Telis Taharin-Zambrano
Icon of Ambition
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a new type of military installation in order to better defend the Empire’s core planets
- Image Credit: X
- Canon: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Military Base Name: Subterranean Citadel(s)
- Classification: Hidden Underground Mobility Network
- Location: Bastion, Dromund Kaas, Korriban, Ziost, Muunilinst, Serenno, Telos IV, Lianna, Galidraan, Vjun
- Affiliation: The Sith Empire
- Population: Sparse
- Demographics: No civil population present within the Citadels are allowed, for fear of locations being leaked by accident. Only personnel mobile and present within the Citadels are the soldiers both stationed as defense and for skirmishing, and possible military leaders and necessary operatives/personnel needed to keep the stations working and operating, including engineers, medics, dedicated messengers, and excavators.
- Accessibility: Subterranean Citadels are highly hidden and do not exist within the public eye, kept highly secret outside of the higher ends of the Sith Empire’s chain of military command, and the soldiers commissioned to serve inside of them. Outward signals are rerouted to external ports to throw off the signals should any be tracing them to find the Citadels, and the networks lay several meters below the lowest point of civilian activity within a city, with reinforced entrances hidden both within the limits of the major cities they’re located beneath, and on the outskirts of the limits of the settlement.
- Description: Subterranean Citadels are mazes of underground passages and central barracks called “keeps.” The networks operate largely out of the public eye and operate with the thanks of both advanced communication arrays that allow the soldiers within to receive messages and orders and ventilation systems which allow the Subterranean Citadels to be habitable. When a major Sith settlement is pushed into defensive measures, hidden ports throughout the city can be used as staging grounds for skirmishes within Citadels to leap out and stage a counter-offensive against an enemy fighting force.
- Keep - There are several Keeps throughout a Subterranean Citadel, are the major bunks, barracks, and meeting rooms for soldiers and staff amongst the Citadels. Divided into different rooms with usually one central room designated for information gathering and strategizing, Keeps are often as plain as possible, with thick plains covering the walls and vents covering the ceiling and floor, hooked up to the Citadel’s ventilation systems.
- Vents - the Vents are what make the Citadels possible and so ingeniously protected, as while they enable living in the dimly lit hallways (breathing gear is still required by mandate to be on at all times), the Vents help protect against the use of chemical, gaseous, and incendiary weapons, the former two being done by use of air being cycled and moved out of the hallways, and the former being accomplished by the activation of “Kill Switches” that can immediately cut off oxygen in the Citadels, preventing any exposure to air.
- Hallways - the Hallways are long, barren, dimly-lit stretches of sheet metal and vented floors and ceilings that enable soldiers to move throughout the Citadels, unseen by prying eyes above. Hallways are often purposefully barren save for metal crates and barricades set up near Breachholes and Keeps, enabling soldiers some protection in case a firefight occurs and can’t be immediately shut down by the use of the Ventilation systems.
- Breachholes - the Breachholes are the exits and entrances into the Citadel, connecting to hallways and often being some distance away from both Keeps and one another. Breachholes can either be hooked up to open into a city’s sewer systems, allowing for unexpected attacks that keep the Citadels secret still, or straight out into the open air. Occasionally Breachholes are purposefully built beneath roads and the earth, and explosives built into the frames are required for exit.
SECURITY
High
- Ventilation protection from Gaseous and Airborne weaponry
- Ventilation asphyxiation to disable attackers without breathing equipment and choke fires
- Depth underground and heavy plating help protect from orbital or land-based bombardment
- Private networks, transmitter rerouting, and underground depth help provide protection against scanning and pinning down of tunnels and Keeps
- Highly trained soldier patrols make up the bulk of figures present, and planned defensive barricades help defend against foreign invaders
- Breachhole doors are highly hidden and plated with heavy metal; occasionally built beneath roadways, and even reaching the doors requires explosives
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
When the rising heresy of the Apostasy turned into full-fledged rebellion led by the newly-formed New Imperial Order against the Sith Empire, Darth Aagenti figured and realized that the old tactics that the Empire had been relying upon would not be as trustworthy against foes who knew those plans and could react accordingly. It was in his mind that came the realization that there would have to be new tactics never before even thought of or considered by the NIO and the other foes of the Empire if the Sith were too safeguard their conquest of the galaxy, and while at first there was an immediate struggle to find such a solution, eventually, in secret, a plan had been formed.
The first iterations of the “Citadel Project” had military institutions built into the sewers beneath cities, but when the different landscapes of a large number of the many different cities of the core Sith planets were considered, such a planet quickly fell apart, as it would be too obvious to oblivious civilians who could be manipulated into revealing the sights of the underground stations. The goal, as it was proposed, was to build a series of entries in which soldiers could spontaneously jump out of and surprise attackers with an unforeseen counter-attack, but also create a system that could be used for emergency secret meetings that needed to be held while battles were happening.
As time moved forward, one of the biggest problems faced was the premise of both chemical and incendiary weapons in the tunnels, too which it was planned by Aagenti’s team of collaborative engineers that the habitability of the Citadel would be controlled by a large network of ventilation panels, enabling not only the cycling of dangerous air to clean air from above, but also the ability to be shut off entirely, choking off not only fires, but also attackers who were not prepared to properly spelunk into the network. Construction with these tunnels was quick, disguised as new plumbing and sewer systems in imperial databases, with military spending on the side supplying the arming of barracks and the preparation of hidden signals and false pathways to keep the Citadels more protected from prying eyes of scanners and splicers.
As these Citadels were built, specialized squadrons of veterans willing to learn these new tactics and show their loyalty to the Empire were handpicked from legions, being transferred in secret and disguised as being handpicked for Aagenti’s personal legion, although in reality these men were stationed into the Citadels, and trained on how to rapidly exit the tunnels while under fire through the use of automated climbing rigs.
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