Directorate Officer
- Intent: To provide the Directorate with a base infantry unit to provide protection for its ships and facilities
- Image Credit: USI Busting Hulls by Rookiee 425
- Role: Marine duties (protect ships from boarders, internal security, boarding enemy ships, orbit to ground assaults, etc)
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Gir Quee, Directorate, Lucerne Labs, Lucerne Personal Defense, Directorate Marine Platoon, Galactic Alliance Invasion of Coruscant, Directorate Jump Troopers, Hephaestus Factory Ship
- Unit Name: Directorate Shock Marine Regiment - “The Admiral's Guard Dogs”
- Affiliation: Gir Quee, Directorate, Directorate-affiliated companies and allies
- Classification: Marines
- Description: Directorate Shock Marines are a mainstay of Directorate ground forces, forming a large security element on many Directorate warships and facilities. Clad in dark-colored heavy battle armor, these mostly biomechanical warriors maintain a vigilant watch at their stations, ready to spring into battle as the situation dictate. Directorate Shock Marines are famed for their intense, seemingly random strikes that converge to rapidly overwhelm foes in close combat, often by application of a high volume of personal weapons fire coordinated in patterns to quickly and thoroughly wipe out resistance by sector. It's not uncommon to see them jet out from starships via their built-in rocket packs, board enemy starships, rig the internals of those starships with explosives, and then jet away back to their home vessel. While impressive shock and internal security troops and capable of normal ground combat, Directorate Shock Marines have a limited utility in engaging on protracted ground campaigns, leading them mainly to be seen in space-going settings.
- Unit Size: Large
- Unit Availability: Common
- Unit Experience: Trained
- Equipment:
- All troops (organic officers and NCOs, synthetic soldiers): Anakkona Heavy Battle Armor with Mailoc Photonic Rocket Pack, fusioncutter gauntlet, Magnaforce Energy Shield gauntlet
- Typical Directorate Shock Marine Squad layout with equipment
Command element (1 Organic Squad Leader, 1 Legionnaire Battle Droid)- 1 LPD-15 Stormfire Heavy Repeater (Squad Leader Primary Weapon)
- 1 Akk Dog Portable Shield Generator (Squad Leader secondary equipment)
- Fire Team A (4 Hoplite Synthetic soldiers)
- 2 Riflemen (1 LPD-14 Firebolt Blaster Rifle, 2 7-PrG Proton Grenades, 2 LPD-24 Fireblast Dual-purpose grenades)
- 1 CQC specialist (1 LPD-31 Stormshard ripper rifle, 3 LPD-30 Flameblossom Cluster Thermal Detonators)
- 1 Grenadier (1 LPD-17 Hammerstrike Grenade Launcher, 1 LPD-28 Silver Talon series Vibroblade)
- Fire Team B (4 Hoplite Synthetic soldiers)
- 2 Riflemen (1 LPD-14 Firebolt Blaster Rifle, 2 7-PrG Proton Grenades, 2 LPD-24 Fireblast Dual-purpose grenades)
- 1 CQC specialist (1 LPD-31 Stormshard ripper rifle, 3 LPD-30 Flameblossom Cluster Thermal Detonators)
- 1 Grenadier (1 LPD-17 Hammerstrike Grenade Launcher, 1 LPD-28 Silver Talon series Vibroblade)
- Combat Function: Directorate Shock Marines act as the standard expeditionary soldiers on Directorate starships and guards for many facilities. Their basic daily duties mostly consists of providing protection against intruders and providing comprehensive, internal security patrols, especially given the Directorate's recent troubles of infiltration and betrayal. While an exceptional counterintelligence asset due to an almost institutionalized amount of paranoia from those experiences, Directorate Shock Marines really come into their own when assaulting enemy vessels and assets. On a high level, Directorate Marine commanders focus on conducting converging strikes from disparate angles to rapidly overwhelm enemies. This is out of sheer practical necessity: marines are usually stationed spread out across their home ships and bases in order to provide comprehensive security. The use of rocketpacks allows them to quickly gather and conduct effective strikes in numbers. In boarding actions, these marines rocket over to enemy ships, cut their way in with their built-in fusion cutters or blow a hole with explosives, and then attempt to rapidly overwhelm enemies with coordinated, high volumes of close-quarters weapons fire at a squad or platoon level. Each fire team in a squad is identical, which greatly simplifies tactics and also simultaneously promotes rapid advances. Typically, riflemen equipped with variable charge blasters lead the pack, as they can rapidly adjust their weapons based on the threat and situations that they encounter. The close-quarters combat specialist(CQCS) and grenadier coming up behind them can then adjust their own weapons to provide the support needed. For example, a CQCS might use a ripper mode to help quickly take down a shielded battle droid or alternatively switch to shotgun mode if an energy-resistant sithspawn is found. Likewise, the grenadier might choose to switch out his usual fragmentation grenades for a specialty grenade based on what's encountered, or draw his vibroblade if the distance is too close to use his grenades safely. Anchoring these biomechanical fire teams are an experienced organic sergeant, who provides some versatility to the squad via his repeater and the judicious use of his portable shield generator, along with a hulking Legionnaire Battle Droid, which provides additional brute firepower and specialized security sensors to the team. With most of the squad being expendable battle droids, there is usually a focus to push forward on attacks, even if suffering high casualties. Once an objective is secured or it seems unlikely that further progress can be expected, Directorate Shock Marines typically booby-trap areas with their explosives, or otherwise sabotage or wreck areas that they cannot permanently hold. Directorate High Command always places a priority on gathering intelligence if possible, and sergeants often grab what pieces of tech or information that can get a hold of for latter analysis, especially if a site is unlikely to be retained. Directorate Shock Marines see some limited use as initial assault troops for orbit-to-ground missions, but they lack the equipment (especially vehicles) and training to be really proficient ground troops in protracted ground campaigns.
