Sol Sector Forces
The Sol Sector Forces were a conglomeration of Stellar League military units based in, or close to the Sol Sector during the final six centuries of the Age of Unity. Also called by the fanciful the Solar Comitatenses, the Sol Sector Forces were intended to be a mobile force used to crush rebellions against the league, or, in the event of hostile contact with aliens, defeating a particularly dangerous alien threat. Sol Sector troops routinely performed the former duty, but never experienced the latter until the Jred Scourge which ultimately proved disastrous for the Sol Sector Forces and indeed for the Stellar League itself.
Organization
The Sol Sector Forces were a combined arms organization consisting of three elements. The Sol Sector Fleet, the Solar Marines, and the Sol Sector Army. These three organizations would operate in tandem with each other to secure aerospace supremacy over a hostile force, force open a viable beachhead to land heavy army assets, and ultimately to conduct planetary campaigns to destroy hostile forces in detail. Though each of these forces were intended to stay in their own roles, in practice there was significant overlap between the duties of Naval Infantry and the Fleet, and the Army and the Naval Infantry which complicated the de facto operation of the three branches.The Sol Sector Fleet
The Sol Sector Fleet was undoubtedly the most famous of the branches of the Sol Sector Forces, to the point that the name “Sol Sector Fleet” is often conflated with the whole of the organization. It was the operator of most of the spaceborne assets of the SSF. It was subdivided into several battlegroups of four primary types. The most famous of these were the battlestar squadrons, each centered around one of the battle-carriers (colloquially referred to as battlestars), and its squadron of escorts. Other similar battlegroups were built around battleships and fleet carriers that, while less prestigious, were more numerous overall. Battlegroups centered around large capital ships typically consisted of a capital ship (a battlestar, battleship, or fleet carrier) a destroyer or light cruiser, four frigates, a dedicated fleet tender, and all of the smallcraft that these forces carried with them. Smaller cruiser squadrons were also operated that consisted of one heavy, and three light cruisers, and were intended to carry out medium term independent patrols outside of the Sol Sector. In addition to these core combat elements dozens of smaller patrol squadrons, supply squadrons, and spacelift squadrons also existed to protect less important areas, to transport Army forces, and to maintain and resupply Fleet assets on campaign. Overall, the Sol Sector Fleet maintained a force of thousands of ships, and millions of personnel.The Solar Marines
Usually operating in close coordination with the Sol Sector Fleet, the Solar Marines were a dedicated force of naval infantry that was intended to fulfill two roles. The first of these was fleet security, ensuring that Sol Sector Fleet ships were safe against boarding, and providing a boarding force on their own. The second was as a landing force, creating a viable beachhead for heavier army assets to land on a planetary surface unmolested. Security forces were dispersed throughout the fleet in units of an appropriate size for the ships they were stationed on. Typically smaller detachments would be commanded by a single officer responsible for commanding the entirety of a battlegroup’s marines. Landing forces were organized into larger independent battalions, brigades, generally up to the corps level, and would be attached to starlifters and strike ships as required. The Solar Marines were always the smallest component of the Sol Sector Forces, and became even moreso as the organization made increasingly heavy use of combat robots in the later years of its operation.The Solar Army
Serving as the primary ground based unit of the Sol Sector Forces, the Sol Sector Army was primarily responsible for conducting extended campaigns on the surfaces of planets throughout the galaxy. It operated most of the heavy ground assets, and a fair amount of aerospace craft. The Sol Sector Army was organized into field armies, which had their own dedicated logistical assets, as well as mobile corps, divisions, brigades, all the way down to individual fireteams and combat vehicles. Often however, Army units were typically deployed in units no smaller than the division level, as anything requiring a smaller unit than that was typically handled by the Solar Marines.Assets
The Sol Sector Forces commanded a broad array of assets distributed among its three constituent branches. Before the Jred Scourge, the SSF possessed an active fleet of 750 warships, including 9 battlecarriers, 10 battleships, and 15 fleet carriers, at least as many support vessels, and tens of thousands of smallcraft. The Solar Marines maintained their own modest fleet of dropships, thousands of combat vehicles, and were able to issue suits of battledress and heavy weapons to nearly every combatant in the organization, and an increasing supply of robots that eventually numbered in the billions. Though the army couldn’t universally equip its infantry to the same standards of the Solar Marines, they were still equipped well beyond the standard of most other military forces with a large supply of advanced weapons, and high quality armor for every combatant, as well as maintaining a