Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Codify an antagonist for future rp.
Image Credit: Here. Here. Here.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: The Valkyrie's Diary, Kyriaki, Dominion of Light, Republican Guard, Into Darkness, After Darkness, Glorious Conflict, Firemane, Amidala Corps, Adlerberg, Hope Falls, Caution and Control, Castle Maysaf, Academy of the Scions of the Vader, Sentinel's Rest, Palmyra's Wail, Elpsis Kerrigan-Alcori, Humanity's Blade, Stormtrooper Corps, Twi'lek, Mon Calamari, Yuuzhan Vong, Bothan, Synorostad, Cathar, Nautolan, Vortanstad, Togruta.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Army Name: KEC Stormtrooper Corps.
Classification: Stormtrooper Corps.
Affiliation: Humanist People's Party, Darth Lachesis, Tephrike, KEC, Darth Eisen, Disciples of the Vader.
Army Symbol: Here.
Description:
"Death holds no sting for us because individuals may die, but the race lives on."
"The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear."
"We must all understand that only manly discipline—unconditional subordination to selfless leaders guided only by their public spirit, relegation of our own thoughts, and confidence in the Supreme Leader —can guarantee that the moral force of the individual shall be aggregated into a power that will effect the re-building of Tephrike and the Fatherland."
- Grand Commander Aristides Apollyon.
"If I die, mother, you must bear it and your pride will conquer your pain because you have the privilege of offering a sacrifice. That's what we mean when we say 'mankind'."
- A young KEC recruit in a letter to his mother shortly before being deployed to the frontline, where he died.
"We drove women and children into the marshes, but this did not yield the desired result, as the marshes were not deep enough to drown them. In most places the water was not more than three foot deep. We had to resort to shooting."
- 2nd KEC Cavalry Regiment report on the murder of Togruta civilians.
Stormtroopers have been a staple of any Imperial regime, no matter whether it is controlled by a Dark Lord of the Sith, a dynastic monarchy or a military junta. The KEC Stormtroopers are the Disciple of the Vader's version. It is common for totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to create parallel militaries as a counterweight to the regular armed forces. The most serious threat to a dictator is a coup by his own followers, and in order to coup-proof his regime, he needs to maintain control of the armed forces and constantly monitor the key players. The purpose of a parallel military force is to protect the regime, and thus it is bound to it through a special relationship with the tyrant.
The KEC are both a parallel military and a secret police. The origins of these 'Knights' are humble, as they were conceived as a bodyguard force for Darth Malitia, founder of the Disciples of the Vader and supposed Sith'ari. However, over time they have expanded their tendrils into virtually every sphere of Humanist society. The KEC controls the police force, maintains a parallel army, runs the concentration camps and maintains its own business empire. Many civil servants, police officers or Party officials are also KEC members. It regards itself as the vanguard of Humanism, charged with purifying Tephrike from 'alien' and 'inferior' elements.
The KEC Stormtroopers represent their combat arm. From their comparatively humble beginnings as a bodyguard unit for senior Vaderite leaders and as a disparate amalgamation of far-right militias and terrorist organisations, it has become a full-fledged military force notorious for its fanaticism as well as for committing horrible war crimes. Stormtroopers regard themselves as 'political soldiers', who have fully embraced the Humanist ethos and embody the 'New Human Superman' it is supposed to forge. They are the racial and military vanguard that devotes itself to the racial struggle to purge Tephrike of 'decadence'. The ideological outlook is incredibly speciesist, for the Vaderites postulate that mankind represents a superior species and the sole bringer of culture. Twi'leks, Mon Calamari and Bothans are particularly vilified as shadowy plotters who conspired enslave and destroy mankind. 'Glorious Conflict', the virulently speciesist, ideological manifesto of the Vaderites, is required reading at Stormtrooper academies.
The Humanists imagine mankind as a 'warrior species' and the Stormtroopers aim to be the embodiment of this as an 'elite warrior caste'. War, according to their training, is not an unfortunate but necessary evil, but glorious. Only through strife can a species renew itself, purge itself of decadence and breed 'strong men' who will sire even stronger children. Victory in battle means that one's race has proved its worth and obtained not only martial glory, but the right to do whatever it likes with a conquered nation's land, resources and people. By contrast, losing a war means that one's race is weak and degenerate. War in the Humanist imagination is not just without ethical limits, but also without end. It is waged not just to defend the Imperium against enemies real and imagined and to obtain territory and resources, but for its own as a means of perpetual struggle and perpetual racial renewal. In the long-term, this is self-defeating and self-destructive.
A soldier who 'allows' an enemy to take him alive has shamed not only himself, but his lineage. The Stormtrooper Corps commissions artists to accompany the troops. These embedded artists are chosen for their admiration of combat and their endorsement of military values. They only paint positive, optimistic scenes that convey 'the soldierly, heroic masculinity of our time.' It is forbidden to paint a single death of an Imperial soldier, not even wounds or a drop of blood are allowed. The Vaderites' glorification of war permeates every aspect of society. Being a Stormtrooper, especially an officer or a medal-bearer, is socially prestigious. There is a close relationship between the Humanist 'knights' and the Youth Corps, the only legal youth group in the Imperium. Veteran Stormtroopers teach schoolboys how to read a map, use a compass, shoot and throw a grenade. It is all preparation for the day when they will get the chance to 'bring glory to the fatherland'. At school young boys are exhorted to model themselves on the 'heroic', self-sacrificing soldier. The Stormtroopers have their own set as martyrs who are venerated. The dead are commemorated in the annual ritual of Hero's Memorial Day.
The self-perception of the Stormtroopers is an elite unit. This is, to a degree, accurate, but heavily embellished. For one, the Stormtroopers are too numerous for everyone to be an 'elite' soldier. In addition, propaganda has heavily embellished their successes. The fanatical fighting spirit and myth of racial superiority the Stormtroopers has led to disproportionately high casualties, not the least because training often stresses that officers must lead troops into battle to show elan. Many Stormtroopers come from a rural background and the corps maintains garrison towns and colonies of veterans that serve as recruitment centres. For some members, service in the division has become a family tradition.
Many of the KEC colonies have been built on the land that used to belong to aliens or other 'lesser beings'. The former inhabitants have been rounded up and deported into 'reservations' or forced labour camps or been murdered outright. Some still live on their former land as slave labourers, serving the new owners, who can beat and even kill them with impunity. An example for such a settlement is Sentinel's Rest. Once a Togruta city stood here, but the KEC turned it into a death camp to murder the inhabitants. Once the butchers had completed their work, they burnt the bodies, dismantled the camp and built a town for veteran Stormtroopers and their families on top of it.
In contrast to the regular army, the Stormtroopers have lower educational and higher physical requirements for officer selection. Many field grade officers have thus been promoted from the ranks, making it easier for non-commissioned officers to rise up. Indeed, the Stormtroopers have a reputation for being internally egalitarian - by the standards of a conventional military. Officer training focuses on leadership and they are encouraged to build a bond with their men. For this reason, Officer candidates go through basic training alongside the enlisted.
Moreover, it is forbidden to address a superior as 'sir'. Every officer is addressed by their rank, even if a common soldier is addressing a general. Saluting is optional, and the Stormtroopers practice a more relaxed version of the traditional Humanist salute. In contrast to say the First Order, the KEC Stormtrooper Corps does not abduct and train recruits from birth. Recruits know their families and retain their names. The Imperium exercises complete control over the media and moulds citizens from cradle to grave. Significantly, the Stormtrooper Corps does not have political officers because Stormtroopers are supposed to be the 'racial vanguard'. Peer pressure has proved to be more effective than threatening soldiers to obey an order to murder civilians at gunpoint.
