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"'A matter of internal security.' The age-old cry of the oppressor."
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Hunted"

State Sec(urity) is an agency or political entity that has its own paramilitary forces, often existing to enforce an ideology or quash dissent. They're sometimes part of the government, sometimes not, but always part of one country, and normally bad news.

The most powerful versions are autonomous from the regular government and military. These can be vast organizations, where spying is just one responsibility; they may also have regular military forces (sometimes better-equipped than the regular army), regime-protection troops, a political and administrative division, a propaganda division, an R&D division, and any number of other subdivisions. And to make sure State Security stays loyal, there could be an elite force within the organization to keep it in check. They're also a very common feature of The Dictatorship and are frequently used to suppress dissent.

The trope gets its name from the Honor Harrington book series, where the People's Republic of Haven's Department of State Security ("State Sec") has its own Space Navy, Space Marines, Army, intelligence organizations, and so on. This was in turn inspired by the Real Life Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany, which had the elite Waffen-SS which was pretty much a second German Army for the Nazi party, the Allgemeine-SS which ran the damn thing, and literally any other responsibility that Himmler could talk Hitler into giving him. With such a precedent, this trope has a way of coinciding with Putting on the Reich.

This is an extremely common Real Life trope, and is Older Than They Think. Political intrigues and favoritism can lead to Interservice Rivalry with the Regular Army. Contrast with the Secret Police, who are similar to State Sec, but lack the overt paramilitaries and suppress dissent more quietly, and with the Internal Death Squad, which targets renegades within the organization it's part of. MegaCorp and N.G.O. Superpower are when corporate or other non-governmental entities wield similar levels of influence, infrastructure and paramilitary power.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Black Cat has Chronos, a world-wide peacekeeping organization that amongst other things has a division of elite assassins (which the main character Train was once a part of), units of special forces troops, a world-wide intelligence network and multiple R&D divisions working on various research projects (like nanotech).
  • Rare heroic example in Ghost in the Shell, as the protagonists are part of Public Security Section Nine. They operate with great autonomy, are only ever seen reporting to the Prime Minister or the Minster of Home Affairs, regularly violate laws which would bind other governmental organizations, and thanks to virtually no oversight, almost never get caught doing so. While Section Nine itself is only a small elite team of mostly ex-military operatives with a small support staff and a lot of cutting-edge equipment, they are still only one of at least eight other Public Security Sections, each with a different structure and area of responsibility. What little is known about the other Sections places them more within government control. Section 1 covers internal investigations within Japan, similar to the FBI. Section 4 is a group of Rangers, like the Navy Seals. Section 6 works like the CIA. Other sections fill in roles similar to the Drug Enforcement Agency and medical investigations.
  • The Gundam franchise seems to have something of a love affair with this trope. Some notable examples include:
    • The Titans, the main antagonists of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. They eventually take over the regular Federation Forces and become a de facto military dictatorship. They manage to be even more Nazi-like then their predecessors, the Principality of Zeon from Mobile Suit Gundam (ironically, their original stated purpose was to eliminate Zeon remnant groups).
      • The Titans are replaced following the First Neo-Zeon War with Londo Bell, which, since it is run by Bright Noa, is a far more moral example that doesn't abuse its authority. That said, it is still an autonomous military force outside the regular chain of command, with its official mission statement being to hunt down Zeon upstarts. The fact a Second Neo-Zeon War starts invites accusations of them not doing their job.
      • This also explains why by the time Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn takes place, the Feddies are revealed to have established another Titans replacement called the ECOAS "Manhunter" unit. But while its job more or less is to do the sort of wetworks that Londo Bell would never do, a sense of duty, professionalism and a grounded awareness of being Necessarily Evil keep it from becoming just like the Titans. At least until Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash, when they start being used by the now fully-corrupt Federation to deport people for slave labor.
    • The Organization of the Zodiac (OZ for short) in Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is an interesting case, zig-zagging as the series went on. While officially part of the Alliance military as a elite force, it was secretly the Romefeller Foundation's military wing. After eliminating the Alliance, OZ becomes the regular army for the Romefeller government.
    • Phantom Pain in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is a downplayed version — it's a special forces group used to support the radical Blue Cosmos faction. They get to use advanced (but illegal) technology, has skilled personnel, and are autonomous from the regular chain of command. But despite being used to expand Blue Cosmos's and LOGOS's agendas, the group mostly uses standard Alliance uniforms and don't seem to be ideologically charged as other examples.
    • The A-Laws (Autonomous Peace-Keeping Force) from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, who are obvious expies of the Titans. They're autonomous from the regular military, with access to secret police, and under the direct command of Ribbons Allmark. Interestingly enough, the organization had different levels of trust: Those who have no idea what the A-Laws are really doing, the ruthless top brass who knew what the A-Laws were doing but remained mere pawns, and the Innovades who really knew really what was going on.
  • Hellsing - In the anime, the titular anti-vampire Organization has a paramilitary vibe. The group has a number of well armed, equipped, and trained soldiers used to take out said vampires. Contrasted in the manga and OVA, where the troops are limited to being the Red Shirt Army.
  • Phantom in Innocent Venus specializes in putting down "rebellions", which basically means help the plutocracy oppress the poor. With Humongous Mecha.
  • While Capitol Police from Kerberos Saga are only limited to operating within Tokyo, they have a fairly impressive array of different forces under their control. They have a more traditional Secret Police in the form of Public Security Division, but they also have a helicopter unit, armored cars, a sniper team and most famously the Special Armed Garrison a.k.a. "Kerberos Panzer Cops", a paramilitary force armed with Protect Gear and MG42 belt fed machine guns. Violent Inter-Service Rivalry that erupts within the organization and threatens the existence of Kerberos unit is the central focus of the plot in Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and Kerberos Panzer Cop
  • NERV from Neon Genesis Evangelion. They are not only funded directly by the UN (but actually controlled by SEELE), they have special legal protection and are the sole organization operating Evas. There was one instance where an American admiral was forced to cooperate by a NERV captain which shouldn't be possible in real life; in another example, the same captain requested a prototype weapon from the Japanese military and immediately got it without any red tape. It is said that their expenses involving Eva repairs and collateral damage could immediately bankrupt a small country. They also happen to have an Elaborate Underground Base as their main headquarters, a Captured Super-Entity in the basement, as well as control over an entire city.
  • In One Piece, this is the purpose of CP0 (Cipher Pol Aigis Zero). They serve directly under the World Nobles, protecting them from any outside harm. And unlike the Secret Police unit CP9, their existance is well-known among the public.
  • The Imperial Guard of the Great Garmillas Empire in Space Battleship Yamato 2199. The empire's supreme leader, Abelt Dessler, transforms the Imperial Guard into a massive organization that sustains his regime through secret police activities, and with weapons and warships that rival those of the military. The director of the Imperial Guard, Hydom Gimleh, does not hesitate to arrest two of the most powerful and respected military commanders for conspiring to assassinate Dessler and have them sentenced to death on minimal evidence. The Guard subjugates conquered worlds and species, and responds to one planet's protests against the empire with a massive air and space bombardment that annihilates most of the population.
  • Downplayed in Spy X Family. While it is literally called the State Security Service and everyone knows of its existence, it functions as more of a Secret Police in practice. Recurring character Yuri is an officer, and he sometimes shows up in uniform and sometimes in plainclothes. The terms (and tropes) are more or less used interchangeably.

