3rd Regiment - "Hades' Hellraisers"

The 3rd Regiment of Task Force Eclipse, infamous under the callsign "Hades' Hellraisers", is the embodiment of controlled destruction, terror deployment, and psychological supremacy. Founded by and molded in the image of Chief E108 "Hades I", the Hellraisers are equal parts executioners and specters, waging war with brutal decisiveness, ghost-like maneuvering, and apocalyptic shock-and-dread tactics.

Their name is not metaphorical. When the Hellraisers descend, it is with fire, horror, and spectral silence. They are the nightmare that follows silence on the comms, the shadow slipping through breached strongholds, the last image enemies see before the lights go out. Suppose Hera's Sentinels are the shield of the Regime and Zeus' Thunderclads its hammer. In that case, Hades' Hellraisers are its scalpel of terror and precision massacre, experts in asymmetry, chaos infiltration, and fear as a weapon.

I. Hierarchical Framework

The Regiment's internal structure is built on cellular Command, stealth Division, and infiltration nesting. Its hierarchy is deliberately decentralized in the field to support autonomous operations by fireteams and strike packs, while the Regimental core remains tightly knit under Hades' direct eye.

• Regimental Commander (RCOM): Commands all strategic infiltration doctrines, asset termination missions, and ghost warfare policy.
• Executive Command Officer (ECO): Manages Hellraiser deployments, shadow asset tracking, and adaptive operational timing.
• Strategic Coordination Officer (SCO): Oversees orbital black-entry planning, tunnel war integration, and planetary blackout overlays.
• Tactical Engineering Officer (TEO): Specializes in breach-point analysis, void warfare, and high-pressure zone destruction.
• Blackguard Command Strategos (BCS): Operates deep Epilektoi units embedded as dissolution handlers, inquisition agents, and fortress burners.

The hierarchy's defining trait is fluid intimidation; orders come through darkness, and compliance is expected before the light returns.

II. High Command Integration

• Regimental Commander: Chief E108 "Hades I"
• Known as the ghost in the Crucible, Hades I has built an entire Regiment around asymmetry, shock horror, and whispered vengeance. He walks among the battlefield wreckage like a myth come alive, and Hellraisers pattern their every movement on his signature precision and lethality.
• Executive Command Officer: Chief E211 "Grim" Salan Vrek (Spartan-IV)
• Oversees deployment of strike teams and real-time Mission flow. Known for unemotionally efficient logistics, Vrek keeps the Regiment's soul locked in a vice.
• Strategic Coordination Officer: Chief E204 "Whisper" Elya Korr (Spartan-IV)
• Master of orbital silence drops, no-signal zone mapping, and spatial denial strategy. No one hears Whisper coming, and those who do are already dying.
• Tactical Engineering Officer: Chief E208 "Infernos" Garren Tallis (Spartan-IV)
• Designs internal combustion strategies, including shipboard rupture patterns, internal sabotage programs, and scorched-earth systems.
• Blackguard Command Strategos: Strategos-Primus Orsian Drelk (UCG Rank: Archon Obitus)
• Commander of the Blackguard's silent wings, Drelk leads cloaked Myrmidon kill cells and constructs the psychological warfare matrix used before and after every Hellraiser operation.

III. Unified Combat Command Integration

Under the UCC, Hades' Hellraisers are deployed through the "Void Penetration and Subversion Warfare Network" (VPSWN), and are primarily tasked with:

• Decapitation Raids: Silent elimination of Enemy leadership before open war is declared.
• Night-Fall Domination: Operations that begin in total darkness and leave no survivors.
• Dissolution Missions: Destruction of critical war infrastructure under maximum confusion conditions.
• Infiltration and Fragmentation: Inducing fear and mistrust between Enemy Command layers through embedded Epilektoi and false-flag attacks.

Their tactics are supported by AI-augmented threat fog dispersal, mid-atmosphere stealth craft, and psychological suppression fields broadcast via Black Sun Nodes.

IV. Regiment Structure

Each brigade is named after a mythological creature associated with death, fear, punishment, or the underworld, appropriate for a Regiment built to haunt and destroy.

Brigade Configuration

• Elite Infantry – Brigade "Phantoms"
• Specializes in black-ops insertion, assassination, and facility interior warfare, the sharp edge of the Regiment's whisper blade.
• Armor – Brigade "Ereboi"
• Titan-driven nightmare vehicles wrapped in anti-lighting shrouds. Deploy through ruptured terrain, often under Enemy installations. Units feature Wraithwalkers and Graviton Shredders.
• Aerial – Brigade "Charonites"
• Void-black dropships, low-flight orbital casters, and atmospheric sabotage craft. Drop squads into ventilation shafts, waterlines, and vertical silos without a trace.
• Mechanized – Brigade "Necrotides"
• Mobile war-beasts piloting armored specters, black-gold APCs, and corrupted siege craft modified for tunneling, melting, and poisoning terrain.
• Recon – Brigade "Stygian Hounds"
• Masters of environmental stealth, sensory distortion, and signal disruption. Often operate three weeks before the main combat deployment.
• Quick Reaction Force – Brigade "Thanatoi"
• Named after the personified spirit of death. Deployed to escalate terror within hours. Known for massacre containment and horror theatre warfare.

Together, they form the nightmare engine of the UCG Regime, breaking morale before the first kill is confirmed.

V. Command Philosophy & Deployment Doctrine

Hellraisers live by the Doctrine of "Echo Nullum", Let Nothing Echo. This encapsulates their approach to war as annihilation: no witnesses, no survivors, no voice left to speak of the deed.

Philosophical Tenets:

• Fear is a Weapon: You do not just win wars, you make the Enemy terrified of waking up.
• Silence Before Glory: The most effective battles are fought in the quiet before alarms.
• Truth is Tactile: The Regime leaves marks on the soul, not just the body. Make them feel it.

