Western tank doctrine of the mid-to-late 20th century was in many ways a reaction to Eastern innovations, which were themselves spurred on by Western developments in weapons and armor technology. This arms race mentality held sway in the mid-24th century, as well, when the Spacer Corps’ M7 Powell was shaped by lessons learned during the Mars-Titan War, when the old doctrine of lighter, faster, and more numerous armored vehicles of the type used during Operation Thunderhead (the invasion of Titan) proved inadequate against modern anti-armor technology. As a result, redundancy and survivability were seen as paramount by the ARMORCOM technicians which developed the M7 and its cohort.

Much of Soviet armored warfare doctrine in the second half of the 20th century was shaped by their experience in World War II, when massive attacks by smaller but well-armed tanks had worked well against the larger, more heavily armored vehicles used by Nazi Germany. This doctrine was mirrored in the mid-24th century armor doctrine of the Alliance Armada, which favored more vehicles moving faster and striking deeper into enemy territory should war come with COMSEC. To that end, vehicles like the CV-48 and its eventual update, the CV-59, were the mainstay of the Armada during the Frontier War, when they dueled with often less numerous but more heavily armed and armored IDC vehicles like the M7 Powell.

IFV doctrine changed relatively little between the heyday of the mid-20th century Cold War on Earth and the mid-24th century hot wars between the Interplanetary Defense Corps and the various actors seeking to destabilize the worlds of the outer solar system. While the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was designed in the 1960s and ‘70s to combat Soviet armor on the plains of Central Europe, the M11 Shahi was dreamt up with a completely different terrain in mind. One much more alien, and infinitely more difficult to traverse: Titan. The various Titan Wars of the 24th century saw thousands of the hovercraft deployed to fight everything from quasi-Maoist revolutionaries to a peer fighting force in the shape of the Armada dos Mundos Livres.

And for the Armada, the VT-70 (Veículo de transporte modelo 2370) was itself more of a rung on the evolutionary ladder which began with vehicles like the Soviet BMP series back in the mid-20th century on Old Earth. These vehicles, commonly referred to as infantry fighting vehicles or “IFVs,” brought together mobility, durability, and lethality into one package, and then put a troop compartment at the rear which could carry anywhere from a fireteam to a full squad of troops. The VT-70 could carry a squad of Armada espaçadores and had a 30 mm cannon and two ATGM missile tubes with which to do battle with the armored vehicles of the ICA, chief among which was the aforementioned M11 Shahi.

Critical Stats

• First reached by humans: January 2005 (uncrewed); May 2086 (crewed)
• 2389 Population: approximately 148 million (plus approximately 34 million zharans)
• Capital: de facto is Samarkand (Grid Square X-7)
  • Metropolitan population: approximately 7.7 million
• Affiliation: the ICA (since 2206); the Coalition for Mutual Security (since 2308); the Alliance of Free Worlds (since 2343)
• Government details:
  • DRT:
    • Official name: the Democratic Republic of Titan
    • Established: 17 June 2336
    • Government style: unitary parliamentary socialist republic
    • Seat of government: the Crimson House, Jiuquan
    • Primary organ of state authority: the Central Committee of Titan
    • Head of state/government: Premier Rolf Gutman (since 2373)
  • COT:
    • Official name: the Commonwealth of Titan
    • Established: 26 April 2206
    • Government style: presidential parliamentary republic
    • Seat of power: Fort Redmond, New Heraklion
    • Primary organ of state authority: the Titan Federal Assembly
    • Head of State: President Augustin Teller (since 2385)
    • Head of Government: Prime Minister Hama Yoshida (since 2386)
• Primary industries: cryo-computation (processing power enabled by extreme cold); heavy industry; hub for shipping & interplanetary commerce
• GDP: approximately $12.4 trillion (approx. $6.9 trillion for DRT and $5.5 trillion for COT)

Historical Notes (aka the Big Lore Dump)

Titan, the second-largest moon in the solar system and largest terrestrial body in the Saturn sector, has always held a unique fascination for humanity. Discovered in 1655 by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, this huge, smog-shrouded world was an early target for uncrewed exploration during the 20th century, including by the Voyager and Cassini probes. The latter of these released a lander called Huygens to the surface in early 2005, helping to reveal a world eerily like the primordial Earth and which offered a tantalizing chance to examine the conditions under which life may have evolved in Earth’s ancient past.

During the early days of the Second Space Age, kicked off in 2029 by Larsen’s Gambit, Titan remained high on the list of targets for uncrewed probes. In 2034, the Dragonfly probe arrived in Selk Crater to begin its own dune-hopping journey of exploration, a journey which stoked further interest in developing Titan as a destination for crewed exploration. Even then, it would take another fifty years for people to reach Titan in person, largely due to the volatile political situation leading up to and following the Lunar War.

In fact, it took until the 2060s for any real progress to be made on the initiative to send people to Titan, a sea change driven in part by the adoption of the Brookhaven Treaty in 2064. This document, which upended the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and set standards and practices for the settlement and economic exploitation of deep space, represented a paradigm shift in humanity’s attitude toward the rest of the solar system. In 2072, a band of early asteroid mining magnates, space commerce barons, and other well-off commercialists founded the Pathfinder Organization with the goal of extending their reach into the outer solar system.

From there, the long dormant plans to send people to Titan began taking shape in earnest. Although some early ideas considered sending exploratory missions which would return to Earth, the final plan selected in 2078 called for a phased ramp-up to a single, large mission that would establish a long-term presence on Titan. This base would then be populated both by rotating professional staff on multi-year deployments and by dedicated colonists who went there to stay. The plan this entailed was dubbed Project Cronus.

The original cohort departed cislunar space in 2084 and arrived in the Saturn system just under two years later. Despite early hardships, including the untimely death of Peter Larsen, the grandson of Charles and a major program donor, they succeeded in establishing the first permanent base on a world beyond the asteroid belt, with Fort Plymouth founded in the Xanadu region in November 2086. This base was the first of many, as the Pathfinder Organization invited megacorporations to sponsor settlement missions with the long- term aim of increasing the market share pulled out of Titan’s resource extraction industry.

When humans went to Titan, they brought artificials with them. These beings were originally created in 2056 as part of a program designed to research life extension and organ replacement, but the program which birthed them soon pumped out thousands of them every month for use as an easily replaceable source of labor for the construction of the interplanetary infrastructure needed to make good on the investment of men like the ones who founded the Pathfinder Organization with dreams of empire in their heads.

Over the years which followed the early colonization missions, these pioneers set up more than a dozen settlements across the midlatitude regions of Titan, chief among them Fort Samarkand, Fort Heraklion, and Fort Jiuquan. This era of early settlement is also the source of the convention of naming cities on Titan after areas from ancient Central Asia, particularly those related to the Silk Road. This trope is said to have begun when Herman Lancaster, an early officer stationed at Fort Samarkand, compared the settlement of Titan to people in the days of Ancient Earth laying the markers along the route from China to the Near East.

While most of the early settlement of Titan has taken place in the midlatitudes, several major settlements were also established in the polar regions, specifically around the edges of the great methane seas. Chief among these were Forts Nishapur and Khujand, which were selected to house Titan’s first plastics processing facilities in the early years of the twenty-second century. Elsewhere, Fort Liaoning became home to the first space tether built beyond the asteroid belt when the Peter Larsen Memorial Spaceport was completed in 2229, and Fort Shandong became a major center for the production of artificials.

For the disparate ethnic groups, cultural and religious backgrounds, and language families that made their way to Titan in search of opportunity, the pursuit of a common goal motivated them all to cooperate peacefully. For most of the first two centuries of Titan’s cultural development, this goal was commerce. From the earliest days of the Pathfinder Organization sponsoring megacorporations buying into the settlement of Titan to increase their own profits, the allure of striking it rich on the next big enterprise kicking off on Titan drew hundreds of thousands of people there during the twenty-second and early twenty-third centuries.