    Comic Books 
  • Block 109: There are actually two opposing ones within Alternate History Nazi Germany. The SS became Heydrich's personal organization after Himmler became Fuehrer (Hitler was assassinated and everyone else in the line of succession was killed in the purge that followed), but Himmler also created the Teutonic Order as a rival organization led by an unknown officer named Zytek so that neither Heydrich or Zytek could become too powerful and depose him. This backfired when Himmler was assassinated anyway and the Reich council promoted Zytek.
  • The Alpha Lanterns of the Green Lantern Corps fit this trope. Created to act as an Internal Affairs force for the GLs, they are armed with two power rings, made into cyborgs with Manhunter technology that allows them to drain other rings of power, have built in power batteries to negate the need to recharge, and have their personalities erased in favor of a direct mental link to the Book of Oa and Central Power Battery, thus removing any impurities which may color their interpretation of the Guardian's laws. Which may prevent them from becoming Knight Templar Well Intentioned Extremists powerful enough to take down the entire GLC (seriously, with the rest of that description they're practically asking for it), but doesn't make the Guardians look particularly heroic...
    • As it turns out, the Alpha Lanterns hasn't prevented that at all, especially not with Cyborg Superman taking control of them. Earth's GLs, quite understandably, gave a collective What The Hell, Guardians? somewhere between "Manhunter technology" and "personality erased". (Although the Alpha Lanterns themselves insist their personalities haven't been erased, just intensely focused; but then, they would think that, wouldn't they?) Their extreme resemblance to the Manhunters shows that even when you are semi-omniscient and immortal, you can't learn from history.
    • In Final Crisis, Granny Goodness possesses Alpha Lantern Kraken, captures Batman, and tries to steal the Central Power Battery. Real infallible, and Hal Jordan points it out.
  • Judge Dredd:
    • Justice Department is so big that it has several Black Ops agencies with their own forces. After they were all consolidated following the Day of Chaos, they even tried to overthrow the Chief Judge in a coup during the "Trifecta" arc.
    • Before the Atomic War, the Department of Justice had become a State Sec in its own right to the US government, fielding tanks and other military hardware on par with the US military. If not for this militarization, they certainly would not have been able to topple President Booth's administration after they charged him with tyranny.
  • The Kree Empire from Marvel Comics has the Accuser Corps led by Ronan the Accuser.
  • Secret Wars (2015) gives us the Thor Corps, a group of multiversal Thors, many of them not the Odinson himself, who patrol Battleworld an enforce the laws granted to them by their All-Father, Doctor Doom.
  • S.H.I.E.L.D. from Marvel Comics is a intelligence and counter-terrorist agency, that has some pretty spiffy military hardware, including a flying aircraft carrier armed with an ICBM and a squadron of jets.
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye introduces the Decepticon Justice Division to IDW’s Transformers universe, a five-man squad (six if you count the Team Pet, seven counting their non-combatant medic) of Decepticon Super Soldiers who exist to hunt down traitors and transgressors to the cause and Make an Example of Them by gruesomely torturing them to death. Their leader, Tarn, embraces the “government agency” aspect of this trope: not only does he consider his squad essentially an ultra-violent HR department, they also must obey a health and safety policy and endure his excruciatingly tedious performance reviews. They report directly to Megatron and are otherwise accountable only to themselves; when Megatron renounces the war and orders all Decepticons to stand down, the DJD responds by branding Megatron himself a traitor and start gunning for him above all others.

    Fan Works 
  • In Aeon Natum Engel and its rewrite Aeon Entelechy Evangelion has a such efficient State Sec that it makes the state sec of the source material, Cthulhu Tech, look downright lazy. It also makes the "Everything is falling apart" scenario from the latter's sourcebooks impossible.
  • In the Daria Fan Fic Expanded Universe, look no further than the organization known as DELPHI, with the motto Praemonitus, praemunitus (' Forewarned is forearmed '). If your favorite spy shtick hasn't been yet used by or about DELPHI - just you wait...
  • In Origins, a Mass Effect/Star Wars/Borderlands/Halo Massive Multiplayer Crossover, the Republic Intelligence Service is looking more and more like this trope, considering they use questionable scientific methods in the name of a "greater good," bully the actual democratic government into doing what they want, and condone assassination attempts (which, given the target, is a really bad idea!)
  • In Starcrossed, it is revealed that Section 31 actually has a powerful fleet of warships... real warships, not the normal Federation universal purpose vessels. They get a few shots at the invaders, but generally suffer rather badly from the Worf Effect.
  • Tarkin's Fist:
    • The Imperial Security Bureau, the Empire's hated secret police and political officers, are represented in fine form by the deep cover operative Major Eritech. Embedded within the Naval rank and file under the identity of Commander Tolos Volt, Eritech becomes obsessed with annihilating the members of Tarkin's Fist for their betrayal of Palpatine.

    • On the Earth side of things China's Ministry of State Security is represented as a consistent danger to be navigated by Colonel Loi Cas on the Chinese front of the Empire-Earth War.
  • True to the games,Tiberium Wars portrays the Brotherhood of Nod's Black Hand as this. They're a separate army that operates under its own command structure, answering only to Kane. One of the GDI intelligence reports states that Black Hand units are dispatched to troubled areas with civil unrest to reestablish order, among other things, and Black Hand officers of significantly lower rank are able to overrule high-ranking Nod officers.
  • The Uplifted series explores the personal side of the rivalries held between the Wehrmacht and the SS, both of whom have nothing but contempt for the other group. The writer doesn't play favorites, having a prominent Prussian call his protagonist a "Well dressed ditch digger." Ouch.
  • Fallout: Equestria: Applejack's Ministry of Wartime Technology created the Steel Rangers, a force of Power Armor equipped soldiers that fought alongside the Royal Army and later became the analogue to Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel. Not to be outdone by her old friend, Twilight Sparkle's Ministry of Arcane Science attempted to create their own force of alicorn demigoddess super soldiers, which backfired horribly, creating the analogue to the Master and the Super Mutants.
  • The Office of Special Resources in The Universiad, The Unfettered Token Evil Teammate who tick off most of the criteria on the list. They are outside and above the chain of command of the Forum's official military services. Their leader reports direct to the Moderators. As the name suggests, they have the final word on Forum resources. They have their own intelligence and R&D arms and their technology and training is far beyond all the rest, such that even an OSR "grunt" is superior to most other Forum special forces. Only their comparatively low numbers prevent any coup attempt from being a Curb-Stomp Battle, and even then heavy casualties are expected.
  • The Intelligence and Reconnaissance Department (IRD) is the state security of the Demon Empire in Sonic X: Dark Chaos. They are outside the military and follow only Beelzebub's orders. The Erelim is a more benign version of this for the Angel Federation.
  • The Alternate History leading up to Ambience: Platoon (Moebius Four) seems to have made SEAL Team Six into this. While they are highly classified in reality, one suspects they don't quite have the resources they're shown to have here. They're on the side of good, but the protagonist is acutely aware that they're not telling him everything.
  • The Guarsai of Zaldia in RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse are a fairly standard version of this trope.
  • Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls: Nihon Kaigun Tokusentai, the force in charge of Japan's shipgirls, has no oversight and answers to no one but itself.
  • Chasing Dragons: The Royal Orders effectively serve this role to Stannis, being standing armies directly loyal to him. While the Order of the Storm is his Praetorian Guard, the Orders of the Crown, Sun, and Sea act to enforce his will in the previously rebellious Crownlands, Dorne, and Iron Islands (respectfully), having the power to act in his name and override local authorities to do so.

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The United States Police Force in Escape from New York and Escape from L.A., serving a near-future dystopian America.
  • The Federal Police in the rather unsettling American 1930s movie Gabriel Over the White House.
  • The Girl From Monday: Triple M has police in menacing black military-style uniforms, helmets and carrying rifles patrolling the streets at all times, taking away dissidents wherever they are found.
  • In Hostile Waters, the K-219's security officer - and holder of one of the sub's nuclear keys - is a member of the KGB.
  • In My Country: Most perpetrators of atrocities were with the state police during the Apartheid period, using such methods as outright murder and horrific torture against dissidents (whether violent or not).
  • Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion: The day he kills Augusta Terzl is the inspector's last day in homicide, as he has been promoted to head of Political Intelligence — which is State Sec, a secret police charged with ferreting out subversives and communists. Phone tapping is rampant, torture is part of the job. The inspector gives a fascist speech to his minions in which he says that political opposition is the same thing as crime.
    Inspector: Repression is civilization!
  • The Immediate Action Organization in Alternate History film It Happened Here, a tale of Britain under German occupation with a Vichy-style government. Also represented are the Blackshirts, the Real Life British Fascist counterpart to the German SA (Brownshirts).
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • A Pearl in the Forest, a Mongolian film set in 1937 when Mongolia was a Soviet satellite and Joseph Stalin's purges were well underway, features as its villain a Mongolian State Sec officer and Buryat tribesman. He has led his fellow State Sec thugs to his own village to hunt down ethnic Buryats who have escaped from the Soviet Union and taken refuge in Mongolia.
  • The Korean Central Intelligence Agency's true function, as explained in The President's Last Bang by President Park to KCIA director Kim.
    Park: [to Kim] You're supposed to beat and scare the shit out of people.
  • The Special Police Force in Sleeping Dogs (1977) that is established to counter guerrilla activity when civil war breaks out. They were blue uniforms and berets, working alongside ordinary army troops in a paramilitary capacity.
  • In Star Trek Into Darkness, it's implied that Section 31 under Admiral Marcus is trying to become one of these — having developed its own weapons and privately operating a unregistered, powerful warship. In addition, its personnel have their own distinct uniforms, and work to advance Marcus' own agenda.
  • When Father Was Away on Business: The Communists in Yugoslavia in 1950 have a security service that's actually called "State Security". When Mesa gets a State Sec apparatchik mad, the apparatchik—his own brother-in-law—has him arrested and sent to a gulag.
  • Where Hands Touch: The SS, who are seen frequently making checks of people's papers or rounding them up. Some of them humiliate Leyna's friend Gunter (as he's secretly a Jew) then shoot him dead in the street.

