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OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: Expand on the Shadow Knights and Shazora.
Image Credit: Here.
Role: Partisans.
Permission: They can use Firemane gear because I own the company.
Links: Qadiri, Shazora Jai Vahal.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Unit Name: Void Stars.
Affiliation: Qadiri, Shadow Knights.
Classification: Infantry.
Equipment:
Armour
- Blast Vest with Kinetic Armor. OR Stormtrooper Armour.
- T-21 Light Repeating Blaster
- DXR-6 Disruptor Rifle
- Mk II Boltgun
- Magnetic Repeater
- A280 Blaster Rifle
- DC15S
- Verpine Shatter Rifle
- Bolt-Thrower
- Outland Rifle (with scope).
- Scatter Gun
Sidearms:
- A280-CFE Blaster
- SH-9
- FWG-5 Flechette Smart Pistol
- Cylix Bolt Pistol
- Magnetic Revolver
- Verpine Shattergun
- SE-14r
- Sonic Disruptor
- Sonic Stunner
- Adjudicator
- MSD-32
Melee Weapons:
Explosives:
- Thermal Imploders, Sonic Imploders, Grenades.
- Thermal Well Charges, Sapper Charge, Mines (Mission-specific).
- Ghostwave Communicator, Communication Wave Descrambler.
- Welding, climbing and digging tools. Camouflage netting.
- Gas mask and rebreathers.
- Weapon Silencers
Description: The Void Stars are a unit of Qadiri rebels who have allied themselves with the Shadow Knights, finding common cause due to their shared loathing of the ancien régime. The unit is composed of dissenters and former slaves. Many of the latter used to be slave labourers, who rose up against their masters and sought refuge in the stars after an intense, brutal war.
They are a dedicated, zealous group and very poorly disposed towards representatives of the old order. Although the Qadiri have only recently been opened up to the rest of the Galaxy, the Void Stars have caught up fast. As with many native Tygaran groups, the realisation that they are not alone in the Galaxy has spurred them on. Given their origins, it is no surprise that they are merciless towards slavers and protective of their freedom.
In terms of combat function, they are a force of partisans and irregulars, relying on speed, surprise and precision rather than raw firepower. Several members possess secondary skills such as demolitions, sharpshooting, and medicine - in short the type of stuff one would expect from partisans who may have to operate without support for an extended duration of time. They also excel at survival in the wilderness. However, the Void Stars rely on speed and hit-and-run tactics. They lack integrated heavy support forces and make heavy use of ambush tactics during combat, often striking and retreating back before a stronger enemy force can be organized and brought to bear against them or drawing out large forces to strike at valuable targets.
They are not meant to engage in pitched combat and would be best advised to retreat if they are confronted by superior enemy forces, especially if their opponents have heavy armour such as tanks, heavy walkers and so on. The Void Stars have a few Force-Sensitives in their ranks, but their preternatural skills are supplementary rather than primary. They are intended to give them a boost and support the efforts of their comrades, rather than being the focus. This makes them less reliant on their powers, but also means they cannot manifest several of the more powerful abilities commonly associated with Force warriors. In that regard the fact that experienced teachers are few in number also works against them.
Bloodletting aside, the Void Stars also do their part to promote and preserve Qadiri language and culture. The Eldorai races love oral poetry and performance, and the Qadiri are no different. Young members of the unit learn to sing the epic stories of their ancestors by heart. The tales of the Qadiri who dared to cross the sky-ocean have been added to the epic tales of the warriors of yore, filled with war, love and loss.
Above all they remember those who gave their lives in the struggle for liberation - and those who sought to keep them in bondage. Slaves are not taught how to read or write, which makes oral history all the more important for them. For the same reason, they have launched a concerted effort to educate their people, realising that only an educated society is a free society. Many of the Stars have formed bonds with one another and founded families. This makes them very zealous. However, they are not foolhardy. The Galaxy is a big, scary place and they have only each other. So they must stand up for themselves and fight for their freedom.
The Void Stars are led by Qahara Jai Anhala, a former slave labourer. Once she toiled in the fields of a coffee plantation. Her body is marked with the lashes of her owners. Qahara is a skilled rebel commander, fierce and passionate, but also vengeful. She was one of the leaders of the revolt that freed them from their chains and fought in the uprising.
As a result of her experiences, she has strong anti-establishment beliefs and is distrustful of humans. The Shadows gained her allegiance by helping her evac her followers. Nonetheless, she is protective her people and their interests and a tough negotiator. Racist Eldorai who dismiss Qadiri as sand babies get short shrift from her.
She has a grudge against the 'wise mistresses and masters' and believes that gradual emancipation has allowed them to go scots free. This has translated into the application of harsh justice against slavers she manages to get into her grasp. Qahara is quite fond of branding them or crucifying them and leaving them in the hot sun, as she believes in giving them a taste of their own medicine. For someone who spent most of her life on Tygara and lacks a formal education, she has adapted well to the outside Galaxy and got a good grasp of how things work outside of her homeworld.