The possibility of riches on Titan led some to comment that it was a rebirth of the Western Frontier during the nineteenth century, while those who fell short of their ambitions replied bitterly that the wealth of every frontier “have” is built upon the misfortunes of the “have nots.” By the latter years of the twenty-second century, the inequality problem was already at epidemic levels. In 2206, when the Commonwealth of Titan was founded, two percent of the population controlled almost sixty-eight percent of the wealth.

The chief benefactors of this unlevel playing field were the descendants of the original waves of settlers to Titan. These modern day brahmins leveraged the stipulations of the Brookhaven Treaty alongside their ancestors’ status as the earliest generation on Titan to seize vast tracts of the surface and sell it at a premium to the later immigrants, many of whom were forced to take on lengthy terms of indentured servitude to pay off their own land. Also, by the end of the twenty-second century, the Titan Land Commission made record profits by charging exorbitant interest rates on property rented through intermediary companies.

As these wealthy land barons grew more powerful and gained control over the lives of more citizens of Titan, their greed and arrogance ossified into a kind of new aristocracy. As each generation rose to power, they became more obsessed with preserving and increasing their own power and influence, leading to a recursion into a new era of feudalism, where the tiny, ultra-rich minority controlled the population of workers through propaganda, intimidation, and the strategic doling out of semi-authority to those who acquiesced most readily to their own oppression. By the mid-twenty-third century, the Cabal were the true rulers of Titan.

There was perhaps only one outcome to this situation, though the land barons of Titan certainly seemed oblivious to its arrival. The fact that it arrived by way of a winding and uncertain path did not help the situation, either. When the Wayfarer Insurrection kicked off in the early 2250s, Titan’s ruling elite got nervous, fearing that the insurrectionists’ brand of populist militancy would endanger their hold on power. As a result, they did what any power-hungry feudal lords would do if faced with the prospect of a peasant revolt.

In short, they pumped an exorbitant amount of their wealth into building up local militias, with local military commanders empowered like the knights and samurai of old to lead detachments of loyal troops which were themselves given free reign to crack down on civil disobedience and ensure compliance with the commercial will of their overlords in Samarkand. From the early 2250s through 2279, the Commonwealth Defense Forces more than tripled in size, from less than half a million to roughly 1.7 million, with almost one in eight of these employed as secret police to spy on and intimidate the civilian population.

The industrial powerhouse of Mars soon emerged as Titan’s number one nemesis. As far back as the mid-22nd century, the two worlds had been rivals for control over the burgeoning resource markets of the vast outer solar system. While the Cabal claimed preeminent rights by argument of proximity, the United Nations of Mars countered this assertion with a rival declaration of their own. In their eyes, Mars, as the first world beyond Earth to be settled, held a dominant right to control this boundless wealth.

This tension ratcheted up in 2268 when the Martian Workers Party (aka the One Mars Party) swept into power in the Martian Senate. This group prioritized military and industrial buildup on Mars, with the stated goal of making Mars the first true superpower state in Solar Space. As the Wayfarer Insurrection churned on, this tension led both the OMP and the Cabal to make increasingly drastic statements against each other, with the Spacer Corps left to worry about how it would deal with open conflict between the two.

Then, in 2289, the situation took a turn for the worse. That year, five-hundred million-year-old ancient alien artifacts were revealed to be buried two kilometers below the surface of the Mindanao Facula. When these ruins were found to house an ancient machine intelligence, the IDC initiated first contact protocols, and spent four years (2289-2293) investigating a region later named the Ramayana Site. It got this common name as a result of its location in the heart of the Ramayana district, but as the chief scientist of the site later noted, it was altogether fitting due to the original meaning of the Ramayana text.

However, this was not the end of the situation, but the beginning. When one of the scientists brought in to communicate with the alien A.I. leaked the details of the find to the solar system at large, the feudal warlords of Titan cracked down on the ensuing firestorm of controversy by sending their Militia into the Site and seizing it in the name of Titan. This brought them into direct conflict with the United Nations of Mars, which still claimed eminent control of outer system resources, including the coveted Ramayana Site.

In 2285, they formed the United Frontier Security Organization in partnership with the Republics of Callisto, Ganymede, and Rhea, the Federation of Tethys and Mimas, and a Saturnian confederation called the Union of Outlying Moons. The UFTO was better known as the Titan Pact, and from 2285 to 2293, it conducted a massive military buildup in opposition to opposing developments led by the One Mars Party.

The war thus anticipated began when agents of the United Frontier Militia attempted to deorbit Mars’ moon Phobos and drop it on Aldrin City. Phobos was a major shipyard and port and home to about two hundred thousand people, but the region it would have landed on if the plan was successful held roughly twenty million. For that reason, MARSCOM initiated the Sunburst Contingency, detonating nuclear charges inside Phobos to shatter it into small enough pieces that they would either burn up in reentry or fall into a new stable orbit around Mars. The first blow of the Mars-Titan War had thus been struck by Titan.

It turned out later that this drastic first measure had been dreamt up by the HORUS construct, a dangerous artificial intelligence program purchased by the Cabal on the black market in the prewar years. This construct had been plugged into the Titan central mainframe to plan logistics for the so-called Martian War, which they hoped to win early by forcing the Martians to sue for peace. The attack on Phobos had the opposite result, though, as it galvanized the Martians to fight a long, difficult war to ensure Titan was defanged.

The war Titan began was supposed to last six to eight months at most, as this was approximately the time it would take for their fleet to blockade Mars and its holdings after their primary naval port had been destroyed. Unfortunately for the Cabal, they also failed to anticipate that the destruction of Phobos would motivate the ICA to intervene on Mars’ behalf and deploy the Spacer Corps against the FPA. The result was a grinding five-year-long campaign to extricate the Titanians and their allies from the outer worlds they had seized as fortresses in their struggle with Mars. It ultimately claimed over fifteen million lives.

The Mars-Titan War, particularly its immediate outcome and aftermath, has shaped the politics of Solar Space for roughly a hundred years. In the short term, Titan was besieged by the Mutual Security Coalition, with its major cities left in ruins and several million of its citizens killed in the fight to dismantle the old guard of the Cabal. When the war came to an end, the Harrison Accords sealed their fate, with the most senior of Titan’s feudal warlords sent to prison for life and their lieutenants stripped of all authority under law.

The 2299 Accords ultimately ushered in a temporary era of weak leadership on Titan, as the provisional government installed by Mars and COMSEC was ill-prepared to oversee the reconstruction which followed the War. In the end, COMSEC was forced to call upon some of the aristocratic land barons who had been sidelined by their more radically militant associates in the years before the War began, and make them into a new generation of democratic leaders for the reborn and reorganized Commonwealth of Titan.

This new status quo seemed promising for a time. During the 2300s and ‘10s, the Commonwealth experienced a mini economic revival–also referred to as the Little Gilded Age by those learned in history–where prices stabilized, prosperity soared, and people seemed generally hopeful that the chaos of the Cabal years were behind them. But it did not last. By the 2320s, the new masters of Titan were solidifying their hold on power along old power structures, with COMSEC happy to look the other way so long as Titan kept its problems within their own borders and the markets remained open to outside participation.

As with most of the misery that embroiled the outer solar system in the twenty-fourth century, the chaos that was to follow can be traced back to Callisto. When the Divisão Revolucionária da Assembleia de Callisto seized power there in 2324, they made no secret of their intention to spread their revolution to other worlds. When their local puppet organization, the United People’s Party, seized power in 2334, they kicked off an orgy of violence against the great land-owning families. The First Titan Civil War soon followed.