The other side of the coin is that soldiers are expected to act with utter mercilessness against perceived enemies of the 'human species'. The Stormtroopers have massacred prisoners of war, civilian populations of entire cities and facilitated deportations and xenocide. In short, it is a criminal organisation. At the same time, Stormtrooper ideological training seeks to imbue soldiers with virtues such as 'loyalty' and 'honour' - but only towards fellow members of the 'racially pure' People's Community. The type of loyalty demanded of the Stormtroopers it total submission to the supreme leader. Their ideological courses idolise Darth Malitia, the first Supreme Leader, and Darth Vader. The latter has been elevated to the status of a deity. Recruits are taught a perverted honour code that treats compassion for captured enemy soldiers or non-humans as a betrayal of their 'race'.
While the Stormtrooper Corps never ceases trumpeting its loyalty to the regime and the bond of comradeship between the soldiers, repeated power struggles between Vaderite leaders have taken their toll on the soldiers. Stormtroopers have spilt the blood of fellow Stormtroopers. Some Stormtrooper units have adopted what is essentially a mercenary attitude, acting as the private muscle of Party and KEC bigwigs or Disciples. The savagery displayed by the Stormtroopers is a direct consequence of the evil system they are part of. Mercy is derided as weakness in a war against 'inferior races' and 'demonic xenos'.
It is pertinent to stress that Stormtroopers who express doubts about carrying out such illegal orders or who do not want to be part of the firing squads are not executed, provided they do not try commit acts of sabotage. Nor are their families punished. There is a lot of peer pressure, and soldiers who opt out are seen as weaklings who are 'not man enough' to 'make the hard choices' and are less likely to receive promotion. They may be given unglamorous jobs and shamed by their comrades for 'leaving the dirty work to them'. But compliance is not forced at gunpoint. This makes their complicity all the more reprehensible.
Any active Universal KEC officer who joins the Stormtroopers retains his Universal KEC rank and status, but usually receives a lower Stormtrooper rank until such a time as he has gained sufficient military experience to warrant promotion. Thereafter, any promotion he receives in the KEC results in simultaneous and level upgrading of his Universal KEC rank. Officially, a recruit must be at least 1.70 metres tall, and provide a certificate proving his 'hereditary health' and 'pure human descent'. A genealogy stretching back more than a century is required. If a non-human forebear is found in a Stormtrooper's family line, he is excluded from the KEC on principle.
The racial examination is, to put it plainly, based on bogus pseudo-science and the KEC has often been forced to relax its standards to meet manpower needs. Furthermore, a recruit should be between seventeen and twenty-three years, have 20/20 eyesight, no dental fillings and no criminal record. The recent conflicts not to mention infighting have produced high casualties, and so candidates who can pass basic medical exams have been accepted. Moreover, the Stormtroopers utilise child soldiers, even though their own rules don't allow that. Unlike certain far-right regimes, the Vaderites do not exclude women from armed service, though it idealises the image of the 'working wife' who is subservient to her husband. However, there is a culture of pervasive, institutionalised sexism. Women are often shuffled off into support roles.
There are some who serve in combat roles in the Stormtroopers, but discrimination is common. That said, there are exceptions to the rule, such as Darth Lachesis, one of the Stormtroopers' senior commanders. As with the Universal KEC, Stormtroopers who wish to marry must hand in family trees for themselves and their fiancé, fill out a questionnaire and a curriculum vitae. These documents must be submitted to the Clan Office. Furthermore, they must provide statements from two sponsors, photographs of both partners as well as their family members. The approval process consumes an awful lot of red tape, and has often been ridiculed. A stormtrooper who wants to marry a bride who doesn't meet the KEC's standards because is, for instance, infertile, deemed to old to bear children, has a hereditary illness or a politically unsuitable family is obliged to leave the order.
Officially, the Stormtrooper Corps is a volunteer force. However, various coercive measures are taken to press people into service. A member of the Party might be informed that he should join and that a decline of the volunteer registration could lead to expulsion from the Party. Likewise, a member of the Universal KEC might simply be transferred to the combat arm. Moreover, the Stormtrooper Corps has the right to enlist volunteers who have reached the age of seventeen even without parental consent. In addition, the Corps actively recruits in refugee camps, using a mixture of persuasion and coercion to get recruits to sign up. Nonetheless, the public image of being a pure volunteer force is important to the Stormtroopers' propaganda, which is why it hasn't been officially abandoned. The vast majority of Stormtroopers are Non-Force-Users, but they also have some Force-Users. These are all Disciples of the Vader and thus Sith. The arrogance, instability and overbearing attitude common for Sith has led to friction. But there are also notable exceptions, such as Darth Lachesis, who is genuinely popular among her men.
The KEC have their own symbols and table of ranks that sets them apart from the regular army. A Private is a Squire, a Corporal an Errant, a Sergeant a Banneret, a Lieutenant a Crusader, a Major a Cavalier and a Colonel a Paladin. Captain is still a Captain though. The equivalent of a brigade general is a Commander, while a division general is called Knight Commander and a corps commander a Paladin Commander and a full general a Lord Commander. The overall leader of the entire KEC holds the rank of Grand Commander.
In classical Vaderite fashion, the way the Stormtrooper Corps is organised is less than...orderly. In theory, Stormtrooper Command is the operational and administrative headquarters, responsible for payment, organisation, training, medical services, equipment and order of battle. However, control over recruitment has been usurped by the KEC Head Office, leading to jurisdictional friction. The decision on troop deployment remains in the hands of the KEC Grand Commander. At present, this post is de facto vacant. Supreme Leader Eisen has assumed the title...but only to make sure none of the many ambitious KEC Commanders can assert total control over the black order. In theory, tactical control in the field is exercised by Supreme Command Armed Forces of the Imperium (SCAFI), but the joint-service command is quite weak and ineffective.
A Higher KEC and Police Commander has been appointed to each military district in the Imperium. Acting as the personal representatives of the Grand Commander, they have responsibility to coordinate any action involving more than one agency of the sprawling KEC and police empire as well as carry out special tasks. In practice, their level of authority over the various sub-divisions of the KEC - and thus the Stormtrooper units in their bailiwick - varies. The Stormtroopers wear armour based on that donned by their ancient forebears, though with adaptive camouflage outside of parade settings. Certain guard units wear helmets based on stylised Vader masks.
Within the KEC, the Stormtroopers and the Cerberus Corps are closely linked. The latter is not only responsible for guarding and administrating the concentration camps, but is equally part of the manpower pool for combat units in the field. Concentration camp guard formations and Stormtrooper units are interdependent. As they are an armed KEC formation, the Cerberus Corps is formally considered part of the Stormtroopers, even though they answer to a different command. Many concentration camps have KEC settlements attached to them. Wounded Stormtroopers who convalesce there are called upon to perform guard duties in the camps. At the same time, guards are assigned to frontline Stormtrooper units. Moreover, armed Cerberus formations carry out 'pacification' operations alongside regular Stormtroopers. Fittingly, the Stormtroopers' construction office has built mass killing facilities in several camps.
SOCIAL INFORMATION
Headquarters: Mantinea, a 'rural garrison city' located between Adlerberg and the 'City of Benevolent Providence', located on Tephrike. They have a offices in the KEC's tower in Adlerberg's 'Promise City', which serves as a secondary headquarters and a recruitment centre.
Goals: Protection of the Imperium, subjugation and 'racial purification' of Tephrike. And naturally advance their own interests. Stormtroopers who prove their courage, fanaticism and zeal are entitled to land grants, for they are meant to serve as a caste of warrior yeomen.
Reputation: The Vaderites' state-controlled media depicts the Stormtroopers as valiant heroes of mankind, fighting the 'degenerate, the mutant, the unclean and the Jedi'. They are lionised by the newspapers and the radio. Stormtroopers marching in lockstep are a common sight during parades at Humanist Party rallies in Adlerberg. Schoolboys grow up on stories about heroic Stormtroopers saving the day.
Relations between the Stormtroopers and the Humanist Protection Army, the regular army of the Imperium are strained. Many HPA officers look down on their Stormtrooper peers, whom they regard as less well-educated, arrogant and thuggish. One officer derided them as a mob suitable only for 'plundering the dead, killing the wounded and running from the living'. Both sides compete for resources and have a habit of poaching recruits. Sometimes they have come to blows - literally. However, their rivalry is more about influence than morals for there is little difference between both on that front. Both further the agenda of a criminal, irredeemably evil regime, have committed appalling crimes and are led by repugnant people. HPA members like to grumble about the Stormtroopers always receiving the best equipment, but this is an exaggeration. Indeed, many Stormtrooper units are equipped with outdated or captured weapons.
