Dominic Craig
Fortunate Son
"It will be a doctrine, of total war which can only revive the First Order's strength."
~Grand Admiral Carlyle Rausgeber
Circa 856 ABY
(image source, [member="Boo Heavenshield"])
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To create and elaborate on First Order lore.
Image Credit: Throughout the sub.
Role: To provide interesting opposition for those in former First Order territory, and also to allow a legacy of sorts.
Unit Name: First Order Werewolf Cells
Affiliation: The First Order
Classification: Partisan Saboteurs
Equipment: The equipment amongst the Werewolves is varied, as are the units themselves. Some are armed professionally with arms from First Order military stores and caches. However, the majority of the weapons utilised by Werewolves are privately purchased, antiquated pieces or improvised weapons such as explosives. Even then, most weapons are salvaged, stolen, or simply built by its membership. In any case however, they should be treated with trepidation. In terms of armour, that also varies. The Werewolves do often attire themselves in plain clothes while incognito, blending into public, or while in the field, paramilitary fatigues, with some elite units brandishing and using Stormtrooper armour proper.
Description: The Werewolves are a military organisation with disparate equipment. Some of its most senior members are either former government personnel, or military veterans. As such, the group they’re very different in their attire. Most of them wear civilian garb, and use that to blend into urban scenarios. But those who operate in guerrilla warfare, wear either surplus military camouflage or full on combat armour. Behaviourally, the Werewolves are fanatical first and foremost. Their devotion to the First Order, and the zeal they exhibit is awe inspiring, and terrifying. But ideological devotion to the First Order should not be taken for lack of pragmatism. The Werewolves are ruthless and relentless combatants, sacrificing and willing to throw away their lives to achieve the success of their objectives.
Werewolf partisans performing exercises, circa 844 ABY, Phu.
(image source: Armour Force Blog (x) )
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Large. Numbering in the hundreds of thousands, scattered throughout former FO Space and across its systems.
Unit Availability: Common
Unit Experience: On the average Werewolves have bare minimum training. A bulk of their forces are but civilians with rudimentary knowledge of warfare’s intricacies. But, they are supplanted by hardened military veterans who do impart training and knowledge.
Combat Function: Werewolves are designed as a multipurpose force with a multifaceted goal. The Werewolves are designated, intelligence, reconnaissance, combat and saboteur units, using irregular combatants and cells to perform these objects. Werewolves operate in local systems, and as such, have local knowledge. Most use this to their advantage, causing acts of terror while blending into the crowd, or have knowledge as to ideal places to launch ambushes.
Local Knowledge: Werewolves live locally, they know the terrain, the people and what the terrain is like. As such, to find a Werewolf is a troublesome activity, either requiring acute detective skills, or brutality.
Hit and Fade: The Werewolf’s ideal combat situation is ambush and terror tactics. Sabotaging supply lines, and picking off patrols, before disappearing.
For Sieger Unto Death!: The Werewolves are fanatics, willing to give all for a First Order revival. A cornered Werewolf is a dangerous one.
Irregulars: The Werewolves are primarily comprised of irregulars. Citizens, fanatics and the sort who are not trained combatants, but rather disparate. Although there are trained combatants amongst their ranks, the majority have received limited and rudimentary training.
Loyalty Before Ability: Although the Werewolves are broadly pragmatic, many are chosen for ideological fanaticism rather than combat ability.
Werewolves fighting in Avalonia during Ssi-Ruuk incursion, circa 856 ABY
(image source: Elpias (x) )
HISTORICAL INFORMATIONThe First Order’s long reign in the Outer Rim, and the security it bought and implemented, was one which cultivated a sense of loyalty amongst its populace. From a near half millennia engulfed and threatened by the darkness of pirates, bandits and the Ssi-Ruuk, the First Order harkened to a new era of peace and prosperity, even at the price of certain liberties.
The First Order’s brief and sudden collapse did not however harken the end of these ambitions and wants. Quite the contrary. While many of the populace lost faith, fled or even began to actively collaborate with foreign regimes, a core group remained, steadfast in their loyalty and belief in the First Order’s values. And as such, when the military found itself simply unable to defend the Order, these groups stood up.
The first original Werewolf precursor groups can be traced to Bespin. In the aftermath of the Battle of the Ison Corridor, many on Cloud City and other settlements in the sector feared Galactic Alliance reprisal. Open attack after their first offensive failed, and as such, enterprising citizenry began to stock arms. Retired veterans spread their knowledge, and the ‘Cloud City Defence Force’ was formed. The FOSB, the First Order’s intelligence branch covertly seized on the idea.
The concept of First Order militias potentially operating sans command in enemy territory, was one which appealed. Particularly with the prospect of fresh invasions. And as such, the FOSB invested in it. They incentivised veterans from the stormtrooper, army and navy to cultivate groups of loyalists within their communities. As such, from even the height of the Order, the Werewolves were forming. First as wilderness enthusiast groups, scouting troupes or hunting societies.
Werewolf Partisan patrolling the wilderness, Trenwyth 855ABY
(image source: Frontier Partisans (x) )
And while these groups organically formed, it would be the FOSB and Ministry of Information, who would provide acute support and weaponry to cultivate these groups into something greater. While the Ministry provided the propaganda to bind these groups, and form them together, the FOSB began binding them and merging these groups into greater societies, putting them in contact with FOSB handlers, and each other across sectors.
A network was formed, and the name bestowed, Werewolf. In the darkest of nights, they would rise up, and bring order to their systems should the First Order be incapable of doing so. Linked with the FOSB, the officers would activate them in times of either civil or military emergency.
When the First Order did fall, dozens of Werewolf cells rose up and fought with the First Order regular army, and were wiped out or decimated. Those that remained, either began a war of resistance against the Ssi-Ruuk Imperium, or seized control of local regimes that collapsed. The Werewolves, are now across First Order space, disparate and isolated, but ever fanatical in their want to retain the First Order’s command and control over the Galaxy.