This conflict soon surpassed even the Jovian Civil War in terms of both violence and complexity, as the Draconist-backed UPP founded dozens of regional militias which mobilized an active guerrilla front against the ICA’s presence on Titan, and counter-revolutionary forces mobilized in droves to combat them. Both sides showed little regard for the rules of war, and the civilian population of Titan, many of whom could recall the turmoil of the invasion at the climax of the Mars-Titan War, suffered appalling hardship as a result.

During the first two years of the war, the UPP and their Draconist sponsors mostly focused on ousting the old guard who had ruled Titan for centuries, meting out vicious retribution for sins both real and perceived. In one especially egregious example, the UPP cell in Samarkand organized a pogrom against wealthy and influential citizens in October 2334. Just weeks after they came to power, their militias roamed the streets, raiding houses and burning businesses in a sweeping campaign aimed at uprooting the old ways and eradicating them. This campaign soon broadened to include anyone associated with the ICA.

In 2336, the UPP turned its sights on consolidating political power. To do so, they rallied their forces in a sizable portion of western Titan together to establish the Democratic Republic of Titan. This rogue state was unrecognized by the ICA for the first twenty-eight years of its history, and employed its military force (the Titan People’s Army) in direct action against both the Spacer Corps and the loyalists of the Commonwealth Defense Force in an effort to expand their territory. This opened the main portion of the Titan Civil War, where the two opposing nations fought tooth and nail to take full control of Titan and its besieged population.

Between 2336 and 2339, as the Alliance of Free Worlds was slowly being born over in the Jovian system, the people of Titan endured some of their worst years. Roving bandits and marauding insurgents were a regular hazard to those seeking to travel between settlements, with COMSEC and Commonwealth forces stretched too thin to hold onto all of the major transit routes. They were in truth too frayed even to secure all of the major cities under their control, as frequent incursions and attacks by Draconist and UPP-aligned forces regularly showed. When 2339 began, both New Heraklion and Samarkand were under siege.

But the entry of the Alliance onto the playing field offered a new opportunity to chance the situation on Titan, with the beleaguered UPP choosing to demobilize its forces two years later after signing an accord with them stating that the UPP would be subservient to the Alliance if the Alliance allowed them to remain in power in the DRT. As the Draconists were gradually bled dry on Titan, COMSEC and the Alliance brought their remaining leaders to the negotiating table, and in 2342, the Titan Civil War came to a halt.

Next came the more difficult process of dividing Titan based on the holdings of the two primary combatants as of the final day of combat. When the war ended in November 2342, the UPP and its forces still controlled much of Titan’s western and northern hemisphere, with the Commonwealth holding tenaciously onto the remainder. In 2343, a series of treaties, headlined by the Samarkand Accords in August, carved up the giant moon along those lines. West Titan (the DRT) and East Titan (the COT) were officially born.

But this was not the end of the troubles. Between 2343 and 2345, somewhere between ten and fifteen million people, most of them in the borderland between the DRT and COT, fled their homes and emigrated across the surface of Titan. Most did so to avoid reprisals from their new countrymen based on actions they or their brethren had taken during the Civil War, or to relocate to better environs before the border was locked down and they became trapped under an unfavorable regime. This period, called the Great Unrest, saw another three hundred thousand deaths as roving bandits laid waste to caravans of emigres.

The Titan Civil War, although soon to resume, was over for a time, allowing the people there to step back and assess the damage to their society. For eight bloody years, everyone from colonial officials to local police officers were targeted by Draconist reprisals. Targeted killings, political kidnappings, terrorist bombings, and general chaos reigned. Only the heavy hand of the Spacer Corps and its allies in the Outer System Security Force eventually restored peace, and even then only really by seeking out and eliminating as many Draconist militiamen as they could find. Brothers fought brothers, and fathers fought sons.

Worse still, the dark days were only just beginning. As early as 2345, the leaders of the DRT and the Commonwealth showed a keen interest in destabilizing their enemies and restoring a unified Titan, all under their control and not that of the other side. By late 2346, each side was regularly sending infiltrators across their shared border to instigate violence and intrigue in hostile territory, leading noted Solar Herald journalist Peter Antalya to quip that Titan had, “The most sieve-like secure border in the solar system.”

But the real violence was yet to come. In April 2349, COMSEC and the Spacer Corps began Operation Lightning Dagger with the stated goal of rooting out remaining Draconist presence in the outer solar system. Although the Draconists had suffered immense casualties during the period 2331-2342, they were not eradicated entirely, with some INTELCOM reports estimating that as many as six million loyal cadres were still willing and able to bear the black-and-red banner onto the battlefield in the name of their revolution. As such, the IDC was mobilized to seek them out and neutralize them as a threat, once and for all.

Unfortunately for the people of Titan, the Spacer Corps sought to pacify their world by forcibly removing the Draconist elements hidden among them, generally by drawing them into pitched battles in the open, and often with extreme prejudice. The Draconists had no intention of playing into this plan. Instead they drew the Spacer Corps into a game of cat and mouse by taking refuge in the civilian population centers, where the IDC could not engage them without risking inflicting appalling casualties on noncombatants.

The Second Titan Civil War was therefore even more morally intricate than the first, with DRT forces funneling arms and ammunition to the Draconists so long as they agreed only to operate in Commonwealth territory, while the Spacer Corps fought to contain the Draconist menace in concert with the Alliance Armada, even as the Alliance Central Committee secretly funded the Draconists on Titan to prop them up as a viable opposing force against the ICA. One IDC spacer who served on Titan during this period later remarked, “On Titan, there were no friends or enemies. Just some people you didn’t want to shoot at the moment.”

In the end, it took a wild card to bring this conflict to an end, albeit slowly at that. In 2356, on the three hundredth anniversary of the first day their kind rolled off a genetic assembly line, the artificial population of Solar Space instigated a violent revolution against their human masters. In the years since the discovery of alien artifacts on Titan, these artificial beings had taken to worshiping the beings who left them behind, and called themselves zharans after a word in those beings’ language which meant, “those who endure.”

Beginning in June 2356, the Zharan Uprising saw thousands of targeted attacks by infiltrators on the social and economic infrastructure of human society. The Harrison Accords had assigned artificials a heavy load of responsibility for their part in the Mars-Titan War, and had been subjected to strict, even apartheid-level living regulations enforced by the Artificial Lifeform Control Agency. But this organization, and a dozen others across COMSEC and the Alliance, had been infiltrated by the Zharan Liberation Army as part of a botched INTELCOM operation originally intended to covertly control human society with artificial agents.

From 2356 to 2358, more than a million people on Titan were killed or injured as a direct result of the Zharan Uprising. The zharans claimed special privilege to live on Titan due to the existence of the Precursor ruins beneath its surface. As a result, when the Alliance signed the Treaty of Jiuquan with the Zharan Liberation Army in 2359, which began the process of ending both the Uprising and the Draconist Wars as a whole, it came as an immense relief to the citizens of this orange-hued world.

After the Draconists surrendered unconditionally in April 2361, the people of Titan celebrated in the streets. It seemed to many that a thirty-year nightmare was finally over, and the chance had finally come to begin rebuilding from wounds inflicted in some cases as far back as six decades or more. Between 2362 and 2369, East and West Titan even showed signs of normalizing relations, with several peace conferences–in 2364, 2365, and 2367–giving an encouraging taste of peace to many weary citizens.

But in 2369, the accidental killing of a civilian at a worker’s protest on Mars led to widespread rioting and fears in the Martian Senate that the dormant One Mars Party could return to power. Then, when evidence emerged suggesting that the assassination of the Commonwealth’s ambassador to the ICA at the Gagarin Conference in April 2371 had been orchestrated by DRT forces, the drums of war began to beat.

This led inexorably to the final refuge of all failed diplomacy, known in this case as the Frontier War. For eight years, COMSEC and the Alliance hammered away at each other as each side attempted to wrest control of the interplanetary frontier–traditionally designated as all space beyond the orbit of Ceres–away from the other. Due to its importance in each government’s plans, Titan was once again a battlefield. Between 2372 and 2377 in particular, the war-haunted world suffered brutally under bombardment and organized terror conducted by the two superpowers, as well as their cohorts in the COT and DRT.