The Stormtroopers are universally despised by non-humans, the Republican Guard, the Dominion of Light, the Unchained and the Inheritors of the Light Father. Their cruelty and their pivotal role in the Vaderites' murderous policies make them feared and hated. Republican Guard partisans and Dominion soldiers will often shoot captured Stormtroopers out of hand. There have even been cases Republican Guard partisans and Dominion troops who happened to end up in the same area as Stormtroopers temporarily put their antagonism aside to kill Stormtroopers - only to go back to fighting each other right afterwards. This is especially the case if both the partisans and the Dominion troops have a large number of Twi'leks, Togruta or Mon Calamari in them.
COMPOSITION INFORMATION
Army Size: Medium.
Composition: This is a sample of its most relevant units to provide a general overview. It is worth noting that while many units are theoretically division-sized, in practical terms many are below regulation strength. Moreover, like many groups, the KEC likes to embellish its numbers to make it look more powerful and threatening than it actually is. Apart from that, Tephriki as a whole are fond of bombastic names. Like their forebears, the Stormtroopers use infantry as well as mechanised forces with access to speeders, artillery and armoured fighting vehicles such as armoured personnel carriers, main battle tanks and walkers.
Wheeled and treaded vehicles are more common on Tephrike than repulsortanks. The Stormtroopers have access to unmanned, remotely piloted drones, and gunships, but neither spacecraft nor an air force of note. Tephrike is a remote, backwater planet that has been isolated for many centuries. As a result, the weapons and vehicles fielded by the Stormtroopers are very old by galactic standard, dating back to the Galactic Civil War, the Clone Wars or even further back. Both slugthrowers and blasters are used, but the former are more common, especially when operating in a forest environment, since they are more durable. The Stormtroopers depict themselves as a fully motorised, armoured juggernaut. This is, however, not quite correct. Like the Human Protection Army, the Stormtroopers have also been forced to make use of horses and other beasts of burden for logistics purposes to transport artillery, ammunition, materiel and so on. They do have fully motorised units though.
KEC Armoured Division 'Darth Vader' - one of the oldest and most well-known combat units of the KEC. Founded by a former Free Corps sergeant, the original cadre served as a bodyguard unit for the Supreme Leader. Traditionally, the honour guard for providing security at the Supreme Leader's residences, his public appearances and during Party rallies in Adlerberg is drawn from this unit.
But its role is not solely ceremonial. The division has been at the forefront of many Vaderite campaigns. It has acquired a somewhat embellished reputation as the Imperium's fire brigade, and its soldiers' ability to turn the tide of battle has been elevated to near-mythical dimensions. Nonetheless, it is a skilled formation with several battlefield successes to its name. Less publicised is the fact that its soldiers are guilty of committing numerous atrocities and war crimes, including massacring prisoners of war. Other Stormtrooper units resent the fact that the Darth Vader Division often receives new equipment before they do.
Several soldiers of this unit have been cybernetically augmented to bring them closer to its namesake. Officers of the unit have a reputation for arrogance and being eager to challenge people to a duel for real or imagined slights. However, the soldiers of the Darth Vader Division opposed Eisen during the Vaderite Civil War, swearing fealty to Lord Achilles, the psychopathic boy-king and son of the dead Supreme Leader Furcht. They gave up the fight after Achilles' death. Eisen 'magnaminously' pardoned them, but the new Supreme Leader has relieved them of their bodyguard unities. He prefers to entrust his personal security to a praetorian guard unit formed from veterans of the Skyhammer Fleet's ground forces.
KEC Armoured Division 'Cerberus' - a unit drawn from the ranks of the Cerberus Corps, which comprises the concentration camp guards of the KEC. With some exceptions, most soldiers in this formation are former camp guards. It is by no means unique in this regard. Formally, the Cerberus Corps is part of the Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers who have been injured in the field are often assigned to the camp guards, while veteran camp guards are recruited into the Stormtroopers. Founded by Theodore Eliades, first commandant of Camp Progress and the father of the KEC's network of forced labour and concentration camps, Cerberus is known for its brutality, and fanatical dedication to Humanist racial ideology.
Eliades took personal command of the unit because he thirsted for glory, even though he lacked the experience and training to be suitable for command as a general officer. Their zeal makes them fearless in battle, but it also represents a handicap, as their ardent belief in their inherent racial supremacy over their 'xenos' foes often results in unnecessarily high casualties compared to other units. Cerberus is quite picky when it comes to recruitment, rejecting candidates when there is the slightest doubt of their racial purity. Even now the unit prefers to recruit soldiers who have 'proved their manliness' in the camps.
KEC Mechanised Infantry Division 'Kylo Vader' - a unit set up as part of a deal between the leadership of the Youth Corps of the Noble Vader and the KEC. The formation is special because the majority of the junior enlisted men have been recruited from the Youth Corps, which is the youth movement of the Humanist People's Party. The senior NCOs and officers come from other KEC units. The officers are disproportionately young. Indeed, its commanding general is in his early thirties and notorious for leading from the front, which often means his staff has trouble reaching him. Officers chosen for their fanaticism, brutality and political loyalty. A combination of inexperience and ideology being prioritised over doctrine has led to heavy casualties. Rather than bemoan the loss of life, their patron in the Party treats it as a badge of honour, for it shows the young soldiers' devotion to Humanism.
Volunteer Infantry Division of the KEC 'Ebon Claw Vanguard' - officially, all Stormtroopers are 'supermen' of unimpeachable genetic lineage created through selective breeding. Pseudo-scientific nonsense aside, like many military forces that aspire to be 'elite', the KEC has run into problems since being a 'small, elite group' is not sufficient for its ambitions. The meat grinder is always hungry. Attrition has required the Stormtroopers to...lower their standards, and accept recruits they would otherwise scorn.
Most hail from a border land called Cythera, which lies on the frontier with the Dominion and used to be one of their vassals. The Vaderites spun lies about how the 'poor humans' were 'under the yoke' of xenos tyranny. For generations humans had lived alongside non-humans, so the 'purity' of the gene pool was in question. The Vaderites were angered when there were humans who fought them and the conquest proved more difficult than expected. Local Humanist party bosses mustered the Vanguard to show the people's 'gratitude' to their 'saviours'.
Many were drafted from refugee camps administered by the KEC. There are even clones. Purists complain that the 'Vanguard' might be tainted by secretly having a little xenos blood in their veins due to their origins in 'xenos land'. Indeed, some may be near-humans, though recruits with obvious 'alien features' would not be accepted. For this reason, the Volunteers are not allowed to wear the traditional KEC emblem, but instead have their own. The party line is that they are still fighting for the triumph of mankind and will prove their purity through a sacrifice of blood. They are usually given unglamorous tasks such as garrison duty, scouting and forlorn hope charges.
KEC Police Division 'Fist of Order' - composed of soldiers drafted from the Order Police, the uniformed police force of the Imperium. Officially, the recruits are still policemen and the normal physical and genealogical requirements set by the KEC have been waived. However, the formation is administered by Stormtrooper Command, not the Order Police, even though the soldiers are still police officers. Many aren't even Party members, though they are still subject to ideological education.
Ironically, several of the recruits joined the police's armed reserve units because it was supposed to exempt them from conscription. The police soldiers have largely been equipped with captured weapons and are normally used for 'internal security' and 'pacification' in rear echelon areas, where they have committed massacres. For example, in retaliation for a Republican Guard attack on a convoy the police soldiers encircled a Cathar village, then for more than two hours went from door to door and murdered civilians. More than two hundred men, women and children were murdered.
