668 A.S. - Origins
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The wreck of an imperial Rheinland cruiser, left floating
in Sigma-13 after the battle of the Yanagi Nebula |
With the abrupt end to the 80 years war in 668 A.S, the Kaiser ordered the birth of a new sub-military organization tasked with intelligence gathering. With the Rheinland Imperial fleet suffering an enormous blow during the 80 years war, the Kaiser believed the tragic loss of life could have been avoided if they have proper intelligence on the sigma-13 system. The newly formed Rheinland Military did not have the financial means to conduct adequate military intelligence gathering, so the Büro was formed in 670 A.S. The BDM was heavily involved in the Von Rohe's Day incident in 672 A.S. By order of the Kaiser, It infiltrated the protester groups and relayed back to the Military on key figure and plans. It began to target key individuals and they ‘disappeared’ one after the other.
705 A.S. - Downfall and Resurrection
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Rheinland expedition in the Omicrons, ~785 A.S. |
When the Kaiser stepped down, the BDM destroyed all case files and studies and became a ghost. The Büro was not of public knowledge since its creation, so when it got canceled they were not aware of any changes. When the heat from the revolutionaries died down, and a chancellor was put into office, the BDM came back from the shadows and was re-instated into the Rheinland government and armed forces.
With funding from the new Chancellor, the Büro was equipped with military hardware and it became the eyes and ears of Rheinland in Sirius. It began to infiltrate the other houses and key corporations in Sirius. Still unaware of public knowledge, the BDM relayed all data from groups in Sirius to the Chancellor and planned possible Rheinland occupation sites such as the Omegas and Omicrons.
800 A.S. - Baptism of fire
At the end of the eighth century, a group of Rheinland researchers in the Omicron systems would stumble upon a most extraordinary cache. With the discovery of hundreds of artifacts, the Rheinland government and military quickly became infested by nomad organisms. The BDM was not officially known to have had any contaminated agents but during this time, one agent disappeared and his body and ship were never found. With the arrival of the Wilde, the BDM was tasked with its immediate destruction and months were spent on Wilde research and neutralization. This is still continuing to this day.
At early 805A.S. an anomaly was discovered within Sektor-7, the jumphole leading towards an old imperial system named Thuringia had created a stir amongst the military and intelligence division. The sector was known as an abandoned imperial system that had fallen to the Nomadic influence and was a almost fortified beyond penetration. This anomaly had presented a backdoor to retake this territory, but without the available forces to retake the system, any sort of offensive action was delayed and the jumphole was secured around a kill zone until the opportunity can arise again.
816 A.S. - A new threat
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The Munster module in New Hampshire, 821 A.S. |
When the Liberty – Rheinland war broke out, the BDM co-operated with the Rheinland Military on strike groups and recon work. The battles in Texas and Bremen resulted in many agents being killed in the line of duty and BDM recruitment in the Military began to enlarge its member count. Further financial aid was pumped into the BDM during this time.
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Damaged Hamburg jump gate in Hudson, 822 A.S. |
In 818 A.S., when the discovery of the Gallia house was publicised, the Büro was seen in the Tau systems and the Gallia-Sirius border world systems. When the Gallia Royal Navy began its march into the Tau Sector and it agreed a no-fire treat with Kusari so that it could assault Bretonia without disruptions, the BDM began to conduct operations to determine the threat Gallia would pose to Rheinland in the long run while local elements within Rheinland continued to operate against Liberty and it's interests, primarily by disrupting lines of supply within the House of Liberty. The Büro also continued it's work on Nomad-based Technologies despite the setbacks they received within Bremen due to a Libertonian assault on Munster Research Station.
However, with the destruction of both Hamburg jump gates in Bering and Hudson, the bloodshed took an end after five years of war. Rheinland and Liberty agree to a ceasefire in the year 822 A.S., while the BDM still had to settle an outstanding bill - With a final strike, the Büro took the chance to recover content of the stranded Munster module in New Hampshire and subsequently destroyed all remaining evidences, to ensure nothing of Munster's research will ever land in Liberty's hands. Most of Munster's research is gone, however, the BDM could still rescue some databases, including technology relevant for later projects. These were brought to the Westerwald facility in Frankfurt.
