Sic transit gloria mundi
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Sub some mooks.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Force-Sensitive combat engineers.
Permissions: ARGH tech available for Firemane per this thread. Permission for subs made by Laira Darkhold's writer here and here.
Links: Mechu-Deru, Shatterpoint, Kar'zun, Xioquo, Sullustan, Shard, Zabrak. Gand, Windian Jedi Order, Republican Guard, Disciples of the Vader, Tephrike, Wookiee, Atrisia, Atrisia Rebellion.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Livewire Squad. Official name is Order Engineer Squad 1.
Affiliation: Firemane Industries, House Kerrigan, Order of Fire.
Classification: Combat Engineers.
Description: Livewire Squad is a special unit of the Order of Fire, Firemane's Force-using branch. In contrast to the typical Jedi or Sith sect, the Order of Fire is an organisation run along distinctly military lines. Members are trained and expected to comport themselves as soldiers rather than mystics. The Force is a path to strength, honour, and victory, not a mystical journey. Within this context, the members of Livewire Squad apply their mystical abilities to perform the duties of combat engineers, for they are very talented in the use of mechu-deru, an exotic but formidable power. They do not use it to create technobeasts and similar monstrosities, but to interface with mechanical interfaces and the like and improve their skills as saboteurs and engineers. As an elite unit, they are well-paid, for their skills are quite rare. The squad does not accept fresh recruits who have not seen combat action. The squad has a commander who is of Lieutenant or Captain rank, a Warrant Officer and up to ten Sergeants. Its composition includes a Kar'zun, a Gand, a Sullustan, a Shard, a Zabrak, and a Xioquo.
The squad is commanded by Captain Alvo Taide, a human male veteran of more than twenty years. He started as a sixteen-year old grease monkey and is now a grizzled veteran. A female Kar'zun called Zam'karm supports him as Warrant Officer. She can be described as crusty, even for a Kar'zun. She is good with tech and favours grenades and demo charges in action. She has a talent for designing and utilising explosives to maximum effect against structures, vehicles, or people, and creating makeshift catastrophes. For a Kar'zun she is quite young, and mobile. Zircon, a Shard male, favours the flamethrower. He has a mathematical mind and is perfect for fortification design and planning and also anything which requires careful layout like minefields. Shards have no gender in the conventional sense, but he has decided to identify as such. He uses an HRD body to move about and communicate with people.
A Sullustan female named Nuo Ordun is often the co-pilot to the squad's Wookiee. She is an excellent gunner and specialises in engines. The Gand team member Taave specialises in arcanotech and Force tech. His heritage and training make him great at finding and repairing things. Kal-Ardur, a Zabrak male, specialises in repairing vehicles and bionics. He is the strong, silent type who comes across as stoic, though not antisocial. He has replaced his right arm with an energy arm and has a strong bond with his probe droid. Karrigan'Zilda, a Xioquo female, used to be a slave machinist who laboured in the Blood Forges until the fall of the ancien régime. She participated in a slave revolt that killed the overseers. She finds modern tech much better, not to mention safer, and specialises in weapon repairs and sabotage. She has taken the name of Siobhan Kerrigan, a practice not uncommon - but by no means universal - among former Xioquo slaves.
Kadmus, a Twi'lek male, is an exile from Tephrike and a career revolutionary with a talent for demolitions. He is a renegade from all factions on Tephrike as a Force-User. The Windian Jedi are too tyrannical, the Vaderites are genocidal human supremacists and the Republican Guard locks up Force-Users, so he has thrown in his lot with the space people. Trina Marn is the youngest of the squad and rather excitable. Her given name is Catrina, but she prefers her shortened nickname. She specialises in slicing and fixing droids. Ruucarra, a Wookiee male, is the team's pilot and specialises in repairing vehicles and aircraft, carrying on his people's proud tradition as talented mechanics.