    Jokes 
  • During the Cold War, a Russian man is staying at a hotel when his neighbors come in and start socializing loudly. He gets an idea, calls room service and asks them to bring tea to the neighbors' room, then goes to meet them. Four minutes later, he grabs the ashtray, puts it close to his mouth, and says "Comrade Major, could we have some tea please?" The tea arrives and the neighbors are now completely silent, even after the man leaves and goes to sleep. In the morning, he wakes up and sees that his neighbors are gone, and asks about them at the reception. The receptionist says that they were taken away by the secret police in the night, and when the man asks why he wasn't taken, she tells him "The thing with the ashtray? Comrade Major thought it was funny."
  • An Egyptian mummy is unearthed. No one can figure out who it is, so the archaeologists invited three KGB specialists. They ask everyone to leave the room and roll up their sleeves. Not long after that, they leave the room, while wiping sweat off their brow. They tell the archaeologists that the mummy is Amenhotep XXIII.note  When asked how they managed to ascertain that, they answer, "The bastard confessed!"

    Literature 
  • The Acts of Caine — The story is set in a Crapsack World. The mirror masks of the Social Police are iconic of this.
  • The Ministry of Pattern from ''A Conspiracy of Truths. Along with acting as diplomats, their job is to investigate and stop threats both inside and outside the country, using both troops and spies to this end. After Vihra Kylliat kills Anfisa Zofiyat, Order takes over this role.
  • Dreamland from Dale Brown books are a top secret USAF unit who, while sometimes seconded to regular commands, frequently act beyond the remit of the conventional military, engaging in black ops around the world with the aid of Cool Planes and other advanced technology. In their Night Stalkers/Sky Masters, Inc./Scion/Whatever-it-is-today incarnations they are more of a N.G.O. Superpower. They're the heroes, normally deployed either to prevent all-out war or expedite its swift ending through means unavailable to normal US military forces, though generally seen as loose cannons by others in the know.
  • The Culture has Contact and Special Circumstances, which nominally act as its diplomatic and secret services. During wartime, both groups serve the Culture in a military capacity.
  • In The Empress Game, the Imperial Diplomatic Corps seems more a spy agency and security force than a real diplomatic service, though it's possible it has actual diplomatic functions we don't see.
  • The Iron Guard in Hammer's Slammers is hinted to be this trope. Personally loyal to President-For–Life Van Vorn, the Guard were "political bullies" rather than actual soldiers.
  • The Seekers in Terry Brooks's The Heritage of Shannara are the Secret Police of The Federation (actually The Empire), dedicated to tracking down political enemies and magic users. They also have their own elite military units, and hold the leashes of The Creepers, the most effective weapon in The Federation's arsenal. Throw in the massive clout that their leader, Rimmer Dall has, and it's easy enough to see why the Seekers are so feared.
  • The Trope Namer is the Office of State Security (State Sec) in the Honor Harrington universe.
    • The People's Republic of Haven's FBI, CIA, and Department of Corrections all in one, with its own parallel army and navy, prison planets, political officers, and thought police. It is not coincidental at all that they're commonly referred to as "SS".
    • This is in contrast with Internal Security — the previous regime's Secret Police, before they were overthrown. The Legislaturists were not as centralized and used multiple services, including the Mental Hygiene Police. When the Committee of Public Safety comes to power, they reorganized the security apparatus into the ruthless State Security.
    • That said, not all State Sec characters in the series are villains. More than a few of them eventually become opposed to the Committee, for reasons ranging from idealism (Victor Cachat) to self-serving pragmatism (Erasmus Fontein).
    • After the fall of the People's Republic, many State Sec warships flee Havenite space, becoming Former Regime Personnel. Two are destroyed by HMS Hexapuma in Shadow of Saganami. Those two, along with many more, were hired by Mesa, and eventually sent against Torch. They failed thanks to the intervention of Commodore Luis Roszak, whose Solarian forces took a serious pounding.
    • Mesa has large, quasi-military police forces to stamp out rebellions among the slaves and near-slaves that make up most of the planet's population, from the more police-like Mesan Internal Security Directorate to the more heavily armed Mesan Planetary Peaceforce, with access to everything up to and including orbital strikes.
  • The Jenkinsverse: Subverted. Aliens are, by and large, peaceful and not used to crime, so there isn't even a bare minimum of state security. Humans are repeatedly shocked by how much they can get away with simply because no one bothered to put any cameras anywhere. There aren't even cameras in banks.
  • The venerable Lensman series features a rare heroic example: the Galactic Patrol, which over the years evolves from a QUANGO intelligence/security outfit to a huge military-industrial complex with major political clout. If written today, it would arguably be a subversion, as they use their wide-ranging powers strictly in the defense of the common welfare and support an otherwise rather hands-off, decentralized federal government. Ironically, the totalitarian alien empire who are their main enemies also do not seem to have anything analogous until late in the series.
  • Implied in Vengeance for Nikolai by Walter M. Miller Jr. America is taken over by a fascist government which starts a war with the Soviet Union. Separate from the Army are the Blue Shirts, who are overly nationalistic and brutal in their interrogations of Soviet POWs.
  • In Victoria, the Christian Marines are a Designated Hero example of this in the Northern Confederation. A militia of former policemen and military veterans who are the ideological backbone of the Confederation's right-wing regime, they spearhead its armies and perform internal-security functions in peacetime.
  • Vorkosigan Saga: The Barrayaran Ministry of Political Education. Emperor Ezar's right hand during much of his rule, they thought themselves to be the power behind the throne, until Ezar made them one of the scapegoats for the failed Escobaran invasion, having recognised the danger they represented. His left hand, Imperial Security, is a much more constrained organization, wholly dedicated to the continuation of the Barrayaran Imperium, but also bound in what they can do by Barrayaran law and tradition. ImpSec aren't above cultivating a reputation as scary state security forces, but have the fortune of being led by Simon Illyan, who got a very small taste of what really evil state security forces are capable of and decided he wanted no part of that.note 
  • In The Machineries of Empire, the Vidona are responsible for enforcing the Doctorine in the Hexarchate. They're noted as being the most dogmatic of the six factions, as they have to make sure the calendar is preserved.
  • The Noon Universe by Strugatsky Brothers has the COMCON-2. Ironically, no matter how "real" and "honest to goodness" Communism is, it can't do without a State Sec.
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe has several, such as:
    • COMPNOR (Commission for the Preservation of the New Order), which is basically the Empire's equivalent of the SS. It has an executive committee, its own military and intelligence wings, a social engineering agency, and its own youth group. The Imperial Security Bureau, one branch, has the responsibility of, among other things, rooting out spies and traitors in the Imperial ranks, as well as hunting down rebel cells. They have their own ISB stormtroopers.
    • In some ways, the Jedi act this way given the allegiance to the Republic as opposed to simply the Light Side of the Force. In addition, their level of power gives them a fearsome reputation that they are willing to use to their advantage in both The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones as "keepers of the peace".
    • Rebels features the Inquisitorius, a secret division consisting of dark side Force-sensitive agents tasked by Emperor Palpatine to hunt down the remaining Jedi. The Imperial Security Bureau also makes an appearance in the form of Agent Kallus.
    • We find out in Poe Dameron that the Imperial successor state, the First Order, has a successor agency to the ISB called the First Order Security Bureau.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Corellia's Public Safety Service, which used to be the nobler law-enforcement agency the Corellian Security Force.
    • Also the Coruscant Guard/Galactic Alliance Guard, which Jacen Solo pushed his way to the top of in Legacy of the Force. He then used his new power to get the Galactic Alliance leader removed so he could get himself made leader and reveal his Sith Lord status.
    • Star Wars: The Old Republic gives us Imperial Intelligence of the resurgent Sith Empire. It was quite possibly the most deadly and feared organization the galaxy has ever seen at the time, responsible not only for intelligence gathering but internal security, with its own private army and navy that operated separate of the regular military's chain of command to enforce order on Imperial planets.
