Category:Fourth Officio
"As Iron Without, So Iron Within"
Contents
Officio Summary
The Fourth Officio Assassinorum, specializing in making things and breaking things. Insular and aloof towards outsiders, the 4th's technology is unmatched, rivaled only by the 16th and beaten only by the 13th bio-engineering; at the same time, the 4th's xenophobia means that it has very few friends. Visitors to the 4th's walking headquarters, the 'Olympia', often describe the Officio as being wondrous and alien in equal measure.
4th Officio girls are (in)famous for fully exchanging their flesh-and-bone bodies for completely synthetic ones known as Ironforms.
=Officio At A glance
- Officio Nickname = The Machines (by outsiders), The Iron Circle (within the Officio)
- Location = Mobile Headquarters 'Olympia' (currently walking across the Sahara Desert)
- Specialty = Mechanical and cybernetic engineering, arms manufacture
- Incubator = Quartus
- Current Warmaster = Petra Dammekos
- Disposition = ~400 Magical Girls
- Personnel Distribution = Entirely Eversors, Vindicares, and Callidus; no Vanus, Venenum, or Culexus
Officio Organization
The Dodekatheon
The Fourth Officio is unusual in that the vast majority of its recruits are derived from transfers from other Officios--technical aptitude is the primary factor for being allowed a permanent spot in the 4th, but every aspirant is also expected to know how to defend herself. These and other considerations means that the Officio does not recruit Venenum, Vanus, and Culexus.
Instead, many of the functions served by Venenum, Vanus, and Culexus in other Officios are performed by Officio personnel. 4th Officio girls are divided into a system of twelve Orders called the Dodekatheon; in addition, each Order serves to both hone the Magical Girl's skills in a particular field and fulfill and important administrative or logistical role within the Officio. Certain Orders hold contests to try and engineer healthy competition among its girls, though this policy sometimes backfires.
Recruitment
The Fourth Officio's recruitment methods are unusual--instead of the Incubator going about convincing young women into becoming Magical Girls, instead the Officio headhunts Magical Girls around the world who show promise in handling technology. Magical Girls may also send applications to the Fourth, though again, they must be technically adept to be accepted.
Once accepted, the aspirant is brought to the Fourth Officio's mobile headquarters and are housed, fed, and trained for a period of one year--if the girl is found to be compatible with the Officio, and if she demonstrates an acceptable level of technical aptitude, she is given the option to fully join. Current members may transfer to other Officios if they wish, but there is a great deal of pressure for Fourth Officio girls to remain with the 4th.
Officio Culture
An Iron Circle
An important part of 4th Officio culture is its philosophy, imparted unto it by its Warmaster, Petra Dammekos. At its core is the idea of self-improvement through mastery of the machine, to make oneself faster, stronger, and better through knowledge of machinery--to supplement this, Petra encourages a degree of competition among the 4th's girls to stave off complacency. This ideal serves to unite an Officio that otherwise shares no cultural, ethnic, or national common ground.
Several negative consequences have arisen due to the 4th's wholehearted (perhaps fanatic) embrace of this philosophy, however. One unintended result is the manifestation of extreme elitism, particularly by girls with Ironforms against girls unable to get Ironforms. Another is that 4th girls frequently express active dislike to anyone they see as being weak or stupid--sympathy and mercy are rare commodities on the Olympia.
Skitarii
Those incompatible with Ironforms yet still elect to remain in the 4th Officio are put into the Skitarii division. In theory, Skitarii are members in equal standing with everyone else in the 4th Officio...in practice, they are considered second-class citizens by girls with Ironforms. Because Skitarii members are stuck with, at best, augmentations rather than fully synthetic bodies, they are looked down upon as being slower and weaker, and the Fourth Officio does not abide weakness. All too often, the unfortunate girls of the Skitarii are bullied and ostracized, left with no one but themselves in an Officio that despises them.
Officio Technology
Fourth Officio technology is very advanced by modern, "mundane" standards. Prosthetic limbs that can do everything that a real limb can do and more, efficient directed energy weapons, even one of the few teleportation devices that exist in the world--if it involves cybernetic or mechanical engineering, the Fourth Officio has no equal.
Ironforms
Miscellaneous Information
- The Fourth Officio likes to refer to Warmaster Petra as the "Warsmith".
- An informal term for the Fourth Officio, used within the Officio itself, is "the Iron Circle".
- Misaka studied at the Olympia for some time. Despite being an outsider and never having gotten an Ironform, the little Russian arms dealer is remembered fondly.
- Officio personnel tend to be paid less on average than other Officio girls, but in exchange most construction/art material and tools are provided for free. Given that most Fourth girls' hobbies tend to involve engineering or the visual arts, the lower pay tends not to be such a problem.
Pages in category "Fourth Officio"
The following 2 pages are in this category, out of 2 total.
