Star Legion
The Star Legion is the Julian Protectorate's military arm. It is tasked with protecting Protectorate member states from external threats, most notably the Third Imperium, and from internal warmongering.
Legionaries are recruited from amongst the Protectorate's member states. Because the Star Legion must be seen to be independent they are asked to renounce their state citizenship and become solely Protectorate citizens. This also serves to somewhat protect legionaries during times when they must serve in a state that is currently in conflict with their home state.
Because the Star Legion was first formed by the Menderes Corporation, it did not have a traditional command structure or system of ranks. Instead, the initial Star Legion's organisation was a bizarre mix of various mercenary units, local navies and corsairs. The rank table on the right shows the final solution Menderes' military advisors reached.
By using meaningful words for ranks, the Legion managed to have an understandable ranking system, that nevertheless had no commonality with existing Human or Vargr military systems. The bureaucrats have of course added complexity to the Protectorate ranking system, adding the prefix "Semi-" to a rank to indicate an individual nearly of that rank but not yet deemed capable of it, the only ranks to escape this treatment are those of Recruit (there is nothing lower) and Grandmaster (you can't nearly be one).
Star Legion Badges
The Star Legion has three main divisions (see Legion Organisation below). The Star Legion badge is made up of the Julian Protectorate's star, surrounded by three gems, coloured to represent each of the Legion divisions.
On Black
On White
Transparent
On Stars
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Legion Organisation
The Star Legion is organised into three main divisions, Navy, Marines and Farguard, see Chart SL01 below:
Legion Navy
The lion's share of Legion budgets are spent on the Navy, as befits a military organisation tasked with defending a multi-sector interstellar state.
The Navy divides itself into Main Fleet, Jump-capable warships, from battleship to escort; Flight, fighters, shuttles and other smallcraft; and Local Forces, which includes the Navy's battle tenders and battle riders. Main Fleet forms the Star Legion's offensive forces, frequently in commerce raider roles (see Commerce Raiding and Convoys by Larsen E. Whipsnade for details).
The Local Forces area is the one that most deviates from the Third Imperium's Imperial Navy, against which the Star Legion is often compared. The Protectorates' member states are asked to provide a certain quota of battle riders for the Navy. These are then allocated to defending the worlds of that member state, provided they are available for pickup by Legion battle tenders for patrols, training and of course war. The battle riders are the only ships in the Navy that bear both the Protectorate's symbol and that of local worlds within member states.
Main Fleet Uniform: Black shipsuit with ship badge, dress grays with gray cloak.
Flight Uniform: Black jumpsuit with squadron badge, dress grays with black cloak.
Local Forces Uniforms: Black shipsuit with system badge, dress grays with gray cloak.
Legion Marines
The Marines mainly consists of the Legions, the ordinary marines, their support vehicles and their heavy weapons. There are two elite squads within the Marines that are worthy of mention. The Hoplite Assault and Raiding Deployment Squads (HARDS) are battle dress equipped marines who specialise in EVA operations (Legion battle dress is called Hoplite armour). The Subsurface Qualified Insertion and Demolition Squads (SQuIDS) are marines who specialise in subsurface (ie. underwater) operations, particularly covert insertions and demolitions.
Both HARDS and SQuIDS have excelled at operations normally regarded as too risky for normal marine troops. HARDS have assaulted and taken over entire class A Highports, in time for Navy cruisers to pull up alongside for refuel or repairs. SQuIDS have shown themselves capable of neutralising defensive submarine meson cannons, ensuring that planetary defenses were less of a threat to Navy assualt carriers in orbit.
Legions Uniform: Camouflage shipsuit, dress blacks with red beret.
HARDS Uniform: Black jumpsuit, dress blacks with gray beret.
SQuIDS Uniform: Black jumpsuit, dress blacks with blue beret.
Legion Farguard
The Farguard are the Legion equivalent to both the Imperial Scouts and Imperial Intelligence. The three main divisions of the Farguard are Scouts, Intelligence and Auditors. Scouts oversee extra-border patrols, military surveys and have an early warning role. Intelligence are responsible for intelligence gathering, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism on a Protectorate level, sometimes against groups internal to the Protectorate. Auditors take on the legal duties for the Legion, and internal affairs, they also have a role as independent weapons inspectors to keep all member states military potential transparent to each other.
