Egeria stood before a line of four people. She was in her office; these people had just been promoted and learned the Tetrarchy's most important secret: that she, Egeria, was alive, who she was, and what the Tetrarchy's purpose was. Henceforth, they were forbidden from participating in any operations that could expose them to Goa'uld capture. They now formed the backbone of her intelligence organization; she had been gathering them for several years, preparing them for a full-fledged service. Szarekh was suspicious of the creation of a counterintelligence organization that could turn into a Kempantai, a Gestapo, or an NKVD, but he gave her carte blanche to build an intelligence structure, using Earth as a testing ground.
Thanks to knowledge implants and virtual reality, agent training took minimal time. But since the Urvashi had little experience in intelligence, much had to be done independently. For example, on Earth, they tested a method of taking control of any planet they captured. Essentially, he and Szareh had created exactly what he had feared on Urvashi—a system of absolute and total control. He had developed a drone the size of a fly, capable of transmitting audio and video information via a special channel. Being a robot, it could penetrate the most inaccessible places, rarely cleaned, and eavesdrop on everything it needed to. The Earth was coming under total control: governments, gangs, the army—everything was under surveillance. People were constantly being listened to at home and at work by unseen spies. Naturally, humans are incapable of processing such a volume of information, so a neural network, trained by espionage specialists to react appropriately to various conversations and even compile reports autonomously, was created specifically to coordinate mass espionage.
There were 500 agents on Earth, based in the Pacific Ocean. They were training, conducting surveillance on Earth, and also tracking down escaped Nazi and Japanese criminals who had hidden their money. Szarekh tasked Egeria with following the money trail and, if possible, confiscating all assets from Abstergo Industries or the countries that had become its proxy forces. Combat units were also stationed there, tasked with eliminating the organization's enemies or detaining individuals of interest for memory scanning.
All the "dirty laundry" of the human race's homeworld was handled by this intelligence organization. But, as Egeria mentioned, a method for quickly establishing control over any planet after its conquest was being developed. This was especially relevant given Szarekh's plans for planetary conquest, as it was essential to prevent the emergence of fanatics who would worship the previous leadership. A completely different approach was planned for reconnaissance on Goa'uld planets. To begin with, Szarekh developed long, 30-meter-long ships capable of traveling through gates (as well as a system for launching the gate into orbit and stabilizing its motion). Ultimately, such a ship could serve as a scout, scanning the ether in uninhabited systems, a saboteur transport, or a rocket ship. Highly modular, it depended on the required module, but was very narrow, taking advantage of its length.
This was a gift to both the navy and the intelligence community, so they could use the intelligence to study their enemies. In the future, such ships could become hunter-raiders in the style of "wolf packs," pirating enemy communications and escaping through the gates into the sunset.
Egeria, meanwhile, was now working tirelessly. With access to the dirty secrets of all sides in World War II, especially the holy of holies—their intelligence—she could modernize everything, increasing efficiency. First, a certain database of Goa'uld communications in the relevant sectors of space had to be accumulated. Then, cryptographers had to crack at least some of the codes. The next step was to deploy agents to secondary planets where Jaffa garrisons were located, in order to understand the worship traditions of this or that "deity." Intelligence was collected through surveillance. Communications had to be used with extreme caution, but audio and video recording equipment could still be used. Then they had to figure out how to transmit the collected information to headquarters, as using unencrypted communications attracted the attention of the Goa'uld. Therefore, intelligence had to be extremely careful and adhere to all methods of secrecy.
For some reason, Szarekh wanted to call his intelligence organization "Hydra," with the motto: "Cut off one head, two will grow in its place," and the symbol was a skull with tentacles. Egeria didn't attach much significance to this: every Goa'uld sometimes obsesses over symbols. For Szarekh, it was a love of pyramids, steel with green highlights, and turtles. Evgenia wasn't particularly fond of skulls—they reminded her of the SS Death's Head Division—but she recognized that it was a distinctive symbol, a nod to Goa'uld tradition, when each chose an animal symbol to represent their divinity. For Szarekh, it was a skull. She ignored the artifice: intelligence is symbols, intelligence is a full-fledged, everyday job. Special rockets with small satellites were being developed for reconnaissance via ships. They were essentially cluster munitions that would deploy in orbit around a planet, photographing and scanning it, and then transmitting all the data to a ship located at a considerable distance.
By now, 300 of these reconnaissance vehicles had been produced. In addition to intercepting subspace communications, they were tasked with investigating secondary Goa'uld planets, analyzing their defenses and monitoring their routes. Basically, it was the usual, everyday intelligence operation for these units: information absorption. The creation of a large cryptographic department was in the interests of all Szarekh's allies, so they were preparing to absorb information in order to decrypt the messages. Cracking and reading Goa'uld codes was vital; the Goa'uld changed them frequently, but it was crucial to establish at least the general logic of the ciphers. The ciphers Egeria knew were outdated, and those Szarekh knew… well, he didn't know them at all – he wasn't of the right rank. He wisely used only the gates and communications provided by the Asgard.
Access to the entire gate network allowed for significantly better planning of reconnaissance operations, the creation of escape points, and even special missions. For example, one of the crews was tasked with delivering a gate to Proklarush Taonas, after which their crew was to return to Urvashi and be suspended from all operations for a year. Egeria did not inform them of the mission's purpose or importance, but the Ancient outpost was crucial. Information for such agents was highly fragmented, and in the event of capture by the enemy, there was the option of erasing their identity. The working conditions were unpleasant, but the Goa'uld showed no mercy to captured spies.
"You've entered a new level of Hydra, where you've learned more about what Szarekh, Isara, and I are striving for. From now on, you're forbidden from being captured. However, you'll also have more opportunities. You're beginning the battle against the System Lords. These battles won't be easy, and you'll have to send your subordinates on dangerous missions from which they might not return, and you'll have to live with that. All for the sake of bringing the sun of freedom to the galaxy."
- We understand everything, Commander Egeria.
She nodded. Officially, Hydra was led by a Commander, without a name attached to it. At a certain level, secrecy became very specific; she didn't need many people to know her name, as she needed to control the flow of information to her agents. To ordinary agents, they were Urvashi intelligence agents, working against other Goa'uld. They got things done, but the higher echelons knew what they were fighting for and were better able to motivate their subordinates. Each System Lord had an autonomous department created, devoid of contact with others.
A complete study of all the cultural peculiarities of the Goa'uld "culture," on which they built their divine power, was carried out. Agents weren't planned to be deployed until they understood how the various Goa'uld domains functioned. Agent networks weren't supposed to directly contact the Jaffa or Goa'uld; at most, they would support memory scanning groups, take control of brothels, and, if necessary, install wiretapping equipment there. In general, the use of wires became a priority, as a technology the Goa'uld had no detection system for, as it was too primitive. A separate issue was how agents were to establish wired communications undetected. Creating hidden bases for intelligence network control required a tremendous amount of analytical work; it was necessary to assess what Earth could offer in terms of ideas and then implement them, not to mention agents. There had to be thousands of them, perhaps tens of thousands, and not everyone is suited for intelligence work, and not everyone is suited for operational work.
Even when the new Tok'ra entered service, they simply wouldn't be able to create a proper cover story for them for the simple reason that she was no longer Queen of Ra; it was impossible to use accumulated resources or hack databases with duplicate genetic markers. Now she was cut off from her organization, and the only option was war, in which they methodically eliminated the other System Lords. And for methodical elimination, analog intelligence was needed. Szarekh has already dealt a major blow to Kronos, causing his reputation to plummet and the emergence of separatist factions challenging his right to rule.