COMPNOR
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COMPNOR (the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order), was formed in Imperial City months after Palpatine assumed power. Initially COMPNOR was little more than a social gathering for idealistic young beings who saw in the New Order a deliverance from the chaos of the dying days of the Old Republic.
One of the Emperor's advisors, one Crueya Vandron, saw the potential worth of a populist movement which could be molded into a useful political tool. Overt encouragement and discrete funding were provided, giving COMPNOR the appearance of a spontaneous organization enjoying phenomenal growth.
Crueya Vandron gave COMPNOR the resources to grow, but the Emperor took a hand in the shaping of the organization. His methods were patient, defeating his opponents within COMPNOR not through violence or threats, but with a hidden, gentle, consistent pressure which wore the opposition down. Thos who opposed the change in COMPNOR never even knew the Emperor had done anything to instigate the changes. Most could not even explain how the nature of their organization differed from what they had envisioned.
Key members of the group were approved for the Select Committee, the part of COMPNOR that would oversee the rest of the organization, which implicit approval of the Emperor. Then the changes became more sweeping. The Emperor's peculiar genius was again demonstrated - he had succeeded in having his enemies unknowingly choose exactly the course of action he desired them to choose.
COMPNOR is no longer an innocuous social club. It has become a powerful tool for the New Order. COMPNOR actively attempts to build the ethic of the New Order into the life of the average galactic citizen. COMPNOR is also recruiting young beings in huge numbers in order to assure that future citizens will consider the Old Republic a relic of the past, committing their lives totally to the New Order. Back
CAMPNOR'S Role in the Empire
COMPNOR is more than a vocal and enthusiastic group committed to raising young Imperial citizens to be totally loyal to the Empire. COMPNOR has made great pains to recruit form or insert members into the massive Imperial bureaucracy. In time, COMPNOR's influence became so pervasive that the Imperial bureaucracy was under its complete control, and thus absolutely dedicated to the whims of the Emperor. During the era, the bureaucracy answered to the Imperial Senate (in theory). COMPNOR also took great pains to insert its members into local bureaucracies, on the sector, system, planetary, and even city level.
After Palpatine dissolved the Senate ("for the duration of the emergency"), COMPNOR's Select Committee was more than adequately prepared to fill the void, directing virtually every policy decision made by the bureaucracy. The regional Moffs and governors had control over their systems, but also know that they will be observed by countless COMPNOR loyalists below them. With COMPNOR at his command, there is no way to resist the will of the Emperor ... Back
The Select Committee is the ruling body for COMPNOR. The Select Committee has a variable number of members, and the COMPNOR charter provides for electoral and honorary means of being named a member of the Select Committee, but these are seldom invoked anymore. At its height, the Select Committee contained over 25,000 members. The shadow of the Emperor fell across the Committee, and membership declined precipitously.
No one knows exactly how many members there are now. Those in the lower echelons of COMPNOR believe there are still 15,000 or more members. Those who are higher up quietly guess that there are perhaps one hundredth that number. The Select Committee declines to dispel the confusion. Back
SAGroup is a contraction for Sub-Adult Group. SAGroup is the largest branch of COMPNOR. SAGroup has recently exceeded two trillion members, and it is still growing. SAGroup headquarters most resembles the original COMPNOR, an enthusiastic group who firmly believes the New Order is the best regime for the galaxy.
Other branches of COMPNOR often recruit from SAGroup, but most other communication with the other branches is carefully screened by the Internal Affairs division of the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB). SAGroup is intentionally kept ignorant of most of the darker aspects of the Empire.
Those assigned to SAGroup headquarters (SAGroupHQ) coordinate all of the communications for the divisions under them. They do the job buy not very efficiently. There is a tradition of mishandled communications which are passed along as folklore to new members of SAGroup. Back
The program which COMPNOR a positive reputation on thousands of worlds, SAGEducation succeeds in bringing learning to billions of young beings who had fallen into the cracks during the breakup of the Old Republic. It is largely unaffected by the changes in the rest of the organization, and continues to be popular on almost ever world served by SAGroups.