Special Commando Tantalidis - a truly horrible collection of scumbags commanded by an incredibly horrible man. Originally it as formed from the ranks of poachers on the assumption that their skill as hunters would translate it into being good at anti-partisan warfare. It has since expanded its ranks to include all manners of convicted criminals, including murderers, arsonists and even the criminally insane.
The 'Special Commando' is essentially a cult of personality centred on its titular leader, whose commander provides his men with the chance to commit crimes on such a scale that they have even aroused complaints in an organisation for whom war crimes are a modus operandi. They are a terrifying rabble. Indeed, a KEC court has even tried to investigate the unit for its crimes. During one 'anti-bandit operation', the 'Black Hunters' supposedly killed fifteen thousand 'terrorists and bandits', but only lost ninety-two men. Many of them died due to friendly fire and alcoholic accidents. The majority - and possibly all - of their victims were unarmed civilians. Torture and murder is fun for them.
Some Disciples have romanticised the Special Commando, proclaiming it represent the idea of the pure Tephriki man who resists the tyranny of the law, embodying the principle that life is eternal struggle and the only currency is power. Corruption, looting and indiscriminate slaughter is the norm for Battlegroup Tantalidis. The unit is generally deployed well away from the Imperial heartland, in border areas, alien 'reservations', ghettos and so on.
KEC Assault Corps 'Traitors Bane' - not all Stormtrooper swore allegiance to Supreme Leader Darth Eisen. His rival Achilles, son of former Supreme Leader Furcht, is dead, but Erlösung still opposes his claim. Even by the standards of the Vaderites, Erlösung is an extremist. He advocates slavery for poor humans as well as aliens. Power, he says, is the only currency among the Sith. A moneyless society is the true dominion of the dark side. A Sith takes what he needs from those who are not Sith. Those with strength reward with honour those who serve them faithfully. Traitor's Bane is composed of Stormtroopers that have thrown in their lot with Erlösung, rejecting Eisen as a corrupt usurper who collaborated with the 'Starspawn' to stab the True Imperium in the back. In typical Tephriki style, the unit has been bombastically named, because it is a good deal smaller than 'corps' would suggest. Traitor's Bane has a higher proportion of Force users than is typical for a Stormtrooper unit.
The Non-Force-Using troops have been subjected to a high degree of indoctrination, including mental conditioning. The Stormtroopers have embraced an ideology called Post-State Humanism. Their guiding principle is Social Darwinism taken to the logical extreme: If a man cannot physically defend his position, he is undeserving of it. The 'master race' can only strengthen itself by subjecting itself to the brutal conditions that exist in nature. Traitor's Bane has adopted an absurd breeding programme. They choose partners determined by extensive genetic and genealogical tests and have them 'mate' at specific 'scientific' times. The children will be raised by the KEC because they belong to the community. One officer suggested solving manpower problems by resorting to cloning using Dominion tech from the black market, but he was purged for wanting to 'sully the human race'.
KEC Mechanised Infantry Division 'Humanity's Blade' - a veteran unit of heavily motorised troops mainly recruited from human settlers on Chios. This island used to be primarily populated by Gungans, Nautolans and Togruta until Darth Lachesis orchestrated their extermination. Today, it is a colony for KEC 'warrior farmers'. Humanity's Blade is fiercely loyal to Lachesis. She is a genocidal Humanist zealot, but pragmatic as a battlefield commander instead of someone who'd waste their lives needlessly. She is also one of the greatest butchers in the Vaderite's upper echelons. Humanity's Blade takes the Stormtroopers social egalitarianism a step further than most because Sith who serve in the unit are to be addressed by their rank rather than the customary 'lord'. They are also expected to earn the respect of the 'mundane' soldiers and serve alongside them. This is unorthodox, but has done wonders for unit cohesion and combat performance. Some veteran soldiers have been enhanced with cybernetic augmentations to overcome injury and maimings.
KEC Cavalry Brigade 'Iron Dragoons' - mass cavalry charges are hopelessly outdated, but cavalry has a practical purpose on Tephrike. Orbak mounts and other horses can go where vehicles cannot, can forage and don't consume fuel. The brigade is a mixture of classical cavalry, and motorised elements that use landspeeders and speeder bikes. Light artillery, signals and engineering units are attached to it. Commanded by the corrupt gloryhound Thanassis Frangiadis, the KEC Cavalry has often performed rear security duties. In that role, it has become notorious for massacring civilians, actively participating in the Vaderites' genocidal campaign on Chios. There it played an important role in the transition from selective mass murder to the complete extermination of the native population to 'make room for' human settlers. It performed poorly when deployed in frontline combat against Dominion armoured units, since those could actually fight back.
MEMBERS
Darth Lachesis (NPC) - Her birth name is Isidora Manatos. Holds the rank of Lord Commander. Lachesis is one of the few women in the senior leadership of the KEC - and particularly feared. She was born into an impoverished junker family with little prestige. Her family bears an old colonial shame. Her uncle Mihalis led a unit of auxiliaries and soldiers that were lured into a trap by Cathar partisans and wiped out. A sixteen-year old boy speared Mihalis to death. Lachesis has done her best to extirpate this disgrace. She was its first Force-Sensitives produced by her family for generations. This earned her a spot in the Sith academy, where she got a reputation for deceit. Upon graduation, she was put in charge of managing the estates of a more successful branch of the sprawling clan. When alien slaves rebelled, she brutally crushed the uprising.
So vicious was her suppression that it unnerved her clan, but it gained the attention of the KEC's stormtrooper corps. Joining their ranks, she became a daring and popular commander. After helping her cousin Darth Hyperion seize power, she spearheaded the extermination of the alien population of Chios, her home island. In their place, she settled discharged veterans and poor humans. To them this genocidal butcher is 'Auntie Lachesis', and they have built a cult of personality around her. She favours natives of her home and is effectively a general and a governor on the move. Lachesis is a Humanist fanatic, but not afraid to disobey illogical orders. When Hyperion ordered her to hold a city at all cost against a Dominion army, she recognised this was a futile waste of human lives personally led a breakout.
Lachesis has allied herself with Eisen, though she views him as a corrupt sloth. But one Supreme Leader was better than chaos. She finds the Imperium stagnant and has cultivated a following among the regime's war hawks and social populists. A cadre of young KEC officers, Disciples and blood and soil ideologues hopes to ride on her coat tails to attain power. Lachesis is an exponent of total war, security actions, large-scale resettlement programmes and mass killings. Unlike many Disciples, she does not look down on Non-Force-Users, provided they are loyal, capable and 'racially pure'. She is positioning herself to eventually take over, either directly or through a puppet.
Anastasius Mexates (NPC) - A Knight Commander in the Stormtroopers and the commanding general of the elite Humanity's Blade division. He serves under Darth Lachesis, organising and leading the division for her. He is popularly known as Ironfist Mexates for the powerful prothesis he had his maimed right hand replaced with after killing a Jedi Master in battle or so the legend goes. In reality he was assisted by a a group of his soldiers and some now dead apprentices but still. The tall, bearded 'scholar-general' is a fervent believer in the Sith cause and a deeply spiritual man. He is liable to quote passages of Glorious Conflict both in dispatches and in battle. His catchphrase is: "The only good xenos is a dead xenos, unless it's a dying xenos who can tell you where his friends are." Behind the scenes and propaganda though he is considered stubborn, unlikable, hard to work with, elitist and socially awkward. Moreover, he is a bit of an eccentric hypochondriac obsessed with bizarre physical ailments.
This is the reason why, despite the clamouring of the papers, he has not been promoted higher. It has been judged that he is a good general of division size and probably not fit for higher command. His views of Lachesis is complicated. On the one hand he is from Chios and believes in her righteous mission and the glory of the Sith. On the other he is unhappy to be put under the command of a woman, though he keeps it to himself. He feels it emasculates himself and his men to be under the command of 'female energy', no matter her skills and successes. This only confirms with exception rather than exclusion of the belief he has about women. Mexates is married, but does not take a lot of interest in his wife. Lachesis is well aware of his opinion and likes to mock his sexism, but finds him competent. Not only is he meticulous in enforcing discipline, he has an intuitive grasp for understanding her goals. Thus he does not require micromanagement.