Unlike the conflicts of the previous decades, where government forces had chased the Draconist- aligned militias around the badlands of Titan or patrolled the settlements to demonstrate their willingness to safeguard civilian interests, the Frontier War as expressed on Titan saw significant open warfare between each of the primary combatant forces. Nothing was left off the strategy board, with everything from grand-scale mechanized arms campaigns to sweeping airmobile assaults to use of special orbital assault or infiltration troops being considered. But the worst was yet to come, at least where COMSEC was concerned.

In 2379, twenty years after founding their new nation, the Zharan Collective, the Zharan Liberation Army entered the Frontier War on the side of their old benefactors, the Alliance. Among other goals, they aimed to secure their right to live on Titan and study the ruins there, and within two years the additional force they brought to bear had succeeded in driving COMSEC to the negotiating table. When the Nüwa Accords were signed on Titan in 2381, they were largely favorable to the Alliance in their terms.

In the eight years since the war ended,Titan has taken tentative steps toward rebuilding. As of 2389, the governments of East and West Titan maintain strict rules in order to control or coerce their populations into loyalty. As COMSEC and the Alliance keep watch like imperial overlords, some people speculate that if the Frontier Wars ever resume, the first blows will be struck somewhere along the Military Demarcation Line on Titan. Still, many citizens there hope that maybe their decades-long nightmare could finally be over.

Statistics

• Primary manufacturers: ZMA Arms Plants Number One, Three, and Six
• Crew: none (piloted by three zharan minds hardlinked into the mainframe)
• Dimensions: 10.5 (hull length) x 3.5 (turret height) x 4.6 (width) meters
• Mass (fully loaded): approximately 33,800 kilograms/33.3 tonnes
• Power plant: 6x Z3-L29 hydrogen-electric repulsor turbines (47 kN each)
• Maximum speed: approximately 110 km/h on maximum hover speed
• Range: up to 1,100 kilometers with full charge and supply of A-39 fuel
• Armaments: 1x ZTC-74 90 mm linear accelerator cannon (45 rounds stored); 1x ZTC-76 40 mm autocannon (540 rounds stored); 2x ZMG-78H 9.6 mm heavy machine guns (5,400 rounds stored) - 1 mounted coaxially, 1 in roof remote weapons system; 2x ZLG-78H anti-munition laser turrets; 18x IR smoke grenade launchers

Historical Notes

As one of the first combat vehicle development projects greenlit by the Zharan Ministry of Armaments after the Frontier War erupted in 2371, the ZT-77 Manticore’s development was infused with all of the Collective’s anxiety about being caught up in human intrigue. As a result, the work done by ZMA Plant Number One to perfect the form factor of the hover tank was fraught with intrigue of its own as various competing interests struggled to dominate the exact specifications of the final product.

Still, in a typical example of zharan ingenuity rising to the top, the brilliance of ZMA engineers and technicians managed to win out over the squabbling of the bureaucrats seeking to control the direction of the new tank’s development. This was thanks in no small part to the intervention of Chief Minister of Armaments Z’Mardo Kafaran, who took an interest in the Manticore’s development in January 2375 after being shown a holo-film of its early field trials. Project Manticore ultimately outlived Kafaran’s tenure in the role of Chief Minister, but his Midas touch did ensure that the ZT-77 survived its growing pains.

The final product, adopted in August 2377, was put into mass production early the next year as the ZLA ramped up its preparations for their entrance into the Frontier War. After the Collective made its partnership with the Alliance of Free Worlds known, ZT-77s became the terror of battlefields across Titan and elsewhere as its pairing of a 102 millimeter linear accelerator cannon and a 38 millimeter autocannon, each capable of firing highly advanced APFSDS rounds proved deadly effective at killing COMSEC vehicles.

Critical Stats

• First reached by humans: December 1971 (uncrewed); October 2039 (crewed)
• 2389 Population: approximately 227 million, including orbitals & Deimos
• Capital: Aldrin City, Republic of Marineris & Chryse
  • Metropolitan population: approximately 6.4 million
• Affiliation: the Interplanetary Cooperative Administration (since 2169); the Coalition for Mutual Security (since 2306)
• Government details:
  • Official name: the United Nations of Mars
  • Established: 22 February 2169
  • Current constitution adopted: 16 August 2306
  • Government style: federal parliamentary republic
  • Seat of government: the Federal Compound, Aldrin City
  • Primary organ of state authority: the Martian Federal Senate
  • Head of State: President Asami Calderon (since 2385)
  • Head of Government: Prime Minister Constantine Tavares (since 2382)
• Primary industries: heavy industry/manufacturing; shipping & shipbuilding
• GDP: approximately $21 trillion (per capita average: $92.5 thousand)

Historical Notes

The history of Martian exploration goes back centuries, with the earliest robotic probes having visited the so-called Red Planet as far back as the 1960s. Crewed exploration kicked off in the late 2030s on the heels of Larsen's Gambit, when rogue industrialist Charles Larsen unveiled fusion power generators and gambled that he could use them to fund the colonization of Mars. The first crewed landing took place in the fall of 2039, and a long-term base was established in the Valles Marineris eight years later.

Early settlement continued slowly after these milestones, but sped up following an incident at a Martian science outpost in the Arabia Terra overseen by the Space Affairs Development Initiative (SADI). This led the pioneering citizens of the Red Planet to sign their founding treaty, the Treaty of Aldrin Station, in 2062; it laid ground rules for immigration to Mars and set the stage for what came later.

Following the Brookenden Accords (signed in 2064), the race to explore Mars heated up quickly. Thanks to a population boom after the Great Exodus (c. 2098-2143), when more than half a million people immigrated to Mars as a response to climate catastrophe on Earth, over seven million people lived there by the time the Union Treaty was signed by early Martian nation-states in February 2169.

This treaty was introduced after the Badlands War (2165-2168), which saw nation states affiliated with the Republic of Marineris fighting an undeclared low-intensity conflict with those affiliated with the People's Republic of Hellas in an attempt to influence the statehood of the Tempe territory. After the ICA mediated a ceasefire, the two factions entered negotiations which established the United Nations of Mars.

Mars rose quickly as an industrial power over the following century, riding a tide of economic prosperity fueled by its partnership with the mining barons of the Asteroid Belt. This era of growth made Mars the richest single world in Solar Space, and gave its citizens the highest standard of living in the inner system. The terraforming program also flourished in this period, and by 2389 there were several sizable bodies of water on Mars. Notable among these are the Hellas & Argyre Seas and the Mariner-Argyre Waterway, all of which are banked by fertile zones which house farmland used to feed the growing population of Mars.

Much of the southern highlands, meanwhile, have been transformed into sprawling industrial tracts, where the various associate companies of the Mars Industrial Conglomerate build, fabricate, or otherwise print the various mass-produced necessities of life in the solar system. The MIC was formed in 2203 from a merger of the five largest industrial corporations on Mars and has been a major player ever since.

As the industrial might of Mars expands, so too does the strength of its military. By 2389, the Martian Command makes up roughly one quarter of the Interplanetary Defense Corps, which speaks to the many real and perceived threats to Mars that have emerged across the solar system. This is especially true in light of a longstanding rivalry between Mars and Titan for control of the outer system’s resources.

Chief among the challenges to Mars’ dominance in Solar Space is the Alliance of Free Worlds, a federation of frontier nation-states dedicated to dethroning the UNOM as the primary benefactor of the Solar System’s wealth and to establishing a sovereign federation across the outer system. As the Alliance threatens Mars’ role as the second power in Solar Space, the demands placed upon the IDC (aka the Spacer Corps) to defend Martian interests alongside those of the rest of the ICA will only continue to intensify.