Diari Vizla is a Mandalorian member of the crew. Grumpy and ill-tempered, she has joined the group because, in her own words, she had enough of bickering about the finer points of the Resol'nare or who was the true Mandalore. Diari is related to Rach Vizla, a Mandalorian warlord who achieved infamy by suicide bombing the 'Red Coronation'. She has yet to blow herself and a throne room to hell, but is otherwise doing a good job living up to his storied legacy. The last and most unusual member of the squad is a member of Yoda's species called Yerod. His dimunitive size makes him great at stealth. Ideal for clandestinely planting explosives.
On the battlefield, Livewire Squad performs in a support role. Commonly, it will work alongside regular combat engineers, but may also assist conventional infantry or special forces. Their skill in the use of explosive devices can allow them to, among other things, breach enemy fortifications or conversely prepare traps for enemy troops, such as mine fields or booby traps that rig buildings to collapse. They also excel at demolishing bridges, fuel depots and other important infrastructure. Naturally they can also build these things and erect fortifications.
Moreover, they are good at repairing vehicles. Their knack for technopathy enhances their speed and precision at identifying and solving problems with machines, vehicles. Their Force Senses abilities are very potent, and allow them to identify and exploit structural weak points. Indeed, they can use Shatterpoint. This significantly improves their ability to use explosives for maximum effect against structures, vehicles, bridges, people and so on even if their explosive devices are improvised. Livewire Squad commonly makes use of probe droids, using their talent for mechu-deru to interface with them. Some members of the squad possess an energy arm, a cybernetic replacement that can be used to break through force fields and discharge stored energy into a foe on contact, but this is not universal. While the Livewires do not create technobeasts or similar monstrosities, their understanding of mechu-deru can help them dismantle such constructs.
Their specialist training means that the unit is incredibly small, as it is only one squad. Moreover, Livewire Squad is composed of specialists, not generalists, so they lack many of the classical, hard-hitting powers more conventional Force-Users utilise. For example, no member of the squad will summon a powerful Force-based shield to tank volleys of blaster fire, chuck a boulder or summon bolts of lightning from their fingertips. Nor do they carry lightsabres.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Small
Unit Availability: Unique
Unit Experience: Elite.
Equipment: This is a list of stuff they have available to them. Needless to say they will not carry everything into battle. That would be very impractical, to put it mildly.
Armour:
Rifles:
- Gravitas Launcher
- DC-15S Blaster Carbine
- Reaper Plasma Shotgun
- KIIR-17 'Redeemer' Anti-Droid Rifle
- MkI Bolter
- Model MGL-1
- ACS-205 Blackblade Modular Rifle
- Cylix Bolt Pistol
- A280-CFE
- RSIC-11 "Suncrusher" Blaster Pistol
- CZ-H5 Shatterbeam Pistol
- Holdout Bolter
- SSK-5 Icon Blaster Pistol
- Shatter Pistol
- Vornskr Revolver
- Uproar Blaster
Misc:
- Misc. repair and construction tools. Hydrospanners, Emergency Repair Kit etc.
- Fusioncutter
- Fusion Lantern
- Diagnostic Link-Up
- J-7b Beamdrill
- Q Micro Turret
- APE Boltgun Ammunition
- Bodo Baas Gunbelt
- U20 Field Link
- Enlightenment Quantum Communicator Stage 2
- Downfall Device
Explosives:
- Sapper Charge
- Pyro Denton Explosive
- Thorium Charge
- Devastator Multi-Purpose Mine
- Grenades, Breaching Grenades.
- Thermal Imploder, Sonic Imploder
- Thermal Well
- Burrowing Detonator
- Ribbon Charge
Transports:
Cybernetics:
- Energy Arm (optional).
Their level of experience can allow them to supervise the construction of defences and infrastructure that is vital for a military campaign. Thus the squad may be deployed to oversee the work performed by a more conventional construction unit. They can also identify problems with vehicles, droids, starships or fortifications and repair them faster than normal engineers. Moreover, they are experts when fighting techno-organic, alchemised constructs such as technobeasts. In addition, mechu-deru can give them an advantage against tech-heavy opponents and droids.