823 A.S. - The Reformation
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BDM gunboat in Omicron space, 823 A.S. |
Direktor Volker Koch had taken the lead into taking the Buro within its first steps of change. And change it had to thanks to the withdrawal of units from the front in Liberty and the increasing crime rate in Rheinland, having its support from the Order, the edge worlds became more and more a center of interest. The BDM consolidated its agreements with The Core, with the intention to secure the supplies of nomad technologies from the Edge worlds in return for support against the Order terrorist cells. Since this date the Büro was more frequently seen in Omicron space. Available budget freed by the Liberty war was used to expand the agency and to recruit new personnel. A complete reformation was scheduled. BDM's scientists also made several crucial breakthroughs in the same year, despite the immense setbacks during the war.
But with the fleet free from the Libertonian front the next goal was clear, Thuringia had to be retaken. The presence of the compromised chancellors fleet was a threat to agency security and safety so a major fleet combined with the military was formed to undertake the great task to eliminate Das Wilde forces from this neighbouring system. And so with an immediate flow of the BDM fleet, the agency had moved in to pacify the threat. One after another, ships of the compromised fleet had fallen to the Bundesrepublik advance with ease thanks to the new tactics and unyielding determination to end the alien threat the Republik has been hostage to. But where the older infected ships couldn't stand upto the present and specialised fleet of the agency, ground operations went a lot differently. The bloodied battle on the surface to retake the imperial complex of "Festung Fensalia" had cost the lives and individuality of 30,000 people on both the sides of Das Wilde and the MND. But to this day, it is a war that is held in secret.
824 A.S. - Striving independence
Reformation, reformation and restructuring, this was what happened for the next long gruelling year. The cause of which was the change of ranks,
Direktor Geoffrey Enfield had soon taken up position as Direktor and with it the shifting responsibilities of the
Buro. Although plans to change the Buro were ready, there was a sudden change within the status quo. A new leader meant a new image, striving for independence from not only the military, but the tight grip of the corporations. Ships, equipment and funds were always going to be swayed within the votes of the Bundesrepubliks political halls. So to create a means of swaying opinions, the Buro had to create a bridge of trust with the bureaucratic obstacle. Relations had changed too, the instability and events of the deep omicrons had created a PR divide that was questionable to maintain with the agreements of the Core, distance was created and relations stagnated in favour of a new group, the common enemies of the Outcasts had brought new attention by the agency. Not only of their potential of military assistance but the pure wealth of the nation was a good enough of a reason to open up diplomacy in an attempt to secure economic gain for the republic.
Accountants, investigators and covert agents were the key to sway the opinions. Be it by giving favours or by blackmailing the reputation on senators out of their next annual seat. Budgets were raised and the fleet expanded under its new autonomous authority and projects were opened fast than it had ever done under any previous leadership. Everything seemed to be working in favour of the Buro for that short time. Schatten had expanded its dry docks and the construction of production facilities was bringing the goal of a self-growing agency closer,
The new method had also brought around a change in attitude towards its research division. While nomads are a source of untapped knowledge and technology, the striving goal for independence created an uneasy concern with the science teams. If the
Buro was going to retain its advantageous position over others, making nomad technology its greatest asset would make it its greatest downfall. The science teams didn't fully understand the methods of how all elements work, while experimentation would continue upon the highest anti-human element to understand their weaknesses, the risk of the nomads taking advantage of that weakness is too great.
825 A.S. - A new front, a new issue.
War had once again hit the home-front. The increasing tensions between a victory starved Military with desperate expansionist intentions and the GMG's whos claim on established Rheinland territory had created a feud that was waiting to explode. The
Buro already facing the extent of its over-indulgence of funds had soon received the consequences of such actions, funding had been diverted from the Federal agency towards the military in a hopes that the republic could hopefully secure a quick victory in the conflict they found themselves in. This found the agency scrambling to secure more funding by any means, while budgets were tight they were still able to secure most of their main assets and projects listed under their public dossier. Meanwhile, some other projects were under a new source of income along with new rumours of a sub division solely to obtain profit the agency; be it monetary or material.
But the one thing they were not going to give up,
was their progress towards securing the advantage...
827 A.S. - The Monarchist uprising and the Civil War.
The dawn of spring of the new year has seen a brand new conflict - not of external nature, but within the House and in the highest echelons of power; following the formation of coalition minority government pushing for legal decriminalisation of Bundschuh party and restrain aggressive diplomatic action taken by neighboring Bretonia have caused widespread unrest across Rheinland, starting march 827 with the protests and uprisings instigated and spearheaded by reactionary Imperialist party; initially occuring in Hamburg where said party enjoyed their major support, actively stoked fires of unrest spread across the House major population centers within weeks. With the convenient expellation of sympathetic legislators during the investigation of Buro's complete withdrawal from offensive operations in the Sigma War, the Monarchists have seized their opportunity by the mid-april and declared the Federal government illegitimate in the wake of the greatest wave of protests since the
Von Rohe Day accident.
