Project Ozma is a peer threat group to Firewall. Almost the only one. Spawned by the Planetary Consortium, Project Ozma now operates as the Planetary Consortium’s high-level threat assessment and response organization with immense power and authority as well as almost unlimited funding. Primarily focused on extraterrestrials, in reality ProjectOzma is tasked with any potent threat to the Planetary Consortium or its interests (which includes secret threat groups, such as Firewall).
METHODS
Project Ozma’s internal structure is much different from Firewall’s, being organized more like a traditional black ops spy agency bureaucracy. While their field operations are sometimes similar in the deployment of teams to assess, contain, or erase threats, they also have the resources and personnel to conduct more long-term and extensive operations. It is likely that Project Ozma operates behind numerous front groups, from legitimateseeming hypercorps to criminal syndicates, and that they have influence within many others. Given their connections and reach, Project Ozma is far more capable of pulling strings behind the scenes to get what they want, especially in the inner system. When circumstances call for it, they are more likely to pull out the big guns than Firewall is, using their resources to call up communication blackouts, memetic propaganda campaigns, and force sufficient to wipe out entire habitats.
Project Ozma is the ultimate Men-in-Black style government operation. They are cunning, ruthless, manipulative, and capable of hatching extensive long-term plots. Even in an age of omnipresent surveillance, they have the means to operate with complete secrecy and deniability. They also have access to cutting-edge science and information that is classified beyond top secret. While the organization’s primary motivation is the protection of the Planetary Consortium and inner system, they undoubtedly have other hidden agendas that groups like Firewall can only guess at.
PROJECT OZMA AND FIREWALL
Though Project Ozma and Firewall often see eye-toeye concerning the nature of various threats, they are more often at odds: wary adversaries, acknowledging the prowess of the other, but never letting down their guard. This “at odds” mentality does not stem so much from the methods used (though most Firewall consider Project Ozma personnel to be explosivehappy puppets that can’t think their way out of a skin sack) as from conflicting agendas. Project Ozma does not trust an organization as powerful as Firewall because it does not have a rigid-enough hierarchy and is outside of any known authority’s control (namely themselves). Conversely, Firewall doesn’t trust Project Ozma as they are too close to the powerful inner system elites and their opposition to x-risks is a more incidental side effect of more self-serving goals.
PROJECT OZMA RUMORS
Whether true or not, the following rumors circulate about Project Ozma among FireWall Cells.
• Project Ozma transcends even the Planetary Consortium’s authority, operating as a supragovernmental agency under the direction of the inner system’s inner circle of elites.
• Project Ozma dealt with the Factors first, before their presence was made known to the rest of transhumanity.
• Project Ozma has captured a live Factor for their own experimental purposes.
• Project Ozma is still in communication with and/or working for the TITANs.
• Project Ozma has a pet TITAN under their control.
• Project Ozma is behind the interdiction of Earth.
• Project Ozma has their own secret Pandora gate.
• Project Ozma’s secret headquarters is on Earth.
• Project Ozma agents have exhibited signs of exsurgent infection.
• Project Ozma has their own cadre of psicapable asyncs.
