Igni Irae
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on Tephrike.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Aquatic task force.
Permissions: N/A.
Links: Into Darkness, After Darkness, Tephrike, Dominion of Light, Disciples of the Vader, The Republican Guard is the Strongest, Fury from the Deep, Yuuzhan Vong, Mon Calamari Rangers.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Sea Beggars
Affiliation: Republican Guard, Popular Front, General Aruunzeb, Tephrike.
Classification: Water flotilla. Raiders.
Description: Control over the waterways is crucial for a planet filled with seas, oceans and rivers. This is something the riven factions of Tephrike have had to contend with. The Republican Guard, a secularist partisan movement that fights for the rights of Non-Force-Users and Force-Dead and fiercely opposes the Force cults, lacks the territory and industrial output of its rivals, the Jedi-led totalitarian theocracy called the Dominion of Light and the human supremacist Disciples of the Vader.
To a large degree, it must rely on asymmetrical warfare since it is not well-equipped for set-piece battles. However, the partisans have a strong support base among aquatic alien races such as the Mon Calamari and Nautolans. Aside from an extensive network of tunnels and underground bases, it also has many outposts underwater. The Sea Beggars are determined to make life as difficult as possible for the Dominion and the Vaderites - especially for their shipping.
Relying on fast, sleek submarines and other aquatic craft, they attack enemy naval warships, but have a special focus on commercial shipping. Thus they can enforce naval blockades and support Republican Guard operations. They also aid in reconnaissance and infiltration. To this end, they have access to compact submarines that can travel quickly and unobtrusively through the water, and transport small teams of partisans to their targets. Moreover, the Sea Beggars make use of aquatic fighters that can be used for aquatic assault and underwater patrol. The Beggars have been deployed on intelligence gathering missions to monitor enemy communications. In addition, minelaying in enemy waters is part of their mission portfolio.
The Republican Guard considers itself to be in a state of total war. In the struggle for freedom, there can be no compromise. The Sea Beggars are a small force, but they make up for it with training, skill and commitment. The Republican Guard cannot afford to build much of a surface fleet, so the Beggars are a good way to compensate. There are few neutral territories on Tephrike and the Beggars consider any shipping that is associated with or benefits the Vaderites and the Dominion free game. In effect, they practice unrestricted submarine warfare. They measure their success in how many enemy tons they have been able to sink per year. The war for dominance over the shattered world of Tephrike is a brutal one, and so the Beggars have at times slaughtered survivors of sunken ships without mercy.
The Republican Guard's propaganda machine gives the Sea Beggars' activities a romantic gloss. They are celebrated as daring sailors and pilots who keep Red Coral City and other underwater settlements safe from the enemies of freedom. A number of Beggars have been highly decorated. However, if captured they cannot expect mercy from the Dominion or the Vaderites, who consider them pirates. Indeed, captured Beggars have often been summarily executed. The Vaderites are fond of making examples of 'pirates' by publicly dragging them through the streets, then hanging them.
Typically, the Beggars hunt convoys in packs. These can vary in size, but are always small in number. Each pack is assigned a code name, typically chosen for historical or cultural reasons. Some are named after the skipper. The packs of Beggars will often operate away from home for an extended period of time. This has fostered a strong esprit de corps among the individual members of a pack. They often work closely with the Fury from the Deep, a special task force of frogmen founded by Republican Guard General Aruunzeb. The Beggars have a sense of humour and tend to privately refer to operations as begging tours or hunting trips. They draw inspiration from the ancient Mon Calamari Rangers and other aquatic freedom fighters who withstood Imperial tyranny.
Unsurprisingly, many of the Sea Beggars are Mon Calamari, Nautolans, Quarrens or Gungan. However, the task force is not limited to these races. As a result, one can also find Twi'leks, Humans or Yuuzhan Vong, to name a few. As with all Republican Guard formations, Force-Users are not allowed to join. The rebel movement prohibits Force use and views Force-Sensitives as cursed individuals who must be isolated for their own good and that of society.
A Quarren called Tsidal Nalak is a senior commander of the Beggars. She is a descendant of a revolutionary hero, though she privately says that her ancestor was a raider who just happened to be on the 'right side'. For her part, Tsidal is not really motivated by patriotism. Contrary to the myth-making, the line between pirate, mercenary, freedom fighter and terrorist is pretty narrow.
