Spy Agency (CivBE)

Wonders

Spy Agency
National Wonder in Beyond Earth
Cost	200
Maintenance	None
Requires	Computing
Specialist slots	None
Effect	None
Notes	Allows Spies to be recruited.

The Spy Agency is a National Wonder that allows Spies to be recruited.

History

The oldest mention of covert operations, espionage and subversion can be found in the writings of Sun Tzu and Chanakya, famed ancient military strategists on Old Earth. By the 18th Century, most nations engaged in organized spying on competing powers. But espionage reached new heights in the 21st Century, building upon the technological advances in miniaturization and communications of the previous hundred years. By the time of the Great Mistake, it was axiomatic that any government had a spy agency, and many had multiple agencies operating to cover various subjects of interest, including surveillance of their own citizenry. Beyond the national “intelligence” agencies, during this period corporate espionage became widespread, as the competition for profits between multinational companies became ever more ruthless and devious. By the Seeding, agents of national and corporation spy agencies (although few acknowledged the term “spy”) were regularly engaged in various nefarious activities: information gathering and analysis, code-breaking and SIGINT, sabotage, coups and takeovers, blackmail, even assassination. Whatever their own proclivities, most leaders of the interstellar colony missions eventually established some sort of spy agency and authorized covert missions. It was simply, many settlers felt, necessary to survive and prosper on this new world.