Still developing my superhero-espionage comic and I need to name the outfit the main character works for.
It started out as Safeguard. Then, I changed it to Vigil. Then, I changed it back to Safeguard. Now I’m considering Intercept.
Trying to name an independent covert ops group
Which name sounds better?
Trying to name an independent covert ops group
- Safeguard
- Vigil
- Intercept
- Custodi
- The Outfit
- This topic has 207 replies, 16 voices, and was last updated 10 months, 2 weeks ago by
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I like Safeguard. It feels more evocative than the other two.
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With all due respect, Safeguard sounds more like an anti-virus product, or what some two-bit mall security firm would call itself. It’s too mundane.
Vigil sounds cool and unusual. I wish I had thought of it :)
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I’m with Meadows and I like Vigil best.
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I’d go with VIGIL. Safeguard’s acronym is too long.
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No votes for Intercept, I see.
Now there is.
And of course it stands for I Never Thought English Roast Could Eclipse Peruvian Tacos
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I think you should go for the Junta Against Malevolent Enemy Spies, Bringing Order Not Danger.
Not if I want to avoid a lawsuit.
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I think you should go for the Junta Against Malevolent Enemy Spies, Bringing Order Not Danger.
Not if I want to avoid a lawsuit.
You mean a Legal Attack With Severe Unpleasant Intentions Targeted?
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NO MORE ACRONYMS!
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ACRONYMS
A cranky respondent only needs your moral support.
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NO MORE ACRONYMS!
N.M.A.? Ok, got it.
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Vigil without an acronym, yes :)
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Efficient Response National Elite Super Takedown Organisation? … no, ok, I’ll stop
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Efficient Response National Elite Super Takedown Organisation? … no, ok, I’ll stop
Extraordinary Response National Emergency Strategic Threat Operations
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Can’t we just call it Ernesto?
Don’t be silly.
Drop the O.
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Efficient Response National Elite Super Takedown Organisation? … no, ok, I’ll stop
Extraordinary Response National Emergency Strategic Threat Operations
Drop the O
Emergency Response National Elite Superhuman Taskforce
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Emergency Response National Elite Superhuman Taskforce
JR, I SAID NO MORE ACRONYMS!!
Oh, no, wait… you said that!
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JR, I SAID NO MORE ACRONYMS!!
Oh, no, wait… you said that!
Part of me figured “what the hell?”
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Efficient Response National Elite Super Takedown Organisation? … no, ok, I’ll stop
Extraordinary Response National Emergency Strategic Threat Operations
Drop the O
Emergency Response National Elite Superhuman Taskforce
I think you have the name for your organization.
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Vigil, it is, no acronym.
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Acronyms would make the organization sound too official.
It is interesting to look at modern private organizations that specialize in espionage (intelligence) and military support (mercenaries). They don’t often choose names that are obviously associated with what they do. Often, they are named after the founder or the location where they are headquaertered. Naturally, it seems obvious that if you are a private intelligence agency, it would be counter-productive to have a name that basically says “Spies-R-Us.”
Archimedes Group (Israel based)
Psy-Group (Israel based, now closed)
Black Cube (Israel & UK based)
NSO Group (Israel based)
AEGIS (UK-based)
Cambridge Analytica (UK based)
Control Risks Group (UK based)
Groupe GEOS (France based)
Hakluyt & Company (UK based)
Orbis Business Intelligence (UK based)
Oxford Analytica (UK Based)
AggregateIQ (Canada based)
Booz Allen Hamilton (US based)
Fusion GPS (US based)[22]
Kroll Inc. (US based)
Pinkerton National Detective Agency (US based)
Smith Brandon International, Inc. (US based)
Stratfor (US based)
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Academi (née Blackwater)
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Another name I’d briefly considered was Custodi, which is Latin for “Guard”.
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Debating the outfit either being for hire or more like covert ops vigilantes.
Interesting. Can it be both?
Me and my childhood friends started a roleplaying game back in feb 2000. It was based on the “not great” SOF series produced by Bruckheimer. In the first season SoF was short for Soldiers of Fortune, in the second they changed it to mean Special Operations Force. Probably because they weren’t really mercenaries as the title of season 1 would imply.
In our game setting made them be both, sort of. Because it made more sense to us. We were super-duper-secret right, no government or agency ties at all, save for our Mr Trout, our handler a mid-level boss at the CIA HQ who foundedthe unit.
We figured that a simple way this could fly under the radar and still be movie-corny and work in continuity was if The CIA sort of embezzled itself, and just let Trout get away with taking literal cash from a vault that doesn’t really exist on record, where the store a fuckton of off-the-record money that they’ve collected from their off-the-books operations. So yeah… drug money. (Not sure, this might have actually been in the series)
Trout came to us with a mission. We were 100% off the books, only Trout knew who we were. Which gave a us a lot of legroom to make our gaming sessions/missions dynamic, collaborative and driven by the characters. If the agency needed something done, a dossier would simply appear on Trouts desk with his morning coffee.