Tsidal is a deeply cynical woman and a hard drillmistress, though she feels care for the men and women under her command. She is not averse to doing some smuggling on the side. She finds the heroes' cult that has been built around the Beggars annoying and rarely wears her medals. She fought during the Netherworld War, where they hunted Dominion and Vaderite convoys. After braving a relentless storm, sea monsters and enemy destroyers, their heavily damaged submarine was able to ambush a convoy in a night time attack.
A tanker struck by their torpedoes was still afloat, so they fired upon it again. However, sailors were still aboard the tanker. The sailors jumped overboard and swam towards them. Since they were unable to house prisoners, Tsidal ordered the submarine to leave them to their fate. To spare them the agony of drowning on the open sea, the sailors were shot. Later the submarine was critically damaged by enemy fighters, narrowly managing to limp back to a friendly base. The base was later bombed by the enemy, leading to the deaths of many crew members.
The survivors had to be drafted into the ground forces due to the heavy casualties sustained. Tsidal got in trouble for ordering an unauthorised retreat in battle. Her connections and past record spared her after the conduct of the Republican Guard's leadership during the war came under scrutiny. Tsidal received a medal for tracking down and destroying the submarine of a fellow Beggar who was trying to desert.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Medium
Unit Availability: Rare
Unit Experience: Veteran
Equipment:
Armour:
Rifles:
Melee Weapons:
Sidearms:
Misc:
Aquatic Vehicles:
- Imperial Submarine
- Torpedo Attack Carrier
- TIE Fighter Boat
- Krakana Underwater Fighter
- Submarine Transport
- Keelkana Class Attack Submersible
- Very few Leviathan Submersible Carriers
The Beggars have access to a small number of Leviathan Submersible Carriers, which can serve as mobile bases for special forces, airspeeders and attack craft. Repurposed Imperial submarines can target bombers and other attack craft, and are difficult to spot from the air. A starfighter or bomber has to fly very low in order to hit the submarine. Thus the Beggars can use them as mobile flak.
The Sea Beggars are a way for the Republican Guard to compensate for its conventional weakness and at the same time take advantage of the fact that many aquatic aliens such as Mon Calamari or Nautolans have joined their cause. Mon Calamari can stay underwater for an almost indefinite period of time, and Nautolans can breathe in it. The Beggars are good pilots and sailors, well-trained in aquatic warfare. They are well-trained in evading enemy patrols, striking hard and fast and then vanishing into the depths of the ocean before superior enemy forces can pin them down.
It goes without saying that they are lightly armoured and armed outside their craft. This can be disadvantageous when they are stranded in enemy territory. In such a situation they will seek to evade large enemy forces, using their agility and mobility. The Sea Beggars are not weighed down by a long supply train, but will also often have to operate without support for an extended period of time. The Sea Beggars are equipped with light and streamlined armour and a mix of harpoon/spear weapons for underwater and slug rifles for above it. They would want to be inside the submarines, but they can have easier times escaping if it goes down than a surface crew would. The Beggars often cooperate with the Fury from the Deep, a special unit of frogmen.
Strengths:
- Aquatic warfare specialists. They are expert sailors and pilots, using submarines, aquatic fighters and other water craft.
- Excel at maritime raids, preying on enemy supply lines, commercial and military shipping. Mobile and quiet, they are good at reconnaissance and inserting allied special forces.
- Outside of their craft, the Sea Beggars are lightly armed and armoured. This makes them ill-suited for pitched, frontline combat and makes them reliant on guile and subterfuge.
- Overall they are a small unit and thus easily outnumbered.
In one way or another, virtually every world in the Galaxy was affected when the terrorist Zero released the Gulag Virus on Csilla. The plague spread like wild fire, bringing galactic civilisation to its knees. The so called Golden Age came to an end. Governments crumbled, galactic trade collapsed and trillions of beings perished. Historians would call it the Four Hundred Year Darkness. Tephrike suffered greatly during this period. However, the light never returned to this benighted planet. Isolated from the rest of the Galaxy, the planet regressed.
Countless died due to starvation, disease, and civil war. Tephrike's fragile democracy collapsed as the federal government proved unable to resolve the crisis. Its party system was fractured along lines of class and species. The Jedi of Tephrike were forced into a protective role. Finally, the Jedi staged a coup to topple the governments after its troops gunned down peaceful protesters. It was supposed to be a provisional emergency dictatorship. However, over time it evolved into a totalitarian theocracy. Corrupted by their power and scarred by the horrors of never-ending bloodshed, the Jedi became the very thing they were sworn to destroy, while remaining adamant in their belief that they served the Light. They called their new state the Dominion of Light.
