I recognize I do not frequently post reports; which is not to say I’m doing nothing. It’s just, no one wants to hear or see an officer report that mostly states “I’ve been talking with people.”

As such, you’ll find most of this report is dedicated to a single topic, the evolution of the Emperor’s Hammer Dark Brotherhood into The Secret Order.

For those who have played the TIE Fighter video game you’ll already be familiar with the concept of the Secret Order. You’ll see more information noted below if you can read through the rest of my status updates.

Training Officer - Applications have been received by Rapier and myself. We’ve both taken a first pass through the applicants, their careers with the EH, and their proposals for the position.

While we have a rich history of courses within the Imperial University this is a critical role overseeing what most of our new pilots utilize to interact with the Emperor’s Hammer and to learn who we are anad how we operate.

Rapier and I will be continuing our review of the applicants before taking next steps. I appreciate all of those who took the time to apply.

In the interim, Turtle is pulling double (triple? quadruple at this point?) duty in managing the queues. Please be patient if you notice our turn-around times increase.

Internet Officer - Speaking of Turtle, Phase 2 of the Site Upgrade has progressed and the Imperial University has a new visual interface and greatly improved back-end. While doing UAT I found it extremely easy to create, modify, and grade courses.

I hope you all have found this to be another great improvement by Turtle and his staff.

Please be on the lookout as you’ll have received notices for courses that haven’t been submitted that you need to take action on.

I have continued my monthly meetings with Rapier and Plif. Plif continues to provide great insights into the activity within the TIE Corps and what he needs to continue development and engagement within the TC.

Below are a few topics that we continue to discuss.

Succession Planning - How do we ensure continuity, at all levels, within the TIE Corps such that we don’t overly stress specific resources and, if those resources leave, that we have a fast-follow of who can fulfill those roles.

Growth - As Plif highlighted in his recent report we’re up 33 members since his last report. We continue to discuss how best to support the fleet growth. The recent 16 person squadron pilot has concluded with a decision to not immediately implement it throughout the fleet.

Nevertheless, we continue to review the potential merits of such a structure and others to support squadron growth.

Infiltrator Wing - This continues to be a growth area of the fleet, which makes my old IWCOM heart proud, and we continue to look at ways we can support it. Both in terms of adding new squadrons but also fictionally from support ships.

Firebird and Eagle Squadrons have both been, fictionally, relocated to the MC-40 Trebuchet within Battle Group III.

Before I get into the details around the Secret Order I want to take a moment and address the challenges we are working to solve by moving to this new club structure. I’ll be happy to talk in Discord with more of the historical context as well.

Emperor’s Hammer Dark Brotherhood:

Similar to the constriction that occurred within the TIE Corps over the last couple decades the EHDB reduced in size to a single Clan with several Battleteams. This removed the ability for the EHDB to perform most, if not all, of their major competitions which focused on Clan vs Clan activities.

Overtime, engagement in the EHDB became duplicative to the engagement within the TIE Corps; to the point that advertising for joining the EHDB was “You’re always doing the activity, come get Clusters of Fire for doing it within the EHDB”.

To me, this means we are no longer offering a unique experience that would drive members to join the EHDB. When I hear members say “I’m in it till I get a lightsaber” they see it as a transactional activity and not a long-term area of focus.

Secret Order:

So, we come to the Secret Order. For those who haven’t played the TIE Fighter video game, this order was made available to all players for missions that had secondary objectives. There was no unlock required to begin this path. While you were playing the game you automatically gained levels within the Secret Order and completing secondary or tertiary objectives gave additional (accelerated) points towards advancing your level.

The Secret Order within the Emperor’s Hammer will function in the same way, but with a “button click” to accept/unlock/display the Secret Order area. The reason this is an active click is because it’ll open options for the member’s to engage further.

If you don’t click when it first appears you can access it at any time and the progress will still auto-capture behind the scenes.

Societies (term being workshopped):

Once a member unlocks the Secret Order path; which at this time is basically to be a minimum step within the Emperor’s Hammer (submit an INPR, fly a battle, earn a LoC/LoS, etc. low level activity), they’ll unlock a Society to join.

At this time there are two societies being outlined, though this is an area of growth and development over the long-term of the Secret Order.

1. Force Sensitive
2. Operatives

This enables people who want to be Force Sensitive (Light, Gray, Dark) to progress immediately and those who do not want to be Force Sensitive to still participate within the Secret Order.

Don’t worry, at a certain point in your Secret Order career you will get to cross-spec or you can reset and go the other way if you want.

Ranks and Progression:

Ranks will be similar to the Secret Order ranks within the TIE Fighter game.

While these are placeholder images they do show how ranks will begin to be displayed. Unlike the previous iterations of the Emperor’s Hammer Dark Brotherhood the ranks will be consistent across societies BUT as you make skill selections within your societies you’ll unlock titles that you can display.

Such as:

• Padawan
• Knight
• Warrior
• Prophet
• Tech Agent
• Spy
• Assassin

While the system is not yet fully developed the goal is that your regular activities will gain you XP and, as you gain XP, you unlock the next rank and skill points to spend.

Positions:

The Secret Order will operate with only two, static positions.

1. Supreme Prophet
2. High Prophet

The Supreme Prophet focuses on improving the Secret Order and it’s overall growth whereas the High Prophet is focused on creating competitions that grant bonus XP to Secret Order members and contributes to the overall EH storyline.

There are no lower level positions necessary within the Secret Order.

In terms of 2022 goals below is the progress that has been made:

• Successful deployment of the new EHDB experience - In development
• Coordinating a feedback session with Rapier and Plif based upon Pilf’s review and recommendations on managing large scale competitions (e.g., Imperial Storm and Raise the Flag) - Complete and will be implemented in 2023
• Consultation with Turtle on new competition management portal and potential demo - Deferred to be post Phase 2 (Imperial University) migration
• Initial proposal review with Rapier and Marenta on the Hammer’s Fist - No progress

Please note, when dealing with strategic projects like the above things are fluid and priorities will shift as needed.

If you have questions I’m always happy to engage on Discord.

Sector Admiral Kamjin “Maverick” Lap’lamiz
Dark Side Adept

ISP/SA Kamjin “Maverick” Lap'lamiz/IA-2/SSD Avenger
IC/GOE/GS/SSx3/BSx5/PCx5/ISMx4/IAR/MoC-doc-poc-goc-4soc-14boc/MUA/IS-GW-3BW-CW-4SR-5BR-2CR/LoC-IS/LoS-CS/CoLx3/CoB/OV-27E [Aquilifer] [Marksman 3rd] [Qualified]
{TCCORE-MCBS-MP/2-SM/2/3-XAM}{IU:C/TC, C/DB, C/DIR, S, UL, SM2, SM3, IO, LDR, SM/5, SFW, IST, HTML/1, AIM, M1, M2, HAD, GHA, THR, OSS, WPN, 2, XWAI, TIE, CA, MCBS, XAM, XMD}