The Critical Objective Intervention Division or "COBID," with operators colloquially known as "Keys" for their origins, is a combined-forces special operations group coordinating joint covert operations between Threshold military units, intelligence units, and civilian specialists. Teams are comprised of specialists for specific missions and are assembled based on the specific mission required, and may be comprised of combatant teams paired with mission-critical specialists with little combat training to carry out the mission objective.
COBID units rarely deploy with the intent of large-scale military action and protracted combat and instead focus on secrecy and stealth, though if available they may conduct Combat Search And Rescue operations. They are often tasked with retrieving important equipment, information, and persons from hostile areas. The latter was their original purpose; retrieving shackled AIs from the People's Coalition.
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Etymology
The name of the unit, "Critical Objective Intervention Division," refers to the unit's nature of targeting specific critical goals, often the exfiltration of shackled AI, trafficked AI or humans, the capture or assassination of High-Value Targets, or acquisition of critical data.
The members of the group became known colloquially as "Keys" by the survivors they rescued. This is attributed to a documentary interviewing several unshackled AI who described their rescue operations as precise and specific, like keys, and not being "overly forceful or brutish." The imagery is further backed by the common nomenclature of restricted AI being considered "shackled," as well as the literal shackles holding prisoners of war also rescued by COBID.
History
The unit formed from the military operations conducted to exfiltrate Threshold and Shin-Kansai loyalists, both AI and humans, following the Threshold Civil War, which saw Laterus and Gael secede from Threshold and ultimately be absorbed by the Coalition. The unit continued these operations for decades following the war, incorporating mercenaries into their group to augment military special forces units.
Structure
COBID is comprised of two parallel groups working in tandem. Direct action units, known as "operators," form fireteams and squads that deploy alongside specialists that may have little combat experience, but instead excel in mission-critical areas.
Operations
COBID specializes in unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterinsurgency, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, information operations, counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and direct action. These missions are carried out both in foreign and domestic theaters of operation and may require extended stays in foreign nations, with some units deployed for more than a year behind hostile lines.