Two factions rose to oppose them. The Disciples of Vader venerated as the long-dead Dark Lord as a God and preached a gospel of human supremacism, Dark Side worship and enslavement of all non-humans, drawing support from fallen Jedi and humanocentric portions of society. The other group was the Republican Guard, a secularist faction run by a military junta that idolised the Old Republic and opposed the Force theocracies, believing that the Force itself was a disease that led those sensitive to it to evil. The rebellion was born in Red Coral City, an underwater settlement founded by Quarren and Gungan colonists. When the Dominion expanded its reach across Tephrike, refugees flocked to the town. Red Coral City's inhabitants supported Tephrike's old, federal government, but it had been toppled by the Jedi and there was little to distinguish its remnants from the other warlord groups.
As part of its campaign to bring the rebellious provinces in line, Dominion gave Red Coral City and other towns an ultimatum. Having seen what happened to its enemies, some local leaders were inclined to submit. But a Quarren politician called Zoho Koquon took control. Denouncing compromise as appeasement and appeasement as slavery, he used his political and military connections, to build a paramilitary group called the Sons of Freedom. They formed the nucleus of what would become the Republican Guard. The policy of total resistance was not uncontroversial, but the old regime was swept aside.
The Sea Beggars were born in this hour of crisis. Indeed, the name is a reference to the fact that a group of merchants and ship captains presented a petition of grievances, called the Request, to a Jedi Lord. It is said that the Jedi leader was initially alarmed by how large the group was, but one of her advisors, is said to have commented "they are only beggars'. Regardless of the veracity of the incident, the name not forgotten. One of the captain declared that they were prepared to become beggars for the homeland's cause. The name stuck, and the group adopted symbols commonly associated with beggars.
The first Sea Beggars were short-lived. Their submersibles were old and many had previously been used for civilian or security purposes. Some particularly ingenious Beggars loaded remote-controlled vessels with explosives and then sent them on collision course with Dominion ships. The paramilitary group was decimated during the battle in the waters of Red Coral City. However, the ideals they represented lived on, and the Republican Guard claimed victory when the Dominion withdrew its troops.
Here, so the myth said, ordinary people had triumped in the name of freedom. This was not inaccurate, but the truth was more complex and less romantic. In actual fact, the forces the Dominion of Light had dispatched to take the city had been ravaged by diseases such as dysentry and malaria. To a significant degree they were undone by logistics. Many of the soldiers lacked training in underwater combat. They also faced the emerging threat of the Vaderites. Still, the rebellion had survived and soon evolved into a planet-wide insurgency. Sinya Kairn, Koquon's successor as supreme commander of the Republican Guard was committed to wresting control of Tephrike from the Jedi and the Vaderites.
The Sea Beggars started out as a group of roving adventurers, patriots and privateers. Their bases of operations included Red Coral City and other underwater settlements. The Guard had scarce resources and was not picky about where they got them from or how. The Beggars targeted Dominion and Vaderite warships and maritime shipping, but also neutral parties. Attacking civilian ships, they used their submarines to surface and force their quarry to surrender and hand over its cargo before sinking or capturing them.
They raided ships from towns close to Vaderite or Dominion territory with the argument that they were about to fall in enemy hands anyway. This caused disquiet among partisans who found their piratical methods objectionable or believed that their actions were counterproductive. When the Beggars sank a neutral merchant ship called the Lasitania, they justified it with the claim that it was carrying hundreds of tons of ammunition and war materials. However, the ship had been unarmed and thousands of civilians had been onboard.
The Beggars scored a notable victory at the Battle of Tarantos against the Vaderites' Imperial High Seas Fleet. In a daring assault, the Beggars struck the Vaderite battle fleet when it was at anchor in the harbour. They struck the enemy with submarines and detonators. Using a stolen submersible carrier, the Beggars were able to bring squadrons of aquatic fighters to bear. They used some submarines as mobile flak to hold off enemy aerial attacks to cover their retreat. The Imperial battle fleet suffered considerable damage, losing several capital ships. For a while, this greatly increased the Republican Guard's freedom of action on the seas. The commander of the operation was decorated with the Corellian Star.
