Fleet & Operations · Doctrine

Intervention Doctrine

The four-tier escalation ladder that governs every operation the League prosecutes. No hand moves up a rung without cause logged and justified. Targets in the dispatch dossiers are prioritised against these tiers.

By the ocean's mandate

Escalation is earned, not assumed.

We document before we disrupt, and we disrupt only what documentation cannot stop. Every rung of this ladder is a decision the Admiralty must be willing to defend — in a courtroom, in the open, and to the sea itself.

Doc Control AE-DOC-0101 Revision A Owner Fleet Admiralty Classification RESTRICTED // TIDEWATER-EYES-ONLY

TIER 1Observe

Passive watch and intelligence only. No contact, no footprint. We map patterns of life, predict dark-running windows, and build the picture that every higher tier depends on. NEREID holds the watch when hulls cannot.

Authority

Station watch officer · standing tasking

Examples

AIS-gap modelling and satellite track analysis
Open-source and shareholder-filing review
Long-range passive sensor loiter

Logged as a target file is opened. Observation requires no justification beyond suspicion — but yields nothing actionable until evidence is gathered.

TIER 2Document

Active evidence gathering for exposure. Covert sampling, imagery, and chain-of-custody work that turns suspicion into proof. The strongest blow the League strikes is proof; here it is forged. The strategy is exposure — the evidence is the weapon.

Authority

Operations lead · evidence-package warrant

Examples

Covert effluent sampling and bioassay panels
Covert imagery of trans-shipment and finning
Sealed chain-of-custody for prosecution or notice

Every sample logged, weighed, and photographed. We gather what a court or a notice will accept — nothing planted, nothing exaggerated.

TIER 3Disrupt

Non-destructive interference with the capability to do harm — short of damage to crewed structures. We foul nets, seize ghost gear, and blockade, then the gear becomes evidence. We interrupt the act; we do not endanger the actor.

Authority

Fleet command · sortie order with reversibility review

Examples

Propeller-fouling and tag-and-cut of illegal driftnet
Gear seizure and recovery for evidence
Non-contact blockade of an outfall or rendezvous

Disruption must be reversible in effect and non-injurious by design. The recovered gear is logged as the indictment — the waste is the proof.

TIER 4Direct Action

Sanctioned material intervention against the capability to do harm — and only that capability. Reserved for adversaries beyond the reach of any court they have not already bought. Admiralty authority only. Bound absolutely by rules of engagement: gear, boats, and ledgers only.

Authority

Fleet Admiralty only · written sanction, “Siren” oversight

Examples

Material disabling of trafficking vessels and gear
Destruction of poaching infrastructure under sanction
Always: no harm to any person who can be spared

We strike nets, hulls, and ledgers — never crews who can be left to the wardens, and never the waters we defend. Sanction is logged, justified, and reviewed against the whole tier ladder before a single line is cast.

The line that defines us. We are privateers of a living sea — not pirates. Every rung above Observe is a debt we owe the ocean, repaid in restraint. The moment we strike for spectacle, profit, or cruelty, we have become the thing we hunt. — Article IV

Tier summary

Tier	Authority	Reversibility	Evidence standard
Observe	Watch officer	Fully reversible · no footprint	Suspicion sufficient to open a file
Document	Operations lead	Fully reversible · covert	Court- / notice-grade chain of custody
Disrupt	Fleet command	Reversible in effect · non-injurious	Documented prior; act self-evidencing
Direct Action	Fleet Admiralty only	Irreversible · last resort	Exhausted lower tiers · written sanction