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Heldrungen wreck, a cruel reminder to purging of Thuringia. |
As the first fights broke out both in space and planetside and an open conflict erupted,
Buro has come to realise the day they have been bracing for, have come. Loyalties have been declared and dispued, stalwart resistance put up against the reactionary elements, the
BDM enacted failsafe contingency plans: the system of Thuringia was cleared of Imperial sympathisers, politicians that later on formed the backbone of Rheinland United Republic were evacuated to underground complexes of planet Weimar, and Thuringia was turned into a fortress system firmly under
Buro control.
The infighting of Imperial and Federal elements have often enough caused gruesome casualties; the
battleship Koblenz, standing guard to Schatten facility, have fallen victim to such infighting, it's federal-leaning elements reinforced by hastily approaching Bayern escorts have broken the backbone of Imperial resistance and secured Schatten - at a cost of the flagship that buckled under intense fire from retreating Imperial forces. It's wreck still remains in Sektor 7 to this day, serving a massive tombstone to all deceased in combat.
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Koblenz, destroyed in Sektor 7 at the opening stage of the war. |
Battleship Karlsruhe was stationed in the orbit of Stuttgart as the open fighting ensued; finding itself far from any and all Federal command centers and with friendly ports in close proximity being but a fleeting dream it performed fighting retreat to the neighboring system against the Altenburg, en route to pacify the rogue Rheinwehr unit. The full scale clash of two battleships only happened in Cologne, with the Imperial formation gaining the upper hand and forcing the Federal supporters to retreat further into Zurich for field repairs and resupply. In desperate demand to reconnect with the rest of Federal resistance, Karlsruhe returned to Cologne and squared off against Altenburg once again but, ultimately cut off from friendly reinforcements, have met it's demise in the shadow of planet Steinfurt.
Eventually not even the entrance into
BDM a prominent figure of
Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke, whose raise through ranks to Generaloberinspektor of Buro was conveniently quick and who have taken charge of coordinating defense efforts across Rheinland with a few daring ideas to work with limited resources and manpower and in the wake of challenges Republican resistance was facing.
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Karlsruhe still remains where it faced it's last fight. |
Imperial reactionaries still controlled majority of popualtion centers, resources of Rheinland and standing armed forces. Realistically, all the Federal coalition could do is further entrench, scraping for resources and watching supportest flock to Thuringia, accumulating reserves. Time did not play in Federalist favor, however, and it was only a matter of time until Imperial forces gather and attempt to breach the system, the Oberkommando, the Government and the system lived in anticipation of that day. The offensive eventually happened and costed both sides even more casualties, some names becoming part of the statistics and some lost to history forever. The fighting had stopped only by mid-December, with either side neglecting their standing orders and refusing to continue fighting, each remaining at their stations - the fighting subsided and an uneasy armistice has ensued, resulting in signing of Holstein Accords that formalised the ceasefire and post-war organisation of government.
830 A.S. - The present day.
In the aftermath of the Civil War,
BDM has found itself in an admittedly odd spot.
Generaloberinspektorin Wilcke further rose to power and assumed Direktorin position after the quiet vanishing of previous Direktor, Kai Siegfried, which led some Agents to quietly ponder whether it is a convenient coincidence or someone has taken direct interest in disposing of Siegfried in favor of new face taking place. Not much radically new has been brought to the table with Wilcke's ascendance - Agency worked in their regular spheres, restored broken connections and assets scuttled during the Civil War, striving to return to pre-war levels of cohesion;
Buro saw an influx of many new recruits, majority with military background who were assigned to retraining or actual service positions, depending on department distribution, some awaiting deployment to assets being reconstructed at Schatten. Federal sentiments are still strong in the Agency, however, displinary penalties are sternly enforced and anyone found in breach of new regulations on duty is indiscriminately prosecuted.
Especially keen watch is placed upon Bretonian activity as suspicion are strong that Imperial coup had happened with serious backing from the aggressive neighbor House implied to still have connections to Imperial family. The Buro affairs, otherwise, continues as usual...