Deployment Patterns:

• Stage Zero: Strategic Blackout, electronic, atmospheric, and psychological suppression via Black Sun Nodes.
• Stage One: Stygian Hound deployment across key choke points and leadership arcs.
• Stage Two: Charonites deliver Phantoms and Thanatoi to targets. No open fire. Only breathless kills.
• Stage Three: Necrotide collapse of support infrastructure. Hades' voice recorded over the last remaining comms.
• Stage Four: Ereboi unleash devastation only once all who need to be afraid are dead.

Hellraisers leave not a battlefield, but a lesson written in ruin.

VI. Key Personnel Table

“We are not heroes. We are not brothers in arms. We are what crawls through the dark when the light is gone and the enemy still breathes. My Hellraisers don’t fight because it’s glorious. They fight because someone has to remind the stars that silence can be a weapon. If you hear us, you're already dead. If you don't... then we did it right.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

I. Cultural Ethos

The Hades' Hellraisers are not soldiers in the traditional sense; they are harbingers, forged in the dark spaces where civilization breaks down and light fails to reach. Their ethos is unflinching but straightforward:

"We do not fight for the world. We fight for what remains after it burns."

Commanded by the enigmatic and fearsome Chief E108 "Hades I," the Hellraisers believe that truth and morality are illusions in war, and it is their burden to confront what others refuse to see: the raw, unrelenting cruelty of existence. They operate at the fringes of warfare, urban wreckage, orbital ruins, subterranean strongholds, not to preserve, but to cleanse, erase, and start anew.

A dark Creed governs them: "Order is restored through obliteration." Their culture embraces the void, the unknown, and the necessary annihilation of chaos.

II. Symbolism and Mythic Identity

Mythology runs through the veins of the Hellraisers like oil through a siege engine. Their namesake, Hades, is not just a figure; they see him as the custodian of consequence, the keeper of finality. In their eyes, every war must have a reckoning, and they are the reckoners.

Key Symbols:

• The Shattered Mask: Their sigil, an obsidian skull with one eye hollowed, wrapped in black Flame. It represents the broken soul that still watches.
• The Ash Sigil: Each Hellraiser wears a line of soot above their right eye before battle, a mark of those who have crossed into death and returned.
• The Null Standard: A black banner with no emblem, flown only after victory. It signifies total erasure.

For the Hellraisers, symbols are not for others; they are for themselves, reminders of the cost of surviving the unspeakable.

III. Behavioral Customs

The behavior of Hellraisers is disciplined, brutal, and haunted. They do not boast. They do not lecture. They move through conflict like a whisper made of knives, committed to their Mission with almost religious detachment.

Key Customs:

• One Breath Silence: Before deployment, Hellraisers stand together and hold a single synchronized breath, then exhale as one. This represents leaving their humanity behind.
• Body Cloaks: When recovering their fallen, they cloak the body in ash-black mantles and mark the site with a short poem or last words, etched in the battlefield or scorched into metal.
• Fading Echo Rituals: When a Hellraiser squad returns from a Mission, they remain isolated for 24 hours, speaking no words. It is believed this "Echo Silence" allows their ghosts to catch up.

They are deliberately emotionally distant, not from apathy, but from experience. They've seen what happens when attachment blinds Judgment.

IV. Ceremonial Rites and Traditions

Hellraisers conduct severe, grim rituals that confront death, memory, and erasure. These rites are not celebratory; they are meant to scar, burn, and anchor the mind in what must be done.

Major Rites:

• The Trial of Smoke: Every initiate must survive a controlled gas chamber filled with hallucinogenic nanodust and plasma heat, facing fears, trauma, and illusions of fallen comrades.
• The Naming Fire: Upon completing a Mission that changes a warzone permanently (e.g., toppling a regime, executing a WMD sabotage), a Hellraiser receives a "War Name" etched into the inside of their helmet by Hades himself.
• The Ash Walk: After each major conflict, the entire deployed unit marches silently through the rubble of what they destroyed, not as a parade, but as penance.

Their traditions exist to remind them that victory without consequence is a lie, and the Hellraisers never lie to themselves.

V. Worldview and Enemy Perception

Hellraisers view the galaxy as a rotting structure propped up by idealism and denial. They do not believe peace is sustainable, only managed entropy. Thus, their enemies are not simply other armies, but any ideology that denies the inherent violence of existence.

Enemies are categorized not by faction, but by how far they've strayed from reality:

• Dreamers: Ideologues and peace-preachers. Eliminated quickly to prevent contamination.
• Warlords: Understood, respected, but removed when they threaten UCG dominance.
• Ghosts: Those who've survived too long in the dark are treated with caution and honor, and often offered a final fight.

They fight not out of hate, but out of clarity, believing their actions are not evil, but a necessary purgation of those unwilling to face the truth.

VI. Regiment Mantras & Cultural Lexicon

Their language is poetic, morbid, and purposefully uncomfortable. Words are chosen to remind the speaker of loss, finality, and necessity.

Key Mantras:

• "Erase the scream.": Spoken before executing high-value targets or silencing communications.
• "If it echoes, Kill It.": Used when confronting ghosts of the past, both literal and psychological.
• "What Burns, does not Rise.": Final transmission phrase following total battlefield annihilation.

Lexicon Terms:

• "Shadeborne": A Hellraiser who returned from a Mission no one else survived.
• "Null War": A battle that was never officially logged or recognized, yet changed everything.
• "The Second Death": A clean kill, often following a mercy execution or a target lost to madness.

Their lexicon ensures that even language reinforces the sobering gravity of their existence.

VII. Legacy and Cultural Influence

Feared even among their kind, Hades' Hellraisers are spoken of in whispers by both civilians and soldiers alike. Myrmidons often carry effigies of black coins representing the Hellraisers' presence, hoping they'll never have to meet them in battle or as comrades.

