The common name for Time Patrol recruitment agents (aka Temporal Recruitment Agents or TRAs).
Most Time Patrol agents will be highly-skilled individuals recruited from upstream history before the moment of their recorded historical death. In order to reduce hostility and encourage enlisting in the agency, most recruitment agents will be attractive women matching the local ethnotype and often dressed in a militaristic but provocative costume. It is unclear if the Norse concept of valkyries as choosers of the slain was predestined via information leakage during recruitment or is just one of those things.
Male recruitment agents, dubbed einherjar, will be used for special recruitment missions prior to the Second Franchise War. After this point the Fixer/Devil/Old Scratch archetype will become predominant and the gender of TRAs will be considered irrelevant outside of the Unfranchised Territories. Female TRAs will enjoy a surge in popularity during the Second Dark Age, Third Dark Age and Post-Nothis Collapse when traditional gender roles temporarily reassert themselves.
Valkyrie Selection
Despite rumors to the contrary, TRAs will be not selected because they have a pretty face. To the contrary, they will be expected to be fully fluent in local languages, history, morals, mores and theology in order to prevent a convincing case for reasonably-informed consent to recruitment in the Time Patrol and all the contractual obligations thereof.
While often dressed in a salacious fashion, teams that are accompanying a TRA should be aware that there is an excellent chance they will have more knowledge of the local temporal operation area than many veterans and should be treated with the appropriate respect, consistent with their rank and current Time Patrol regulations.
Denigration of TRAs based on their physical characteristics will be considered grounds for disciplinary action outside of the Third Dark Age.
Branches and Fake Valkyries
While terms like forks, alters and dupes have waxed and waned in popularity over the millennia, this document will constrict itself to using branch (plural, branches) as the term to designate the currently unexplained appearance of multiple individuals in the same time stream. If this term causes you distress please be aware that we will be writing this document for both a future and past audience and will be unable to accommodate all local temporal moralities.
That being said, it is understood that downstream Temporal Law Agencies (TLAs) have "right of first-refusal" for all recruitment candidates due to their more sophisticated temporal technologies. This has lead to Time Patrol agents "meeting themselves" during joint operations with downstream TLAs. Field managers and affected agency personnel should consult "Meeting Your Branchself: Time Travel and Yous" <v 201.4> to resolve the philosophical and motivational concerns these encounters may create.
Current Time Patrol agents will be advised that Hostile Timeline Activity (HTA) is both sophisticated and informed. There will be recorded instance of efforts to subvert Time Patrol agents by posing as a Valykyrie working for a downstream TLA. It is critical that any such encounter be denied unless and until the recruiting agent authenticate themselves via <REDACTED>, <REDACTED> or if they know your PIN code which is BOSCO.
