Dragaera

Third Floor Relic vs the Special Tasks Group?

Davdi Silverrock davdisil at gmail.com
Thu Apr 13 16:08:27 PDT 2006

On 4/13/06, Jon_Lincicum at stream.com <Jon_Lincicum at stream.com> wrote:
> Given that the Dragaeran Empire apparently has several different
> intelligence services, I was curious if the several we know about have
> real-world equivalents.
>
> "Division Six" seems to be a direct reference to "MI-6" (British Secret
> Service)
> "Imperial Surveilence Corps" might be the FBI (Operates domestically,
> substitute "Federal" for "Imperial")
> "Third Floor Relic" didn't make any sense, until I noticed that the logo
> for the Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) features two steps, on top of which
> (on the "Third Floor") sits a menorah (a sort of Relic).

That seems to be way too much of a reach, to me.  Third Floor Relic is
a *small* group, that reports directly to the Empress, and works on
very specific and narrowly defined objectives.  None of that
description really works for the Mossad.

I would suggest looking into historical intelligence groups, and
possibly fictional ones as well (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
maybe?).  I did a bit of research on Wikipedia, and haven't found
anything that looks quite right yet.

> I was trying to find a direct reference for "Special Tasks Group", but
> this is less clear, it seems more like the CIA, Or maybe "Special Forces"
> or the Secret Service.
>
> Can anyone think of any clues from /Orca/ that might nail this one down?
>

Well, consider who they report to:  Khaavren is head of the Imperial
Guard.  That seems to make them an analog of the Secret Service and/or
Military Intelligence.  Or so I might guess, anyway.