of an individual whose life had purpose and fought for something true. Not a cause based on lies and hypocrisy like the Foundation, but one based on honesty and the assurance that you will be there, watching from the front row, what we have planned to do to make the world a better place.
The last type of personnel is what we call Operatives. You will hear this word from time to time, but rarely openly and always only in whispers from Gamma-class and similarly-cleared documentation.
Insurgency Operatives are, to put it briefly, groups of people who stand out from the rest of the staff in several unique ways, the most specific being being a Person or Anomaly of Interest.
You heard right. Don't forget, though, that the POI label doesn't immediately apply to agents who have an agenda against the Insurgency but who also present some aspect of interest to the Insurgency, be it information, an anomaly, or in this case, the potential to be recruited. Seen from that perspective, it is obvious that we get many of the Operatives and even some of the soldiers that are part of their group from here, but it is rarely the case, since the designation of PoI or AdI in a sapient anomaly is usually reserved only for anomalous humanoids and these always end up being part of the Operatives or if they have potential they are taken to see if they are selected to be part of the Corvus Project.
However, this is very, very rare to happen, not only because of the entry standards, but because the anomalies themselves of these POIs are sometimes quite specific and Corvus only takes those who have a very useful one and who know how to handle it, two things that anomalous individuals rarely have.
As for Operatives, these are usually taken under the tutelage of a Gamma Class member who only answers to Delta Command. The Operative only answers to this and sometimes to Delta Command itself and usually has full access to the Items as well as access to various files restricted to the rest of the personnel, not to mention a direct link to Central Command and Insurgency Intelligence.
This all sounds great until you realize that these guys are assigned to the most dangerous missions of the Insurgency, those that can only be described as suicidal, sometimes because partially dying is one of the goals necessary to complete the mission. It is obvious that these missions are assigned to these subjects because of their unique abilities or because they have individual knowledge that only they can handle or put into practice better than anyone else.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about the Operatives here, mostly because you're not allowed to listen to the rest. And no, you can't sign up to be an Operative, as I said these are handpicked; if you had any worth to become an Operative you wouldn't be here. They even have their own orientation, though it rarely consists of more than four or five individuals, that's how rare Operatives are.
I know it doesn't seem like there's any point in talking about them here, but they are also part of the Insurgency staff and you will inevitably hear about them someday, so it's better to know about it sooner rather than later when you're asking annoying questions.
And that's all you need to know about how we handle recruitment in the Insurgency, at least with your current authorization. Who knows, maybe if you try hard you'll be promoted, but only if you take into account everything I told you about working as a team and sacrificing everything for the greater good, which in this case is the will of Delta Command and the Machine.
The world is changing gentlemen, the rules we once thought unbreakable are being broken and the enemies we thought indestructible have begun to fall. This combined with the current state of the mundane world and the anomalous world is creating a landscape of anarchy, dystopia and chaos, one that craves and calls for someone who can bring order back to it; it is, without a doubt, the best time to be an Insurgent.
You may retire.
Original: Orientación sobre el Reclutamiento del Personal Insurgente
Date: 12 Sep 2020
Author: Yorick1
Translator: Yorick1