Across the UCG:

• Children are told stories of "The Burnt Men," soldiers who walk through fire without sound.
• Commanders request Hellraiser deployments as a last resort, knowing what will be left when they depart: silence, and ash.
• Civilians pray not to the Thunderclads, but that the Hellraisers never come.

Yet despite this fear, none question their loyalty. For when hope has fled, and ruin has taken root, it is only the Hellraisers who will enter, and make the world habitable again.

“You don’t send my Regiment to win. You send us when the war has already been lost. When the fires have died. When the innocent have bled and the liars are the only ones left breathing. We don’t fight to inspire. We fight so that one day, someone else might be able to. And when we’re done, there will be no banners. No cheers. Just… silence. That’s how you’ll know it’s over.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

I. Purpose in Flame

The Hades' Hellraisers exist not for glory nor recognition. They exist for a purpose others refuse to face: the purification of war's rot. Their purpose in Flame is the eradication of that which festers beneath the Regime banner, insurgency, betrayal, collapse, and the assurance that no Enemy survives to spark the fire again.

“When law falls silent, and light dies screaming, we remain.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

They are Judgment deployed, war's reckoning hand, called upon when containment fails, when political tools break, and when there are no clean options left. The Hellraisers do not just end battles; they close chapters and erase the names that caused them.

II. Publicly Declared Objectives

Though many of their operations remain classified under the Codex of the Black Sun, the Regime publicly maintains a select list of sanctioned, heavily curated objectives for the Hellraisers' deployments. These serve both to justify their actions and maintain psychological control over colonial fear narratives.

Sanitized Objectives (Public):

• Terminate High-Level Oathbreakers and Subversive Forces
• Deploy to exterminate former Regime officials, insurgent leaders, and rogue warlords who cannot be tried or captured.
• Recover or Deny Contaminated Assets
• Responsible for the recovery or destruction of compromised Regime technologies, blacksite archives, or biological threats.
• Execute Final-Fire Scenarios in Collapsed Zones
• Cleanse sectors that have fallen beyond redemption, typically involving scorched-earth campaigns, orbital strikes, and post-mortem asset recovery.
• Prevent Memory of Rebellion
• Deploy misinformation protocols and cultural blackouts to suppress the legacy of failed insurgencies. Enforce amnesiac stability through occupation and silence.
• Enforce the Black Writs of Silence
• Execute classified death warrants signed under Section Ø protocols when non-compliance would threaten systemic collapse.

Though their actual missions are shrouded, these public objectives give the impression that the Hellraisers are just monsters of necessity. The truth is far more nuanced and far more chilling.

III. Messaging, Propaganda & Symbolic Presence

Unlike the Thunderclads or Sentinels, the Hellraisers are not glorified in public broadcasts. Their presence is felt, not celebrated. They operate through fear, memory, and the chilling power of absence.

Controlled Messaging Strategy:

• "The Quiet Cleansing" Broadcast Protocol: When Regime sectors experience mass insurgency or violent civilian unrest, brief "storm-silence" broadcasts are sent, a pure black screen with the Regime flaming seal and the phrase:

"Do not speak of what you've lost. The fire remembers."

• Ashmarchs: After successful Hellraiser operations, cities may be marched through by a silent line of cloaked Myrmidons and Spartans, leaving ash along their path. Civilians are encouraged to stay indoors. No announcement is made.
• Black Obelisks: In certain planetary capitals, silent obsidian monuments are erected, unmarked save for the Hellraiser sigil. Citizens are told:

"If you do not know why it is there, give thanks. If you do, stay quiet."

Fear is the tool. But so too is relief. For when the Hellraisers arrive, the worst is already over.

IV. Political Alignment and Ideological Role

The Hellraisers serve as the Regime unspoken consequence. They are apolitical in public view, but their actions serve to reinforce political control through existential fear. Their presence ensures obedience, not out of love for the Regime, but from the knowledge of what awaits if loyalty breaks.

Ideological Roles:

• Sanctioned Enforcers of the Black Sun Doctrine: Wielders of executive war power when Diplomacy, law, and conventional force fail.
• Moral Excisionists: Used to surgically remove corrupt or ideologically unstable elements within the DMDF or Regime bureaucracy.
• Custodians of Strategic Silence: Erasers of history that must not survive into future centuries.

Though rarely invoked by name in Senate sessions, high-level leaders speak of them as "The Third Option." Not law. Not mercy. Finality.

V. Promises to Regime & Civilian Populace

The Hellraisers make no public vows. They do not attend Oath of Flame ceremonies. They do not speak at commemorations. Instead, the Regime issues a singular mantra, authorized by the Office of the President Supreme, read aloud during crises:

"The Hellraisers do not promise your survival. They promise your enemies will not outlive you."

However, within classified Regime channels, their internal Doctrine reveals unshakable loyalty to the Regime's survival above all else. Their unofficial code, passed down within their ranks:

• We Burn What Must Not Remain.
• To preserve what is good, what is rotten must be scoured, without hesitation.
• We Silence the Future's Mistakes.
• Our Enemy is not only here. It is the future that their memory might inspire.
• We Carry the Weight, So the Regime Need Not.
• We are not hated because we are evil. We are hated because someone must be.

VI. Legacy and Influence Across Systems

Despite their silence, the Hellraisers leave a deep psychic imprint on Regime space. Where they have operated, culture shifts. Dissent cools. Even myths adapt to speak of ghost warriors who burn only once and leave nothing behind.

Legacy Highlights:

• The Purge of Korrin Hollow: Erased a three-system rebellion, including insurgents, corrupted officials, and five sub-world fortresses. Not a single known survivor. Cities reclaimed, scrubbed, rebuilt.
• The Eclipse Blade Protocol (2558): Prevented an interstellar data leak that could have exposed pre-Flame War crimes. Executed 219 targets across 11 worlds in a single synchronized hour.
• The Black Silence of Halara: After an alien pathogen outbreak, the Hellraisers were sent to cleanse and eliminate all witnesses to the incident. The planet is now a UCG-controlled bio-lab research zone, officially "never colonized."