The rivalry between Mars and the outer system dates back at least as far as the mid-23rd century, which culminated in the Mars-Titan War (2293-2298), where the UNOM fought the Titan Pact for control of the outer solar system. Ever since, has led the charge to clamp down on outer system nationalism, although emergent threats such as Draconism have exacerbated the situation. Mars led the ICA’s military response during the Draconist Wars (2326-2361) and has dominated the conversation regarding the ongoing crisis regarding the rise of the Alliance, often to the chagrin of smaller nations in ICA space.

This ultimately led to the Frontier War (2371-2381), which plunged Solar Space into chaos as the two superpowers fought to control the gas giants and other regions of the outer system which were both high in population and in resources. As with the Draconist Wars, Mars played a major role in the ICA’s conduct of the war, especially since it was their main industrial base. The Frontier War only ended when the Zharan Liberation Army entered the war on the side of the Alliance and forced the ICA to negotiate.

Now, eight years after the Frontier War ended, the ICA is caught up in an ongoing series of tense peace talks that seem to go nowhere, all while funneling support to the Colonial Liberation Front in their ongoing rebellion against the Alliance. It seems that the only catalyst needed to plunge Solar Space back into war will be a single spark, and as Mars prepares to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the first crewed landing there, intelligence reports indicate that the Armada dos Mundos Livres may have the right spark in mind…

Historical Notes

When Callisto-based Nexconn Industries released the Ranger-class multirole skiff line in 2289, they intended it to be agile, durable, and versatile enough to fill a wide variety of niches, especially those related to the transport of light cargo and passengers. Unfortunately, this versatility has also made them useful in the hands of more disreputable groups. Chief among these is the naval wing of the Draconist Front.

When the Draconists took over the Callisto Assembly in 2324, they also seized its production lines of military and civilian hardware, including spacecraft. Among the ships captured or produced unauthorized were roughly five hundred Ranger-class skiffs, which were then retrofitted with illicitly acquired armaments and turned into gunships and missile boats for use in their ongoing crusade to set up a neo-Marxist utopia in the outer solar system. The example above, redesignated as the Punho Justo (“Righteous Fist”), was sent as part of a flotilla bound for Saturn and used in the Draconists’ campaign to capture Titan.

For these and other reasons, some pundits have compared the Ranger-class to the Toyota Land Cruisers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, in that they are a civilian utility vehicle repurposed into an instrument of war by extremist factions bent on revolution. By 2389, though the Rangers are mostly obsolete, they remain in service with family-owned transport outfits and outer system militia groups alike, and the class seems poised to last another hundred years before being fully relegated to history.

Disclaimer

This ship design was made using some kitbashed pieces of MOCs originally created by my friend Skwiggums (BlueSky profile here), who's done some pretty amazing ship designs over the last few years. Go check out their stuff if you get the chance :)

What is Solar Space?

The term “Solar Space” first came into common use thanks to astropolitical theorist and historian Florian Driesell, who made his name by categorizing the power blocs of the early 23rd century. Driesell used the new term to refer to the parts of the solar system explored and settled by humans in the roughly two hundred years since the Space Renaissance began (circa 2029), which at the time stretched roughly from the orbit of Mercury to the orbit of Saturn. By midcentury, the growing gulf between the Community of Gaia and the rest of the solar system led to Earth being omitted from the definition in perpetuity.

Much like the uncharted regions of 16th and 17th century nautical maps, Solar Space included many pockets largely untouched by humanity when the term was coined. By the mid 24th century, though, the continued expansion of human settlement led the defined regions of Solar Space to include practically everything from Mercury out to a few inner worlds of the Kuiper Belt, with claims being staked on new worlds every year and the exploration and colonization of those worlds continuing at a rapid pace.

Inner versus Outer System, and the Frontier

Just as the definition of Solar Space has evolved continually as human settlement has expanded into ever more distant regions of the solar system, the definitions of inner system versus outer system has also evolved. In the 22nd and well into the 23rd century, the inner system stretched only from the orbit of Earth to that of Mars and some of the worlds of the Main Asteroid Belt. By the mid-24th century, it included virtually every world between the Sun’s outermost atmosphere and the outer reaches of the Main Belt.

Likewise, in the early days the defined expanse of the outer system included virtually everything beyond the orbits of Ceres and a few other major asteroids. By 2389, this has evolved to a more rigidly defined expanse stretching from the outermost boundary of the Main Asteroid Belt to the inner band of the Kuiper Belt. As more worlds are charted, it is likely that the region defined as the outer system will continue to expand.

Also of note is the debate among contemporary astrographers about whether or not to expand the definition of inner and outer system by including a third region: the middle system. Competing definitions have been proposed, but most of them agree that the inner system should be redefined as the space stretching from the Sun to the Earth, and the outer system redefined as everything beyond Saturn. This leaves the middle system as everything from Mars to the Saturn system, which has caused considerable disagreement among theorists who argue over whether or not to lump Mars in with the gas giants, and vice versa.

Then there is the Frontier. This term is more amorphous, and generally accepted to be a colloquial catch-all for the region of space beyond Mars. But much as with the controversy over the middle system, the term “Frontier” is hotly contested, and the definition varies from person to person. One oft-repeated witticism is that the Frontier is the region of space which is subject to “the imperial ambitions of Mars,” though a more common definition is, “the space between COMSEC and the Alliance of Free Worlds.”

What is COMSEC?

The Marineris Accords were originally conceived as a response to the rise of the Titan Pact in the mid-2280s. They were held in Aldrin City, capital of both the Republic of Marineris & Chryse and the larger United Nations of Mars, convening on 28 November 2305 and concluding 10 May 2306. The proceedings brought together more than a dozen nations from the inner and outer solar system to discuss a more dedicated framework for shared defense in the wake of the Mars-Titan War and the postwar status quo.

The principal goal of the Accords was to address the glaring inconsistencies in security arrangements among the various worlds of the outer system, particularly those aligned with Mars and the Confederation of the Main Belt. These states sought to standardize the means by which the Spacer Corps and the Coalition Security Assistance Force (named after the Coalition for Mutual Security of the Mars-Titan War era) could be deployed to render aid to any state falling under threat from external or internal instability.

Much of the debate involved disagreements about how large a role Mars should play in the new organization, given that real or perceived Martian imperialism was still a major sore spot for many nations across the outer solar system. Ultimately, it was decided that Mars would be the base of operations for the new mutual security organization, just as it had been the dominant power in the ICA since the Mars-Titan War ended.

Still, by the time the proceedings reached their zenith in early May 2306, a general consensus as to the shape of the new organization had been reached, and centered on two primary stipulations. For one, Mars, while still the dominant power in the agreement, would share power on an equal basis with a council of outer system nations. Second, the new organization formed as a result of the Accords would be defended equally by the Spacer Corps and the CSAF, with members drawn from all member states.

The resultant organization serves a role similar to NATO in the 20th and 21st centuries, with various articles of the Marineris Treaty establishing a framework for mutual defense. Article 7, which calls upon all COMSEC member states to come to the aid of any fellow member state falling under external or internal threat, has been invoked eleven times in the years since the Treaty’s adoption, most recently by the Republic of Ganymede in August 2368 after a threat of invasion made by their neighbors in the DPRG.

What is the Alliance?

Formed in 2339 by a group of nation-states standing in rebellion to both the ICA and the Draconist revolution, the Alliance of Free Worlds stakes a claim at being the only legitimate leadership for the outer solar system. With its center of government at Syrené on the industrial world of Callisto, the Alliance made its name partly by funding a massive infrastructure improvement program in the Frontier, which had the secondary purpose of winning over popular support for their neo-Communist economic system.