Orestis Barboulis (NPC) - a close friend and patron of Tantalidis. Both served in the same foxholes together. Barboulis was wounded several times and considered seventy percent disabled by the time he was discharged from combat service. Today Barboulis commands from the desk at headquarters. There, he is responsible for recruitment into the Stormtroopers. Detractors have accused him of accepting large numbers of recruits who fall short of the order's ideals of blood purity, creating volunteer legions from human refugees and even near-humans of dubious ancestry. In spite of – or perhaps because of – this he's also credited with rebuilding the Stormtrooper Corps after the turmoil of the Vaderite Civil War and the Netherworld War.
Described as blustery, pompous, racist and cynical, he is a shrewd bureaucratic manipulator. In terms of character, he is full of genial loquacity and racy humour. Barboulis is regarded with a mixture of fear and loathing by many of his colleagues. He has consistently protected Tantalidis from criminal investigation, and was responsible for his friend getting a command in the first place. Barboulis would like a field command because working from behind a desk is not very martial, but he is perfect where he is as a recruiter, organiser and logistician. His ability to manage complex supply chains is especially important since Vaderite logistics are terrible and corruption is endemic.
Angelos Kellalis: (NPC) Kellalis is essentially living in a fantasy world. He imagines himself as a knight in shining armour who is destined to slay the dragon and receive the gratitude of blushing maidens. It doesn't matter how many men, women and children he has to kill to get his holy grail. He came to the attention of Grand Commander Furcht during a Party rally. The boss took a liking to him due to his athletic appearance, pure human ancestry and confidence. After completing a tour of duty, he became an adjutant for the Grand Commander. In that capacity, he served as a conduit between the Grand Commander and his minions, which gave him extensive knowledge of the KEC's crimes. He and his boss witnessed public executions of alleged 'terrorists' and toured concentration camps. His job was project management - making sure targets were being met, conducting field and camp inspections, doing surveys and assessment and time and motion studies.
When the liquidation of a ghetto resulted in transport bottlenecks, he personally contacted the deputy minister of transport to keep the death trains moving. Later he received a combat command. His unit acquired the nickname 'Blowtorch Battalion'. He has been responsible for wiping out entire villages, slaughtering men, women and children without pity. His record in the field and the personal connections he had cultivated at headquarters turned him into a Vaderite celebrity. But beneath this idealised image as a dashing tank commander, he is a pitiless glory-hound indifferent to casualties. Kellalis admired Furcht and was angered by his death. He suspects that Eisen collaborated with the 'Starspawn', and thus despises the new Supreme Leader.
Vyrnnus Kystaran (NPC) - before the Vaderite takeover, Kystaran was a minor government official in the Cythera Peninsula, a border area and Dominion vassal state. He attempted to seize power in the early hours of the Vaderite invasion. Seizing a radio stadio, he proclaimed the formation of a new government with himself as minister-president and urged human Cytherans to welcome the invaders as liberators and 'break the shackles of xenos tyranny'. Some of the police force obeyed the order to stand down, but fighting continued. As a result of his actions, many came to believe that his attempted seizure of power as puppet leader had been part of the Vaderite plan all along. He had naively hoped that the Vaderites would grant Cythera cultural and political autonomy. Instead, the new rulers filled key government posts with Vaderite officials from the Imperial heartland.
Kystaran was granted the ceremonial title of 'Father of the Cytherans' as a sop, but quarelled with the Vaderite governor, who forced him to go on a 'leave of absence on the account of ill health'. Kystaran ingratiated himself with KEC leaders, and lobbied for the creation of a native 'volunteer corps' to show his people's gratitude to the benevolent Imperium. The best way to accomplish this was through mass murder. Kystaran is power-hungry, but servile and insecure. He strongly believes in human racial supremacy, though he doesn't share the Vaderites' bigotry towards clones. To legitimise himself, he has supported 'archaeological digs' that aim to 'prove' that far from being a 'xenos-infested' backwater, Cythera was actually a locus of human civilisation on Tephrike and a holy place for priestes who worshipped the gods of the primordial human civilisation that once ruled the galaxy.
Loukas Tantalidis (NPC) - A monster even by the standards of a thoroughly monstrous organisation. A notorious war criminal, few can compete with him in cruelty. Tantalidis is a life-long soldier and far-right terrorist who has been decorated for bravery in the field and is notorious for his sadistic cruelty. Ironically, he spent some time in a concentration camp after being convicted of various crimes, but he had powerful patrons, who pulled strings to get him released and given a command. Some Vaderite leaders romanticise Tantalidis as a 'pure, primitive man' who embodies the 'sacred principle that the right is with the strong'. In truth, he is a lecherous, psychopathic killer who revels in violence. His leadership of his men is characterised by continued alcohol and substance abuse, looting, sadistic atrocities and murder.
He has repeatedly pillaged ghettos, demanding ransoms from the impoverished and malnourished population. He routinely uses captured civilians as human shields and forces them to clear minefields...by walking over the mines. His preferred method for 'anti-partisan warfare' is to herd the civilian population of a 'terrorist' nest inside a barn, set the barn on fire, and then shoot with machine guns anyone who tries to escape. During the suppression of a Twi'lek uprising, he burnt three hospitals with the patients inside, whipped and hanged the nurses along with the doctors, while playing a popular drinking song.
Thanassis Frangiadis (NPC) - A cavalry commander and opportunist obsessed with obtaining medals, wealth and martial glory. Outside of the KEC he has the attitude of a wealthy socialite. He made himself a name fighting 'partisans' in the swamps of Chios. Most were just Gungan, Nautolan or Togruta civilians. Sometimes when he was bored, Frangiadis simply mounted his favourite horse, galloped across the countryside and shot alien civilians he happened to come across. Apart from being a mass murderer, Frangiadis has a reputation as a playboy. Despite his disreputable character, he is popular with the ladies for some reason. Frangiadis is very passionate about horse riding and has successfully competed in equestrian events. He can be charming and is an entertaining storyteller. He married the sister of Supreme Leader Hyperion's mistress in order to ingratiate himself with the boss. This didn't stop him from cheating on her. His ability to ingratiate himself with his bosses has assured rapid promotion.
But he lacks formal training as an officer and repeatedly overstates the combat readiness of his troops and exaggerates their accomplishments because he wants to advance his career. His faulty assessment of his soldiers' readiness has caused them to be deployed in battles they are not ready for. A source for his significant personal wealth has been stealing valuables such as jewellery, gold watches, and art his unit confiscated on the front by the truckload. Early in his career, he secretly had an affair with a female Togruta, but murdered her to keep it secret. The KEC and Police Court has investigated him for black market activities and embezzlement, but the investigation was halted due to pressure from his patrons.
Stefanos Samarallis (NPC) - a physician and Surgeon General of the Stormtroopers. This position makes him responsible for all medical concerns in the corps. However, his remit goes beyond managing the Stormtroopers' health service system, for he is dual-hatted as Chief Apotheracy of the KEC as a whole and vice president of the Union of the Silver Star, which purports to be a humanitarian aid organisation. He has a medical doctorate and a doctorate of natural sciences. Samarallis has supported Vaderite programmes to 'eradicate deviant behaviour' and 'curing' humans who were in a relationship with non-humans by running experiments on them in special camps.
He authorised the intentional exposure of poor Chios natives to a plague to observe its effects while it was untreated. The test subjects were not told the nature of the experiment. All parties in the KEC - or the medical community in general - who want access to inmates held in the order's camps in order to run tests on them must apply to him for a permit. Samarallis sees no contradiction between his duties as a physician and his active participation in murder. The Humanists' racial ideology enables him to regard both as complementary. Life that has been deemed 'inferior' is regarded by him as 'superfluous' and indeed as parasitical.