truly enormous vehicle pool, likely in the hundreds of thousands, as well as legions of billions of robots. SSF assets were generally of the highest quality, outmatching the capabilities of equipment used by all but the most advanced and capable System Defense Forces, and well beyond the capabilities afforded to the various colonial sector forces. In addition to the active assets, each branch maintained a vast reserve of equipment that was often nearly as capable as that held by the active forces. During the Jred Scourge, the assets available to the Sol Sector Forces varied radically. Early losses resulted in the rapid depletion of reserve assets well into the conflict. However, as the Military Industrial Complex rapidly expanded its capabilities, production of previously limited equipment expanded dramatically to the point where it is believed that, at the time of the Scourging of Earth, the Sol Sector Forces may have actually been larger and more heavily equipped than at any point before the Scourge. However, heavy losses during that campaign, and in the Gaia Cosmia campaign, leading to The Great Cataclysm may have dramatically reduced the strength of the SSF once again, though exact records are difficult to obtain.Personnel
The personnel of the Sol Sector Forces were a highly diverse lot. Though technically the Sector Defense Forces of the Sol Sector itself, recruits were drawn from all over the Stellar League. This meant that the SSF had a much deeper pool of recruits and could be more selective in who they took in. The League however, primarily selected for loyalty over ability, which at times reduced the overall capability of the SSF. However, despite this, the SSF remained a relatively capable and prestigious service, with many willing recruits. Given its broad recruiting base, the SSF also maintained one of the most diverse cultures of any military force in the galaxy with Frontiersmen, who learned their craft living a hard knock life, rubbing shoulders with social elites from the wealthiest of worlds with privliged access to the most prestigious military academies in the galaxy. By the end of the Jred Scourge, the Sol Sector Forces had grown to their largest extent with active personnel numbering in the billions. Recruits were taken from military academies from all over League space, with the top 15% of academy graduates screened for their political sensibilities and those deemed sufficiently loyal to the league itself given offers to join the SSF. As a relatively prestigious organization many accepted this offer. Recruits would then undergo a training process including basic training lasting four months, followed by specialized training for their role which could last anywhere from a few months to two years depending on their occupation. During training a high degree of import was placed on the value of teamwork and loyalty, but also on personal initiative and operational independence. Those who completed training were then placed into their units, which would almost always have veterans responsible for guiding their new compatriots in their first months of service.History
The Sol Sector Fleet was initially formed in the years following the Third Great Human Civil War. As part of the reorganization of the galactic order, the nascent Stellar League reorganized the hodgepodge of regions, politically powerful systems, and colonization regions into a more uniform system of sectors. Each of these sectors was assigned a governor and given the mandate to establish a Sector Fleet, and Sector Army for their own defense against pirates, minor rebellions, or in the unprecedented event of alien invasion. Sol Sector however had a different remit, being the center of galactic governance, home to the most well established, and generally loyal systems of the league, and by far the wealthiest, Sol Sector was assigned additional responsibilities. In addition to their usual responsibilities, the Sol Sector Forces were dedicated to policing the other sectors, and acting as a powerful mobile response force to deal with problems that were beyond the capabilities of the Sector Forces to deal with. To meet this end, the Sol Sector Forces were provided the most capable weapons and equipment available to humanity, and given training beyond what was expected of the typical local troops. Unusually for a League Force however, the Sol Sector Forces were drawn from worlds all across the league, which selected for loyalty to the state as well as relatively high performance, taking the best troops from each graduating class of the military academies to serve.
For much of the history of the League, the Sol Sector Forces were able to serve in relative peace, primarily serving as anti-piracy forces within Sol Sector itself as well as the occasional show of force to intimidate the frontier into line. Aside from relatively minor rebellions in the Rift Frontier and the Rimward Frontier in the 37th Century, Solar forces would not be challenged until the Great Yuanjing Rebellion at the dawn of the 38th. This rebellion, though not as widespread, impacted a much more developed region of space, and its severity led to a broader attempt to crack down on the independence of Stellar League member worlds. After this, the SSF began to grow steadily as the Stellar League militarized itself in order to better destroy the increasingly far off, and necessarily difficult to control over the slowly expanding edges of its territory.