    • In Legends, the ISB could take over entire Star Destroyers at a whim, run the Navy through illegal tests of character without telling anyone, and killing anyone who failed without going through any procedures until Vader himself cracked down on them. They do all of those things in Star Wars: Allegiance; in particular, ISB Colonel Vak Somoril leads a Star Destroyer around by manipulating its captain's ambition and paranoia. They also had plants on every ship with orders to kill head officers and take over if they mutinied or deserted, and their own ranks of stormtroopers and both obvious and covert ships and military equipment.
  • The Wasp Empire of Shadows of the Apt has a couple versions:
    • The Rekef (named for the general who founded them) are the empire's primary example, being a semi-secret society dedicated to policing the Wasps and enforcing the Emperor's (and later, the Empress's) will. The Rekef has its own system of ranks, separate from any military rank an individual agent might hold; the Rekef rank is usually secret unless there is a conflict in the chain of command, in which case it takes precedence. The Rekef is further divided into the Rekef Outlander (which spies on the Empire's enemies) and the Rekef Inlander (which polices the Empire itself); the Inlander is more prestigious and joining it is considered a path to power. The official Army Intelligence service, in contrast, doesn't have much of a reputation and is generally regarded as the Rekef's poor younger sibling. This does, however, exempt them from the rampant factionalism and purges that regularly carve through the Rekef.
    • Later in the series, Empress Seda creates another secret police with authority even over the Rekef, called the Red Watch; it's composed of agents determined to have latent magical abilities and bound to her by a Blood Magic ritual, making them incredibly loyal and ruthless in carrying out their duties to the point that even seasoned Rekef agents are freaked out by them. But it also means that when Seda vanishes, they can't function without her. After a coup seizes the Wasp Empire in her absence, the Red Watch flee to a semi-autonomous border territory, proclaiming themselves the Empire's Government in Exile.
  • The Syndicate Worlds in The Lost Fleet has the Internal Security Service (ISS), or the "snakes" all Syndics call them when the ISS isn't around. They're trained to be fanatically loyal to the Syndic government on Prime and will root out any discontent (or even suspicion of discontent) without mercy. They are fleshed out more in The Lost Stars spin-off series, and it's revealed that the "snakes" routinely plant nuclear devices in major cities on all their worlds in order to preclude any rebellion attempts. Later on they also start adding backdoors to their warships (excuse me, mobile forces), so the "snakes" aboard can trigger a core overload should the crew attempt to mutiny.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The United Nations Special Service Unit in Amerika carries out periodic "training exercises" — involving tanks, Black Helicopters, Gas Mask Mooks and Stuff Blowing Up — designed to intimidate the local population.
  • Andor: The Imperial Security Bureau or ISB is the body charged with gathering intelligence against Rebel forces and protecting the Empire from them by implementing very harsh measures. Its personnel have military-style white uniforms and serve alongside the regular armed forces. After the Aldhani heist embarrasses the Empire, an Imperial decree sees their power expanded to the level seen in the Star Wars examples under Literature.
  • Babylon 5 had the Psi Corps as well as Nightwatch. The authority of the Psi Corps is officially limited to matters dealing with telepaths. The Nightwatch is a more straightforward example, with them being a purely political organization by the dictatorial Clark regime. Word of God has it that Nightwatch even absorbed Homeguard, a well-armed terrorist group opposed to association with aliens (which is ironic, since Clark is being secretly backed by the Shadows).
  • Colony:
    • Post Alien Invasion, the occupied American cities (or at least, the Los Angeles blocs) are patrolled by militarized Department of Homeland Security forces that report to the Colonial Transitional Authority.
    • Season 2 introduces the "Blackjacks", who serve as the intelligence and enforcement arm of the Global Authority, with even the power to boss around local CTA forces in the colonies and carry out the mass rendition of entire blocs.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Space Security Service in "The Daleks' Master Plan"; although opposing the Daleks, these black-clad paramilitary agents of the year 4000 execute people at the drop of a hat (one even kills her own brother simply because she's been ordered to). Ironically, Space Security were to be the heroes of the never-made spin-off series Daleks.
    • The Republican Security Force protecting the Republic of Great Britain in "Inferno".
    • The Kaled Military Elite led by the bespectacled Himmler-like Security Commander Nyder in "Genesis of the Daleks".
  • A French Village: The SS appear more than once, mostly in the form of their intelligence arm, the SD. Later the Milice, who served as this for Vichy France, also appear. Both groups have an infamous (deserved) notoriety as brutal, vicious enforcers of their regimes.
  • The Handmaid's Tale: The black-clad Guardians patrolling everywhere serve as these.
  • In Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, there is a secret organization called the No Men. Their job includes protecting the world from potentially dangerous aliens and even capture one of the heroes who they feel could be a threat. They've even gone to the length of infiltrating a blogging site to play down the conspiracies that are being uncovered.
  • The Last Ship:
    • The multipart story that composes the very end of Season 1 and start of Season 2 features rogue elements of the Maryland State Police who are acting in this capacity for Amy Granderson, who has set themselves up as a warlord in Baltimore.
    • Season 3 makes use of China's Ministry of State Security, a real life example of this trope.
  • In the Sliders episode "Fever", the West Coast is fraught with deadly diseases thanks to non-existent modern medicine, leaving control of society in the hands of the California Health Commission. On the surface, it's a standard public health agency, but has its own army to forcibly throw citizens into quarantine zones.
  • Star Trek:
    • The Romulans have the Tal Shiar, which not only act as an intelligence agency, but have their own ships and ranking system. Similarly, the Cardassians have the Obsidian Order, which has elements of this trope despite being officially restricted to Secret Police level. Both organizations compete enthusiastically with their government's official military. However, prior to the Dominion War, they worked together to attempt wipe out the Dominion, only to find out the hard way they fell right into their enemy's trap and got their clocks thoroughly cleaned. The Tal Shiar did manage to recover from the loss, and continued to have some power on Romulus. The Order, however, was effectively wiped out, allowing the Cardassian dissident movement to return control of Cardassia to civilian authorities.
    • Averted with the Klingons. Despite being created to serve as a counterpart to the Soviet Union, the Klingons were never shown or established to have their own version of the KGB. In Expanded Universe, though, the Klingons are revealed to have Imperial Intelligence, which also acts the part of the Secret Police. There is plenty of Interservice Rivalry between the IDF and the II. The former despise the underhanded tactics employed by the spooks, and the latter consider the warriors to be dumb grunts.
    • Averted with the shadowy Section 31. While so secret that even the Federation Council and President are (supposedly) not aware of its existence, free from any official government oversight to protect The Federation at all costs, they don't maintain their own paramilitary forces (their operatives and supporters in Starfleet handle things when a bit of muscle is needed for a plan). While they were operating more openly during the 23rd century and even had dedicated ships, space stations, and even special badges, the CONTROL crisis forced Starfleet to officially disavow Section 31, resulting in the agency going back underground and wiping out all traces of its existence from official (and unofficial) records.
    • Averted with the Obsidian Order. Despite being The Dreaded Secret Police of the Cardassians, they're forbidden from having any warships, presumably to maintain a Balance of Power between the military and intelligence divisions. This becomes a plot point in Season 3 when it's discovered they've been constructing a secret fleet.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., spinning off directly from the MCU, has S.H.I.E.L.D. as described above, as this, particularly in season one. They've had their ups and downs (mostly the latter) since, though. The public revelation in Captain America: The Winter Soldier that they were heavily infiltrated by the Nazi-descended conspiracy HYDRA up to the higest levels of command has led to what's left of S.H.I.E.L.D. spending much of the series's run as an officially disavowed organization that has to operate on its own authority.
  • The Wheel of Time (2021): In the series False Dragons, and indeed the Dragon Reborn, can also be female. Thus the Red Ajah deals not only with male but also with female channelers who violate the White Tower rules. This implies both wilders (channelers without Tower education) and their fellow Aes Sedai. As a consequence, other Ajahs dislike Reds and are wary of them as the Tower's enforcers. This is actually close to their original purpose from the books, where the Red Ajah was formed to deal with misuses of the One Power in general before increasingly focusing on gentling men who could channel.

