Operation Sign of the Dove

Operation Sign of the Dove
Part of Sxiro-Jingdaoese Confrontation
Another "Agent Jonas" before a firing squad
Date 1651–1653 AN Location Western Apollonia, Western Benacia Result Administrative inefficiency. Limited industrial sabotage & ethnic tensions in Jingdao. Dissension in the USSO. War of Lost Brothers Mass executions of all persons named "Jonas".
Belligerents
SANE Imperial Republic of Shireroth	USSO Jingdaoese Empire

Operation Sign of the Dove was a Shirerithian campaign designed to sow doubt and dissension in the Jingdaoese Empire whilst simultaneously encouraging moderate politicians in the Kuominliantang to begin favouring a tentative detente with Shireroth as it focused on asserting control over Benacia and disengaged from its far flung and irrelevant overseas colonies.

The name "Sign of the Dove" had been chosen in reference to the practice of naming individual agents and cells inserted into Jingdao by the codename Jonas. In contrast to the paramilitary Jedburgh teams which had been inserted via the cover of an ESB Group trade mission to the Jexit Kingdom, the Jonas agents were to maintain a deep cover and to attempt to act either as saboteurs or as agents of influence in their attained function within the rigidly hierarchical Jingdaoese Empire.

Infiltration tactics

The Tegong, a Jingdaoese security service, reputed and feared throughout Micras for its omnipresence and paranoia, represented a formidable obstacle to introducing Shirerithian sleeper agents into the Empire. Most Kildari resistance cells left over from the Jingdaoese takeover of Kildare had been eradicated by the deployment of Obedience Machines and during the course of the subsequent Geming War and Xianbei Defiance. As a consequence there were in no position to assist, the survivors having mostly evacuated to Voltrue in western Benacia in the early 1640s.

One vector however was the policy of Princess Yuling of encouraging Batavians, fleeing the Froyalanish and then Imperial takeover of the old Batavian Kingdom, to flee to Tianhoucheng, the Jingdaoese enclave around the old Batavian capital of 's-Koningenwaarde. It was felt, after 1651 and the expulsion of King Noah from Elwynn, that the Tegong would be overworked trying to weed out Froyalaners disguised as Batavians to pay too close attention to Shirerithians hidden amongst the refugees, especially when their ranks included actual Batavians, and the occasional Kildari recruited from amongst the under utilised community of exiles in Voltrue.

However, even where they passed filtration, these new arrivals would never be entrusted with high office until they had proved themselves with singular, indeed sacrificial levels of devotion to the Heavenly Light. Whist that was the case, even those who achieved comparatively humble roles in the bureaus of the many secretariats could find a way to make contact with and fawn upon members of the lower and middle cadres of the Kuominliantang. From these positions, the Jonases could silently whisper into vain and susceptible ears the vile heresy of detente with Shireroth.