While specifics of our activities on Earth are for the most part highly classified, the following will bring the reader up to date on the basics of the ongoing Project Terra program.

Alliance field operatives

As would be expected, our operatives are concentrated in the nations that are "major players" in world affairs.

As of 12 June 2008, the number of operatives in those countries are as follows (1000+ only):

WORLDWIDE FIELD OPERATIVES
United States	7,623
China (PRC)	6,812
Russia	6,108
Israel & Mideast	5,733
United Kingdom	3,280
France	2,050
Australia	1,822
Germany	1,516
India	1,384
China (Taiwan)	1,182
Japan	1,075

38 other countries have operatives at work, but the counts range from 812 to 177. Those countries are being monitored, but they play little or no active role in matters that Project Terra is addressing. The ones listed above are all involved in Omegan-related activities.

At one time, there were as many as 22,800 Alliance operatives in the US alone. However, your technological progress over the last 20 years (with a little "help"), especially in communications and computers, has provided us with the ability to combat the Omegan forces far more efficiently with far fewer field ops. The primary reason is that the Omegans have embraced it to make their activities less taxing on their comparatively limited resources.

In doing so, they provided us with a way to "wiretap" their operations. By using data and communication systems that are compatible with those of Earth, they have exposed a weak spot in their armor. To be sure, their encryption methods are superlative, but the 140 Alliance cryptologists assigned to Earth are up to the challenge. One section of the CalComp computer facility has been devoted to the sole function of dealing with Omegan encryption methods.

They are aware that given time, we can crack any encryption that they can create. And they in turn are playing the game by constantly altering their codes. It has become a contest. One method that they employ is sending portions of communications over numerous routes. We can monitor all those routes and accumulate the parts, but the challenge is assembling them in the correct sequence and then decrypting the whole.

To say that it is time-consuming is to grossly understate it. Even with our computers, it involves many hours, There is a considerable respect in our cryptology group for their Omegan peers, and it is most likely shared on the Omegans' side. They are scientists. In a different reality, they would spend long hours in lively discussions and camaraderie.

Omegan field operatives

Since the topic of this portion is operatives, it is reasonable to provide an overview of the Omegan counterpart.

In terms of headcount, they vastly outnumber us. We of course have no reliable figures, but our analysts estimate no less than 500,000 of them worldwide, with at least a third of them in the United States. Unlike the Alliance team, which is primarily devoted to covert action within your society, the majority of Omegan field ops are what you would call "enforcers", with some estimates placing their numbers as high as 70%. They are engaged in deep-cover activity within your governments, militaries and scientific fields, but the Omegan SOP is to deal with their opponents swiftly, violently and without mercy.

This is alien to Alliance practices, and we are at a distinct disadvantage. The Omegans' routine murdering of anyone whom they capture keeps our ops in a constant state of alertness and caution. After a time, that can take a heavy psychological toll on them. For that reason, field ops are assigned on a rotating basis, with an average of two months in the front lines and one month in non-confrontational activities. There are some with higher levels of resistance and stamina, but we ask no more of them.

We find that there is a considerably higher percentage of enforcers in military fields than in government or science. One supposes that it is reasonable to expect it, given the nature of the occupation. That knowledge does not make our task easier, and Alliance ops have been killed in university and corporate settings.

The Syndicate

At this point, we must introduce another group into the equation. The following information was provided to Bob in 1988 and updated on 1 January 2007. We have asked him to quote it here.

There is a conflict of literally interstellar proportions being waged at this very moment. This confrontation is on 23 planets (there were 17 when the info was presented in 1988; 6 have been added since then) within this quadrant of our galaxy. One of them is Earth. The "dark forces" are known as "Omegans", a somewhat inaccurate but adequate translation of the Galinguan name used by this force. They use the English term themselves, and it is therefore the official Alliance designation for them.

The Omegans are under the watchful eye and limited aegis of an organization of worlds of vast power and resources, known to the Alliance as "The Syndicate". The Alliance adopted the term from English to represent this body (otherwise unidentified), which operates in an organizational manner suggestive of our world's criminal superstructure.

The Syndicate is not per se criminal, but rather is coldly, relentlessly opportunistic. Their driving force is the acquisition of wealth and control. However, they have no moral code to prevent them from using means that we would define as criminal. They offer support to other groups if they see in it an opportunity for gain, whether short- or long-term. Their backing of the Omegans is seen as a means to gain footholds within the Confederation sectors. The Confederation's strict, inflexible adherence to non-interference directives leaves them "ripe for plucking". The Syndicate does not provide direct military support, but they underwrite military forces as required in the pursuit of their goals.