The greatest challenge for the SSF however, was the Jred Scourge. Though initially slow to react, the SSF did eventually respond to the growing Jred threat initially providing vital to break the incoming tide of the Jred, though with high and mounting losses among SSF forces. This trend grew worse over time as the Jred became increasingly organized, and the Sol Sector Forces quickly found themselves in a situation where further operations would become unsustainable. In particular, The Staniza Massacre, where the SSF lost five whole battlegroups including three of its venerable battlestars, ultimately demonstrated the need for alternative tactics. Towards the end of the war, the Sol Sector Forces would try to slow down the Jred instead of trying to arrest their progress completely while a secret project attempted to destroy the galactic overmind. This change slowed the loss rates of the SSF, allowing them to recover strength, even surpass their peacetime numbers, but hundreds of systems, and billions of people were consumed by the Jred in the process. The project was nearing its natural fruition at the turn of the 41st century, however the Scourging of Earth, and the devastating losses as a result convinced caused the project to be rushed.
Disbandment
The final major action the SSF would participate in was the Battle of Gaia Cosmia, an apocalyptic battle fought just a few weeks after the Scourging of Earth. At this battle the Sol Sector Fleet, and the Solar Army, aggressively fought against a massive Jred Fleet escorting the Great Antennae, a massive psionic amplifier, and the hub of the galactic overmind. The SSF did manage to destroy this entity, but in doing so unleashed The Great Cataclysm upon the galaxy. After losing hundreds of ships, and millions of soldiers in a single day, the SSF tried, and ultimately failed to restore order in the aftermath of the cataclysm. However, with the galactic jumpgate network destroyed, the task proved impossible and the SSF was eventually disbanded as the Stellar League reorganized itself into the Union of Sol, its assets being folded into the fledgling Solar Navy, Marine Corps, and Army.Successors
Despite the ignominious end of the Sol Sector Forces, a number of successor organizations have arisen in its place, claiming direct lineage to the vaunted SSF. The most obvious of these were the military organizations that the SSF were directly reorganized into, chief among them the military of the Union of Sol. As many states broke away from the Union, they themselves took a number of SSF assets, and more rarely veteran personnel, forming further successors. Those with the most valid claims to this succession are the militaries of the Centauri Republic, the Fracana League, and the Cetian Union. Other militaries lay claim to the lineage, though these claims lie on shakier foundations. At the time of the Cataclysm, many Sol Sector units were cut off from central command, and of these many ultimately went rogue, forming their own states, or more frequently, pirate groups. The most dangerous of these, the Black Fleet, descendants of the SSF punitive expedition that was dispatched to put down the Hawker Rebellion shortly before the Cataclysm has become the most dangerous pirate band in the known galaxy. Aside from these human successors legions of robots went rogue in the aftermath of the cataclysm, usually these bots continued their orders to fight the Jred locked in a perpetual war with the aliens. However, it is rumored that a fleet of warships, bereft of their human crew, now marches to the beat of its commanding AI. This ghost fleet is said to travel throughout the Jred Frontier on unknown orders, silently moving from system to system and interacting with others as little as possible. Those who claim to have met the digital admiral of the “Remembrancer Fleet” say he is an amiable enough fellow, but refuses to elaborate on his mission, and those who push too hard on the matter are never heard from again.Legacy
Despite their less than Stellar service record the Sol Sector Forces maintain a certain aura of awe in many. In spite of their ultimate failure to defeat the Jred, they proved far more capable than most every other force humanity could muster against them, and it was the SSF that ultimately brought an end to the Scourge, if at a high cost. More important than the legacy of the unit itself however, it is a widely accepted fact that Sol Sector weapons, combat vehicles, and warships remain far more capable than what is producible by the vast majority of the wider galaxy, and these military assets are worth a very high premium to those that can obtain them, as mercenaries, system defense forces, and interstellar militaries around the world try to find any source they can for Solar equipment.
Founding
3480
Dissolution
4501
Overall training Level
Professional
Assumed Veterancy
Experienced
Used by
Solar Army Forces on a Routine Patrol by Nightcafe
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