The personnel of SAGEducation are as dedicated as those in SAGroupHQ, but they are better organized. They believe in the future of the New Order, and they believe in teaching their charges to become as well educated as they can in order to be better galactic citizens. Many of the educators have been surprised that this attitude has caused the occasional confrontation with the ISB. The continued popularity of SAGEducation has moderated the ISB reaction, but some of the educators are emboldened to surreptitiously question the New Order. The ISB will not doubt respond ... Back
SAGRectreation was created to provide wholesome activities for member beings. Wegsphere is their one real triumph, a competitive sport which has caught on in thousands of systems. Everything else suggested by SAGroupHQ is often ignored by the SAGRec personnel.
Some branches of SAGRec have been filled with future CompForce hopefuls. These SAGRecs engage in harsh physical training and wargames as an introduction to military training. Some have been reputed to hold exercises with blasters, casually ignoring the removal of the stunsafes which prevent lethal fire. Back
Some of the SAGroup members fail to live up to the ideals of the New Order. If such behavior is persistent, they are sent here to learn how to become useful citizens supportive of the New Order. The reported success rate of the motivation section at reforming recalcitrant SAGroupers is nearly a five-fold exaggeration. The Motivation section's reputation for making sure no troublemakers are released before their compliance with the New Order is assuredly not an exaggeration. Back
This group is gently wriggling form the control of SAGroupHQ, goaded by support from the ISB. Their activities are at an all-time high, sometimes offering impressive incentives to parents to have their offspring join SAGroup. The goals over the next five standard years is to have membership in SAGroup swell to 10 trillion. Back
The Coalition for Progress is the central authority and clearinghouse for the reports of all of the Sector Monitors. COMPNOR members inside and outside of the coalition simply refer to it as "Progress". Progress has grown from an understaffed and under whelming authority on culture in the Empire to a large bureaucracy with surprising efficiency at gathering and analyzing the information which pours in from the Sector Monitors.
Recent events, however, have tied Progress much closer to the Imperial Security Bureau. They now gather low-level intelligence for the ISB, sifting through literally millions of reports on the chance of uncovering an as yet undiscovered activity of the Rebellion. Any pattern of activity which strikes Progress as suspicious is analyzed, and the findings are passed on to the ISB. Back
A Sector Monitor is a collection of agencies which theoretically report on the cultural progress within a sector toward the perfection of the New Order. The Sector Monitor does rough sorting of data, largely by division type. If Progress considers data sensitive, they handle the encoding of the reports and update the COMPNOR members as to the security level of their reports to the Sector Monitor.
Below the Sector Monitor are collections of COMPNOR members dispersed throughout the systems of the sector. These collections are loosely grouped by the type of social activity on which they are reporting. Back
The Art group is easily the most despised group within Progress by most of the citizens of the Empire. The Art group reports on the suitability of art forms within their sector, trying to apply the same austere tenets of the New Order to every art form within the galaxy; sand-casting of Tatooine, transnovels of Cadomai, participlays of Besn, the dynamic holosculptures of Ediorung - all are judged by the same inflexible criteria.
To the thousands of sophisticated species who have developed their cultures over millenia, the Art group has as much right to pass judgement on art as an uneducated native has. Most would accept the native's views as more accurate.
When Art has something particularly scathing to say about a work, they attach a holopanel near the site which continuously replays their review. The intense red of the wavelength give the text in these holopanels has given the name "scarlet" to any particularly unfavorable review. "Drawing a scarlet" is now a guarantee of success on scores of worlds. Back
The science groups were originally their own group within COMPNOR. A political reshuffling landed them under the wing of Progress. Science does much more than report on the political acceptability of scientific research within their sector. They actively coordinate research and development efforts geared toward enhancing scientific progress in the New Order. many of its members are scientists of firm conscience who have resisted COMPNOR's pressure to concentrate on projects with direct military applications.
While the ISB keeps a close watch on the Science group, COMPNOR takes few reprisals against those scientist who continue to do basic research within their fields at the expense of weapons programs. Back
In the early days, COMPNOR used the Commerce agencies to work in conjunction with the large commercial houses to design programs for economic improvement on worlds within the Empire. Success included the Corporate Sector Systems Development Programs, known as D-Progs. D-Progs gave crucial and effective aid to frontier worlds which had been neglected during the collapse of the Old Republic, making them economically self-sufficient. In return, the Corporate Sector Authority secured profitable new markets.
