Civil Protection

Faction Information
Civil Protection is the primary law enforcement agency of The Combine on Earth. They are a paramilitary force of unmodified men and women who serve anonymously as a 'peace keeping' organisation. In reality, they exercise their day-to-day activities in a brutal and efficient fashion, preferring direct force and authoritarian demand over negotiation. While their primary purpose is to ensure that all citizens abide by the code of law established by the Combine, they also serve a secondary purpose of rooting out insurgencies and resistance movements against the government.

As stated previously, their members are entirely anonymous, equipped with masks and voice distortion equipment (vocoders) to hide their identities. They are known to possess light weaponry as they serve a police role when compared to their Transhuman counterparts.

Civil Protection units are commanded primarily by Dispatch, an extension of OCIN A.I., which constantly feeds them information and mission objectives through their helmet-based radio system. Dispatch is known to provide officers with both rewards for success, and punishments for failure.

It is highly encouraged that new or unfamiliar players do their best to avoid Civil Protection, or at least keep interaction to a minimum. Civil Protection characters have a dangerously high level of autonomy over regular citizens as their power is near absolute. If interaction is forced or unavoidable, one should do their best to obey any commands given, as failure to comply may result in death.

Equipment
Civil Protection officers are equipped with a variety of tools that aid them in carrying out their duties on a day-to-day basis. As their main focus is on enforcement of laws rather than assisting or protecting the populace (as their name might imply) many of these tools are aimed at causing pain or death.

A given officer may be equipped with any of the following:
 * USP-M Pistol
 * MP7 Machine Pistol
 * Electro-Stun Baton
 * Frag Grenade
 * Flash Grenade
 * Manhacks
 * Deployable Turrets
 * Hopper Mines

While this list is not exhaustive and CPs have been known to possess other equipment, this is generally what a player can expect them to have on hand at any given time. This equipment can and will varying depending on the state the city is currently in.

Structure
Civil Protection operates under a flattened rank structure with minimal commanding units. As a result, promotions are extremely rare. The system's 'ranks' are described below:
 * Standard: A majority of officers, both new and old within the system, reside at this level. All members of this level are considered equal in authority and are expected to operate as a unified body. In the interest of maintaining uniformity, if one officer gives a command or decides upon a certain action with regard to a citizen, all other officers are expected to follow along.
 * Rank Leader: Elevated units that are different from others only in the repetition of memory replacement procedures. As a result of their intake of chemicals both by consumption and injection, they tend to be stronger and tougher than other units. They are granted a higher level of authority by Dispatch and tend to act as field commanders when required. Despite this difference, they are operationally still generally equal to all other units. Promotion to this position is rare, even for the best of units.

Trivia

 * As a result of the equipment Civil Protection officers are required to wear, they are immune to gas-based weaponry and airborne pathogens. This is a result of the air filters that their helmets are equipped with.
 * Their suits do not provide backup oxygen as some might believe, and as such, they will still die if they are exposed to an oxygen deficient environment.
 * The vocoders in CP masks provide a variety of different levels of distortion, but the pitch of their voice is only ever shifted lower than normal, never higher.
 * The accent of a Civil Protection officer is still difficult to discern, but is not impossible to detect. Minor differences such as between American, Canadian, and English accents are easy to miss. Thicker accents such as African, Asian, and some European accents are easier to detect.
 * It is nearly impossible to identify a Civil Protection officer unless they intentionally alert you to who they are. In universe, there are hundreds or even thousands of CPs that all reside in the same Nexus, and are constantly moving both in and out of the city as a result of transfers. It is extremely unlikely that someone would notice they had run into the same officer twice.
 * As stated above, Civil Protection are subject to a transfer system similar to citizens.
 * In universe, units also receive post transfers and can be moved to a preferred city as a reward for good behavior and commendable performance.
 * Contrariwise, units can be forcibly moved to more dangerous or undesirable posts as a form of punishment for failure.
 * It is impossible for Rank Leaders to 'go rogue' in a traditional sense. The effects of their memory alterations are so impactful that they find themselves addicted to the concept of obeying the Combine in a similar fashion as drug addicts are unable to resist the urge to use.
 * The removal of a unit's mask does not result in a biosignal loss, but the action is still prohibited in public settings.
 * Civil Protection officers do not reside among the populace. Once accepted, members reside permanently within the living quarters of the Overwatch Nexus for the given area they patrol.
 * Officers are noted to primarily patrol within city limits. In some cases they are noted to deploy in the canals or outskirts immediately surrounding a city. They are almost never seen outside city limits, as this falls under the jurisdiction of the Overwatch Transhuman Arm.
 * When a Civil Protection officer dies, an immediate alert is sent to OCIN, whose Dispatch A.I. will direct units in the area to respond and investigate.