Their name is never spoken in common media. But when mothers hush crying children in Regime shelters, they whisper:

"Hush… or the black ones will come."

“We are not heroes. We are not monsters. We are the weight of choice. The scream no one hears. The history that never reaches the archive. We are what you summon when the Regime must survive, when every other answer has failed. You may fear us. You should. But know this: as long as we remain… so too does the Flame.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

Regimental Commander: Chief E108 "Hades I"

Specialization: Heavy assault & psychological warfare

Core Role: Battlefield devastation via siegecraft, demolitions, morale-shattering assaults

Typical Deployment: Urban annihilation campaigns, sustained orbital fire coordination, deep-penetration strikes on hardened targets

Regimental Motto: Mortem Cum Honore, "Death with Honor."

I. Role Within the DMDF

Within the DMDF, Hades' Hellraisers are the sanctioned cataclysm, the formation committed when High Command intends the Enemy to remember a defeat for generations. Where other Regiments unmake a battle, the Hellraisers unmake the will to fight. Their task fuses Spartan siege leaders with layered Spartan breacher stacks and Blackguard Myrmidon heavy weapons cohorts operating Titans, hull-drills, rams, and breaching artillery. On the ground, they synchronize plasma-cut corridors, demolition ladders, and firestorm curtains; overhead, their fire missions braid with orbital batteries to render resistance psychologically and materially untenable.

The Doctrine is simple: overwhelm early, ritualize inevitability, and allow panic to do the rest. Epilektoi contingents conduct Fear Break maneuvers, surgical strikes on symbols and nerve centers that rip the spine from Enemy cohesion mid-contact. Myrmidons are not rear echelons; they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Spartans at the breach, wiring charges while the visor next to them counts down. Every assault is a performance of consequence, tight, rehearsed, devastating, and when it ends, nothing important to the Enemy remains capable of Command.

Culturally, Hellraisers practice the Ashmark: after primary operations, Spartans and Myrmidons stain their armor with crimson ash, not to celebrate destruction, but to remember why the city had to fall. The lesson is carved into plating and posture alike: fear is a weapon; honor is the hand that wields it.

II. Brigades

Commanded by Spartan Chiefs, each Brigade below integrates Epilektoi strike knots and fortress-trained Blackguard Myrmidons. Mottos are rendered in UCG Regime Latin with translation.

1st BDE Phantoms Brigade (Elite Infantry)

Commander: Chief E213 "Shadeclaw", Dremis Norn
Motto: Umbrae Ducimus, Portas Rumpimus, "We lead the shadows, we break the gates."

Overview & Roles. The Phantoms are the Regiment's door-breakers, elite infantry who start the ruin. They specialize in stacked breach choreography: ghost-entry through service shafts, ducting, and rubble veins to appear everywhere the defenders feel safe, seconds before the main rams land. Their standard opening, Black Choir, pairs flash-muted charges with sonic fracture to collapse defender coordination without deafening friendly stacks.

Culture. Phantoms polish nothing. Their armor is matte, their movement a lesson in absence. In bivouac, they rehearse hand-signal catechisms until an entire line can pivot, plant, and pull in darkness without a voice raised. Their boast, spoken softly, "We make courage late."

2nd BDE Ereboi Brigade (Armor)

Commander: Chief E205 "Wraithlord", Tol Varek
Motto: Tenebrae Vehimus, Muros Sternimus, "We carry darkness, we lay walls low."

Overview & Roles. Ereboi are the siege-fist. Titan lances and breacher tanks grind avenues into convergence lanes for infantry floods, while void-foam projectors and shock rams peel bastions like fruit. Their signature pattern, Night Anvil, blacks out a district's power, then advances under thermal shrouds to kiss the Wall at zero and split it with silent pressure before the defenders realize their ramparts are already dead.

Culture. Crews wear white tally-strikes inside their hatches, one for each gate taken. They paint nothing on the outside. If asked why, they say the same thing: "A Wall should not see what kills it."

3rd BDE Charonites Brigade (Aerial)

Commander: Chief E237 "Null", Arven Lethe
Motto: Transitus ad Oblivionem "Passage to oblivion."

Overview & Roles. The Charonites are the Regiment's underworld ferrymen in the sky, rotor/grav squadrons conducting roof-sheer insertions, smokestack landings, and void-skim drops along thermal seams the Enemy can't defend. They deliver Epilektoi to the hearts of power and extract nothing the Enemy would keep: commanders, servers, symbols, gone. When bombardments lift, you see their flight paths in the negative space: towers headless, plazas eyeless, banners missing.

Culture. Their cockpits carry coin-glyphs, one for each soul sent across the river. Pilots speak little; crew chiefs say a single word on final: "Pay." And the city pays.

4th BDE Necrotides Brigade (Mechanized)

Commander: Chief E246 "Revenant", Halrik Jesan
Motto: Ferrum et Cineres Procedunt "Iron and ashes advance."

Overview & Roles. Necrotides are shape-grief mechanized, carriers and war-wagons reconfiguring between demolition cradles, ash-shield buses, and bone-saw wreckers as the fight mutates. They excel at street digestion: turning rubble into lanes, lanes into funnels, and funnels into grinders that keep pressure moving. Their Ghoul Relay rotates vehicles through breach mouths so heat never drops and morale never rises against them.

Culture. They etch thin fracture lines along their hulls to honor moments where things almost broke. It reminds them: nearly is the only word the Enemy should own.

5th BDE Stygian Hounds Brigade (Recon)

Commander: Chief E229 "Hound", Karys Etton
Motto: Odoramur Metum, Sequimur Praedam, "We scent fear, we pursue the prey."