Sinya led a vigorous, all-out campaign against the Sith, who were actively persecuting her people by slaughtering them en masse. Like with many first generations clones, Sinya's creation had been rushed. Her advanced aging was taking a toll on her and she suffered from health problems. She knew that she only had a limited window before she died or was unable to lead and wanted the Guard to be as strong as possible. Thus she tolerated some of the Beggars' more questionable actions. However, while the Guard was driven by fervour and good commanders, but suffered from overextension. Internal rivalries also played a role. Sinya herself died in battle in the ruins of Synorostad, fighting a Vaderite army. Her troops had been encircled by the enemy and she led one of several assaults in order to secure their breakout.
The breakout was successful, but many partisans lost their lives, and Vaderite reprisals killed even more civilians. Some Beggars helped evacuate fleeing rebels, but a good number of them deserted, as there was no profit in the fight. They preferred to loot and pick off 'enemy supply ships'. This was a particular blow since the commander who gave the order had also led the strike on Tarantos. Sinya's death prompted a reorganisation of the Republican Guard's leadership and a reevaluation of their strategy.
Having realised that they could not win a set-piece campaign, they turned to guerrilla warfare. Moreover, Beggars were put on a tighter leash and subjected to a purge. From now on, they were supposed to follow orders from the high command and restrict their raiding to legitimate targets, namely the Dominion and the Vaderites. Thus the Beggars were brought in line with the military, though they retained a notorious reputation. In the centuries that followed, the Beggars played an active role in several Republican Guard campaigns. To offset submarine countermeasures, the Beggars hunted their quarry in packs. Several submarines stuck together to stalk and sink a single prey-
Eventually new technological innovations and tactics made it more difficult for the Beggars to sink Vaderite convoys. In the battle of Kanawaya, they managed to sink many merchant ships and four Dominion warships. This coincided with near shore actions that revolved around infiltrating Republican Guard spies or attempts to pick up escaped prisoners. However, while they lost many ships, the battle constituted a strategic victory for Dominion troops since they managed to disrupt Republican Guard submarine activity and intercept all operations on the shore.
The Matagami Sea, which had been a hunting ground and base for the Beggars, was later drained by the Vaderites. The Beggars like to claim the Sith did this because they could not drive them out. In truth, the insane scheme was supposed to generate a massive amount of hydroeletric power and reclaim farmland for human colonists. However, much of the land was a desert and the water from the Matagami was so salty that the uncovered land was just salt flats and useless for agriculture. The arid waste harmed other communities by the former coastlines.
When General Aruunzeb joined the Republican Guard, the Beggars cooperated with his fleet and aquatic troops to inflict a serious defeat on the Dominion's naval fleet at the Battle of Ironbottom Sound. The Dominion developed a more effectice convoy system, escorting tankers, freighters and other vessels carrying important war-materials with screens of warships, which were equipped with devices that enabled them to detect submarines. Particularly canny Beggars countered this by not submerging, exploiting the enemy's focus on looking for submerged submarines. They remained surfaced, slipped through the screen of escort ships at night time and picked off vulnerable vessels from the middle of the convoy before slipping away.
The Beggars took an active role during the Netherworld War. This conflict brought the Guard close to the Dominion's capital, but ended in a rout. It was an all-out offensive. The Beggars waged a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. They were used to blockade and strangle the Dominion's supply lines. The Republican Guard needed to win the war quickly and take advantage of the Force being out of balance. The Beggars sustained heavy casualties, losing many ships. The Dominion targeted the Guard's submarine shipyards and bases with a strategic bombing campaign. The rebels had overextended themselves and paid a high price in blood during the drive towards Purity. New anti-submarine countermeasures led to the loss of several submarines and experienced captains. Then the Dominion scored an intelligence coup by cracking a code used by the Guard's fleet. Increasingly, Beggars who had been left stranded were drafted into serving in ground combat. One of these unit was wiped out in a last stand to cover the retreat.
These developments were a hard blow to morale, leading to desertions or even mutinies. The Beggars had to lick their wounds after the conflict ground to a halt. General Aruunzeb, who had worked closely with them, did his part to raise morale. Having learned that their code had been cracked, the Beggars implemented a new one, but kept up false comms traffic using the old one to deceive the enemy. Nonetheless, many vessels and experienced skippers had been lost. The Beggars played no role in Firemane's and the Guard's joint assault on Fortress Purity since it was a land battle far from the sea. However, they have since been unleashed on the seas to hunt Dominion vessels. At the same time, they have been raiding the Vaderites in a lesser capacity.
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