By the late 2380s, almost a decade after the conclusion of the Frontier War, the Alliance and their cohorts in the Zharan People’s Collective have established themselves as the primary source of economic growth in the outer system. Much of the commerce between the orbits of Vesta and the inner Kuiper Belt only occurs with the consent of Alliance leadership, even that which flies under flags aligned with COMSEC. The Armada dos Mundos Livres, the second largest individual military force after the Spacer Corps, patrols these space lanes with impunity, daring the ICA or rogue actors to challenge their dominance.

The only real threat to this dominance as of 2389 is the Colonial Liberation Front. The CLF has mounted an armed resistance since 2382 in the name of winning true sovereignty for every Frontier world, which they claim the Alliance Politburo has quashed in favor of rule by a different political minority. The fact that this rebellion is supplied largely by Mars is a major sticking point in ongoing long-term peace talks between COMSEC and the Alliance, and a potential cause of renewed conflict between the superpowers.

Historical Notes

Conceived at the end of the Phony Peace (2361-2371), the Zha’Deng-class was the result of one of the Zharan Liberation Army Department of Internal Security’s greatest intelligence coups. From 2322 to 2336, INTELCOM conducted the top-secret Project PENUMBRA, which would use hydrogen steamer technology to engineer stealthy warships. This was a hot-button concept in the years before the Draconist Wars forced it to the sidelines, but when ZLADIS stole the plans in 2364, the ZLA set about making the project a reality.

Developed in secret from 2365 to 2376, Zha'Deng-class R&D occurred at secluded shipyards associated with the Oberon People's Assembly, which were far enough away from the prying eyes of the ICA and INTELCOM to maintain near total operational security. The first Zha’Deng-class vessel entered service in 2376, with another eight following by 2382, at a cost-per-unit of approximately $96 billion. The Council of Primarchs named the class “Zha’Deng” after the dark period of zharan history wherein they were slaves to humanity as a callback to their years of servitude and a declaration of an intent to seek vengeance.

During the last two years of the Frontier War, the ZLA Space Fleet used these vessels for observation and interdiction, leveraging their low detectability to sneak up on ICA installations to either monitor them, or to lay into them with long-range missiles. The number of Zha’Deng-class vessels deployed at any time is a closely guarded secret, and their existence remains a source of rumor and mystery among ICA spacers.

Disclaimer

I want to point out that this ship design is inspired by work done by u/Kerb_human. All credit to them for their exceptional work on the original design.

Statistics

• Caliber: 9.6 x 76 mm (developed in 2374 by the Zharan Ministry of Armaments)
• Standard round: XR-R269 (depleted uranium fin-stabilized armor-piercing dart)
• Dimensions: 83.1 (L) x 7.7 (W) x 18.9 (H) centimeters (without scope or sights)
• Mass: approximately 3.9 kilograms fully loaded (approx. 3.1 kg unloaded)
• Barrel length: 61 centimeters (barrel is unrifled for optimal performance)
• Feed system: detachable vertically double-stacked magazine with 36 rounds
• Cyclic rate of fire: semi-automatic (standard) or 1,500 rpm three-round burst
• Effective range: approximately 1.4 kilometers (max. range 3.9 kilometers)
• Primary manufacturer: ZMA Arms Plant Number Seven (based on Callisto)

Historical Notes

The ZMR-79 was born of the same program as the ZR-75 rifle and ZMG-76 light support weapon, and, like its peers, it was originally an entry into the program to field a new service rifle for the Zharan Liberation Army. But given that construction of its parent entity, ZMA Arms Plant Number Seven, was not even completed until early 2373, their entry came too late to be seriously considered. It was then redeveloped into a new scout rifle.

The new rifle was tested from 2376 to 2378 by ZMA technicians on Titan, and finally standardized in March 2379, just in time for the Zharan Collective’s intervention in the Frontier War. Though not produced at the same rate as the ZR-75 and its variants, there were still over 200 thousand ZMR-79s built between 2379 and 2382. Many of them served in frontline scout packs attached to every zharan pod (which is roughly equivalent to an IDC or Armada platoon), where their maximum range of nearly four kilometers allowed them to reach out and touch ICA forces.

The ZMR-79 remains the standard-issue scout rifle of the ZLAGF in 2389, with more than 250 thousand of them in the inventory. A variety of scopes can be mounted, and the rifles are modular enough to support everything from the longer Marksman variant (68.6 centimeter barrel) to the Commando variant (53.3 centimeter barrel) which served with the three-man recon lances deployed by the ZLAGF to scout behind enemy lines on Titan.

Base Statistics

First mustered: 6 February 2294

Current commander: Colonel Hiram Roberts (since 29 July 2387)

Number of personnel: approximately 4,600 at any one time

Number of ground vehicles: approximately 600

Number of aircraft in inventory: approximately 120

Official moniker: The Firestarters

Motto: “We’ll Light Your Fire"

Service record:

• Mars-Titan War (2295-2298)
  • Jovian Pacification campaign (2295-2296)
  • Pacification of Ganymede (October 2295–May 2296)
  • Siege of Titan (2296-2298)
  • Battle of Samarkand (July-September 2297)
  • Siege of Jiuquan (February–August 2298)
• Occupation of Titan (2304-2307, 2311-2314, 2318-2321, 2325-2328)
• Draconist Wars (2324-2361)
  • Operation Sudden Lightning (2329-2342)
    • Occupation of Ganymede (2330-2334)
    • Invasion of Callisto (June–December 2336)
    • Callisto Pacification campaign (2336-2338)
  • Operation Lightning Dagger (2349-2361)
    • Invasion of Titan (February-May 2349)
    • Titan Pacification campaign (2349-2351, 2355-2357)
  • Emergency response, Zharan Uprising (2357-2359)
• Occupation of Titan (2365-2368)
• Frontier War (2371-2381)
  • Operation Lightning Arrow (2371-2377)
    • Invasion of Titan (November 2371–March 2372)
    • Titan Pacification campaign (2372-2374, 2376-2378)
  • Emergency response, Zharan Incursion (2379-2381)
• Occupation of Titan (2385-2388)

Historical Notes

The 451st Spacer Infantry Brigade was first mustered early in the Mars-Titan War as part of the buildup of forces initiated to respond to the Titan Pact's aggression, as typified by their destruction of Phobos in 2293. It was deployed to the Jovian system in 2295 to participate in the pacification of Ganymede, which gave the brigade its first taste of combat with members of the United Frontier Army.

After Ganymede fell to the ICA, the 451st was redeployed to Titan and participated in both the Battle of Samarkand and the Siege of Jiuquan during the war's final year. For these and many associated operations, the brigade was awarded a unit citation by Secretary General Lucinda Weston in October 2298.

After the war, the 451st did regular rotations as part of the Frontier Pacification Force and was deployed on a cycle of three "on" years garrisoned on another world (i.e. Titan) and four "off" years garrisoned on Mars for inter-deployment exercises. This ended in 2329 with the attack on the Edwin Aldrin Memorial Spaceport on Mars, which dragged the ICA into the Jovian War. This soon expanded into a broader intervention in the Draconist Wars as a whole, and the 451st was right there for all of it.

This volatile period saw them involved in everything from an initial participation in a second pacification of Ganymede to the fateful emergency response to the Zharan Uprising, where thousands of zharan sleeper agents kicked off a full-scale insurrection by the artificial population of the solar system. After the Janus Accords finally brought an end to the Draconist Crisis in April 2361, the 451st officially resumed its vigil in the outer solar system, with another rotation on Titan from 2365 to 2368.

But the Mars Crisis led to a steady rise in tensions between the two superpowers, motivating the ICA to attempt a preemptive strike against the Armada in late 2371. This miscalculation sparked the Frontier War, which the 451st and its sibling units in the 19th Spacer Expeditionary Force all participated in for the duration. After the Nüwa Accords brought an end to the war in 2381, they withdrew to ICA space, ever vigilant for signs that the Alliance might be preparing to violate the terms of the treaty.