Overview & Roles. The Stygian Hounds are recon that hunts. They seed panic with howl-beacons, false footsteps, and rumor-machines; they leash the Enemy with misdirection until Command elements step into the open to fix a catastrophe that never existed, at which point it does. Their Harrow Net filters crowd noise, officer bark, and engine panic into a map of where to hurt next.

Culture. Hounds wear scrim veils that catch ash so they can "smell the fight." Their camp proverb is older than the Regiment: "Find what shakes, and shake it harder."

6th BDE Thanatoi Brigade (QRF)

Commander: Chief E223 "Morrow", Selka Tyris
Motto: Mors Celer, Pax Manet "Swift death, peace remains."

Overview & Roles. The Thanatoi are the Regiment's answer in zero time. Held on permanent blood-readiness, they fall wherever a breach blinks broader than Doctrine allows. Their kits are puzzle-fixed to the failure unfolding: core-kill lances for Titan intrusions, silence bombs for psyops blowback, reaper sleds for fleeing Command staff. Their pattern, Last Dawn, promises a fight measured in minutes and an aftermath measured in quiet.

Culture. They carry date-stamps on their blades, the morrows they delivered. When relieved, they sand them clean. There will be more.

III. Strategic Role in Galactic Campaigns

In theater design, the Hellraisers are the decisive terror vector. High Command centers them in urban seizure, fortress erasure, and political rupture, times when a battle must not only be won, but remembered as unwinnable. They synchronize with Fleet fires to produce stacked horizons of doom: first sirens, then blackout, then walls without gates, then streets without orders. The Regiment partners naturally with Poseidon's Tempests for environment shaping and Athena's Wardens for preemptive decapitation; it finishes alongside Ares' Warbringers when punitive permanence is mandated. After Zeus' Thunderclads crack Command and Hera's Sentinels raise the Wall, Hades' formations write the sentence: Do not try this again.

Their value isn't just destruction; it's campaign compression. By annihilating morale and symbolism early, they shrink wars from months to days, diverting logistics to restoration instead of attrition. On strategic maps, the Hellraisers are placed where the Enemy believes the fight is sacred. By nightfall, sacred is gone.

IV. Reputation and Legacy

The Hellraisers are spoken of in low voices by enemies and allies alike. Civilians recall the way a city's sound changes when they arrive, the hum shifts, the horizon breathes wrong, and then the center goes missing. Captured officers admit that orders felt ridiculous once the Phantoms were inside the walls they trusted. Armor crews on the losing side confess a sudden itch in the hands, the urge to run, when Ereboi hulks rolled without lights and still knew every corner. Pilots who watched the Charonites cut rooflines say they looked like ferrymen placing coins on the eyes of a skyline. And when the Thanatoi descend, even friends step back, because they understand what a tomorrow without a problem costs.

Yet beneath the dread lies a strict discipline, Mortem Cum Honore. Their devastation is not indulgence; it is a message. Their ashmarks are not trophies; they are reminders that some places fell so that others would never have to. Their legacy is not merely fear; it is fewer wars, because word travels faster than fleets.

“We do not love the ruin. We love the silence that follows it, the quiet in which our people can sleep. If you raise a city against us, we will take its crown, then its teeth, then the memory of why it ever bared them. Call it fear. Call it honor. Call it the end of your mistake. We call it mercy delivered at scale.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

I. Diplomatic Stance and Strategic Posture

The Hades' Hellraisers do not have a diplomatic presence in the traditional sense. They are the regime-sanctioned consequence, deployed only when Diplomacy has failed catastrophically or when the Flame must erase, not negotiate.

Their foreign posture is defined by:

• Operational Invisibility: Their deployments are rarely announced, their exits never confirmed.
• Absolute Enforcement of the Codex of the Black Sun: When deployed, all diplomatic channels are suspended, and the time for language is over.
• Existential Deterrence: Their mere rumored presence has caused rebellions to dissolve and colonies to sue for Regime readmittance.

They are not the warning. They are the Judgment.

II. Relations with the UNSC / UEG / ONI Remnants

General Status: Silent Eradication, Zero Correspondence

The Hellraisers maintain no formal diplomatic relations with surviving UEG or UNSC forces. Their operational policy is rooted in blacksite removal, surgical silence, and historical erasure. Any surviving ONI or UNSC-aligned assets discovered within their operational theater are treated as targets for immediate and total erasure.

If recovered, UNSC Command figures are:

• Silenced, either physically or ideologically, through information suppression campaigns.
• Used as psychological weapons, where applicable, by showing footage of their demise to fractured resistance groups.
• Buried in unmarked graves, sometimes reconstructed to remove all biometric history.

No prisoners. No broadcasts. Only obliteration of legacy.

III. Relations with the ONI Spartan Operations

General Status: Purge Priority Alpha-Black

Hellraisers are authorized to eliminate all ONI Spartan assets on sight, with zero exception. The Regime considers surviving Spartan-III or rogue Spartan-IV elements high-level ideological viruses, capable of sparking destabilization on both military and cultural levels.

Specialized Protocols:

• The Silence Directive: ONI Spartans are never to be captured or studied. They are to be eliminated, with no record left behind.
• Ash Containment: In the event of failed containment, entire locations may be scoured using orbital fire to ensure absolute silencing.

Hellraisers do not respect the ONI Spartan's name. To them, they have been soiled by ONI's legacy, and all who bear it under a foreign banner are to be scrubbed from the timeline.

"A corrupted hero does more damage than any villain."

IV. Relations with Alien Powers and Xeno-Species

General Status: Codified Xenocide with Ritual Finality

Hellraisers carry out the Zero Xeno Tolerance Doctrine with merciless efficiency, but their methodology is uniquely chilling. For them, xenocide is ritualistic, not emotional. They don't hate. They purify.