Other programs were less worthwhile , including the well-publicized disaster of Native Management and Industrialized Service (NAMIS) on Gamorr.
Now Commerce is an organ for industrial espionage against large commercial houses and political strong-arming of those smaller commercial interests which might have sympathies for the Rebellion.
Commerce wants to make certain that the Empire loses no more valuable technology to the Rebels. Commerce does pass on breakthroughs produced in the Science Group to those corporations which have served the Empire well in the past. Back
The Education agencies were given the mandate to homogenize the level of education throughout the Empire, to place emphasis on the values cherished by the New Order. Unlike SAGEducation, the Education agencies actually do no teaching. Instead, they generate data reports on how individual worlds should transform their educational system in order to conform with the dictates of the New Order. The Education agencies are now the subject of derision in a great majority of sectors in the Empire.
Consequently, the Select Committee uses the Education agencies as dumping grounds for incompetents who are politically useful to retain somewhere in COMPNOR. With the exception of SAGroup, the rest of COMPNOR knows this is the case. Being reassigned to an Education Agency is called being "sent to the idea dusters." Back
The Senatorial struggle in the Old Republic left a legal legacy full of complications, problems of precedence and reflexivity, and inequities under the law. Justice agencies were given the job to produce a uniform legal code which would apply to the entire Empire. Unlike the Education agencies, the members of Justice realized that they would have to implement their ideas as well as present legal theories to the local systems. The legal system improved greatly with the fervent efforts of the members of Justice.
Recently, Crueya Vandron has been trying to work the idea of "Imperial infallibility" into the code. His efforts have been resisted almost to a being within Justice. As a result, the ISB has been harassing individual members, occasionally trumping up charges against less prominent members in order to intimidate the more politically powerful. Progress has been assigning new members to Justice who see things the way the Emperor would like them seen. Back
Originally the Improvement Division of the Commerce agencies, Improvements became its own group when the Select Committee began organizing COMPNOR along the designs "suggested" by the Emperor. Improvements receives copies of Progress reports as forwarded by the ISB. Progress reports cases of system deviance from the ideals of the New Order to the ISB. The Imperial Security Bureau assigns Improvements those cases which will require long term solutions, especially when those solutions are best not associated with the Emperor. Back
Resources available to each Sector Development agency vary greatly. While the Emperor personally approves of the methods of Sector Development, there are other short term projects which are given funding priority. Most Sector development agencies have adapted by initiating low cost strategies, then pouring in precious funds to whichever strategies demonstrate the greatest promise.
Sector Development contains two departments, the Department of Modification and the Department of Redesign. Back
To the public, Modification is an association of technologies and system specialists who help local systems modify their technology to Imperial standards. While they do perform some of that, their primary and secret purpose is to slowly modify social conditions and institution to cement a system's loyalty to the New Order.
Modification covertly promotes the careers of being whose politics match the Empire's more closely than their rivals. they create small perturbations which can interact to form social problems of bewildering complexity, and then help their chosen agents solve the problems. Their methods take a great deal of time and patience.
The Rebellion is, in the parlance of the members of Modification, a "site specific cause of negative feedback". Modification sees the Rebellion as too specific to regions within the Empire to ever have a lasting effect on the Empire as a whole, especially given that he Rebellion spend so much of its time reacting to the activities of the Imperial military. Modification is content to wait the Rebellion out. Back
There are times when Improvements decides that a local system is virtually unsalvageable in its current form - no degree of small modifications will suffice to move it securely in to the fold of the New Order. If a planet is deemed to be of marginal value, the problem is handed over to the Imperial military. If a planet is considered to be of some value, Redesign will often augment the military's action.
Redesign describes its works with the murky vocabulary of "state changes," "shock vectors" and "bifunction manifolds". These neutral terms mask some of the most evil actions taken on behalf of the Empire. Redesign agencies rarely have the resources to handle more than one world in a sector at a time - a small mercy for the citizens of the Empire. Back
CompForce is the military arm of COMPNOR.