To be honest, I don't know a whole lot about Mr. Anatoli. All Intelligence Officers reporting directly to the Committee are always low-key and inscrutable. I probably wouldn't even know his name if he didn't volunteer information about himself after boarding Soroz.
Mr. Anatoli is calm and speaks very few words, so I thought he was aloof, until spotting the fish tank he carried with him. A fish-like creature was in it. He said he found it in a swamp in eternal night and kept it as a pet, even giving it a name... Bubble.
So I thought, maybe Mr. Anatoli isn't actually as stern and apathetic as he looked. He's probably just showing less emotion than usual...?
—Vice

Most of the Intelligence Officers in Illumina started off as recon scouts. I was no exception.
I joined the military at the peak of the Darkover Crisis. All rookies had to fight and underwent baptism by fire. I chose the most dangerous battlefield: the eternal night border.
There, the days are short and the nights are long, rampant with Darkflow and Eclipsites. You had to spare no effort just to survive. All I could think about was revenge at first, since that's where Eclipsites killed my parents in battle.
But the darkness was an edge only for the Eclipsites. It was arduous enough for us Aurorians to just hold our ground, much less launch counteroffensives. Every time I fought the Eclipsites, I would suffer more injuries than how many I killed, and that really depressed me for a while.

When I first arrived in the Dark Zone, the leader of the remaining veterans in my recon unit was a veteran named Cleo. The vets were all seasoned pros in the sense that they knew many ways to save their own skin. I thought they were useless, but the truth is, I still use the tricks of surviving in the Dark Zone that they taught me to this date.
I was convinced they would all make it to retirement, but in a recon mission, they all sacrificed themselves just to deliver the key information that could turn the tide for Aurorians to launch counterstrikes. Cleo and I were the last two standing when he ran in the opposite direction from safety, drawing Eclipsites away so I could deliver the intel. He never came back.
That was also the mission when I learned to recon by an infusing shadow with weak Lumina... But it was too late. I couldn't save anyone.

The fish is called Bubble. It would spew bubbles whether it was happy or upset, which is why I named it that.
I found it in a swamp on the border of eternal night. At the time, I was leading a recon unit that just got to the Dark Zone to learn the lay of the land. On the way back to safety, we ran into a blizzard that forced us to find shelter until it passed.
Swamp water started to freeze in the meantime and this fish carelessly jumped onto the icy surface, flopping and struggling. I put it back into the marsh, but the rookies reminded me it would still die when the entire swamp froze.
So I emptied a canteen, filled it with swamp water and put the fish in, then put the jug in the deepest part of my overcoat to keep it from freezing. I was too weak to save my squad mates, but I was thinking maybe I could save the fish that wanted to live.

Doubt everything is the secret to an Intelligence Officer's survival as well as my motto.
Many failed experiences have told me that hard-earned intels aren't necessarily true or accurate, and false intels don't necessarily come from deliberate outside interference but possible internal misjudgment, sometimes even intentional. Therefore, suspicion is an intel officer's best trait and tool for survival, even toward those you know by heart.
It is exhausting to live a life of constant suspicion, but I learned the other side of the coin from you--trust. There are people from all factions on this Colossus, and even Lumopolis people can live in harmony with Rediesel Wrench folks here because of you. You've removed the schism between Aurorians, Navigator. The power to make Aurorians with polarizing beliefs trust each other is simply astonishing.