Key Protocols:

• Planetary Sterilization Authorization (Black Index): Approved to initiate orbital glassing, toxin-cloud deployment, or reality-cut tactics on infected systems.
• No Communication Protocol: No alien hails are acknowledged. No translators activated.
• Total Species Memory Suppression: Post-conflict, any cultural record of xeno presence is intentionally removed from civilian access networks.

Xeno threats are treated as cosmic plagues, no more deserving of rights than a virus.

V. Relations with Insurgent Forces and Rebel Worlds

General Status: Brutal Extinguishment, Post-Event Amnesia Imposed

Insurgencies are the Hellraisers' primary domain. Unlike Sentinels or Thunderclads, they are never deployed to negotiate, never sent to stabilize. They are summoned to erase.

Protocol Directives:

• The Last Memory Order: Civilian witnesses are selectively terminated to prevent the mythologizing of rebel martyrs.
• Writs of Silence: High-value rebel leaders are assassinated quietly, often before their names become widely known.
• Rebellion Erasure Doctrine: Cultural sites, historical figures, and literature connected to rebellion are destroyed in full.

In many systems, entire generations don't remember they were once at war. That's the Hellraisers' mark.

VI. Relations with Neutral Powers, Mercenary States & Minor Factions

General Status: Observed Containment, Quiet Coercion

The Hellraisers maintain no open diplomatic channel with neutral factions. However, in rare cases where such factions risk becoming threats or ideological conduits for rebellion, the Hellraisers intervene preemptively.

Tactics include:

• Covert Leadership Neutralization: Faction leaders are removed under pretenses or via engineered internal collapse.
• Mercenary Network Contagion Protocol: Companies suspected of harboring anti-Regime elements are poisoned, socially, economically, and then biologically.
• Plausible Deniability Doctrine: All such interventions are designed to appear as natural disasters, internal coups, or unrelated warlord attacks.

The Hellraisers don't warn neutral factions to behave. They ensure no one ever hears from them again if they don't.

VII. Known Enemies of Legacy Significance

The Hellraisers maintain a classified ledger known as "The Nameless List." Every name on it is either dead or will be. Below are known historical enemies whose destruction was mythologized into Regime silence:

• Project Emberfall (ONI): Secret Spartan IV clone project. Located, purged, and burned, every scientist was removed from the galactic record.
• The Cindervault Accord: A rebel treaty summit on the moon of Trask. Hellraisers deployed, and within 48 hours, not a single signature survived.
• The Whispering Bastion: A minor colony on the edge of UCG space whose broadcast sedition nearly triggered a civil spiral. Now, no official records of the colony exist. No one speaks of it.

Their enemies do not become martyrs. They are forgotten.

VIII. Diplomatic Symbolism and Planetary Perception

Hellraisers inspire fear beyond myth. They are rarely seen, yet universally known. Even planets that have never hosted them pass down hushed stories, coded warnings, and cultural cautionary tales.

Common Symbols:

• Black Obelisks: Silent markers erected after operations. If one appears in a city, it means the Regime came and cleaned something no one was allowed to see.
• Empty Parade Grounds: If a parade is cancelled with no explanation, citizens know: "The Black Flame passed through."
• The Eyes of Stone: Some worlds feature statues with their eyes gouged out, whispered to be the only survivors of a Hellraiser purge.

To the galaxy, Hellraisers are death without memory, justice without witness.

“I do not speak to enemies. I do not negotiate with ghosts. I do not mourn what I erase. I am not here for your heart, your history, or your hope. I am here to make sure that no one remembers your mistake. You had your chance. You chose your path. I am the end of it.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

I. Foundation of the Hellraisers' Laws

The Codex Damnatio, or "The Codex of the Damned," is forged in fire and finality. Authored by Chief E108 "Hades I" after the purging of the traitorous Bastion of Gryth in 2548, the Codex emerged not as a legal framework but as an unbreakable Doctrine of survival through subjugation.

It exists as the purest enforcement manifestation of the Codex of the Black Sun, mirroring the harshest elements of ancient Spartan martial law, Blacksite protocols from the early DMDF era, and pre-UCG off-the-record Spartan kill-team doctrines.

There is no room for redemption. There is only loyalty, silence, and sacrifice. The law is not written in ink; it is carved in bone and blood.

II. Structure and Creation of Laws

The Codex Damnatio is not democratic, nor procedural. It is dictatorial, ritualized, and brutal.

Its structure consists of:

• The Exarch of Flame: Chief Hades I; lawgiver, arbiter, and final executor.
• The Penumbral Council: Five Blackguard Strategoi (Spartans) and Myrmidon Inquisitors who carry out rulings without Trial or mercy.
• The Ashen Lexicon: A sentient AI archive embedded with psychological suppression algorithms and historical fear-memetics. It stores all versions of the Codex and monitors for signs of deviation.

New laws are created through:

1. Incident Triggers: Deviant actions, hesitations, or collapses are flagged.
2. Immediate Review by Hades and the Ashen Lexicon.
3. Dictum of Silence: A single word codified and enforced, often without explanation.
4. Blood-Seal Enshrinement: The ruling is inscribed into the neural link-binders of all Hellraiser field commanders.

There is no Trial. There is no challenge. There is only one commandment through the shadow.

III. Core Hellraisers' Laws

The Codex Damnatio does not have "Laws" in the traditional sense. It has doctrinal absolutes, immutable conditions of obedience. Known as the Seven Sigils of Compliance, they are recited in full only by Tribunal Inquisitors.