While they receive specialised training, their work is still very dangerous. Battlefield and construction hazards can easily prematurely end their lives, which is why good coordination and teamwork are key. On their own, the Livewires cannot turn the tide in a battle, but they can make a significant contribution by working with regulars or special operations unit and paving the way for their success.
Strengths:
- Crack unit of combat engineers and sappers.
- In addition to the conventional skills of a combat engineer, they can use mechu-deru to integrate and manipulate machinery. Moreover, they are skilled in Force Sense abilities and Shatterpoint.
- They are a support unit, not frontline assault troops. They lack heavy integrated support such as armoured fighting vehicles, gunships etc. Moreover, the unit is very small since it is just one squad.
- Their Force abilities are strong, but they lack the classical Force powers of many combat-based Force-Users. For example, their defensive powers are negligible. The same applies to their telekinetic abilities. This can be disadvantageous when they have to engage in direct combat with hostile Force-Users.
The roots of Livewire Squad lie in Firemane's assault on the Underealm to conquer the Xioquo. Of course, previous battles would have demanded engineers as well, but the battle against the Xioquo highlighted the need for Force trained engineers to provide frontline assistance and also to uncover and deal with Force powered tech and traps along the way. While the Xioquo were technologically backward by galactic standards, they were tenacious fighters. Their subterranean capital was located beneath a mountain, and they were expert tunnellers, whose senses had become so attuned to the dark that they could do without fancy gadgets. Moreover, they were strong in the Force and utilised magitech. Though their resistance was broken and the slaveholding ancien régime overthrown, Xioquo insurgents continued to hold out in the deepest tunnels for many years.
As part of an after-action analysis, Firemane opted to create a specialised unit of combat engineers within the framework of the Order of Fire. Unlike the typical Jedi or Sith group, the Order of Fire was a military organisation. Its members were expected to act in accordance with a set of secular military laws, rather than a religious code. They were soldiers, not monks, vigilantes, space cops or sorcerous overlords. Livewire Squad saw serious combat action against Xioquo rebels in the most remote corners of the Underealm. Its enemies included die-hard Myrou zealots who tried once more to raise their dark goddess after she had fallen in battle, but also more conventional nationalists who regarded the new government as a puppet regime imposed by foreigners. It was a time of intense counter-insurgency warfare.
The squad was called upon to identify and dismantle traps and Force powered tech used by the rebels, as well as use their skill as sappers and to facilitate infiltration of rebel strongholds. Livewire Squad worked closely with the Investigative Reaction Unit, and the Xioquo government's nascent spy service. A Xioquo government spy managed to infiltrate a terrorist cell, and drive vehicle bombs to a safe place in Tlaxqui, allowing the Livewire Squad bomb disposal experts dismantle the bombs, and replace them with pyrotechnic devices. Then the infiltrator dropped the vehicles off at the target point, where they created a fake bombing, including agents posing as victims, and photos and fake security briefs sent to news organisations. The infiltrator was then picked up by insurgent agents, and returned with them, continuing her mission.
Moreover, the Livewires disarmed a magitech bomb insurgents had planted to blow up the Xioquo's provisional governing council during a meeting. They used their talents for sensing arcanotech and mechu-deru to find and disarm the explosive and prevent the calamity. However, over time the squad also became involved in hearts and minds campaign. Their talents could be used to construct fortifications and shelters to aid the civilian population as well as locate and safely remove unexploded ordnance.
In addition, they could teach cooperative Xio engineers how to utilise modern tech. This became more important after Firemane troops shifted to a support role per a status of force agreement with the Xioquo government. The Livewires were deployed on Atrisia during a clean-up operation when Firemane moved to secure what at the time was a dark side nexus as part of an Alliance police action against a Sith regime. Moreover, they spearheaded operations to disarm unexploded ordnance and other explosives in the at the time ruined capital. They also assisted with the construction of an outpost that would facilitate the occupation and reconstruction efforts. During campaigns in the Stygian Caldera the Livewires saw action against technobeasts after the release of a nanovirus resulted in a Firemane unit being infected.
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