    Roleplay 
  • Destine Enormity: Arcadia's superpowered State Sec is called the Elite. They encompass all the functions of the government, but are most often seen fighting the rebels or investigating traitors.
  • Sirene's Reichsnachrichten from Open Blue is somewhere between this and Cloak and Dagger. It still primarily deals with intelligence, but also includes a special forces detachment and Secret Police modeled after the Gestapo.
  • The Triarian Civilis Protectione from Void of the Stars are a great example.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech
    • Many governments have such organizations. Some of the most notorious are the Capellan Confederation's Maskirovka, the Draconis Combine's ISF (Internal Security Force), and the Lyran Commonwealth's Loki. Loki once almost took over their government, while the ISF is known for its Jurisdiction Friction with the Draconis Elite Strike Force (DEST) and for regularly being infiltrated and corrupted by the Black Dragon Society.
    • ComStar, a combination of a MegaCorp and a quasi-religious order dedicated to preserving Lost Technology, has its own military known as the ComGuards who were instrumental in defeating the Clan invaders. They also have their own State Sec organization: ROM, who terrified even the State Sec organizations of other countries.
  • CthulhuTech gives us the Office of Internal Security and considering the type of world it's in you know that they have to have a lot of firepower.
  • Hunter: The Vigil features Task Force VALKYRIE; a paramilitary organization run by the United States government tasked with countering supernatural threats to the America.
  • The Old World of Darkness had the Technocracy, a group of mages that was very much interested maintaining the world's current status quo. Amongst other things it included New World Order Men In Black, cyborg Super Soldiers, genetically engineered monsters and whole bunch of other crap.
  • Internal Security, or IntSec in Paranoia.
    • Tech Infantry, a fan created Tabletop RPG that is sort of an expansion pack to the Old World Of Darkness, gives us Internal Security, or InSec in the Earth Federation. Imperial Security, or ImpSec in the Middle Kingdom. Both named in conscious imitation of the original State Sec in Honor Harrington.
  • The Imperial Interstellar Scout Service in Traveller is a downplayed version of this. While most of it's work is done by small groups in the back of beyond, it has a number of hand-me-down Imperial Naval vessels as well as it's own SWAT-team style Space Police commandos.
  • The Imperium of Warhammer 40,000, being incredibly vast, has several to varying degrees:
    • The Inquisition - the original and most iconic of the Imperium's State Sec. They're divided into three main Ordos Majoris: the Ordo Xenos deals with aliens (mostly Genestealers and Tau, since they are the only alien races that actively corrupt or recruit humans), the Ordo Hereticus roots out heresy that hasn't yet erupted into conflict, and the Ordo Malleus handles the killing of witches and daemons.
    • There are also an indeterminate number of smaller Ordos Minoris, such as the Ordo Sepulturum which combats magical diseases, the Ordo Chronos which studies the nature of time, the Ordo Originatus which works to uncover the history of the Inquisition, and the Ordo Redactus which works to conceal the history of the Inquisition. As you might expect, the Inquisition is no stranger to infighting at all levels, especially since each individual Inquisitor is a law unto themselves.
    • The Adeptus Mechanicus. Technically speaking, the Machine Cult isn't Imperium at all, it's the separate (semi-)independent human empire that just happens to be in personal union with The Emperor himself and works with the rest of the Imperium only because of a treaty with the Emperor. The Inquisition is highly suspicious about them, and not always without reason.
      • The Prefecture Magisterium is an internal Admech State Sec that serves as a cross between Inquisitors of the Omnissian Creed and the SCP Foundation, securing dangerous relics and artifacts in stasis vaults after disposing of their previous owners. Their enforcers are the Malagra, dedicated hunter-priests who are infamous enough to make Space Marine kill-teams wary of encroaching on their turf. They frequently clash with the Inquisiton over jurisdiction.
    • Other notable organizations include the Adeptus Arbites, the Officio Assassinorum, certain space Marine Chapters (the Minotaurs specially are infamous for being specialized in fighting other Space Marines), and the Adepta Sororitas.
    • The Ecclesiarchy has the Frateris Militia, as well as the Witch Hunters - who are not to be confused with the other witch hunters, the Ordo Malleus, who are part of the Inquisition.
    • The Adeptus Terra operates the Officio Sabatorum and the Templars Psykologis.
    • The Administratum has the Logis Strategos.
    • The Adeptus Custodes occupies a weird place, as they are primarily supposed to be the Emperor's bodyguards and protect the continent-sized Imperial Palace. However, they take their role as protectors of the Emperor and Holy Terra liberally, and have often acted proactively to eliminate threats toward the Imperium's capital, as well as acting as spies and diplomats and securing ancient artifacts and nightmarish horrors beneath the highly-secure Black Cells under the Palace. After Robute Guilliman's return, they took the gloves off and became an active combat force in the Imperium. And while there aren't very many Custodes, each one is incredibly deadly and well-armed.