Examples include:

1. Sigil of Obedience Absolute: A Hellraiser obeys the word of Hades without question, hesitation, or delay. Failure is not tolerated, even in context.
2. Sigil of Silence: No Mission parameters, identities, or objectives may be discussed with outsiders, including other Regime personnel.
3. Sigil of Finality: Once an execution Order is given, be it against Enemy, ally, or comrade, it must be carried out to completion or face equal consequence.
4. Sigil of Purity: Tainted ideals such as mercy, doubt, or nostalgia are grounds for psychological reprocessing or elimination.
5. Sigil of Sacrifice: Your life is not your own. It is fuel. Burn it when ordered.
6. Sigil of the Ash Veil: Any memory, act, or document not permitted by Hades must be erased. Thought-crimes are punishable as war-crimes.
7. Sigil of No Return: If captured, death is expected. If rescued without orders, suicide is the proper recourse.

These sigils are coded into ritual mind-burns placed behind the occipital cortex of senior officers, applied with molten sealants.

IV. Enforcement of Laws

Enforcement is carried out through internal annihilation, not investigation. Hellraisers do not conduct tribunals; they carry out eradications.

Enforcement arms include:

• The Blackguard Strategoi: Enforcers of discipline on and off the battlefield.
• The Thoughtflame Cult: Myrmidon psychological inquisitors who monitor brainwave irregularities and enforce purity via trauma-based corrections.
• Hades Himself: It is not uncommon for Chief Hades I to carry out executions personally. His reputation as The Final Sigil is unmatched.

Violation of the Codex results in ritual punishment, often with recorded demonstrations for other units.

V. Punishments and Penances

Punishment under the Codex Damnatio is designed to do one of two things: instill fear or erase contamination.

Examples include:

• The Blind March: The violator is blinded and sent into hostile territory alone with no weapon. Their only path to redemption is returning with Enemy heads.
• Soul Bleach: AI-induced memory purging of all familial, emotional, or ideological bonds. If the subject survives, they are reborn as Flame Unseen.
• The Hollow Flame: The offender is surgically stripped of identity, voice, and rank and becomes a mind-broken test dummy for Hellraiser drills.
• Public Ritual Eradication: The highest form of punishment. The violator is vaporized at the feet of their squad, who are ordered to continue without mourning.

Punishment is not an anomaly; it is a ritual, a warning, and a tool.

VI. Flexibility and Reach of the Law

The Codex Damnatio is completely inflexible. It is a weaponized legal system designed to eliminate nuance, gray morality, or conditional logic.

There are no pardons, no forgiveness protocols, and no reviews. Even missions deemed successful may result in punishment if emotional deviation or behavioral inconsistency is detected.

Its reach is total:

• Hellraisers may enact their Codex upon any Regime personnel assigned under their Command.
• Field executions of allied units are legally permitted under Sigil Enforcement if hesitation or treason is confirmed.
• Civilian interaction is permitted only under doctrinal alignment protocols, and even then, under silence.

The common Regime law does not bind them. They are the Tribunal after the law has failed.

VII. Legacy of Legal Fear

Within the DMDF, the Codex Damnatio is feared, respected, and never questioned. It has created an aura of invulnerability and dread around the 3rd Regiment, such that:

• Entire rebel cities have surrendered at the mention of a Hellraiser Tribunal team arriving.
• Other TFE Regiments often request alternative support to avoid participating in joint trials with the Hellraisers.
• UCG civilian zones maintain shrine-like statues of "The Black Flame" to signal reverence and to discourage Tribunalunal from unnecessary visits.

The Codex has ensured that Hellraisers are never trifled with. They are not asked questions. They are obeyed. They are obeyed through generational memory.

“This Codex is not written for you to understand. It is written so that when you fail, we already know how to erase you. We are not the first choice. We are the last word. Our laws are not for peace, they are for containment. Our oaths are not to the Regime, they are to its survival. When everything else cracks, collapses, and begs for mercy, we stand. And those who do not stand with us, will be buried beneath the flame.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”

Governing Law: Codex Juris Bellum (Law of War and Flame)

Counter-Subversion Frame: Codex of the Black Sun

Regimental Maxim: Mortem Cum Honore, "Death with Honor."

I. Education Structure and Purpose

Hades' Hellraisers educate for lawful devastation, operators who can end a fortress, a city-core, or a campaign memory without corrupting the cause. The curriculum is a vice: on one jaw, siegecraft and demolitions; on the other, moral Law and restraint. Every fire Mission is paired to a Tribunal; a forensic board follows every breach. Candidates are driven through brutal evolutions, blast overpressure, blind-entry under fire, rolling blackouts with riot acoustics, then made to speak the Law with lungs still burning. The purpose is simple and brutal: produce Spartans and Blackguard Myrmidons who can erase the Enemy's will and leave the world governable when the ash settles.

Training rides four rails:

• Siege Finality: Breacher rams, hull-drills, firestorm integration, corridor digestion.
• Fearcraft With Honor: Symbolic decapitation, rumor-shaping, martyr-prevention.
• Continuity After Ruin: Utilities triage, casualty throughput, evidence preservation.
• Shoulder-to-Shoulder Assault: Spartans and Myrmidons in the breach together, no rear echelons.

II. Foundation of Hades' Education

Three ancestries; one blade.

1. Agōgē (transposed): Contest discipline and peer Judgment to harden edge control, the cruelty to oneself that allows mercy to others when the walls break.
2. UNSC/ONI Spartan cadence (refined): Punishing physical blocks fused to rigorous academics (math for trajectories, history for precedent, Law for limits, deception hygiene). Regime correction: opacity replaced by audited Command, lone-hero myth replaced by coherent stacks.
3. DMDF Forge Doctrine (amplified): Whole-of-theater literacy: how to smash a citadel and keep lights, water, clinics, and courts from failing around it. Black Sun modules inoculate against "fast evil", the unlawful shortcut that buys today and bankrupts tomorrow.