The Omegans are rarely found in Alliance sectors, inasmuch as the UWA is not bound by a strict interpretation of the Non-Interference Directive, and their incursions would be forcefully repulsed.

The ongoing conflict is not, in our terms, a "hot" war on these 23 unaligned worlds. Rather, it is a protracted test being conducted by the Syndicate to determine if the Omegan forces can wrest control from the Alliance, which, while not officially representing any of these planets, has infiltrated them en masse to repulse the incursions of the Omegan influence. If the Omegans succeed, full Syndicate support is assured, and the results are fearsome to contemplate.

This activity is, per the rigid guidelines established by the Syndicate, to be covert on the 23 planets, although open hostility outside these arenas is sanctioned, and has resulted in a number of "firefights" on a scale that beggars our myopic, parochial understanding of warfare. Should the confrontations on any of these planets become actual war, the Syndicate will withdraw its support, and the Omegans know this would result in immediate extermination at the hands of Alliance military might.

It is problematical whether the Alliance could defeat the Syndicate in full warfare, but the best estimates of Alliance tacticians, and the scant information filtering out of the Syndicate from a small group of agents, suggest that they have no more desire than the Alliance to test their worth in combat. In itself this is considered a plus for the Alliance, because reservation on the part of the "dark forces" is usually interpreted as awareness of internal inadequacies that render a sure victory unlikely.

In a letter to Gabriel Green dated 23 October 1983, this info was provided by us:

For your consideration, this analysis: the Omegans are an arm of the Syndicate, and they receive their backing, BUT, like Cuba is to the Russians, the Omegans are to the Syndicate. Earth is located almost centrally in the combined region controlled by the Federation and the Alliance, ergo is spatially isolated from the Syndicate-controlled areas.

The Alliance feels that an out-and-out attack on Omegans here might provoke the Syndicate enough to spur them into rash responses that could well develop into the interstellar war I mentioned earlier. The approach must therefore be to deal with the Omegans in such a way as to convince the Syndicate that they aren't worth wasting all that energy and material to bolster them.

The Alliance is capable of creating the necessary impediments to Omegan operations elsewhere in the galaxy, but what must be done on Earth ... amounts to guerilla warfare, They must be undermined and their influence abated and ultimately destroyed WITHOUT precipitating a retaliation that would blast Earth back into the stone age.

It is the Alliance's suspicion that the Syndicate will not risk a massive confrontation in which their losses will be as devastating as ours, and that they would probably not win in the end, if the source of the conflict is a far-flung group that cannot demonstrate that it merits such support.

The Alliance has had informal contact with the Syndicate since that was written, and they have indirectly confirmed our analysis of almost 25 years ago. They are not interested in a military encounter with the Alliance, which has grown far more powerful since then.

The elision in the quoted text above is due to a reference that later proved to be grossly in error. We asked Bob to delete it.

Prognosis

Despite the setbacks and handicaps, the Alliance is confident of eventual victory. We have on our side the fact that the Omegan program on Earth is over two centuries old, and they have invested vast resources here. Thus they are zealously avoiding any action that would expose them to your people or merit direct Alliance action against them. That would of course wipe out their centuries of work and result in massive, possibly unrecoverable damage to their operations on other worlds. An Alliance response here would be extended to them as well. The result would be a bloody war that would ultimately result in their destruction as a military force if not as a whole.

One other factor dominates their thinking: if the Syndicate abandons them, they are lost. They are many things, but the Omegans are not fools.

This is not by any means a soon-to-be-resolved situation. Both sides are in it for the "long haul". It will take years and perhaps decades to achieve the release of Earth from the Omegan death-grip. However, the stakes are so high that it must be brought to a definitive conclusion. Compromises and truces are not options. This is a winner-takes-all situation, and the Alliance does not accept defeat.

The Omegan influence on your world will be felt for years to come. They will if anything grow bolder and more dangerous as you develop new technologies that will aid their program to create a mighty fighting force for the conquest of peaceful worlds.

Expect to see militarism increase as you are steered in the direction that your Omegan masters want you to travel. As we pointed out, their program relies on maintaining worldwide tension and unrest while you are pressed into their evil mold. A world at peace is a poor candidate for becoming an interstellar army.

Closing

That concludes this report. No further communications of this type will occur unless the situation changes sufficiently to merit updates. Suffice it to say that the people of Earth are incapable of direct opposition to the Omegans. Any attempt to confront them will be a fatal error. They need you, but they don't like or respect you. If you annoy them, they will kill you. Let us fight the battle. Be content with knowing what is going on.

Va i luce eno nol si unir.

Elder Master KALEN-LI RETAN
Project Terra Controller