And in the summer of 2389, three best friends from Mars were sorted into First Platoon of the 2nd Battalion's Fox Company. Their experiences over the next few months, as the peace agreement with the Alliance fatefully collapsed, will be essential to the foundation of their own legend in the annals of the Spacer Corps, and human history at large.

ASOF Recon Team battle order

Much as the "Bravo" team fills the recon role for IDC Special Warfare Command, the Forças de Operações Especiais (FOE) Equipe de Reconhecimento is the basic unit deployed for Armada recon missions. In another similarity to SPECWARCOM, FOE Recon Teams are also similarly paired with one or more Equipes de Operações, which act as a forward direct action team with overwatch support from the attached Equipe de Reconhecimento.

The typical team consists of a squad leader armed with either an RSE-68 carbine or RE-73 specialty carbine; a scout armed with an RC-54 DMR; a dedicated sharpshooter, often armed with an RC-72 long-range rifle; and a junior fuzileiro who supports the sharpshooter (often by carrying one half of the RC-72 rifle during transit from one shooting location to another). This four-man unit structure is seen by Armada higher ups as the minimum advisable strength for the mission each equipe would undertake, and the weapons issued offer a balance of defensive and offensive firepower.

Recon teams like the one demonstrated here became the bane of ICA infantry forces on Titan during the Frontier War (2371-2381), as they had a talent for harassing ground forces before vanishing back into the badlands. In many cases, these units were accompanied by (or composed mostly of) Titan natives, whose experience at range work in the backcountry of Saturn's largest moon made them invaluable to scouting across dozens of kilometers of rugged land in search of a spot from which to make that one perfect shot.

The Forças de Operações Especiais

Founded in October of 2342, the Forças de Operações Especiais is made up of troops from both the Forças Terrestres (Ground Forces) and the Forças Espaciais (Space Forces) who have been selected from the mainstream forces in recognition of demonstrated excellence and dedication to the ideology of the Alliance. These special operators are often subject to multiple years of additional training over AML standard infantry school to prepare them for unconventional warfare against any uniformed or irregular enemy force.

The FOE (also referred to as ASOF or “Armada Special Operations Forces” by the ICA) is is an umbrella for all Armada spec ops units, from the Fuzileiros Reconhecimentos (similar to modern recon marines) to the Brigadas de Comandos (similar to 21st century rangers or marine commandos), and has about 350 thousand personnel in 2389. The FOE often cooperates closely with the Forças de Segurança Interna (FSI), the state security apparatus of the Alliance. But while the FSI operates first and foremost as the military arm of the Alliance police state, the FOE is first and foremost the expeditionary special operations arm of the Armada, waging war directly on behalf of the Alliance Central Committee.

"Bravo" team battle order

While the tactical Alpha team is the cornerstone of Special Warfare Command operations, the recon Bravo team is also an integral base unit of any expanded Spacer Cops presence involving special forces. These units are often deployed in a tag-team configuration, with one or more Alpha teams conducting tactical operations against high value targets (HVTs) while there is at least one Bravo team hanging back to act as overwatch.

To provide optimum flexibility, the typical SPECWARCOM reconnaissance unit consists of a squad leader armed with either an M97SD carbine or M99 SPR; a scout sniper armed with an M126 Special Purpose Rifle or similar; a backup scout sniper, typically armed with an M350 DMR; and two junior riflemen (who may still be Corporals in a seasoned SPECWARCOM recon team layout) who support the two marksmen. In a veteran Bravo team, the team leader may even be a Master Sergeant with ten to fifteen years of experience under their belt.

This layout and combination of weaponry is designed to optimize combat effectiveness and self-sufficiency while also reducing the unit's overall footprint by minimizing the total number of personnel present. Recon teams like the one demonstrated here have often been inserted behind enemy lines as part of operations by Special Orbital Assault & Reconnaissance (SOAR) and other elite units to track, observe, and if necessary eliminate enemy targets of opportunity, and in general to act as long-range firepower for larger units.

IDC SPECWARCOM

The Spacer Corps' Special Warfare Command was established at the height of the First Asteroid Crisis (c. 2182-2189), otherwise known as the Bandit Crisis or the Pirate War. During the mid-22nd century, poorly-regulated prospecting in the Main Asteroid Belt led to thousands of claim-jumping rogue miners and all-around “frontier bandits” (essentially well-organized space pirates) fighting an undeclared minor war against the IDC.

As the mainstream infantry of Surface Warfare Command was ill-equipped to handle this kind of asymmetric war, early special operations advocate Colonel Ricardo Bonhoeffer championed the formation of a new command, one which would focus exclusively on combating unconventional threats to the ICA. SPECWARCOM came about as a direct result of this advocacy, and of the desire to unite the compartmentalized special operations forces deployed to fight the irregular threats emerging in the mid to late 22nd century.

In the years after the conflict ended, it grew into a full-scale component command of the IDC - not nearly as large as the Surface Warfare Command but just as vital to overall IDC operations. SPECWARCOM was an essential cornerstone of the ICA military response to the emergence of the Titan Pact, and of their conflict with the Pact during the Mars-Titan War (2293-2298) which established the new political order of the 24th century.

This new order gave rise to a series of violent conflicts, beginning with the police actions of the 2300s and 2310s that in turn sparked the Draconist Revolution on Callisto in 2324. By the late 24th century, SPECWARCOM had a staff of roughly a quarter million personnel, most of whom were seasoned veterans of conflicts like the Draconist Wars (2324-2361) and the Frontier War (2371-2381) and all of whom were ready to fight tooth and nail to defend the ICA against threats like the Alliance of Free Worlds and the Zharan Collective.

MFA infantry chalk battle order

The base unit of the Martian Federal Army is the chalk, which is a term inherited from airborne infantry forces of the 20th and 21st centuries. This term is used because the MFA prioritizes air mobility, with the bulk of its expeditionary forces deployed via the MV28 Kingfisher tiltrotor. Each chalk is broken down further into three teams, each with three members. Some rumors persist that the MFA based this design on the packs used by the Zharan Liberation Army during the Frontier Wars, but these have been refuted by the MFA.

The lead team contains the chalk leader, typically a sergeant or staff sergeant, and two backups, one of whom carries the GL38 underbarrel “smart” launcher on his R36 rifle. This launcher can fire a variety of programmable munitions from a removable stacked tube, with three rounds in each tube. The other two teams are “gun teams,” each centered on a gunner sporting the standard-issue MG38 light machine gun. Both the MG38 and R36 are chemrail weapons, firing caseless, expanding tipped flechette ammunition via a chemical ignition source and a follow-on linear acceleration rail that speeds each round up to 2,300+ meters per second.

The standard chalk-level fire and maneuver tactic involves the two gun teams laying fire for a leapfrogging advance which would allow all three teams – and those on other chalks in the same parent platoon – to close with and destroy an enemy force. This tactic was used to great effect throughout the Nova War, where MFA teams often engaged numerically superior local rebel forces. These included the Talvani People’s Front, which was heavily populated by indigenous Y'Varis aliens that vehemently hated the Martian Federation.

The Martian Armed Forces

The military force referred to as the Martian Armed Forces traces its origins to the Martian Command (MARSCOM) founded by the One Mars Party shortly after they took power in the United Nations of Mars in 2268. Although MARSCOM was officially rolled into the Spacer Corps after the Mars-Titan War (2293-2298), it maintained a partially autonomous status throughout the 24th century, and remained a major component of the ICA military forces during the Draconist Wars (2324-2361) and the Frontier Wars (2371-2398).

However, Mars grew apart from the new Solar Union during the crises of the 25th century, as the Martians had long borne an outsized burden of the ICA’s conflicts. The Main Belt Crisis (2493-2521) drove the final wedge between them and by the late 2510s, the situation was ready to boil over. Then, the rise of an ambitious Main Belt Crisis veteran named Sanyar Galvani provided the catalyst for the emergence of a new, more militaristic Mars.