Hades' Invention: The Ashclock. The Hellraiser timer all operators carry:

• T+05: Exterior fires converge; panic seeded; no martyrs created.
• T+10: Breach mouth opened; utilities triaged; evac corridors enforced.
• T+20: Symbols erased (banners, comm spires, throne rooms Command spine broken.
• T+30: Fortress silent; city governable; extraction or handoff to stability forces.

Miss an Ashclock mark? You repeat the evolution until you don't.

III. Stages of Education & Training (post-assignment to 3rd Regiment)

Week 0–2: "Hades' Measure."
Baselines under blast and blackout: reaction time with overpressure, movement in smoke labyrinths, legal recall with sirens and crowd audio at pain thresholds. Nightly Red-Room: candidates defend collateral calculus and target legitimacy to jurist-instructors and civic role-players.

Phase I (8 weeks): Siege Core.

• Breach Anatomy: Door/Wall/floor/roof entries with plasma-cut & ram choreography; 90-second standard from first bite to room control.
• Demolitions Literacy: Charge selection, progressive collapse, "do not kill the clinic" wiring; every detonation logged for Tribunal review.
• Armor Adjacency: Learn to breathe beside Titans and siege tanks; hull-kiss movement in rubble lanes.

Phase II (10 weeks): Fearcraft & Continuity.

• Black Choir: Non-lethal sonic/smoke patterns that break coordination without breeding martyrs.
• Symbol Logic: What to remove, what to spare; how to decrown a city without making saints.
• Utilities Under Fire: Keeping power/water/medicae alive while towers fall; triage boards graded by throughput and survival.

Phase III (6 weeks): Custody, Evidence, Media.

• HVT Hygiene: Capture/kill with a chain-of-custody secured through chaos.
• Forensic Runs: Blast vector mapping, body-cam integrity, post-strike press protocols; you speak to mothers and ministers before you sleep.

Phase IV (12 weeks): Convergence Rotations (Brigade immersion).

• Phantoms (Elite Infantry): Ghost-entry and gate-break choreography; matte-armor, hand-signal catechisms.
• Ereboi (Armor): Night Anvil power-out assaults; silent pressure rams; wall-peel drills.
• Charonites (Aerial): Roof-shear insertions, smokestack landings, one-minute windows.
• Necrotides (Mechanized): Street digestion; vehicle re-role (breacher ↔ med ↔ signal Ghoul Relay tempo maintenance.
• Stygian Hounds (Recon): Harrow Net rumor engines; Command baiting; artery cuts.
• Thanatoi (QRF): Last Dawn rapid endings; crisis measured in minutes.

Final Ordeal: "Ashmark Gauntlet" (96 hours, continuous).
City-core siege: rolling blackout, choirs wailing, evac lanes clogging, AI feeds lying. Objectives: open breach, erase symbols without martyrs, keep clinics lit, capture the crown alive (if feasible), and hand a governable city to stability forces by minute 31. Errors that create legends are automatic restarts.

IV. Access and Differentiation

Selection Rate: 8–10% of TFE graduates (Spartan-track + Myrmidon-track) are chosen for Hades' Hellraisers.

Why are candidates chosen here?

• Deterrent Temperament: Comfortable wielding overwhelming, precisely bounded force to end fights early, and walking away from glory.
• Symbolic Intelligence: Instinct for which objects mean Command and which mean people; remove the first, shield the second.
• Fear Without Cruelty: Can shatter morale lawfully, no staged atrocities, no hunger games.
• Blast-Calm: Operate and decide under overpressure, dust-smoke, and structure-shift without losing ROE.
• Shoulder-to-Shoulder Ethos: Fight beside Blackguard heavy stacks. Myrmidons are not your shadow; they are your other hand.
• Forensic Mindset: Preserve proof even as walls fall; truth is part of victory.

Candidates wired for shock-speed (Zeus), bastion patience (Hera), environmental phantoms (Poseidon), attritional weight (Ares), or clandestine orchestration (Athena) are routed accordingly. Hades is for those who make the Enemy remember not to try again, without giving them a story to worship.

V. Education Structure and Purpose (Regimental Course Map)

Core (All Hellraisers):

• Ashclock Doctrine Lab: Stacked fire/psychological effects on a live grid; graded for finality and governability.
• Red-Sun Siege Ethics: Counter-subversion under long operations; spot and refuse the seductive logic of expedience.
• Continuity Practicum: Lights/water/clinics must survive your victory; fail, and you repeat the week.

Brigade Tracks (Spartan & Myrmidon together):

• Phantoms Hall: Shadow entries, multi-axis gate breaks, "Black Choir" coordination collapse.
• Ereboi Yard: Hull-kiss armor work, silent rams, void-foam peel.
• Charonites Spire: Thermal seam rides, roofline seizures, antenna snips.
• Necrotides Works: Rubble-to-lane converters; Ghoul Relay to keep heat on the breach.
• Stygian Den: Harrow Net rumor sculpture, officer bait, artery mapping.
• Thanatoi Ramp: Minute-scale decisive actions; single-stroke endings to avert second battles.

Currency of Certification: Perishable. Miss an Ashclock or botch a Tribunal defense, your badge is suspended until re-qual.

VI. Philosophy of Learning

• End the Right Thing Completely. Do not nibble at evil; take its teeth and tongue in one pass.
• Honor Holds the Match. Fire is a tool; without honor, it's arson.
• No Martyrs, No Myths. Your victory is measured by how little story the Enemy can tell about it.
• Truth Survives the Breach. Preserve evidence; Command legitimacy outlives smoke.
• Stand in the Door Together. If a Myrmidon is behind you, you failed your stack.

“We are not the roar, we are the silence that follows it. We break the places that make wars and leave the places that make life. If fear ends this fight, good; fear is cheaper than graves. But it will be honest fear, earned by precision and restraint. Walk with me through the ash, and listen: the city is still breathing. That is the only anthem we allow ourselves.”

— Regimental Commander Chief E108 “Hades I”