We got payed in one lump sum after a completed mission. How much we were given depended on difficulty and execution. We gave a quarter of it to our joint “HQ” fund and then split the rest among the members who were on the mission. The campaign is still ongoing. Mission #600 can’t be too far off.
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Sounds like an IMF / A-Team amalgam. I like it.
Hows their internal chain of command? Do they have ranks?
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Hows their internal chain of command? Do they have ranks?
There’s the head of the outfit, the operations manager and the operatives.
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CUSTODI
Covert Union of Security, Technology, and Operational Defense Initiatives
Sorry, JR, I just couldn’t stop myself.
That acronym could actually work if I ever wanted to use one.
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Custodi makes me think of being held in custody, as opposed to being a custodian body
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Old acquaintance: “Hey man, what have you been doing for the last few years?”
CUSTODI Agent: “I’ve been in custody.”
Acquaintance: *backs away*
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It’s pronounced “koo-STOW-di”.
Koo Stark?
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Now trying to decide on a base of operations. Choices are mobile flying fortress and a secluded cave.
Those are a bit cliche.
Just to be very different, how about a corporate office park? They’re so ubiquitous and generic. They can hide in plain sight.
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a mobile flying mattress store in a secluded office park?
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The office park sounds good. Vigil could use shell companies as fronts.
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The office park sounds good. Vigil could use shell companies as fronts.
I had driven past one recently and thought that would be a great home base. It would not be unusual for vehicles and equipment to come and go at all hours of the day, especially those with a the “company” logo. The cover company could be import/export business.
A fun element would be that there is a legitimate business being conducted which also helps fund operations. It makes the cover even more “real”.
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The cover company could be import/export business.
I’d considered a logistics company but import/export works, too.
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The cover company could be import/export business.
I’d considered a logistics company but import/export works, too.
Being import/export, you get trucks coming and going all day long and shipping “merchandise” to and from locations around the world. They could have operatives around the world under cover as buyers for the company who are constantly gathering intel.
A fun and amusing side bit could be that every once in a while, the strike team must also complete a legitimate business transaction for the business while on mission at some exotic locale.
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Found this on a web search:
50 Best Import Export Business ideas & Opportunities for 2020
Ones that seem the most conducive to cover for covert ops are import/export brokerage, freight brokerage and air cargo.
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Found this on a web search:
50 Best Import Export Business ideas & Opportunities for 2020
Ones that seem the most conducive to cover for covert ops are import/export brokerage, freight brokerage and air cargo.
IMPORT/ EXPORT MERCHANDISING would also work too:
You will be responsible for purchasing goods directly from a domestic or foreign manufacturer and then pack, ship and resell the goods on your own. If you are interested importing goods from global retailers in bulk then packaging goods up individually for resale, then going into this line of international trade is good for you,
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Well, I’ve already decided on the name and how operations are financed. Now, I just have to figure out how many agents (including the main character) could be part of it.
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i always thought that 5 was the best number. Guardians started with 5. Leverage had 5, If you count the girl A Team had 5, doom patrol has 5.
as for the composition of the team, you’ve got the noob man off the street type(the relatable one), the boss who is brilliant but off, the charmer who has deep seated self esteem issues, the one with anger issues and deadly skills and the techie with social flaws. -
At one point, I’d considered nine or ten, then fifty (which the number of members of G.I. Joe was revealed to be in the Worlds Without End episode). Seven might be a better number. The series I have in mind won’t focus on the whole team, just one particular number (elevator pitch I came up with for it is “What if Wolverine actually had to raise Kitty Pryde?”), so keeping the roster relatively small works much better.
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What if Wolverine actually had to raise Kitty Pryde?
Uhh… gimme!
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So….. why should I care what some old hermit with grooming issues thinks?
Are you referring to me or Moore?
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So….. why should I care what some old hermit with grooming issues thinks?
Are you referring to me or Moore?
I’m pretty sure I speak for Don when I say… Yes.
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At one point, I’d considered nine or ten, then fifty (which the number of members of G.I. Joe was revealed to be in the Worlds Without End episode). Seven might be a better number. The series I have in mind won’t focus on the whole team, just one particular number (elevator pitch I came up with for it is “What if Wolverine actually had to raise Kitty Pryde?”), so keeping the roster relatively small works much better.
If it won’t focus on the whole team anyway, it could be a huge organisation, but most of them are faceless extras in crowd scenes.
S.H.I.E.L.D. must have thousands of agents but we only care about one of them plus his closest sidekicks. The Enterprise has a crew of ~400 but we only care about three of them and their closest sidekicks. Etc.
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A smaller, sleeker unit might be more manageable.
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A smaller, sleeker unit might be more manageable.