Darth Agamemnon (NPC) - His birth name is Leontias Tzimakes. A high ranking Lord Commander in the KEC of low origins and birth, and lets everyone know it too. He served as the mayor of a small town for a while, before he was forced to resign due to being blamed for the murder of a Party comrade who had spoken out against him. He claims that he was framed by jealous reactionaries who did not want a man of the people in power. Agamemnon was stripped of his party honours and sent to the frontlines. There he proved himself and his superiors recognised the value of this ruthless, energetic brawler. He rose to command his own force of stormtroopers.
He has no time for the refined manners of his peers, instead he endears himself to his soldiers with his profane swearing, unadorned uniform and relentless drive for perfection. While crude, he has a paternal attitude towards them. Essentially he doesn't care if the shoes of his soldiers are not polished if they obey orders instantly and ruthlessly. He claims to know every man under his command by name. This is probably an exaggeration, but he always seems to know it whenever he shows up to have a chat with common soldiers. He has also been responsible for massacres of prisoners of war.
He is flamboyant, aggressive and has a well-publicised image as a hard-driving frontline general. The press portrays him as a superman who has killed Jedi with his bare hands. Detractors call him arrogant, crude and publicity-obsessed. He has a strong desire to obtain martial glory and is not the least shy about it because in his view a good general should strive to inscribe his name and that of his troops in the history books. He has no time for "women, whiners and worriers". He feels that female Sith 'Lords' are an affront to his martial lineage and feels that they should be using their 'feeble bodies and skills' away from the front line. Naturally there is a simmering rivalry with Lachesis. Like her, Agamemnon is a powerful Force-User. He focuses mainly on powers that amplify his martial strength and combat prowess.
Moreover, he is convinced that he is the reincarnation of the legendary General Veers who crushed the rebel forces at Hoth. Fittingly, he likes to lead his men into battle commanding a tank or heavy walker. When a cabal of army officer had lost confidence in Hyperion's erratic, paranoid leadership after several defeats against the Dominion, a general who was flirting with the idea of a coup sounded Agamemnon out. He asked the KEC commander if he would stand with him even if his directives contradicted the Supreme Leader's. Agamemnon answered in the affirmative, leading the general to believe that the swashbuckler was on their side. However, when Agamemnon heard of the assassination attempt, he called it cowardly and treasonous.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
When the outbreak of the Gulag Virus sent Tephrike spiralling into chaos, the Jedi assumed a protective stance. The endemic strafe, the collapse of the rule of law and the massive death toll of the pandemic compelled them to take in an attempt to restore order. However, they were corrupted by their absolute power. Their government became a totalitarian theocracy, the Dominion of Light. One of the Jedi who served it was a man called Cade Seward. He fell sick while fighting rebels in the jungles. Supposedly he received a vision of Darth Vader. It was likely a fever dream. Regardles, he became convinced that he had a messianic destiny. He renamed himself Darth Malitia, though his enemies would dub him Darth Menace.
It says a lot about the state of Tephrike that he was able to amass legions of followers. Malitia did not invent human supremacist belief and magically seduce an unwilling populace. Tephrike had a history of racial tensions and the outbreak of the Gulag Virus had provided fodder for all manners of conspiracy theories. Even his claim that the pandemic had been engineered by a cabal of alien bankers was not new. But he was the first Humanist leader who had the means and the will to wage a total war of annihilation. The beginnings of the Knights of the Ebon Claw were humble. Initially, they were less a professional fighting force and more a group of terrorists, militias and thugs. A force of them served as the personal bodyguard of Malitia. They called themselves the Stormtroopers.
The Knights were fanatical fighters, kept 'order' in conquered settlements and cultivated a reputation for fearlessness in battle. However, discipline was low and their officers often mistook revolutionary elan for leadership, which led to a poor performance when fighting a serious foe on the battlefield. They also became infamous for conducting terrorist attacks as well as massacring and torturing alien civilians. The Knights ran several 'wild' concentration camps to detain supposed traitors and criminals. Conditions for the inmates were appalling, but commandants also used the camps to settle old scores with rivals within the movement. The first Grand Commander of the Knights and leader of the Stormtroopers was Xenophon Aratesis, a putschist, thug and career terrorist from Synorostad.
Prior to throwing in his lot with Malitia, he was the leader of the somewhat egotistically named Frikorps Aratesis, a terrorist militia. He formed a triumvirate with Tilemachos Remiadis and Venizelos Mavridis. Remiadis was a media 'influencer' and political commentator who hosted his own show to spread inflammatory far-right propaganda. Mavridis was a local politician associated with a network of far-right police officers who supported pogroms to 'bring back law and order, defend our rights against government overreach and rid us of the true plaguebearers in our midst'. Proclaiming that the 'galactic xenos Jedi' conspiracy and the 'liberal elites' were implementing a campaign of genocide against mankind, they declared the formation of the Tephriki Patriots' Movement. The coalition was unstable and riddled with factionalism. When Malitia came to him with an offer, Aratesis joined him.
The Sith could rally disenchanted human Jedi to the cause and serve as a figurehead, while Aratesis imagined himself as the generalissimo of an army of 'political soldiers'. Aratesis was charismatic and object of his own personality cult, but rash, impulsive and not much of a thinker. He liked to release videos and holopics of his Stormtroopers beheading 'blood traitors' and 'xenos'. He boasted of offering his foes 'free gunship rides' (execution via drop from gunship; a wasteful form of execution used on Windian sympathisers, liberals and leftist militias). By his own admission, he quite deliberately viewed everything from a militarist standpoint. He idolised the Old Empire, but had little time for Malitia's mystical Vader worship. Aratesis had talent as an organiser, but the Stormtroopers were less a disciplined army and more an amalgamation of disparate far-right militias, terrorists and human soldiers who had deserted from the Dominion or other rebel movements. Save for a couple prestige units, there was little standardisation of armour, weapons of equipment. Officers were encouraged to display martial elan and dash by leading from the front. There was a persistent rivalry between the Stormtroopers and the Vaderites' regular ground forces, the Humanist Protection Army. The latter had its origins in Territorial Army - a reserve formation organised on the state level - troops that had embraced far-right extremism as well as conscripts from a Vaderite style levee en masse. Both armies squabbled over access to manpower and equipment. HPA officers looked down on their less professional Stormtrooper colleagues. However, the regular army soon became an enthusiastic participant in war crimes.
To train a cohort of aggressive, indoctrinated soldiers, the Stormtroopers used child soldiers, often recruited from refugee camps administered by the KEC. Aratesis called them his kath hound cubs. Many of these poor souls had already been victims of air strikes, fighting in the streets, bombings or others forms of violence or lost family to the Plague. Public displays of violence had become a fact of life and they were indoctrinated to become desensitised to it. The KEC created orphanages to cluster suitable children together so that it could indoctrinate, control and recruit them. Many joined since the alternatives were crippling poverty and starvation. In the case of many, it was a choice between dying of hunger and inadequate medical care, or joining and gaining some security. Either be prey and die hungry in a warzone, or join us and get food, weapons, safety and a share of the loot became the standard recruitment pitch for the many militias and riven factions on Tephrike.
The Stormtroopers participated in the Palmyra campaign. Moreover, they took the lead in a uprising in Vortanstad, a major Tephriki industrial centre controlled by the Dominion. Aratesis had instigated it on his own initiative. By now Malitia had managed to push or marginalise most of the leading 'secularists', taking the Humanist movement in a cultist attempt. Aritesis' was trying to reclaim the revolution. The Stormtroopers and militants allied to them carried out savage pogroms against non-humans and alleged race traitors while battling Dominion troops in the streets. They hoped to take the city and be reinforced by the Vaderites' main army. However, the expected reinforcements never came, for the Vaderite army was beaten by the Dominion at Palmyra - at great cost. The former capital became Palmyra's Wail, a radioactively contaminated hellscape tainted by the dark side.