    Video Games 
  • Assassin's Creed Origins has the Phylakes, a paramilitary police force that works to protect the hegemony of Cleopatra and the Ptolemy dynasty over all of Egypt. They have also replaced the Medjay of the New Kingdom as personal bodyguards to the Pharoah.
  • Blue Planet has the Fedayeen, a paramilitary shadow organization working behind the scenes of the otherwise very benevolent United Earth Federation. The Fedayeen consciously eschew the ethics and morals of the rest of their society, doing whatever is necessary to safeguard people, no matter how monstrous. However, they keep a tight lid on their agents: they are constantly reminded that Necessarily Evil is still evil, and excess atrocities are punished severely (it helps that it's practically impossible to keep a secret from their leadership, which is a gestalt mind made up of the combination of all their thoughts and emotions. The Fedayeen know what their agents are thinking and why they do what they do, so they can judge intent with perfect clarity). They are so secretive that most people believe them to be nothing but myth, a thing for conspiracy theorists to rant about, but the results they get speak for themselves in their effectiveness.
    "If the Federation is everything the Elders hoped humanity could become, we are everything they feared it would have to."
  • In Code Geass: Lost Colors, in the Order of the Black Knights good ending the Black Knights become a benevolent version of this. Formerly fighting against the oppressive Holy Brittanian Empire, they agree to lay down their arms and rededicate themselves to defending the Special Administrative Zone Princess Euphemia sets up to allow the former Japan to govern itself. Compared to how things turned out in the original anime, it's a pretty happy ending.
  • In the Command & Conquer games, the Black Hand of Nod fits the trope. It started out as Kane's personal bodyguard, developed into a religious secret police and special ops group, then eventually became a subfaction of its own. By the Third game expansion, the Black Hand have their own military, political and religious wings, and act as a second army of Nod. Also, it's not a coincidence that it shares the name of the organization that was behind the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which started The First World War. It's pretty much stated that that was them.
  • In the manual of Command & Conquer: Red Alert states that the Soviet's NKVD adds 7 million troops to their strength of 14 million regulars. Compare this to the setting's Allies, whose military strength (regular and irregular forces), is about 5 million total at the game's beginning.
  • The final Story Arc of Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past introduces the Justice Corps, a private militia put together by Mayor Justin Lawson to serve as the muscle of his regime, being in charge of arresting and executing any criminals or political enemies that might interfere in his quest to eradicate crime from the city altogether.
  • In the Crusader games, SecCart (Security Cartel) handles defense and security for all WEC facilities and personnel. Given the corporate-fascist nature of the game's setting, this means they also handle police, intelligence, and so on.
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • The series has the Thalmor, who are, on a basic level, essentially a militarized, radical Altmeri (High Elf) political party with extremist religious and Secret Police elements (or, at least, that's what they had evolved into by the early 4th Era). Following the devastating events of the Oblivion Crisis, the Thalmor (then only a marginal group) took the credit for resolving the Crisis, winning them massive populist support in their homeland. They quickly rose to the highest ranks of the Altmeri government and, through their machinations, started a domino effect which severely weakened the already crumbling Cyrodiilic Empire. The Thalmor seceded, annexed neighboring Valenwood (home of the Bosmer (Wood Elves), and reformed the Aldmeri Dominion of old. The Thalmor have their own military branch, complete with Professional Killer hit squads and wandering Magic Knight "Justicars" given free reign to arrest/murder "undesirables". Following the Great War between the Dominion and the remnants of the Empire, the White-Gold Concordat was struck with terms heavily favorable to the Dominion. Included is the ban on Talos worship throughout the Empire, the official dissolution of the Blades, and the right for the Thalmor to patrol the Empire enforcing these terms (and others). The Thalmor can be found throughout Skyrim and are mostly responsible for the Screw You, Elves! sentiment present in the population of Skyrim.
    • In earlier games, the Blades were publicly a Praetorian Guard/knightly order (and hence a small but elite paramilitary force) while also, as an open secret, operating as the Emperor's personal spies throughout Tamriel (many of whom are capable combatants in their own right). They fall out of this trope by Skyrim, with the events of Oblivion severing most of the connection between the Blades and the Empire and the prelude to the Great War reducing them to a few scattered remnants hiding from the Thalmor.
  • Endless Space has the Sheredyn, who were originally just the bodyguards for the emperors of the United Empire. By the time of the game, however, the Sheredyn have begun to take over corporations along with building independent colonies and creating their own interstellar logistics networks in addition to their military forces operating outside the Imperial military's regular chain of command. This has transformed them from an elite bodyguard force into a powerful subfaction within the empire; to the point they are almost a state within a state.
  • Escape Velocity Nova:
    • The Federation's Bureau of Internal Investigation started life as a domestic intelligence agency (maybe akin to MI-5), formed in response to (likely unfounded) public fears of Auroran infiltrators. Within a handful of years (or possibly a handful of decades — there are some apparent contradiction between the Timeline Preamble and in-game texts), it had suborned the entire government, turning the Federation into The Empire, and now operates its own fleet. The Federation Player Character joins the Bureau and works to conquer all the other factions, within the Federation and without.
    • Part of the mission statement of the Polaris' Mu'hari caste is to ensure the survival of the Polaran people, whatever the cost. This means that they take on the State Sec/Secret Police role at times by necessity, as well as acting on foreign soil as spies. However, they're regarded by the Polaris as benevolent caretakers rather than something sinister and fearsome. The Polaris player character essentially becomes an honorary Mu'hari despite being a Federation citizen by birth.
  • Final Fantasy VII: Shinra's Turks exist in a weird realm between this, normal Secret Police, and The Men in Black, with a pinch of ninja. A Turk operation with SOLDIER muscle thrown in resembles this particularly. That they are the long semi-secret arm of an electric company means they have certain freedom from responsibility vis-a-vis the public and international community that more standard governments do not enjoy, so their structure is somewhat unusual to reflect this.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV has NOOSE,note  an ersatz-Department of Homeland Security, with a little NYPD-ESU thrown into the mix. They serve as the game's high-level law enforcement response, being called in at 3 wanted stars onward. Aside from this, the in-game fluff shows that they are responsible for immigration matters, distributing the loads of patriotic and anti-terror propaganda flooding Liberty City, and placing the whole city on lockdown early in the game's plot for barely any reason other than "Fucking Terrorists".
  • Halo:
    • The Office Of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is basically this. They're a branch of the Navy which operates completely independent of its command structure and can co-opt the regular Navy, other military branches, and even civilians to do their work for them. While their own security forces are mostly recruited from the Army and Marines, they operate all the UNSC's stealth ships, as well as tons of secret high-tech projects, like the Spartan programs, which produced dozens of Super Soldiers from kidnapped children for the expressed purpose of fighting rebellious colonists, and hundreds of super soldiers from war orphans for the expressed purpose of sending them to die on suicide missions before they even passed prematurely-induced puberty. Their agents are all pretty enigmatic and operate outside the bounds of the law, often without any moral or ethical limits. It has its own propaganda arm, and the Human-Covenant war has made it so powerful that its director has kept some of its operations secret even from the rest of HIGHCOM, even if those operations are designed to undermine official UNSC foreign policy.
    • Fans gave ONI somewhat of a pass when they were fighting to save humanity from extinction at the hands of the Covenant, but with the end of the Human-Covenant war, the aforementioned plan to undermine foreign policy (which ends up backfiring), and ONI's attempts to pin all the blame for the Spartan programs on one person, fans have become much more critical about ONI's methods and intentions.
    • Expanded universe material states that the Covenant military consists entirely of these: instead of a single organized force, various branches of the Covenant government each possessed its own standing army, all of which were constantly competing and fighting for dominance.
  • Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores: The Compliance and its officers are the eyes and ears of the Imperial House and the Boards, and they crack down hard on dissent. Everyone in Fleet's End is worried about upsetting them. To justify how truly black-hearted they are, even more so than the Ceo, Theoa tells an anecdote of how her brother reported their mother to Compliance and she was never seen again.
    Theoa: "Rheng is a poisonous toad. But the Board of Compliance is the black heart of the Empire."
  • The Sentinels of Hallifax in Lusternia are a fantasy variant of State Sec. Amongst other things, the Sentinel Company are elite soldiers, Secret Police and Time Police designed to rein in the many paradox-causing experiments of sister organization The Institute. Hallifax in general encourages this trope as part and parcel of its dual futuristic-Communist motif.
  • The Spectres in Mass Effect. It's not completely apparent how much authority they have over commandeering Citadel military forces to execute their objectives, but it would appear to be absolute. Saren, except for the whole 'not working for the Council', was pretty much a one-man version of this.
    • The Special Tasks Group are basically the Salarians' version of this, and in fact inspired the Spectres.
  • The NSA in Perfect Dark. Unlike its real world counterpart they have their own armed troops and control Area 51. Considering that its director is corrupt and part of a conspiracy it may be that that no one knows about the personal army part.
  • In [PROTOTYPE], we have the poster child(ren) for Evil Army, Blackwatch, a black-ops style organization that may or may not have authority superseding that of the President. Their stated purpose is to prevent the spread of bioweapon infection (specifically Redlight and Blacklight), but given that every other person in their group is a Sociopathic Soldier, they're using the USMC as Cannon Fodder, and they have a plan to nuke Manhattan if they think they're losing, they're more clearly this trope.
  • Similar to the Grand Theft Auto example, Saints Row: The Third has the STAG note  unit, created to deal with criminal organizations that are too much for the police. Unlike NOOSE, they're a full-blown military organization, with heavily-armored foot-soldiers and cutting-edge technology.
  • Vega Strike has subfaction Homeland Security (subtle), which theoretically "exist for internal policing and control, especially in cases crossing between the jurisdictional boundaries of member states of the Confederation". On our side of the Fourth Wall, it exists to feed Black Comedy with its unsubtle creepines, especially IntelSec. Like this or this (DXT images). To see the humourous part, consider that propaganda they intercepted may be sent and received because of malware in the first place (Luddites are big on Hypocritical Humor too). In chat, they say things like "Wrong-thinkers are everywhere, keep a lookout, friend", or (almost verbatim) Move Along, Nothing to See Here.