Intelligence Uniform: Black shipsuit, dress greens with black beret.
Auditors Uniform: Green shipsuit, dress greens with green beret.
Scouts Uniforms: Camouflage shipsuit, dress greens with black beret.
Fleet Organisation
The Legion Navy organises their ships into wolfpacks, fleets and hordes.
Wolfpack
The equivalent of an Imperial squadron, a wolfpack will consist of a number (3-15) ships of often quite varying sizes. The ships will all be of a similar speed and jump capability, as it is their mobility that makes the Legion wolfpack so fearsome. Common tactics are to swarm enemy convoys or outriders, with overwhelming force, and then withdraw before the reinforcements can arrive.
Fleet
The Legion fleet organisation is often more used for administrative purposes than actual combat. Technically, a fleet will have 10-50 ships assigned to it, of sizes varying from battleships in the 100,000+ dton range, to 400 dton patrol cruisers.
Horde
Serious problems require serious solutions, and in a time of war the Legion will quickly assemble a massive number of ships in an attempt to overwhelm the opposition. Such a unit is called a horde, and will typically have 100-3,000 ships assigned to it. There have been only a few times in the history of the Protectorate when such a horde was required.
Ship Classes
Here are some sample Star Legion ship classes and notable ships from those classes. Included on the downloads page are some examples of the ships below, in Fire, Fusion & Steel 2 (FF&S2) format.
Main Fleet
The backbone of the Star Legion navy are the Main Fleet forces. Battleships, carriers, cruisers and escorts are all common classes used by the Legion Navy.
Object Of Seasons class battleships:
» Arch Of Winter
» Bowl Of Rainy Season
» Door Of Spring
» Fountain Of Autumn
State Colour class carriers:
» Crystalline Green
» Gaseous Blue
» Gelatinous Orange
» Liquid Red
» Plasma Grey
» Solid Black
Speed To Emotion class cruisers:
» Creeping To Awe
» Dawdling To Joy
» Fast To Anger
» Rushing To Fear
» Slow To Jealousy
Sound Weapon class destroyers:
» Banging Machete
» Booming Dagger
» Clashing Sabre
» Deafening Cutlass
» Wailing Spear
Measurement Mental-State class escorts:
» Hour Distracted
» Kiloisha Nightmares
» Lightyear Lunacy
» Meter Irrational
» Parsec Dreams
Local Forces
These ships form a key component of local defense forces, and are only mobilised together when a threat to the Protectorate requires the stripping of battle riders away from their normal defensive positions.
High Ideals class battle tenders:
» Beauty
» Courage
» Honesty
» Honour
» Law
» Loyalty
» Nobility
» Truth
Weather Of Metal class battle riders:
» Clouds Of Iron
» Fine Sky Of Gold
» Monsoon Of Tin
» Sleet Of Aluminium
» Storm Of Silver
» Typhoon Of Zinc
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Navigation
The Julian Protectorate
Alien Races
Campaign Setting
Chronology
Julian War
Member States
Menderes Corporation
Star Legion
Star Legion Ranks
The mixed Human/Vargr forces of the Legion required a new set of ranks that did not come from either races' military history, and that gave a flat, flexible command structure.
Officers
O9 » Grandmaster
O8 » Strategist
O7 » Semi-Strategist
O6 » Commander
O5 » Semi-Commander
O4 » Tactician
O3 » Semi-Tactician
O2 » Leader
O1 » Semi-Leader
Enlisted
E7 » Veteran
E6 » Semi-Veteran
E5 » Senior
E4 » Semi-Senior
E3 » Junior
E2 » Semi-Junior
E1 » Recruit
Ranks In Use
Leader Jones
Junior Smith
Semi-Veteran Rrvargh
Strategist Menderes
Semi-Tactician Bhagk
Recruit Zouf
Experience
In terms of the amount of experience typically required to reach a particular rank, the following chart is useful.
For an officer:
A Grandmaster commands 100,000+ men, fleet/horde
A Strategist commands 10,000+ men, battle ship/fleet
A Commander commands 1,000+ men, large ship/wolfpack
A Tactician commands 100+ men, medium ship
A Leader commands 10+ men, small ship
For an enlisted man:
A Veteran has 10+ years experience
A Senior has 5+ years experience
A Junior has 2+ years experience
A Recruit has 0+ years experience
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