What the Hell is "IRIS"?

[Evilschemer]

Some of the old Challenge Magazine Megatraveller adventures reference IRIS. I know it was introduced in issue 34 or thereabouts, but I don't have that issue.

Can anyone tell me what IRIS is/was? It's obviously some sort of intelligence agency (Imperial Reconnaisance and Intelligence Service?) that hires freelancers, but that's all I know.

 

[Cleon the Mad]

I never got a great handle on them either, so someone feel free to correct me on anything I get wrong.

Anyway, my take is they MAY not have existed before the Rebellion (but may have), and for some reason took it upon themselves to go about the Imperium to many of the faction leaders to declare if they have a legit claim to the Imperial throne or not. In the book "Survival Margin", which is in part a series of TAS articles from 1116 to 1130 with musings from Norris, Strephon and Dulinor tossed in, Strephon mused that he had never heard of them. They do show up apparently to test Strephon, at this point Strephon refuses to be tested despite being the real one and Dulinor killing a clone/actor on Core, so thus they invalidate his claim. Having said that, it was always the duty of the Moot to validate any claims to the Imperial throne, not some spy agency.

Again, not very clear and I'd assume/suspect there's a lot more to them, but that is the little bit I gleened from it, accurate or not

 

[Deniable]

They were a variant that I always thought was best explained as an in-game scam. The only other noteworthy thing about them was the super-spy character generation: skills, anagathics, psionics, you name it.

 

[saundby]

Imperial Regency of Intelligence and Security

They're described in Challenge 33 &34 on the JTAS CD. It's a secret service that acts as a sort of shadow regent to the throne of the Empire, ensuring the succession to prevent civil wars like those that resulted in the Emperors of the Flag. Established by Arbellatra immediately upon her coronation following her regency.

They have 5 mandates, which briefly are:
Ensure a smooth and lawful succession.
Protect the Emperor
Cross check intel given to the Emperor
Fight foreign attempts at intrigue against the Empire
Conduct extra-Imperial espionage

Sort of a Secret Service, NSA and CIA all in one.

There are three branches:Covert, Strike, and Ops. Rules for characters are in Challenge 34, the background is in Challenge 33.

 

[Tathlum]

However, the fact that Strephon hadn't heard of them implies that they were retconned out. A less hamfisted retcon than most, but still a retcon.

OTOH, there are plenty of hooks provided fom a powerfull CIA-type organisation that feels they have a mandate from a higher source than the current Emperor while still claiming to act on the Emperors behalf, witout the knowledge or consent of the current Emperor.

 

[kafka]

Watching last season's Smallville - one does not too many Traveller ideas but one came up with Vertas. Lionel was telling Lex in the Traveller:

Lionel: "Oh, think about it, Lex. Skull & Bones, Scroll & Key, the Delphic. The rich have secret societies. The others have poker nights."

This struck me as the perfect way of explaining IRIS. It would exist as a conspiracy only raising its head when the Imperium itself seemed threatened as a conspiracy dating from the First Civil War. It could be that Emperor was never informed because it acted as the check above the Emperor by the rich and the well to do in the Imperium.

 

[Infojunky]

However, the fact that Strephon hadn't heard of them implies that they were retconned out. A less hamfisted retcon than most, but still a retcon.

No it was Gannon's attempt to get a variant in as "Cannon" being removed as such.

 

[GypsyComet]

The original articles were clearly labeled as a Variant written by Charles Gannon.

They started appearing in TAS News articles when Mr. Gannon became the line editor. Or rather, people claiming to be part of IRIS started appearing in news items.

This continued until Dave Nilsen took over as line editor at the end of MegaTraveller. One of his first works was Survival Margin, in which we see Strephon state that he's never heard of IRIS.

Charles Gannon has popped up in the last year or so and stated that the appearance of IRIS in official materials had the full support of Marc and GDW at the time. This begs the question. Was IRIS intended to be an in-setting scam from the get go? Or was Charles Gannon merely taking advantage to get his homebrew into canon and got nixed when someone else took over?

I did not like the IRIS material to begin with, and disliked it becoming official, so Dave Nilsen's "retcon" was fine by me.

 

[FreeTrav]

My problem with IRIS is that it seemed a little too much like some hypersecret agencies that had appeared in other fiction I'd read, such as CURE from the Destroyer series, or 'QCIC' from another story that I can't recall at the moment (QCIC was from the Latin, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?, "Who shall watch the watchers?"), who had a mission that was often described as 'We shall preserve the Law, which is truly unworkable, by operating outside it'.

IRIS had some interesting possibilities for adventures, regardless of whether it was canonical, real, scam, or whatever - but I didn't really like it.