Galvani was an acolyte of the Martian Unity Party, an ultranationalist and revanchist faction which sought to return Mars to industrial power and economic prosperity by any means necessary. When the Party entered power in the elections of 2524, they promised a wave of reforms which would “Make Mars Great Again,” and when a gang of rogue MARSCOM officers carried out a failed coup in April 2525 (the Crimson Revolution) it provided them the justification to suspend UNOM’s constitution and establish the Martian Federation.

The Federation’s rulers moved swiftly to reform their military, as well. They withdrew MARSCOM from the Union Self Defense Force and reorganized it into the MAF, with the Martian Federal Army and Martian Federal Navy taking shape soon after. The Office of Public Security (OPS), a sprawling security apparatus intended to control the Federation’s civilian populace, followed three years later, completing Mars' military rebirth.

The Armada's FOE

Founded in October of 2342, the Forças de Operações Especiais is made up of troops from both the Forças Terrestres (Ground Forces) and the Forças Espaciais (Space Forces). The FOE (also referred to as ASOF or “Armada Special Operations Forces” by the ICA) is is an umbrella for all Armada spec ops units, from the Fuzileiros Reconhecimentos (similar to modern recon marines) to the Brigadas de Comandos (similar to 21st century rangers or marine commandos), and has about 350 thousand personnel in 2389.

The FOE's mission purview involves everything from unconventional warfare to covert surveillance and assassination. It often cooperates closely with the Forças de Segurança Interna (FSI), the state security apparatus of the Alliance. But while the FSI is the military arm of the Alliance police state, the FOE is the expeditionary special operations arm of the Armada, and wages war on behalf of the Alliance Central Committee.

ASOF Equipe battle order

Much like the Alpha teams of the Spacer Corps Special Warfare Command, the FOE Equipe de Operações (“Operations Team”) is the basic building block of any spec ops mission. A standard equipe has seven members, giving them manpower parity with infantry sections of the Forças Terrestres. The main difference is that the FOE gives its fuzileiros additional training and weapons that regular infantry would never have access to.

The team leader, typically an S-6 (segundo sargento) or above, is siloed in the Scout group, which is centered on a scout sniper armed with an RC-54 designated marksman rifle. The second-in-command, typically an S-4 (segundo cabo), is part of the gun group, which is centered on an automatic rifleman armed with the RA-52 GPMG. Many of the other weapons used here are similar to those issued in the Forças Terrestres, albeit with many more add-ons such as suppressors and advanced sights available, as well.

The most notable addition to the FOE armories since the early 2370s has been the RE-73, an integrally-suppressed special applications carbine designed almost exclusively for use by FOE operators or “wet works” teams from the FSI. In these roles, it earned significant infamy among ICA forces in the second half of the Frontier War, where it was given nicknames like “Satan’s pipe cleaner” or "devil's trombone" for its unorthodox appearance.

UGSDF Rifle Squad battle order

As the primary security and peacekeeping organization of the Solar Union, the Union Self Defense Force bases its infantry doctrine on that of western peacekeeping forces from the early 21st century, in the last years of the original NATO alliance. Unlike the airmobile infantry chalks of the Martian Armed Forces, UGSDF infantry is primarily intended primarily for transport by ground-based armored vehicles like the Type 19 infantry fighting vehicle, which can hold up to ten dismounts and accommodates a full rifle squad with ease.

Each squad has two teams with four members total, including a Segundo Sargento (E-6) or Sargento (E-7) in command and a Premeiro Cabo (E-4) or Cabo Adjunto (E-5) as Second in Command. Each team also contains both a grenadier armed with a Type 35 rifle and a standalone Type 03 “smart” launcher, a gunner armed with a standard-issue Type 28 light machine gun, and an assistant gunner who carries additional supplies. The Type 35 and Type 28 are both designed around linear acceleration technology originally borrowed from the Martians just prior to their secession from the Solar Union in 2527.

The rifle squad's combination of mobility and firepower allows each team to support the other during fire-and-maneuver while dismounted from their transports, and to provide multi-axis defense in expeditionary peacekeeping duties. Both tactics are emphasized by the UGSDF in the 2550s thanks to the necessities of the Nova War, which has required it to adapt to both offensive and defensive operations during the ongoing peacekeeping operation in the Nova System, where both Martian troops and irregular militias abound.

The Union Self Defense Force

After the Second Frontier War (2389-2398) ended, the temporary partnership of convenience between the Armada dos Mundos Livres and the Spacer Corps was slowly formalized. With the founding of the Union of Solar Peoples in 2403 came the impetus for this mating to be more concerted. In 2406, the United People’s Congress authorized the official unification of the two militaries into a new combined force.

This new military was named the Union Self Defense Forces, also called the USDF. From operations on Earth (2426-2436, 2452-2458) to the Main Belt (2493-2521), the USDF diversified its portfolio as the primary peacekeeping and security force in 25th century Solar Space, up until the Martian Federation seceded from the Union in 2527. Twelve years later, these two superpowers embarked on a violent conflict to control the resource-rich Nova System accessible through the A'Dreyan Doorway Network on Titan.

"Alpha" team battle order

If the squad is the bread-and-butter unit of the Surface Warfare Command, then the Alpha team is that for SPECWARCOM. Unlike SURCOM's rifle squads, though, the Special Warfare Command uses seven-man teams, with two three-man flights led by a senior NCO (typically a Staff Sergeant or above). On these teams, even the most junior roles are typically Senior Spacers or above, and many SPECWARCOM teams are led by Master Sergeants, who have ten to fifteen years of experience in the Spacer Corps under their belts.

A variety of weapons may be carried by members of SPECWARCOM Alpha teams, though the M97SD and M99 are favored by most special operators. The M97SD is a suppressed version of the M97 carbine, while the M99 is an integrally-suppressed compact carbine designed from the ground up for spec ops users. The M297 SAW is still used by the team’s automatic rifleman, and is generally left unmodified, which necessitates it being held in reserve to "Go Loud" only when stealth is no longer an option. The team's marksman typically uses a tricked-out M350 DMR, which is a variant of the M93 rifle adapted to fire the more powerful 7.3 millimeter cartridge.

There are also a number of special weapons and equipment which may be included in an operational loadout, including the FGM-298 Smart Long-Range Anti-Armor Man-Portable (SLAM) weapon system, a man-portable fire-and-forget loitering ATGM; and the AN/PEW-263 high-energy laser weapon system, an energized microwave particle emitter-type laser sniper rifle that allows for ultra-long-range stealth kills. These weapons, and equipment used for long-range sensing, tracking, coded communication, and more allow the Alpha team to operate effectively against almost any enemy and in virtually any theater.

IDC SPECWARCOM

The Spacer Corps' Special Warfare Command was established at the height of the First Asteroid Crisis (c. 2182-2189), otherwise known as the Bandit Crisis. During the mid-22nd century, poorly-regulated prospecting in the Main Asteroid Belt led to thousands of claim-jumping rogue miners and all-around “frontier bandits” (essentially well-organized space pirates) fighting an undeclared minor war against the IDC. As the mainstream infantry was ill-equipped to handle this kind of asymmetric range war, early special operations advocate Colonel Ricardo Bonhoeffer championed the formation of a new command, one which would focus exclusively on combating unconventional threats to the ICA.

SPECWARCOM came about as a direct result of this advocacy, and as a result of a desire to unite the compartmentalized special operations forces deployed to fight the irregular threats emerging in the mid to late 22nd century. In the years after the conflict ended, it grew into a full-scale component command of the IDC - not nearly as large as the Surface Warfare Command but just as vital to overall IDC operations. By the late 24th century, it had a staff of roughly a quarter million personnel, most of whom were seasoned veterans of conflicts like the Draconist Wars (2324-2361) and the Frontier War (2371-2381) and all of whom were ready to fight tooth and nail to defend the ICA.