Editing Setting:Cloudburst/People (section)

==“Civil,” official kill count 157==
{{Topquote|If another human sees me at work, something has gone horribly wrong.|"Civil"}}

The [[Vanus]] Assassin codenamed Civil is the leader of a cell of infocytes tasked with the defense of the Cloudburst Sector against the greenskin menace. The Officio Assassinorum generally does not care about the morale of the Cloudburst or any other Sector save Sol, but the possibility that two Ork invasions and the Glasian Migration might collapse Imperial authority there has them concerned, especially since they know a Lord Inquisitor Sicarius is there for some reason. The Officio Assassinorum does know that Lixivim Dill is present in the extreme galactic north somewhere, but they do not know precisely where. If Civil does discover Dill’s location, he is to start trying to kill her immediately, while also sending a message back to Terra to notify the Officio of his discovery of her.

Dill is far more experienced than Civil. Civil and Mimic are aware of each other’s presence, having taken the same ship to the Rampart system, and Civil is hoping that Mimic’s signature super-long-range sniper kills will catch the rumor mill to disguise Civil’s presence. For his part, Mimic suspects that Civil is using his presence in what amounts to a relatively small Ork invasion for something, but he is long past caring. Civil has a seconday objective: resolve the problem of Oglith’s incompetent representation in the Sector. Maddeningly to General Halwart and others tasked with saving Oglith from the Orks and Glasians, the Planetary Governor of Oglith is a personable, loyal, intelligent, capable, and reasonable man, but Subsector Overlord Darren Atongwë has made only half-hearted attempts to dislodge the Orks (as have his relatives) for centuries. There is genuine concern in Sector and Segmentum Command that the Rampart system may fall, and fall soon, should the Orks still be present when the Glasians arrive. Civil is preparing to kill Atongwë if Mimic doesn’t get there first.

Typically, the military of the Imperium uses the Templars Psychologis to reinforce the morale of faltering Imperial worlds in the face of alien invasion. However, Civil is just as good at that as any of them, and so has been sent to perform that role.

Thus, the Senate has tasked Civil with the tertiary objective of using his media manipulation skills to rile up the people of Oglith against the aliens, and also make them at least amenable to a regime change if Atongwë has to die. Civil has focused some of his manipulation efforts on the Oglith media machine, planting whispers and rumors in the right places in the holovid studios, newscast centers, refugee camps, and even Atongwë’s own palace. Civil has based their infocyte operations from a hardened room dropped from orbit by the Senate ship that brought him and Mimic there, which can be just as easily transported back up to the ship overhead by a Bratan or Cetacean cargo shuttle.

Civil is a product of the Schola Progenum system, as all but a tiny handful of Vanus Assassins are. He was born on Cypra Mundi to parents who promptly died in selfless battle against a Dark Eldar raider four years later. He has a relatively low kill count because he was, until recently, stationed on Terra itself. Civil was rooting out and arranging for the murder of Imperial nobles that controlled and sometimes abused corporations on the Throneworld. The noble families based on Terra are sometimes unfathomably ancient, with bloodlines and pedigrees that stretch back all the way to the Golden Age over thirty thousand years ago, and have defenses of archaeotech and bonded servants that the Senate can’t easily bypass. Still, ancient wealth breeds grudges, indolence, and sinful thoughts, and so the Vanus Assassins sometimes send amateur members of their Clade after those nobles who step out of line as training. When those trainee Assassins discover that there is a larger or more dangerous conspiracy or heresy in the house they are tasked with purging, they must call for assistance; until recently, that assistance was Civil. Thus, he has very few kills despite his age.

Civil’s retasking to Cloudburst ensures that he can put his talents to work far from the Palace. In fact, Cloudburst is at the very edge of Imperial space; he is as far from the Palace as he can realistically be and still be in the Galactic North. He has never been to Cloudburst before. If all goes to plan, he just might kill Squiggothrider, Atongwë, and Dill without ever setting foot out of his armored module.

Civil carries a pair of Martian-built Hellpistols for personal emergency defense, as well as the usual arrangement of cybernetic animals, netfly drones, and other info-tools of the trade. As with all Vanus Assassins, he avoids combat when at all possible.