Codename: SHOGUN

As a member of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the agent known only as "SHOGUN" has had quite an auspicious career. Recruited by ONI in 2531 as part of its Insurrection pacification campaign, SHOGUN would serve as an interrogator of captured personnel. As the Insurrection faltered, he transferred to personnel extraction - the abduction of high profile targets, and ensuring the safety of high profile persons of interest. By 2549, SHOGUN had found himself working several different projects while assigned to Section Zero - the first was the development of counter-strategies to offset the Covenant's advance, and the second was the investigation of unethical, illegal and counterproductive projects undertaken by unscrupulous ONI personnel, ferreting out dozens of such projects in Operation: VORAUSSICHT. After the war, SHOGUN would continue to rise through the ranks, sped by a close relationship with ONI Deputy Director of Operations OLYNDICUS, and though he would continue to investigate the questionable projects approved by formed DDO OZYMANDIAS, he would also oversee several Naval Special Warfare projects and operations.

Pre-ONI
Even after investigations by his own department, ONI Section Zero, very little is known about SHOGUN beyond some rudimentary facts. He is a caucasian male born in 2517, and possesses a New Zealand accent, indicating that he was raised either on Earth, in the Republic of New Zealand, or that he was raised on the Matariki colony. Rumour holds that he served as a UNSC soldier in the years before his recruitment by ONI, and that he was involved in counter-Insurrection operations conducted by UNICOM Special Warfare Command - perhaps the reason why he was approached by ONI.

Insurrection (2531-2536)
As the war for survival against the Covenant onslaught wore on, it became increasingly obvious to all that the UNSC simply could not afford to fight a war on two fronts - something would have to give. For the most part, the Insurrection would collapse on its own in all but the most entrenched rebellious sectors. In other cases, though, it had to be helped - Operation: GALULA was a covert series of strikes against prominent rebel organisations and targets, aiming to crush whatever was left of the Insurrection's leadership and fracture the disparate groups before they could band together for strength. The measures undertaken by ONI at the time ranged from counter-intelligence, assassination and abduction, overt military action and covert espionage, and it was Operation: GALULA that attracted the attentions of the ONI Deputy Director of Operations, codename OZYMANDIAS, to SHOGUN.

Whatever his occupation before becoming an ONI field agent, it must have been an asset in ONI's war to destroy the Insurrection, because he quickly rose through the ranks of the GALULA team, serving as an interrogator of captured personnel, taking part in assassination and abduction operations in conjunction with UNSC soldiers, Marines and sailors, and helped formulate the strategies ONI would use to turn the United Rebel Front's leaders against each other, splintering apart and turning against itself before a UNSC mop-up operation destroyed its remains. SHOGUN seems to have earned himself a reputation for strategic brilliance, and it is therefore no surprise that he would find himself reassigned to ONI Section Zero when GALULA was officially concluded, CENTCOM deeming the Insurrection a long-gone threat.

VORAUSSICHT(2552-2565)
After conducting counter-insurgency operations, SHOGUN's skills at investigation, interrogation, and reaction were quickly put to work ferreting out illegal and unethical projects ordered by OZYMANDIAS. Following his retirement in 2535, ONI had grown suspicious of his tenure, especially after he simply disappeared off the colonial grid. In hindsight, the signs that something was wrong were all there to be found - ONI had been too distracted dealing with the remnant Insurrection and gathering as much data on the Covenant as it could to pay the attention it should have.

Over the next thirteen years, SHOGUN would become the UNSC's leading investigator, uncovering almost a dozen illegal "supersoldier" programs, many of which had failed and some of which had produced operatives still in the field. Most of these projects were uncovered separately over a long period of time, but collectively they are known as Operation VORAUSSICHT; initially, SHOGUN was attracted to the possibility of classified special warfare operators after repeated references to Spartans operating in theatres where it should have been impossible for them to be at the time, and in numbers that defied belief. At first, he suspected Section Two had simply "improved" the material, or that inexperienced and astonished Marines and soldiers had exaggerated, but his investigations would uncover a whole range of projects that had never been declared during OZYMANDIAS's tenure - Colonel James Ackerson's SPARTAN-III Program, Project LEONIDAS, Project INDIGO and Project INDIGO-II, as well as illegal experimental augmentation research projects HEPHAESTUS, BLACKSMITH and CHISEL. Ironically, personnel who were the result of these projects would prove invaluable in the apprehension of the culprits - Spartan-II Indigo Team would personally extract Codename CAIN from an Insurrectionist stronghold, Spartan-III Kukri and Baselard Teams would apprehend a number of personnel who had infiltrated NOVEMBER BLACK classified projects, and Marine Special Warfare Team LEOPARD would conduct investigations of their own on SHOGUN's request.

Initially, the results were to be kept classified as ONI apprehended and charged personnel it deemed "rogue". However, eager to gain a propaganda coup among the civilian populace and willing to make the military (always a popular target) the scapegoat, Secretary-General Jerome Smithson ordered the involvement of the Colonial Ministry of Justice. This would backfire spectacularly when details were leaked to the media, resulting in the disclosure of classified material that would prove embarrassing for the UNSC and the UEG as a whole; though the details of the SPARTAN-II and III Programs would remain safe, the existence of CHISEL, where homeless street people were rounded up and experimented on by rogue geneticists, or Project GENOME, an experimental and failed Spartan cloning attempt, would result in a huge public backlash against the UNSC. Ironically, the UNSC and ONI would emerge from the scandal none the worse - the calamitous handling of the affair by Smithson would turn public opinion against his decision to involve civilian investigators in military matters, and the corruption that riddled it resulting in the leaks, would be more disasterous than VORAUSSICHT itself, and even then ONI pointed out that it was dealing with rogue elements - these projects had not been officially, and should never have been, approved. As the public sympathy for ONI grew, Smithson would become increasingly frustrated and paranoid, privately declaring that all his generals were working against him, and purging the upper echelons of CENTCOM of "undesirables", people who had not shown support for Smithson. Nicknamed by military persoonel the "Exodus," seven well-regarded Generals and Admirals would resign in protest at Smithson's increasing alienation of the military. The political firestorm that would result would eventually contribute to his downfall, the the outbreak of the Second Great War would see his resignation, and the return of predecessor Pierre Plantard as Secretary General, restoring both civilian and military confidence in the UNSC and UEG.

SHOGUN would head VORAUSSICHT until 2565, when he assumed the position of Deputy Director of Operations, replacing OLYNDICUS.

Remarks

 * "This guy is a ghost. His service record is just a list of star systems and commendations - no battles, no dates, no places. He practically doesn't exist before 2531 - hell, we don't even know how old the guy is!"
 * "ONI tried a lot of things during the Great War, most of which did little to stem the tide of the Covenant. It's not surprising that they...got desperate. And then SHOGUN gets left cleaning up the mess. Did he ever catch OZYMANDIAS?"
 * "I heard where this guy told my cousin's friend that he'd met SHOGUN in a bar. Nice guy apparently. Said he had a kiwi accent. So maybe he was born on Earth, or maybe the Matariki colony?"
 * "He's made few friends among the government - after the VORAUSSICHT fiasco, he was pretty much banned from Smithson's office, and it's a tradition that's persisted - politicians seem to think he's bad luck. He tells me he votes for the communist party each election, because he doesn't want to waste a vote on the Conservatives or Liberals."