    Web Comics 
  • Angels 2200: The Terran Office of Special Investigations (OSI).
  • Baskets of Guts: The Royal Secret Chancellory may seem to be more like a regular Secret Police at first, but in the later chapters they're shown to have much more firepower behind them. Funnily enough, they can be considered the only so-called good guys in the story, counting who they fight against.
  • In Drive (Dave Kellett), the Emperor controls the secret forces of the Jinyiwei to enforce loyalty, they even had a planet to themselves that was officially cut off from interstellar travel.
  • Unsounded: The Aldish state uses Window agents to bring in, torture and locate traitors, which in Alderode is anyone who questions the government's control of the khert, tries to leave the country, sells first materials to Cresce or, of course, those part of any of the rebel groups their tyranny has caused to sprout.

    Web Original 

    Real Life 
  • The Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany, better known to Westerners by the abbreviation "SS". Particularly notable is that the SS included or at least controlled the Orpo (ORdnungsPOlizei = Order Police, a.k.a. ordinary uniformed beat cops), Kripo (KRIminalPOlizei = Criminal Police, i.e. plainclothes detectives working on ordinary crimes), Gestapo (GEheime STAatsPOlizei = Secret State Police, which was the Secret Police and fully incorporated into the SS) and Sipo (SIcherheitsPOlizei = Security Police, a sort of junior Gestapo-Kripo combination, mostly made up of SS members), several of which (at various times) became users of this trope in their own right. It should be noted that the SS were originally only a group of bodyguards and were subordinate to the SA, the brown-shirted stormtroopers. It was only by a series of successful power plays that the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, was able to expand his power base to practically controlling or at least threatening every aspect of German society. The Waffen-SS (literally, weapons SS) were the military wing of the SS, with a separate command structure from the Wehrmacht. However, they were subject to the Army High Command while in the field.
    • Many historians have gone so far as to call the SS a "state within a state", because at their height they not only had their own police, army, intelligence service, administration of the death camps and the Einsatzgruppen death squads (who shot, and forced Hiwi militiamen to shoot, over 1.5 million Soviet Communists and Jews). They had their own schools, clubs, a medical corps (which included the Mad Doctor Josef Mengele, if you can even call the guy a doctor), a science corps, a women's corp (which were auxiliary, or assistant personnel, as women were not allowed to be members), a Cavalry Corps (which were really just riding clubs), their own courts, and of course, their own religion (they were expected to renounce Christianity in favour of a Nazified version of Germanic paganism/occultism, something which even Hitler didn't like). They were intentionally geared towards being an elite society within but apart-from the rest of Nazi Germany, one that would need as little contact as possible with outsiders. If a member of your family was in the SS, then you basically moved into a completely different social circle. Himmler's inspiration for this were The Teutonic Knights (an independent monastic order of elite Crusaders in the same manner as the Knights Templar, and which later evolved into own nationstate, Prussia) and his goals was to turn Schleswig-Holstein — or according to some other sources, a recreated "Burgundy" between Germany and France — into an SS nationstate.
  • When Germany was split after the war, East Germany got the Stasi (Ministerium für STAatsSIcherheit = Ministry for State Security), practically a literal German translation of this trope's name, although the derivation runs the other way. They were able to field far more agents than the Gestapo ever could, (at their height, the Stasi had one agent for every 166 citizens, while the best the Gestapo could field was one agent for every 2000 citizens). An old saying in Germany goes, "The Gestapo were bone breakers. The Stasi were soul breakers." Alone that makes them just the Secret Police (if particularly scary secret police), but what puts them into this trope is the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment, a rather large paramilitary force (about 11,000 at its height) used to secure ultra-important government and Party facilities and generally terrorize the people when necessary.
  • Russia and the former Soviet Union:
    • The Tsardom of Russia had the Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible. It was a semi-monastic fraternal order that was created to terrorize and depower the Boyar nobles who schemed against the Tsar. Its operatives wore black robes, rode horses with symbolic brooms and dog heads attached to saddles, and were formed into paramilitary terror squads that wiped out both manor homes and peasant villages. Aside from these operatives, the Oprichnina also owned vast tracts of land, had merchants working to finance it, and generally was a state within a state. By the end of the Oprichnina, Ivan's enemies were gone, but so was a large chunk of Russia's population. Some people think that the Oprichniks were the source of inspiration for Stalin's NKVD (Ivan the Terrible was Uncle Joe's favorite historical character).
    • In the early days of communist rule, there was the Cheka, a secret police force overseen by Felix Dzerzhinsky. They ultimately had by far the widest responsibilities of any incarnation of the internal security forces the Soviet Union. They were the part of the government responsible for almost all acts of state violence in the Civil War, from grain requisitions to running gulags, to rooting out opposition parties to the Bolsheviks. To what extent this was a deliberate tactic to pass responsibility for the worst parts of the Red Terror to a specific fall man, or just a consequence of giving so much power to a morally questionable individual, is a matter of debate to this day.
    • Under Stalin, there was of course the NKVD, the government department responsible for all matters of internal security. It had extremely wide responsibilities, from ordinary law enforcement and border patrol, to foreign intelligence and intelligence, to managing the gulags and whatever infrastructure their prisoners constructed. As a result, it was extremely powerful, and had a sizeable military force which fought extensively in the Great Patriotic War - even taking on the first Nazi attack in Brest Fortress. Indeed, so powerful was the NKVD that Stalin repeatedly purged its leadership, and eventually split it into smaller departments after the war. Ordinary policing was given to the MVD (which kept the NKVD's gendarmerie corps, now known as the Internal Troops, albeit downsized). Meanwhile, the organisation's more clandestine affairs went to...
    • The KGB, the infamous secret police of the Cold War era. While not as powerful as its predecessor, it nevertheless had the Border Guards Chief Directorate, which consisted of 200,000 troops armed with its own tanks, aircraft, and ships. Although their chief task was sealing the border, not army action. In addition, the KGB had their own Spetsnaz ("Alpha" and "Vympel" ("Banner") regiments) and the Kremlin Guard Force.
    • Belarus still maintains its own branch of the KGB even to this day (though in their own language, they’re known as the KDB). Most of the other former Soviet republics also do, actually, but the Belarusians were the only ones not to bother with renaming theirs after the fall of USSR and the ascension of the ostensibly pro-Soviet president, Alexander Lukashenko.
    • In The New Russia, there is the FSB, the KGB's eventual successor after the dissolution of USSR, still maintains control over the "Alpha" and "Vympel" regiments, and took over the state border forces several years after inception. In a way, it is more powerful than its predecessor - after all, it is their man that now rules all Russia.
    • Outside of the official State Sec, there was also the business empire of Yevgeny Prigozhin, one of Vladimir Putin's close confidantes, which was a mix between this trope and MegaCorp. Closely tied to the government, Prigozhin controlled much of Russia's mass media, had created the infamous Russian "internet troll factories", was involved in diamond mining in Central Africa, and owned a bunch of restaurants. More importantly, he owned the Wagner Group, an army of Private Military Contractors used by the Russian government to fight where it is not politically convenient to implicate the army.
    • Following Prigozhin's failed coup in June 2023, and his subsequent assassination later this year, most of his military assets went to the Russian National Guard or Rosgvardiya. This organisation was formed from the various special police forces of the MVD (see above), such as OMON, SOBR, and the aforementioned Internal Troops, consolidated into a united force loyal personally to the President. While not particularily powerful now (most members of the Rosgvardiya are more like glorified, heavy-armed cops, akin to French Gendarmerie Nationale or British Ulster Special Constabulary), their growth in 2023 may make them into a more significant force in the future.
  • The Romanian State Sec, Securitate, was probably among the most brutal paramilitary societies ever. One could expect them knocking at/down the door of one's home and taking one and one's family to be tortured beyond physical recognition and then sadistically beaten to death/shot dozens of times for a half-finished Ceauşescu joke heard by one of the neighbors.
  • Hungary had the ÁVH (short for "Államvédelmi Hatóság", literally "State Protection Authority"). Forged from elements of the state police force and originally a mere organ of the post-WWII Ministry of Interior (its full name at the time being the "Budapest Headquarters' Department of State Political Police" ("Budapesti Főkapitányság Politikai Rendészeti Osztálya", or PRO) in 1945, before gaining its more infamous name as the Hungarian State Police's State Defense Department ("Magyar Államrendőrség Államvédelmi Osztálya", or ÁVO, where the denonym "ávós" comes from - usually uttered with no small amount of contempt) in 1946, before finally becoming a fully independent state security organization (as the ÁVH) in 1950. Noted for originally being composed of a "colorful cast of characters" (including former Arrow Cross Party members, whose crimes were quickly forgotten in exchange for their services as boot boys and torture technicians, and vengeful survivors of the "labour service" (read: slave labor) that enlistment-age Jewish men had perform during the war - this latter group being a majority in the early days of the PRO, so that previous regime personell, whom they would've come in contact with, would be more easily filtered out from society), it would eventually be forged into a well-organized security service by László Rajk (who would end up being a victim of the organization he helped to shape, as he was considered a threat to the position and authority of general secretary Mátyás Rákosi). Much like the Securitate or the Stasi, it was an utterly brutal organization, renowned for unusually cruel and creative methods of torture (such as forcing arrested priests to kiss an electrified crucifix, forcing prisoners to drink from toilet bowls, and threatening to torture and kill their family members), with the guards' motto being "Don't just guard them, hate them!" which they attributed to Minister of National Defence Mihály Farkas, another member of Rákosi's inner circle. Like the Stasi, they operated a vast network of (mostly intimidated-into-compliance) informants - many of whom would snitch on their own loved ones just to get away from the torture, and would come to make arrests in the dead of the night, between midnight and 2 a.m., giving rise to the term "Csengőfrász" (meaning "Bell-fright", as people would come to dread the sound of the doorbell in the middle of the night). With the death of Stalin in 1953, and the ensuing internal restructuring of the USSR's leadership (and, by extension, some of those of its satellite states), the Hungarian govenrment (then headed by the more popular and pragmatic Imre Nagy, as Rákosi was forced to step down) began to take action against the leadership of the ÁVH, but its complete dissolution would only come in 1956, in the wake of the Hungarian Revolution. The ÁVH was also (most likely) responsible for a particularly tragic episode of the revolution, where peaceful protestors fraternizing with the crews of Soviet tanks were fired upon from atop the Hungarian Radio building, leading to the protestors attempting to flee from the scene, while the confused (and likely panicking) Soviet tank crews ended up firing upon the crowds, leading to countless casualties, and any semblance of peaceful protest going out the window from thereon. The ÁVH's headquarters at Andrássy út 66 (which also served as one of the headquarters (and interrogation and torture chambers) of the Arrow Cross Party during the final years of WWII), were raided, and members of the service were hung from lamp posts, their corpses left to rot on the street. After the revolution was crushed, the new Soviet-friendly government, headed by János Kádár, did not reinstate the organization, mostly for pragmatic reasons, although he also had the personal motive of having been tortured by them himself in the past, with most of its functions taken over by the III/III department of the Minister of Interior.