COMBAT INFORMATION:
Unit Size: Large.
Unit Availability: Rare
Unit Experience: Trained.
Combat Function: The units are composed of partisans and guerilla fighters, able to infiltrate and exfiltrate enemy territory. Qadiri are extremely good navigators and seem to possess an instinctual internal compass of sorts. This is helpful during operations. The Void Stars excel at ambushes, raids and sabotage. They are good irregular fighters and adept at partisan warfare, but lack experience in all-out conventional warfare. Moreover, many of their members used slave labourers. While they have been bloodied in war and have caught up a lot, disciplinary issues still exist. They are new to modern warfare and thus still have to adjust. Language barriers also exist, as many Void Stars do not speak Basic or Eldarai, meaning they have to rely on translation devices built into their helmets.
Being Qadiri, they excel at desert warfare, but are unused to extremely cold environments. They would be at home on say Tatooine or Tash-Taral, and conversely find a world such as Hoth or Midvinter rather uncomfortable. Their experiences back home make them good at mountain warfare. The Void Stars have a contingent of sappers, which is helpful for overcoming or bypassing enemy fortifications, laying ambushes and defending an area. They are good at tunnelling.
Moreover, some of their members can use the Force. However, Force-Sensitives constitute a very small minority within the unit. The vast majority of the soldiers are Non-Force-Users. The Void Stars want Force-Sensitives who can be team players instead of being ruled by their egoes. None of their members carry lightsabres. Instead they focus on using the Force to fortify, boost and encourage their Non-Force-Sensitive comrades. This can be equated to using Force Valour and Force Shields as well as using telepathic abilities for coordination. A few possess healing powers or elemental air abilities. Many lack formal training and have had to learn by doing. The Force-Sensitive Void Stars treat their powers as a supplement rather than as the core of their skill set. As a result, ysalamiri are less problematic for them. They will obviously be unable to use the Force while within the null zone generated by the lizard in question while it breathes air, but it will bother less them due not being dependent on mystical powers.
The Void Stars would suffer if confronted by entrenched fortifications, tank formations and so on. Their access to heavy weapons is limited, which has implications when being confronted by entrenched enemy forces or formations of tanks and walkers. They are meant to conduct surgical strikes and then get away, not engage in prolonged combat and storm heavily defended enemy positions. They lack heavy armour or integrated heavy support.
Being infantry, they are vulnerable to air strikes. Elemental air abilities and shoulder-launched missiles can help against these hazards, but this is pretty variable. While many Void Stars have gotten their hands on a modern equivalent of Stormtrooper armour, others have not and must make do with a blast vest, kinetic armour, gas mask and rebreather. Being lightly armoured gives them mobility, but leaves them more vulnerable to powerful weapons.
They are not uniform army units which can cause issues as they are not able to easily replace and repair equipment and often have limited ammunition. They have access to Bladesinger Combat Speeders. These light airspeeders are good for patrols, recon and make excellent infantry shredders. Qadiri have inherent navigational talents and are excellent pilots. However, the Bladesingers are lightly armoured and thus very vulnerable to heavy ordnance.
Strengths:
- Unit mix allows combined arms tactics.
- Skilled partisans and marksmen. Their training empathises disciplined fire over blazing away. They are skilled at blending into their environment, using it to their advantage, surprising the enemy and using asymmetrical warfare. They are fighting for their liberty and thus have a strong esprit de corps.
- Numbers. There are only a few individual units, but these are large.
- Lack of support forces. They are a force of irregulars, not conventional assault troops. They lack tanks, artillery etc. They suffer in direct confrontations with against heavy armour and entrenched fortifications.
- Lack experience in conventional warfare. They are brave and zealous, but not elite troops. A lot of the outsider tech is still new to them. Their equipment is solid, but basic. They lack heavy armour or integrated heavy support.
- Language. Though each soldier is issued an earpiece communicator there are circumstances where this is lost or damaged. Most Void Stars cannot speak Basic or Eldarai. This can cause issues when coordinating with non-Qadiri troops.
The Void Stars are a mobile unit of Qadiri rebels and exodites. Hailing from the remote world of Tygara, the Qadiri have only entered into contact with other races recently. Historically Tygara has been completely isolated from the outside galaxy. The Qadiri, interestingly, had a long tradition that there were other people living out amongst the stars. However, their image of benevolent deities was nothing like what they actually got when slavers from the sky came down upon them. These marauders preyed on the Qadiri people, though Shahbânu Semiramis, their mightiest ruler, was able to score victories over them.