The Stormtroopers had sustained staggering losses. Even more died on the Arduous March, as the Vaderites called their retreat to imbue it with an aura of grandiosity. Malitia did not survive the March, for his acolytes concluded that he was too unstable to lead them. But even in death, his ramblings remained holy writ. He was more useful to them as a martyr than in life. Aritesis had fallen at Vortanstad. His place was taken by Aristides Apollyon, the son of a banker who had been swept up in the fervour at his university by the Vaderite uprising. He was fanatical about the cause, but cautious, pedantic and cunning where Aratesis was aggressive, flamboyant and brash. He initially served as Aratesis' aide and chief of staff, trying to interpret his commander's wild dictates. However, he endeared himself with the new Supreme Leaderby organising a successful defence after the initial KEC disaster and was the only real choice for promotion after his predecessor died.
Apollyon was not popular among the Stormtroopers. He called himself a soldier, but though he wore the uniform he'd never served in combat. Socially awkward and suffering from an emotional attachment disorder that made it difficult for him to form lasting relationships unless he was in a dominant or subservient role, he was distant, fussy and impassive. But he had many talents that allowed him to tower over the arrogant warlords and mercenaries who'd dominated the Stormtroopers. He had an incredible administrative skills, a cunning mind and a remarkable ability to form inter-party alliances.
To compensate for his own weaknesses, he strove for incredible self-control. Apollyon glorified soldiers and shaped the KEC as an elitist, racialist knightly order. He displayed incredible talent in subjugating the Stormtroopers to his will, using a mixture of threats, flattery and exemplary punishments to bring his rivals to heel. When internal disputes threatened to tear the Humanist movement apart, he smartly positioned the KEC as the one force that could bring order. They purged the Party of deviationists, established a network of concentration camps and became the vanguard of racial purification. At the same time, he crafted the KEC in his image, intervening extensively in the personal lives of his Knights. Nothing was too small or private to escape his notice, from child-rearing, marriage, private debt or alcohol consumption. His position was the apex of the personalisation of power. He didn't just see himself as a commander, but as the patriarch of a family. His reforms downsized the Stormtroopers as many of the old guard militants were removed, but left them a leaner, more effective fighting force. And then they began a campaign of expansion.
One Stormtrooper commander who lusted for martial glory was Lord Commander Theodore Eliades, the father of the modern KEC concentration camps. He decided to self-actualise by taking command of a combat division composed of camp guards called the Cerberus Division, and threw them into combat against the Dominion. He took great delight in having large casualty rates his troops sustained when they climbed out of their trenches and charged the enemy. In essence, he was destroying his own troops, which was contrary to the whole idea of having a small elite force. The butcher finally died when his aircraft was shot down by Dominion flak. The Vaderite's propaganda called him a hero of mankind. His body was buried with full military honours at a human military cemetery near a formerly Twi'lek village his soldiers had 'cleansed'. Dominion soldiers destroyed the Vaderite graves and bulldozed the bodies when they retook the village.
The Stormtroopers were at the forefront of the Vaderites' genocidal project, committing massacres against Yuuzhan Vong, Twi'leks, Mon Calamari and other 'racial undesirables'. Atrocities themselves served as an initiation into the group. Killing became a form of bonding, a path to initiation to build an esprit de corps. Stormtroopers were thus bonded in blood. They were at the forefront of a genocidal project against 'undesirables' - the alien, the physically or mentally disabled.
Apollyon promoted the policy of turning veteran Stormtroopers into warrior farmers who would receive land grants in the manner of a feudal warrior class, with aliens and other undesirables as serfs. This was supposed to birth an idealised, pre-modern utopia that the KEC's leaders believed primordial humans had lived in, for they disdained the urban sprawl as a soulless, alien moloch. Humanist Party newspapers proclaimed that the land was the life basis of a healthy race. In the Humanist world view, aliens could not efficiently farm the land and thus did not deserve to own it. The Stormtroopers were bold pioneers who would not only conquer the land, but cultivate and rule it. In doing so, they would become an 'authentic nobility'.
Inevitably, the Vaderites' genocidal project sowed hatred and spawned new foes. One such foe was the Republican Guard, a revolutionary vanguard movement that fought against the tyranny of Force-Users. Led by the charismatic Sinya Kairn, a Twi'lek clone who had deserted from the Dominion's clone army, they launched a series of offensives against the Vaderites, and allied with the Yuuzhan Vong the KEC had targeted for extermination. The Stormtroopers' response was savage. The campaign culminated in a battle at Synorostad. It ended with a Vaderite victory, but at a very high cost. The rebels could not beat the Vaderites in pitched combat, but they had proved tenacious opponents in jungle and urban guerrilla warfare.
Stormtrooper casualties were high, and Synorostad was left in ruins. Moreover, close to the end of the battle the Dominion air force bombed the city to weaken both parties. Even with the Guard beaten in conventional battle, the resistance did not die. Indeed, the fallen marshal was turned into a martyr, spurring on resistance. Moreover, the Dominion was hitting back. The Vaderite's bloated economy suffered under corruption. There were still enough people who remembered another time, leading to protests and domestic unrest. The Supreme Leader, uncertain of his position, shirked from further expansion. But this provoked a backlash from hardliners in the Party and the KEC. By then Apollyon was dead, having died in a plane crash under suspicious circumstances. The new Grand Commander was Darth Lykuros, born Heroides Phokas. He was even more radical than his dead mentor. Apollyon had seen life as a racial struggle that could only end in total victory or annihilation, but expected the final confrontation to happen far off in the future. By contrast, Lykurgos was an accelerationist.
He promoted the idea that an all-out nuclear war was not only winnable, but desirable to build a purer world upon the ashes of the old. To shut him up, Lykorgos got his own fief in a notoriously difficut region, to be ruled as he saw fit. The assumption was that he would be too busy stamping out 'degenercy' to get up to any mischief. A refugee who managed to escape to the partisans described Lykorgos' fief as a nation-sized concentration camp. However, the Imperial government realised that he had not abandoned his plans. Indeed, he had mobilised countless forced labourers to build a bunker complex that would shelter the 'pure' while the rest of Tephrike burnt. At the same time, his agents were carrying out plots to increase tensions within and without the Imperium to push Tephrike closer to cataclysm.
Thus he was set up to be assassinated by Jedi Shadows. Lykorgos' dysfunctional state collapsed upon itself, as the native auxiliaries rebelled and rival KEC commanders fought against each other and alien rebels, whereupon the Vaderite regime deployed Humanist Protection Army units to 'restore order'. Following this episode, there was an unofficial rule that the Grand Commander could not be a Sith Lord of Darth rank. This rule remained in place for many decades. The Stormtrooper Corps was reduced in size to keep it from being turned into a tool that could threaten the regime, but it eventually recovered a lot of its influence.
When Darth Hyperion came to power as Supree Leader, he did so with the support of his distant cousin Isidora Manatos, the future Darth Lachesis. The stormtrooper general had made herself a name winning several daring victories against the Dominion, as well as for being a cruel zealot. She brought tanks to Skywalker House to help the regime's grandees pick the next Supreme Leader, who happened to be Hyperion. It was Lachesis who led the 'cleansing' of Chios, exterminating or deporting the alien population to 'make room' for military veterans and low class humans. This was an euphemism for genocidal mass murder, as their master spearheaded a campaign to 'clear' the 'xenos reservations' and ghettos.
A Togruta town called Gorkana, whose people had cooperated with the Vaderites before rebelling due to cruel treatment, was levelled and turned into a massive extermination facility called Camp Freedom. Lachesis' personal division, Humanity's, Blade often carried out mass shootings of innocent civilians and was deployed to hunt down 'partisans' in the forests. As part of one operation, the stormtroopers created a 40-km-wide 'dead zone' - a no man's land where any 'xenos' was to be shot as a 'partisan'. Around this time the division acquired its true form. One of the Stormtrooper units that 'distinguished' itself was the KEC Cavalry Brigade. Stormtrooper and police generals stood in competition with each other as to their 'scores'. Veterans were encouraged to settle on Chios with their families, taking over the homesteads and farms of aliens who had been deported or murdered outright. This 'General Settlemen Plan' was supposed to implement an agrarian, racial 'utopia' of farm and model villages interspersed with KEC outposts and tourist resorts. Camp Freedom was eventually dismantled and a settlement for KEC veterans called Sentinel's Rest was built upon the ashes of the innocent. 'Remember Chios' became a rallying cry for foes of the Vaderites.