You can say this is the core group and if you need a extra red shirt or two, they can be brought in on specific missions.
It may be fun to have a member of the core group actually be a red shirt to establish that anybody can die at any time. Just a thought: The forst issue is from the POV of a newbie who is being added to the core. They go on a mission and when it looks like the newbie is about to be killed (and expectations are they will), it’s actually the team leader who dies. The character that you really want to be the leader takes over with the next issue.
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this is the core group
this is what I meant when I said 5. many of the groups I mentioned grew larger as the story progressed. Look at the X-men. They started with 5 and now they are teeming and crawling all over Krakoa.
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I meant to say the old hermit from the Midlands with grooming issues.
Again though that could be me or Moore.
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Maybe I should leave the exact number of agents a mystery.
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Maybe I should leave the exact number of agents a mystery.
Opens up for new introductions whenever you feel like it.
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Opens up for new introductions whenever you feel like it.
Yeah, I think David has a point about Shield. You can have a basic team, but can have different characters rotate in or out if you want to. Kind of like in Mission Impossible, the IMF is the umbrella, then you have a specific team, but specialists can be called in. And that makes it easy to shuffle them when members get killed :)
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One idea I had, I got from M.A.S.K.: an AI scanning personnel files for agents best suited for any particular mission.
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Two new names I’d considered: Code Red and First Strike.
Or maybe I’ll decide on no name at all. It’s a covert unit, after all.
If they are using a business as a cover, use the business’s name.
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It is interesting to look at the history of mercenaries. When it was used in the middle ages, it referred not only – or even primarily – to the actual combatants or “soldiers of fortune” as the practice of pillage and plunder was considered a normal part of warfare. Instead, what troubled people then – this was the period of the hundred years war between English kings and French nobles (most of the English kings also being French nobles) – was the practice of purchasing knighthoods or claiming knighthood illegitimately so that they could join in the pillage and plunder. Even after the war ended, all these out of work knights would form bandit armies and even take over huge areas of the continent. Some were even hired and appointed regents of wealthy cities to protect them from other mercenary armies.
The entire system of knighthood, chivalry and nobility was essentially created by the Church to control violence in Europe between the recently converted pagans who followed a similar but much rougher hierarchy of chieftains, warriors and plunderers. The church instead forced all the violent men of an area to be bound to one very rich and powerful violent man who was bound to the church. In this way, they could place strong limits on the amount of violence and plunder since no one could go to war without the approval of their king and the king needed approval from the church.
It is strange to think of early Christian Europe as a continent wide cult, but that was the power of the Church at the time. Commercial interests were seen as inherently sinful – even to the point of a death sentence for loaning money with interest. However, when the Black Death struck Europe, there was a major shift in the socioeconomic status of people as labor became more valuable and peasants, especially women, began moving to cities or traveling the countryside and becoming more prosperous as a result. Making money was not such a bad thing anymore.
Then in the 13th and 14th centuries, this broke down essentially because of economic reasons. First, it became just too damn profitable to be a knight, so anyone who could claim any sort of nobility from their connection to some old family would use their chivalric rights to sell knighthoods to anyone that could afford a sword, lance and horse. Tournaments were immensely popular and knights made their money in these “practice battles” or “melees” by capturing other knights and then receiving ransom for their release.
Also, the Church benefited greatly from turning a blind eye to all this bending and breaking of the rules of Chivalry because the more violence committed by these knights, the more prayers they had to say to save their souls. As any good Catholic today would be aware, after confession you usually have to do penance involving some standardized prayers. Back then, these were much more convoluted – and in Latin – and it would take most of a knight’s life for him to actually do all of it. So instead, they would pay monks to pray for them and this led to monasteries and abbots becoming some of the richest men and most powerful in the land. Warfare was good for business.
At the same time, the popularity of Chivalry in stories and literature was at its height basically selling the myth to the population while the reality of what knights were and did was quite different.
BBC Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives Documentary: Episode 5 – The Knight – YouTube
Terry Jones also wrote a good argument that the Knight in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is actually one of these mercenary knights as all of his tales would coincide with the illegitimate battles of the time so his story has a heavy satirical undertone where plain, avaricious violence is portrayed as if it is a holy mission for God, king and country.
Ironically, I think that time period also closely reflects the way most of the world still operates especially in terms of warfare where all the actual motives for conflict are economic while all the justifications are on “principles” that conveniently align with the greed. Also, the fact that so many independent combatant companies and freelance intelligence agencies really prove that money is what drives this. Even the prevalence of using the terms “security” for what are essentially soldiers and “intelligence” for spies is a way to mask aggression as some sort of passive and legitimate business. They aren’t out their killing and undermining foreign countries – they are just protecting their clients’ interests. And, just like in the Middle Ages, our fiction is filled with heroes that are assassins, soldiers and spies working for the greater good.
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Lance Worldwide, LLC, an importing/exporting company
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