Analysis Bureau

Analysis Bureau was a bureau of Imperial Intelligence responsible for handling large amounts of data from tens of millions of sources, searching for enemy activity by analyzing the patterns or trends in the data they handle and transmitting the information to Intelligence. Analysis also handled, examined and copied useful technologies, even developing a few of their own.

Media
The Media branch of the Analysis Bureau handled public scandocs, newsdocs, holos, comlinks, beamcasts, and every form of media in the Empire, looking for patterns of hidden meanings which might betray a clue as to an enemy's plan and operation. With Sector Plexus and the Imperial CompLink, Media could give a cursory examination of all media in the Empire simultaneously. While they regularly concentrated on a significantly smaller portion of the Empire, they did cast their net wide often enough to make a professional judgment as to whether or not a new media source should be monitored on a more regular basis.

Signal
While Media monitored the intended message, the Signal branch examined the channel through which the information was transmitted. Signal sampled and checked carrier wave codes and CompLink protocols, scan rates on scandocs and image packs on holos to see if any information was being squeezed into the space between what a citizen might ordinarily sense. Signal examined line noise to see if it might contain a pattern rather than random error. Broadcasts and beamcasts were examined to see if the backup information sent with the primary information actually matches, and, if not, how they differed.

Signal did occassionally overreach itself, applying blindingly sophisticated mathematical techniques to squeeze nonexistant meanings from chaotic data. However, it was Signal which discovered that Leia Organa-Solo had the plans to the Death Star through the analysis of un-shielded ELEL (Extremely Low Energy Level) transmissions from her ship.

Cryptanalysis (Crypt)
When Media and Signal found evidence of coded communication, they gave it to the Crypt. Agents of Crypt called themselves "lignyots," though no one outside Crypt knew why.

Crypt had a reputation for their bizarre and unprofessional behavior; they would often send scandocs to other branches in simple codes, which would mutate into an unflattering holo if not broken quickly enough, and they would try to break the security of the communications between branches, forging inflammatory messages on a secure channel when they succeeded.

They often moved the entrance to their offices or relocate their facilities entirely, leaving only a puzzling scandoc as to their new location; all communications to the Sector Pleux from the new branch office had invariably been relayed through thousands of points before reaching Sector Plexus, making successful tracing almost impossible.

Their behavior caused other bureaus to complain to the Ubiqtorate, but the Ubiqtorate saw it as more of an opportunity than a problem, and whenever Crypt did something off-beat, another branch was assigned to deal with the problem as if it were an example of enemy-generated activity. However, Crypt calmed down quite a bit after one of their branch offices was relocated, and found and liquidated by Assassination within eight days.

Tech
Tech was responsible for figuring out how an enemy's hardware worked, and to provide Imperial Intelligence with hardware which was superior to the enemy's. Tech had a lavish budget adn a number of highly skilled personnel whose moments of brilliant inspiration could translate into innovative technology. The administration, however, which was chosen from scientists and technologists within the branch, were often lost when having to decide upon the proper priorities for projects which were outside their area of expertise.

Tech did a better job analyzing enemy gear than in producing its own; with the hardware in front of them and orders to figure out how it worked, Tech scientists did the job better than anyone else in the galaxy. It was when they had to set their own goals and critera for project success did the process go awry.

Interrogation
Interrogation was responsible for the handling of enemy agents captured by Imperial Intelligence. Not as bloodthirsty as their counterparts in COMPNOR, Interrogation was also slightly less effective in cracking prisoners. They had a larger purpose, working on the assumption that the Rebellion would work as hard as possible to render any divulged information useless. Unless the Rebel was believed to hold vital information, interrogation was light.

A larger number of psychological probes was made of the prisoner, and direct neuroprogramming of suspectible prisoners would result. The results of their novel techniques were undetectable by everything but the most advanced medical probes, of which there were very few and every one of which was under Imperial control. While expensive, reprogrammed Rebels had a high reliability as double-agents, and had provided Infiltration with some of their best agents.

The Rebellion became more aware of the tactic as time went on, but Interrogation modified its approach to stay one step ahead of the Rebels by releasing more Rebels than they once did, including some fairly valuable to the Rebellion; they only reprogrammed a few, and as suspicion fell on all of the released prisoners, the Rebellion was torn whether or not to accept any, all or none of the prisoners. The doubt and debate did significantly lower the morale at some Rebel bases. The second modification was to use image surgery on a reprogrammed agent, and have Infiltration brief him and then have him join the Alliance as an unknown recruit. While this method tood considerable time, no agent who had been infiltrated this way had ever been discovered.