T.A.R.O.T

"Strong deeds, gentle words".

―Former motto of T.A.R.O.T

The Threat Assessment and Recon Operations Team, also known by the acronym T.A.R.O.T, was a counter-terrorism and diplomatic outreach project formed during the Great Cataclysm. It was restarted again during the Fourth War with altruistic intentions to sway neutral bodies to the side of the Alliance, including that of the Lamplighters. However, after several clashes between the Project's leaders and Alliance Brass, they were given a new leadership and their mission was quickly derailed by warmongers and jingoistic militants determined to match the tactics of the Forsaken to get a step ahead in the war.

After the armistice was signed between the Horde and Alliance, Project T.A.R.O.T was decommissioned, pending a serious conduct investigation. The War Crimes Tribunal arrested the new leadership of the Project, and they currently await trial by court martial. The previous leadership heads were released from custody effective immediately, and given full compensation by the Peace Committee. Their current whereabouts after the end of Project T.A.R.O.T is unknown.

Origins
Formed during the Great Cataclysm as a counter-terrorism effort, Project T.A.R.O.T was created primarily to track potential insurgents and traitors (chief among them the Twilight's Hammer) among the unaligned groups across Azeroth. Once dispatched to a settlement, they would assess the danger of the reported threat and, if deemed to be a danger, would remove, capture or eliminate the perpetrators.

Through their tenure, T.A.R.O.T carried out several major success stories in rooting out criminal elements such as numerous Cultists, members of the resurgent Defias Brotherhood and The Syndicate as well as radical members or sympathisers of the Horde. Despite these numerous successes, T.A.R.O.T was decommissioned and shut down shortly before Operation: Shieldwall came into effect due to budgeting concerns and Alliance Command prioritising a forward offensive over auxiliary defensive and diplomatic measures.

Outbreak of the Fourth War
In the outbreak of the Fourth War, a covert assault on the The Seeker's Library in Dalaran City was undertaken by the Forsaken-aligned Sylvanas Loyalist Institute, led at the time by Granville Black. Hearing of this underhanded assault, Colonel Loxley Tinkertine, a veteran Technomage and T.A.R.O.T member in their first incarnation, was petitioned by the Alliance Army to head a revived version of the Team as a response to 'the Forsaken's reckless strongarm tactics'.

Tinkertine accepted with two specific amendments to their original mission. First, that T.A.R.O.T must make every attempt to secure the sympathies and loyalties of unaligned groups through expressly fostered goodwill. Second, that the Project would seek out any tools, artefacts and weapons with which the Alliance Military Command could use the put an end to the Fourth War with indemnity for its people. This was tentatively agreed with the Alliance Brass and due to his considerable field experience and connections, Colonel Loxley was given ample leeway as the leader of the reformed Project T.A.R.O.T to conduct things as he saw fit.

After their first assault failed, the S.L.I, now under the command of High Executor Laudwine, directly led an attack against Control while they were present inside the Seeker's Library. This attack was brutally efficient, resulting in the Library's destruction, the death of Agent Roxany Cogwhistle and with Control comatose in a critical condition. Project T.A.R.O.T was able to intervene during the assault and rescue both Control and almost all of the Lamplighter Agents and in Ironforge City, the Alliance Brass, coupled with SI:7, requested that T.A.R.O.T secretly reroute the awakened but recovering Control to Stormwind City for their own protection. This was to be done with the utmost discretion so as not to alert the S.L.I; minimal fanfare, no portals or uses of magic, no army of mercenaries and an absolute minimum of T.A.R.O.T operatives involved. The Colonel gave the order to his directors, Thelda and Is’caar, yet despite their efforts the S.L.I discovered their plan and laid an ambush which awaited Control, T.A.R.O.T and the Lamplighters in the Deeprun Tram.

Though the Loyalists were given their True Death in the ensuing conflict, the partnership between T.A.R.O.T and the Lamplighters was on tenterhooks with the Agents mistrust of the organisation at its peak. Disregarding the social consequences, the Alliance Command continued to urge Colonel Tinkertine to continue the mission at all costs and at any collateral needed. Feeling uneasy with the orders given, the Colonel ordered Is’caar and Thelda to allow Control and The Lamplighters to hide away far from the Alliance's grasp in an undisclosed facility, before destroying any information T.A.R.O.T had on the facility afterwards.

New Leadership
Defiance of orders from the Grand Marshal was not without its consequences, and Colonel Tinkertine's tenure as leader of T.A.R.O.T came under close scrutiny. He became subject of a malicious disparagement campaign, with each casualty of T.A.R.O.T members were tallied against him, every imperfection on missions logged and every breakthrough downplayed or credited to others. In the end, the case was brought for trial and Alliance Command used the evidence to lawfully imprison Colonel Loxley for insubordination and gross misconduct.

In his absence, the other T.A.R.O.T members were placed under the command of Sir Arthur Boye, who was known as a blindly obedient functionary of the Alliance Military's darkest urges. They ordered that Project T.A.R.O.T scale back Colonel Tinkertine's diplomatic methods effective immediately and implement a much harsher regimen of "with-us-or-against-us" policy when dealing with neutral parties. Anybody holding neutrality in the war was at best passively allowing Alliance citizens to suffer ands at worst were potential sympathisers of the Banshee Queen.

With Loxley's incarceration, Commander Boye required members who were more in line with his more ruthless level of thinking. He forcibly recruited Alliance prisoners and those in the military on their final chances, and began to muscle out those members who had been sympathetic to the Colonel's ideals. Thelda, Is'caar, Kalstun and Loxley's daughter Piper Tinkertine, remained within the Project but under the closest of scrutiny. Though unable to actively oppose their new commanders, they leaked sensitive information to their contacts in The Lamplighters so they could disrupt the worst of their efforts.

Aftermath of the War
With the departure of Sylvanas Windrunner and subsequent armistice with the Horde in 37 ADP, Project T.A.R.O.T found itself without purpose in a peacetime setting. Several folders of leaked documentation were sent from.

T.A.R.O.T was decommissioned permanently with its records admissible as evidence, and all members subpoenaed to attend an official Inquiry into the Project's conduct. Arthur Boye was relieved of command, arrested, and charged with both gross misconduct and wilful participation in war crimes. His trial, as of the current year leading into 630 K.C. and 38 ADP, is still ongoing.

Those members of T.A.R.O.T who had made every attempt to halt the Project's darker impulses from within were also pardoned from wrong-doing, though asked to give evidence against their commanders. Loxley Tinkertine was released from his imprisonment as he awaited execution, given a full pardon and restored his title of Colonel and full military pension. He declined returning to active service in the Alliance Military and retired to New Tinkertown to aid as an advisor and teacher in the efforts to reclaim Gnomeregan.