  • Egypt's police forces under the Mubarak regime provide a fairly classical model: under the control of the Egyptian National Police (which included—and continues to include—all police in the country) came both the State Security Investigations Service (SSIS, usually known as 'Amn ad-Dawlah, or "State Security" in Arabic), who (despite frequent protestations to the contrary) were Secret Police with mass surveillance matched in history only by the Stasi and a fondness for Electric Torture, as well as the Central Security Forces (CSF), paramilitaries whose jobs included patrolling the Sinai (where the Egyptian military was forbidden to enter under Camp David, but nobody said anything about the police) who also served as riot police. Much like joining the SS, someone who was a career police officer (a lot of police, and particularly CSF members, were conscripts) moved into a totally different social circle, with special clubs, dedicated hospitals, and even entire residential compounds and vacation resorts dedicated to them. After the Revolution of 2011, the SSIS was disbanded...only to reappear under the name of "Homeland Security" and back to its old tricks within only a few years. The Central Security Forces never went away at all.
  • During the Saddam Hussein regime, there was a powerful security apparatus set up, but not quite formally unified as other examples. One part was the Iraqi Special Security Organization, which included the Special Republican Guard. Its other branches included presidential bodyguards, "security" that monitored Republican Guard loyalty, communications, internal affairs, surveillance, administration, and even a "science" division - which only tested Saddam's food. The Republican Guard was another part of this informal State Sec, serving as a Presidential Guard and didn't fall under the Ministry of Defense. In addition, Saddam also had a separate irregular paramilitary branch loyal to him.
  • Much like Iraq, Iran has the "Revolutionary Guards", who are a specialized organization which runs parallel to the Militia Security (Basij) and the actual Military (Artesh). While less notorious than the Basij for not participating as much in silencing dissent, they are more notable for their influential role in Iranian politics and society, possibly surpassing the clerical establishment in terms of power.
  • Fascist Italy had the 'Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale' (Voluntary Militia for National Security), better known as 'Blackshirts', whose job was to keep the regular armed forces and the people in line. The Blackshirts are notable not only for being the direct model of the SS, but also for being more loyal to the state than the regime, best shown when Mussolini was deposed in 1943 and their only reaction was to replace the fasces buttons on their uniforms with star buttons like the regular armed forces as ordered by the new prime minister. Not to be confused with the trope, though many Blackshirts might have indeed been black shirts, and the trope was named after them.
    • The Milizia worked closely with the OVRA (Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'Antifascismo, 'Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism'), a proper and frightenly efficient political police absorbed in the proper state police after the war. Or not: there is no actual evidence than the OVRA actually existed as anything more than a way to scare opponents into submission and bait attention away from the real police (that would do all the work) with a backronym that Mussolini (a former journalist) would have chosen purely because it sounded similar to 'piovra', the Italian name for 'octopus'.
    • And if you think they disappeared with the fall of fascism, you're wrong: OVRA (or whoever actually did their job) and the MVSN were simply absorbed in the normal police, that still does their job. And the Carabinieri military police often act as this, and were doing it before Mussolini's rise to power.
  • The Department of Homeland Security is often criticized for being the Secret Police for the free and democratic United States of America. Alleged issues include spying on citizens, separation of families at the border, wrongful deportations, sexual abuse of women, and snatching people off the streets and into unmarked vans during the George Floyd protests. How much truth there is to these accusations remains hotly-debated.
  • The Church of Scientology, although not officially a totalitarian state, often displays characteristics of one — including where this trope is concerned. The Office of Special Affairs (OSA), a successor organization to an earlier group called the Guardian's Office, is a branch of Scientology which, according to the church, handles their legal and PR matters. However according to critics, including Scientology defectors, the OSA handles intelligence-gathering campaigns to discredit the church's opponents as well as carry out manhunts against defectors who escape church-run compounds.
  • The FBI was founded with the stated purpose of quashing communism in the US; that is, its goal is the suppression of political beliefs unpopular with the ruling class. COINTELPRO, the tactics used to foment discord among the FBI's targets and to abuse them into submission, officially only ran from the mid-50s to the mid-70s (when it was revealed to the press), but those same tactics were used by the Department of Justice against the victims of white mob violence during the Red Summer of 1919 (under the Radical Division, led by a young J. Edgar Hoover), and any Muslim can tell you that they continued after 9/11. The tactics included entrapment, framing people, assaulting them, and even assassination. As they didn't have the manpower themselves, the FBI enlisted the assistance of local police and the KKK, and organized a paramilitary unit from the remnants of a far right wing militia in southern California (the Secret Army Organization). Victims of this state violence said that they felt they were at war with their own government. The targets were black civil rights groups like the NAACP and SNCC, environmentalists like Greenpeace, the American Indian Movement, student unions and war protesters, feminists, gay rights activists, and Jewish communities. In his private writings, president Harry S. Truman expressed discontent with the FBI's methodology and motives, comparing the organization to the Gestapo.

 
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Wewelsburg: Dark Camelot

In this mission, French Resistance fighter-turned OSS agent Manon Batiste has been tasked by Col. Stanley Hargrove to storm the Wewelsburg Castle, the Schutzstaffel's main headquarters.



Hargrove himself gives a detailed description of both the man running the entire organization, Heinrich Himmler, as well as a detailed description of the Waffen-SS organization itself, which is to say that they're practically their own nation within the Third Reich at that point in time.

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