Directorate Officer
"You know, I could never get a handle on who was who with them, but every one of them seemed to know everything I ever said. Creepy, really..." ~anonymous Antarian Ranger
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To make a fighting unit from the Roche Asteroid Field
Image Credit: here and here, modified by your's truly
Role: Light Infantry
Links: Gir Quee, Silver Jedi, Lucerne Personal Defense, Roche Asteroid Field, Korpil G62
Unit Name: The Collective Group to Secure and Defend the Hive and Roche - "Collective Defenders"
Affiliation: Gir Quee, Silver Jedi, Roche Asteroid Field
Classification: Light Infantry
Equipment:
All Organic Troops:
Verpine Fiber Ultramesh armor with Myntor Personal Shield
Verpine Cardio-regulator implant
Implanted Cyberjack
[*]Command Element: 1 Sergeant and 1 Combat Repair tech (hermaphroditic Verpine)
- 1 LPD-20 Hailstorm Flechette Carbine (Sergeant Primary Weapon)
- 1 LPD-33 Dartfire Variable Charge Blaster Pistol (Combat Repair Tech and Sergeant )
- 1 Emergency Repair Kit (Combat Repair tech)
- 1 MDS-440 Datapad with Diagnostic Link-up (Combat Repair tech)
- Fire Team 1:
- 3 Verpine Drone Soldiers, each equipped as follows:
1 Verpine shatter gun(standard drone soldier weapon) - 2 LPD-24 Fireblast Dual Grenades
- 2 7-PrG Proton Grenades
[*]1 Verpine Drone Heavy Gunner, equipped as follows:
- 1 LPD-15 Stormfire-class Heavy Repeater (Heavy Gunner primary weapon)
- 3 LPD-12 Hydra Electronet Grenades
[*]
Fire Team 2:
[*]
4 IX-6 Combat and Security Droids
Description: The "Collective Group to Secure and Defend the Hive and Roche", more commonly known as the "Collective Defenders", are local verpine defense force that is charged with defending the Roche Asteroid Belt from outside intruders and maintaining internal order. Thanks to their make-up of largely native battle droids and cloned Verpine Drones, the Collective Defenders have been able to grow in size very quickly, making their presence a common sight within the Roche Asteroid Belt. The Collective Defenders conduct frequent roaming patrols, sometimes known as swarms, within the belt's settlements. Thanks to the hive mind of the Verpine, they can rapidly respond to incidents as they unfold, making the Collective Defenders an invaluable asset in ensuring the safety and protection of the verpine colonies and the settlements of the Roche Asteroid Belt itself, notably Korpil G62.
Unit Size: Large
Unit Availability: Common
Unit Experience: Trained
Combat Function: Despite commonly being classified as light infantry due to their light equipment load, the Collective Defenders do not actually function as conventional light infantry because of their strategic vision: the defense of the Roche Asteroid Belt. This vision has a huge impact on the unit from the highest strategic doctrines to the lowest daily practical tasks. Morally, the Collective Defenders are obligated to defend and secure even the smallest settlement in the belt. This is often not practically possible because of the sheer quantity of settlements within the belt. To compensate for this, the verpine have turned to two strategies. The first is the frequent and regular use of roving patrols ("swarms") of several platoon sized elements within the larger settlements. Thorough weeps conducted by these patrols often pick up criminals or detect criminal operations in their infancy as well as deter potential interlopers casing colonies for possible attack. The second is the use of the verpines' hive mind along with implanted cybernetics to quickly determine hotspots that allows the nearest 'swarm' to rapidly respond to that site while the rest of the Collective Defenders are mobilized to come in even greater numbers to the threat. On a lower tactical level, squads of Collective Defenders usually cooperate to work a settlement's internal defenses to the best of their mutual advantage. This philosophy then works into the squad itself, though the droids are considered to be more disposable than the verpine drones because they are quicker to replace. This may manifest on a practical level by having a fire team of IX-6 Droids start a frontal assault on one area of an enemy position to catch the enemy's attention while several other Collective Defender squads navigate through the twisted corridors of a tunnel to suddenly surprise the enemy through a flanking maneuver via a maintenance corridor. Once actually engaged with an enemy, squad level tactics tend to be fairly rudimentary, with a focus being placed on defeating enemies in detail through the use of converging firepower. A combat tech assigned to each squad supports these tactics, using his/her skills to separate enemies by closing internal blast doors or repairing damage to the settlements and their internal infrastructure as well.
Hive Mind: The Collective Defenders, both organic and inorganic alike, share all information with each other almost instantly through either comlinks or through their antennae. Cyberjacks in the verpine also allow them to securely communicate through the asteroid belt's own communication lines or through one of their squad's battle droids.
Homeland Defenders: The Collective Defenders are highly suited to defending their home in the Roche Asteroid Belt. Not only do they have excellent natural and artificial communications with themselves, but this also extends to the populace through their hive mind and into the asteroid belt's infrastructure thanks to their cyberjacks. Additionally, the tech attached to each squad is well-equipped to keep their home stable and turn the infrastructure against their foes.
Predictable: As tactics are most commonly executed by consensus and experience of the hive mind, the Collective Defenders can become unusually predictable in their responses.
Non-Expeditionary: The Collective Defenders are extremely limited in their abilities if taken off of Roche. They are highly used to working in conjunction with their native infrastructure, and very quickly can become disorganized, confused, and unresponsive without it.
The Roche Asteroid Belt has long been a hotspot on the galactic scene thanks to the inventiveness of its inhabitants as well as its beskar ore over the years. For thousands of years, the verpine have replied on a combination of their own battle droids and outside warriors to keep their people safe. However, this has begun to change recently as Roche fell under the sphere of influence of the Silver Jedi. With the Silver Jedi being notably composed of force-users, there was less emphasis on a large, standing military. To help fill in the gap, the verpine turned to a combination of traditions including not only their battle droids, but their practice of cloning less intelligent worker drones as well as the Males who die-for-the-Hive-Mother. Overseen by a smaller number of fully intelligent verpine, these droids and cloned Verpine drones have become the backbone of the asteroid belt's internal defenders, formally styled as "The Collective Group to Secure and Defend the Hive and Roche". Because this name is rather long in Basic, they are more commonly known as the "Collective Defenders" to outsiders. Roving groups of Collective Defenders, sometimes known as a 'swarm', frequently patrol the many asteroid settlements that make up the bunch. These 'swarms' rely on the verpine's innate telepathy with their own kind, as well as cybernetic attachments that allow them to directly plug into the settlement's information systems. This latter ability has allowed the Collective Defenders to almost instantly react to the appearance of unknown or hostile craft within the system, as well to control the settlements' own internal defenses such as blast doors and automated emplacements. Since the formation of the Collective Defenders, the group has only experience small scale actions against local pirates, smugglers, and other local criminal elements.