Espionage (Dadauar)

While the dreamlords of Dadauar are currently at peace, there still exists a certain level of competition. Much of the technology of dream energy has become common throughout the world, but each nation still has some secrets—secrets which other nations are interested in finding out. Therefore, though the dreamlords are careful to avoid open conflict, they are constantly engaged in clandestine attempts to undermine and steal information from each other. And all of them employ large cohorts of spies to carry out these activities.

Spies are used to keep an eye on not just other onirarchies, but also on the resistance, as well as possibly rival dreamlords within the same country, and anyone and anything else of which their employers are suspicious. Some spies are dedicated long-term to spying on a single person or organization; others have particular specialities—such as spying on rebel cells, or on other onirarchies—and still others take on a variety of different jobs, sometimes at the same time. Long term spies often go under deep cover, spending years posing as typical commoners, or as rebels, or as servants of a dreamlord they're spying on, and building the trust of their objects of surveillance before beginning to return information.

Spying for the onirarchs can be a lucrative profession, but also a dangerous one. Though all the onirarchies employ spies of their own, they have harsh penalties for spies from other onirarchies they find within their domains, and the rebels in general are, if anything, even more merciless in their punishment of spies. Still, good spies can go many years without being detected, and some spies have amassed sizable fortunes before retiring in safety—though many more have been found out and suffered terrible fates.

Spies are recruited from the ranks of the onirarchs' servants, or, occasionally, from the lower ranks of the onirarchs and their families themselves. Rarely, a commoner who shows particular potential may be approached for a job in espionage. Spies also come from the ranks of other nations—people of the undeveloped nations are often more than willing to work for onirarchs for the income they offer, and to spy on other onirarchies the dreamlords often find it useful to employ citizens of the nations they're spying on. Not all spies are human, by any means; batirines and dreambuilt are also in frequent use as spies, often granted special abilities to help them on their missions. However, they are more commonly used to spy on rebels and on undeveloped nations than on other onirarchs, who have more means of spotting such entities.

The onirarchs' spies are not necessarily without allies; many of them are adept at identifying and forming relationships with sympathetic elements in their areas. Ironically, those spying on the onirarchs often find themselves working alongside the rebels of the nations where they work—usually without their knowledge, as they pose as rebels and are accepted as such, but some rebel groups are willing to deal with the devil and have the spies' help, and the consequent indirect access to the resources of his onirarchal employer, to bring down the local onirarch—either they're not concerned with the more distant onirarchy the spy represents, or they decide there'll be time enough to deal with it after the nearer one is dealt with.

Naturally, the onirarchs are not the only ones to employ spies. The rebels have spies of their own, and even the undeveloped nations find it useful to spy on the onirarchies and on each other. These spies lack the resources of the onirarchs' agents, however, and while they may occasionally have remarkable successes, in general it's the spies working for the onirarchs who have the higher profile and have the larger impact on the world.

See also

• Spies and the resistance