Codename: OZYMANDIAS

""Look on my works ye mighty and despair", indeed. I've always liked the poem. Could you tell?"

- Codename: OZYMANDIAS

Contrary to popular belief, the Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence does not control every aspect of ONI's operations. With four sections, each with their own portfolios and staff, this would be a near impossibility to run through the desk of one person. Certainly Director Parangosky has taken a far more active role in ONI's operations than her predecessors, with a vigour that personnel half her age cannot hope to match, but even so the positions of Director of Operations and Director of Intelligence are still vital, each with their own deputies and wielding considerable clout on their own. Their identities are protected by the issuing of codenames, classification of personal information, and well-armed security details to prevent assassination or blackmail by external or internal threats.

The Deputy Director of Operations during the Insurrection, and much of the Human-Covenant War, was an individual codenamed "OZYMANDIAS". Little is known about him, other than that he oversaw a considerable number of operations without even consulting the Director of Operations, all targeted to maximise the chances of human survival. This does not mean that all of them were ethical, or even successful - Project CHISEL stands as a testament to the horrors humanity was forced to inflict upon itself to produce the keys to its survival, the Spartans and other augmented supersoldiers that held off the Covenant onslaught. Other operations, such as INDIGO and INDIGO-II, were intended to leverage vital assets from other chains of command, deploying them on operations OZYMANDIASdeemed important for his own goals and agenda. Even something as innocuous as Project GENOME, a Manassas University gene therapy research project, was appropriated by OLYNDICUS for military applications. During the war, OZYMANDIAS is estimated to have overseen more than thirty two unsanctioned clandestine operations and projects, using his position to get them NOVEMBER BLACK protection status. Although he retired from his position before the end of the war, he is likely to have continued many of these projects afterwards, now working independently through channels and contacts acquired through a long and seemingly-meritorious career in ONI. His successor, OLYNDICUS, would eventually activate Operation: VORAUSSICHT to investigate such flagrant breaches of NOVEMBER BLACK status, with SHOGUN heading the investigation - an irony, given that SHOGUN was recruited for ONI by OZYMANDIAS after the Insurrection. OZYMANDIAS was never officially apprehended, and even unofficially there are few clues as to his eventual fate or whereabouts. Efforts were made by VORAUSSICHT staff, as well as other interested parties who shared OZYMANDIAS' methods but not his agenda, either to capture or kill him. None have been successful, despite some near misses.

Exactly what drove OZYMANDIAS to take such drastic action remains unclear. Some projects, such as CHISEL, were begun even before the Carver report that predicted catastrophe from the Insurrection. Others, such as the infiltration of Project TEMERITY, seem to have been unrelated to the Human-Covenant War, focussing on acquiring information on other factors. He has often been compared to Codename: DRACULA, who similarly abused his position to classify his pet projects as NOVEMBER BLACK, but while DRACULA seems to have been driven by the goal of ensuring the evolution of the human race past it's current state, OZYMANDIAS' motivations have been harder to discern. It may be that OZYMANDIAS was preparing humanity for some otherwise unforeseen threat that has yet to emerge, or that might never emerge. For now, all that can be said is that while many of his projects were horrific and brutal, they produced spectacular results.