Later the Qadiri came into contact with Firemane and the Eldorai Matriarchy. Ultimately these groups helped the Qadiri uplift themselves and see the stars. However, the historically fractious Qadiri have never been united under one government, so it no surprise that many strayed from the exodus fleet, determined to seek out their own fortunes elsewhere.
Some of them ended up affiliating with the Shadow Knights, a paramilitary survivalist organisation that claimed to stand not just for the Eldorai, but for all their kindred races, including the Qadiri. Though new to spaceflight, the Qadiri had some qualities that helped them find their way in space. Qadiri are almost all extremely good navigators. They seem to have an instinctual internal compass. This makes them good sailors, commandos, pilots and travellers.
Slavery was a fact of life on Tygara. All three native races, even the Light Sided Vashyada, practiced it to varying degrees. Thus many inhabitants of the Qadiri lands were held in bondage. For the most part the rebels were former slave-soldiers or labourers who had toiled the fields and laboured in mines. The result was a series of bloody slave revolts, the so called Servile Wars. When Firemane arrived on Tygara, stamping out slavery became one of its goals. However, the corporation also entered an alliance with Semiramis, seeing her as someone who could guarantee stability. Moreover, it soon found itself in conflict with the vicious Xioquo and could thus ill-afford a war on multiple fronts.
Mindful of the fact that immediate abolition of slavery would cause an economic collapse and leave many slaves destitute, forcing them into conditions that resembled de facto slavery, the corporation chose a gradual approach. Slavery would be phased out over time. The Qadiri would be introduced to modern technology that would give them alternatives and make slavery uneconomical. A policy of carrot and stick would motivate the 'great mistresses and masters' to grant their slaves manumission.
At the same time Firemane and the Eldorai would not turn away escaped slaves who managed to reach their territory. A good number of the slaves took advantage of this, going on a trek towards the territory of the outsiders. Many of them joined the Firemane Auxiliaries, more commonly known as Sepoys. This in turn put pressure on the local rulers, as they faced the risk of an exodus. Firedawn, a humanitarian subdivision of Firemane, would aid freed slaves by providing them with food, clothing, homes and education and helping them find jobs.
Finally, Firemane promulgated the abolition of slavery, using the carrot of a uplift programme to allow the Qadiri to develop, and the stick of Firemane military superiority. However, this did not create an utopia. Though many slaves experienced genuine freedom, many others became sharecroppers who were still indebted to their former owners. And there were nobles who were ruthless enough to abuse this, trapping their servants with 'contracts', despite Firemane's best efforts.
This particularly applied to more remote areas where Firemane's reach was less strong. There the Void Stars originated as an insurgent movement in a remote fiefdom called Kolkata in Khajwar. Their former mistresses continued to treat them poorly, as if they were still slaves in everything but name who should toil the fields or labour in mines for them. Driven to the brink, they rose up. The mansions of their mistresses were set ablaze. They took out their anger on the hated nobles and plantation owners.
They rebelled, but were branded as bandits. This confirmed to them that they could not be free as long as the establishment held sway, and made them more ruthless. Firemane's initial response was bungled, as they were far removed from the scene and their local resident prioritised stability, seeing the rebels as dangerous radicals. In the eyes of the rebels, the humans of Firemane were an ally of their enemy. Qahara Jai Anhala, a former coffee plantation slave, emerged as their leader. While lacking in military experience, she evolved into a capable commander.
The Void Stars fought a protracted guerrilla campaign and were able to score tactical successses, but lack of foreign sponsors and their enemy's superior technology whittled down their numbers. When they impetuously met the enemy in an open field, they were defeated and had to retreat. Driven into the desert and the mountains, they were able to repel several attacks, but found themselves beleaguered.
They were short on supplies and faced not only enemy troops, but disease and hunger. By the time Firemane got around to dispatching a task force to look into the situation, the damage had been done. Some of the rebels chose amnesty, others saw this as capitulation and continued to fight on, vowing never to compromise, for they saw this as a loss of liberty. The rebels looked for allies and found them in the stars.
Their opposition to the ancien régime and its foreign backers led the Void Stars into an alliance with the Shadow Knights, a group of Eldorai dissidents and renegades. At the time the Shadows were conducting a recruitment drive on the planet. Ironically, the evacuation was facilitated by Shazora Jai Vahal, a Qadiri who belonged to Firemane's ruling group.
Shazora had been the leader of a successful slave revolt and allied with Firemane to protect her people from reprisal by a hostile coalition. She had done much to help her fellow slaves emerge as free people. To her chagrin, she was unable to help the rebels directly, but did not wish to see them suffer. So she helped the Shadows evacuate them via secret communications. At her urging, Firemane recalled its resident and sought to push through reforms. The Void Stars meanwhile joined the Shadows, though Shazora kept communications channels open. Now they are a force of exiles fighting for a homeland.
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