- A whole new, paranoid world: Concerns about possible infiltration of Directorate starships and facilities has produced a circumspect atmosphere within Directorate Shock Marines. A Directorate Shock Marine (especially the automated variety) is almost always on guard, looking out closely for abnormalities and quickly following up on anything unusual in conjunction with its team-mates. This not only applies defensively, but offensively as well. Shock Marines have algorhythmic pathways built into the droid's systems to automatically look for traps, signs of sabotage, and those hiding in an area. These squad's traits are enhanced by the Legionnaire's own specific security sub-programming. This led to those encountering Directorate Shock Marines to commonly think that the entire unit is paranoid. Unsurprisingly, given that they think so frequently in such terms, Directorate Shock Marines also have a tendency to employ booby traps (typically through a combination of tripwires and their own explosives) and acts of sabotage of their own when they board enemy starships or capture hostile ground.
- Aggressive: A key focus across of levels of the unit is on the conduction of sudden, converging strikes on opponents. On a lower level, marine squads are exceptionally aggressive and decisive, allowing them to quickly react to situations without much delay. This makes them exceptional fighters in cramped conditions such as starships where there is not time or terrain to give in order to formulate extensive battle plans. On higher levels of command, much focus is put into the coordination of these quick and almost acrobatic thrusts so that they occur almost simultaneously in hopes that their sudden overwhelming attack will paralyze any enemy commander's ability to fully process the situation and decisively act before it is too late.
- Close Quarters Combat Excellence: Directorate Shock Marines are specifically equipped physically and prepared intellectually for close quarters combat commonly found in space-going vessels. Physically, this includes the use of heavy personal armor, gauntlet-based energy shields, and close-quarters focused weaponry. Intellectually, Shock Marines have coordinated close quarter combat drills which are largely optimized by the droids ability to effortlessly communicate through internal comlinks. This allows squads and their component fire teams to work almost seamlessly as a coordinated element rather than disparate group of individuals. This shows practically in such examples in using coordinated fire assignment vectors to ensure that there are no blindspots, or in using phalanx-style tactics in using overlapping gauntlet-based energy shielding while advancing down corridors towards potential hostiles.
- Droid Resilience: The majority of a Directorate Shock Marine Regiment is composed of battle droids in the form of synthetic soldiers. This makes them more resilient against physical threats such as shrapnel or sudden hull decompression. Droids do also not tire like humans and most organics, which enables them to carry out extended combat with little to no difference in either intellectual or physical performance.
- A world outside our own?
Directorate Shock Marine Regiments are fairly insular units, with a strong distrust of outsiders based on problems the Directorate has had with betrayals and infiltration in the past. This can make them difficult to understand and work with, not only among outsiders, but among the more free-spirited members of the Directorate forces itself. Shock Marines are notorious sticklers for following the letter of the law in rules and regulations, even if it defies the actual intent of the order if a situation changes. - What's a positional defense? The aggressive drive within the Directorate Shock Marines has led to “The best defense is a good offense” mindset when engaging enemy forces. This doesn't always work very well, especially when facing superior quality and/or quality of enemy forces. Shock Marines forced onto the defense by these situations typically fall apart and scatter on concentrated enemy attacks, which is only partially mitigated by their tendency to employ booby traps and the issuing of portable shield generators to squad leaders.
- Predictable (Droid Soldiers):
As effective as the battle droid's programming is, it almost makes them predictable fighters after some experience fighting against them. While there is some individualization among squad tactics due to their organic leaders, the individual fighting tactics of the bulk of the battle droids who make up the bulk of the squad rarely change. - Long-range Warfare? What's that? Directorate marines place a premium on close-quarters combat within cramped quarters, which has led to a deficit in other types of warfare scenarios, especially groundside. While a handful of their weapons in a squad can be employed in longer distance fighting, squads typically aren't well trained or ready to engage in any sort of markmanship duels, static warfare, or prolonged encounters with groups of enemy armored vehicles.
With the Directorate's founding, small groups of marines were raised predominantly from Galactic Republic veterans to found the internal security and shore parties of the organization's warships. These troops fought into countless battles, mostly against criminal elements, but also against the One Sith and the First Order. Perhaps the heyday of their success was as one of the tip of the spears during the Galactic Alliance invasion of Coruscant. Days were relatively quiet then for the marines, until it was revealed that Taeli Raaf, one of the Directorate's founding members, had indeed remained a practicing Sith. Additionally, an unknown criminal network appeared to have penetrated into Directorate command itself. This set a wave of paranoia within the Directorate about the possibility of other traitors or those still secretly aligned with the Sith Lady. Additionally, Raaf's company, Aurora Industries, supplied the marines with their main combat rifle as well as grenades. Admiral Quee had recently started the employ of Directorate Jump Troopers as his own personal bodyguard, and began to take his experience with them to help offset the crippling of the Directorate's organic marines by replacing the bulk of marines with absolutely loyal synthetic soldiers produced in his factory ships and outfitting them with the weapons and armor from his budding subsidiary Lucerne Personal Defense. Many existing organic Directorate Marines who passed counterintelligence screenings were then assigned to these units and promoted to being NCOs or commissioned officers. Initial batches of these troops were employed in the admiral's expeditions among the fringes of space as they attempted to hunt down the Network all while building their own sanctuary bases and supply caches. Experience from these missions led to the final form of the Directorate Shock Marines. Since then, Directorate Shock Marines have become common sights on Directorate warships and facilities, providing an extra layer of defense and internal security among a galaxy of conflict and turmoil.