Humanity's Blade was deployed back to the front to fight the Dominion. After notable successes, the Vaderites had been humiliated when a major air offensive ended in defeat. Cooperating with other units that constituted Lachesis' corps command, Humanity's Blade managed to take a strategically important city called Chazowa with her tank corps, after managing to outflank the enemy. House-to-house fighting was very fierce. However, then the situation turned critical because a Dominion counter-offensive threatened cut them off. The Dominion sought to envelope the city, with the ultimate objective of pinning the Vaderite troops against the sea. Hyperion ordered that the city be held at all costs.
However, Lachesis feared her troops being encircled and cut off. She had no qualms about butchering the 'impure' and 'undesirables' without mercy, but saw little purpose in pointlessly sacrificing 'pure' human blood. Air support and airdrops that had been promised did not materialise due to a combination of a lack of transport capabilities, hazardous weather conditions and Dominion airpower. Supplies of food, ammunition etc. were running low. Lachesis ate the same rations as the common soldiers. Indeed, sometimes she went without sustenance entirely, using the Force to sustain herself.
Lachesis contacted army group command to ask to evacuate. However, the marshal backed up Hyperion, before finally giving Lachesis a noncommittal response that passed the buck to her, but gave no guarantees that they would receive support during a breakout. So Lachesis ordered the breakout herself, defying the Leader. There was a heavy fog and the Dominion was shelling the streets. But Lachesis used her powers to guide lost soldiers to safety. Dominion troops kept harassing the Vaderites until they reached friendly lines. Lachesis took charge of the rearguard during the fighting retreat. Her actions made her very popular among her troops. The Supreme Leader was furious.
The Vaderite army group was eventually able to inflict a defeat upon the overextended Dominion troops by luring them into a trap. Though under orders to bypass Chazowa, the desire for vindication proved too strong for Lachesis and she took the city. Her troops took the city after savage house-to-house fighting, at the cost of high casualties. However, the subsequent Operation Citadel, which led to one of the largest tank battles in Tephriki history, ended in a Dominion victory. As the war ground on and losses mounted, a group of disgruntled HPA officers tried to assassinate Hyperion. However, the Leader survived the attempt on his life. It made him even more paranoid. The KEC's intelligence service had failed to anticipate the coup - or perhaps allowed it to happen. In any event, it played a prominent role in its suppression. The conspirators were hung on piano wires. The executions were filmed for the Leader's personal enjoyment.
But the Stormtroopers were struggling. They were supposed to be the Leader's fire brigade, but suffered from overreach and a failure to internalise military training and experience. There was a strong overdependence on trusted people to overperform. Moreover, the waste of human material was massive, especially among NCOs. The mass killings the Stormtroopers routinely indulged in heightened bloodlust, but reduced combat efficiency. As casualties mounted, the Stormtroopers were forced to draft recruits that under normal circumstances would have been considered unacceptable to the 'elite' knightly order. Auxiliary units such as the Ebon Claw Vanguard were deployed to the front. They even started mustering alien auxiliary units, though these were not considered members of the KEC and treated cruelly.
The disruption caused by the Netherworld Event brought a faction of Light Sith, who promised freedom to the slaves, to power. Some KEC auxiliaries deserted to the rebels, who promised them better treatment. Some HPA and Stormtrooper units fired on each other. Lachesis and her followers fought against these 'heretics', allying themselves with a group of hardliners led by KEC Grand Commander Darth Furcht after the reformed Vaderites became embroiled in a costly war against the Dominion. Humanity's Blade took a leading role in the 'cleansing' of the Prosperity Quarter ghetto. There the oppressed had managed to break their chains, taking over parts of nearby Adlerberg. The division faced several days of brutal house-to-house fighting. The rebels knew what gruesome fate awaited them if they fell into enemy hands, and there was no external support forthcoming, save from a few Republican Guard cells, so many fought to the last in order to buy their people time to flee.
The stormtroopers sustained heavy casualties during the fierce urban combat, and they levelled a large portion of the city. Eventually they were able to overcome the heroic resistance. Special Commando Tantalidis became so notorious for its pointless, savage sadism that even some KEC commanders were disgusted. The wanton murder of men, women and children only stopped because more 'pragmatic' minds realised that they would otherwise run out of slaves. Prosperity Quarter was rebuilt as a ghetto, but the flame of rebellion was not so easily extinquished. KEC commander Leontias Tzimakes led a 'pacification' campaign where they were brought in for 'anti-terrorist' work in a newly conquered region. However, they were attacked by Republican Guard miltias and partisans and had to hold out in a siege. They did, supplied with actual efficiency by the air and were relieved after a long siege. Again heavy casualties, but a big win. However, it is worth noting that it was over confidence and underestimating the enemy which got them into the position and that despite inflicting more casualties the Vaderites retreated soon after. So aside from propaganda it was not a 'great triumph'.
The Vaderites' methods for combating partisans were savage and counterproductive. In the process of annihilating their so-called political and biological enemies, often called bandits, the Vaderites made no effort to distinguish between real rebel fighters, political suspects, and 'dangerous xenos' like Twi'leks and Mon Calamari. Indeed, the murderous policies carried out by Vaderite institutions like the left the victims little choice. A Twi'lek knew that they would be worked to death in a forced labour camp or a reservation, or arrested in a random round-up and shot outright or sent to a concentration camp. And when the Vaderites declared an area to be bandit-infested, all who lived in it, whether involved with partisans or not, were treated as enemy combatants that only deserved to live if they could be exploited. The army and the KEC classified Twi'leks, Mon Calamari, Yuuzhan Vong and Bothans as partisans and thereby made them legitimate military targets. To retaliate against the killings of their own soldiers by partisans, they wiped out whole villages. Even children were not spared, save for those who could be exploited as forced labour or indoctrinated.
Many fugitives fleeing Vaderite terror were forced to coalesce in small groups in the wilderness, and could only survive by foraging and stealing. In short, the Vaderites created their own partisan problem through their barbaric policies. HPA and Stormtrooper units worked hand in hand. Anti-partisan units often slaughtered civilians to inflate the number of enemies they had supposedly killed. Indeed, the fatalities reported were usually higher than the number of weapons captured. Many partisan units were wiped out, but the Vaderites' savagery allowed them to replenish their numbers with civilians enraged by their homes being destroyed and their loved ones being massacred.
With one of their own installed as Supreme Leader, the Stormtroopers were able to bolster their much diminished manpower by taking control of the Home Army, which was supposed to provide replacement units for the regular army. They also took control of the army's procurement and production apparatus. But the transfer of several reserve units to the Stormtroopers undermined their esprit de corps. When Firemane bombed Castle Maysaf following the conclusion of its campaign against the Dominion, the Humanist State was thrown into turmoil. Furcht and most of his inner circle had perished in the bombardment, but Eisen had had the presence of mind to flee the moment it began. For such a large man, he was good at sneaking and an excellent illusionist. Furcht's son Achilles proclaimed himself the new Leader, denouncing Eisen as a traitor. The Grand Marshal and the Boy-King soon faced a third competitor when Darth Erlösung laid claim to the the throne. The Stormtroopers and the regular army were split.
The Darth Vader Division pledged itself to Achilless, but Humanity's Blade joined Eisen despite Lachesis' distaste for him. She later justified this decision by saying that one Leader, even though he was a gluttonous sybarite, was better than three. Retreating to one of his father's strongholds, Achilles ruled through terror, but his cruel and inept regime did not last. After crushing his rival, Eisen pardoned many of his supporters to show his magnanimity, but some were purged. The Darth Vader Division was stripped of its role as a royal bodyguard. The regular army regained control over armaments and the like. To keep anyone from turning the KEC into a power base that could challenge him, Eisen assumed the title of Grand Commander, which was a cause for resentment. Some Stormtrooper units continued to defy him, throwing in their lot with Erlösung. He formed the Traitor's Bane formation from their ranks.
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