Stellar League Colonial Forces

The Stellar League Colonial Forces were a conglomeration military forces established by the Stellar League to serve as the primary defensive force of the League. Also known fancifully as the Stellar Limetanei, the Colonial Forces served as a security force, defeating minor rebellions or incursions, or delaying a larger threat until the Sol Sector Forces could arrive to defeat them. As a result Colonial Forces could be some of the most adaptable and experienced military units within the Stellar League.

Organization

The Colonial Forces were divided into patrol regions of approximately eight by ten parsecs known as sectors. Each sector had a Sector Force Command (SFC) which was the largest organizational unit of the Colonial Forces. These SFCs were in large part funded by the individual sector and allowed to organize themselves as required. However, each SFC was responsible to maintain a Sector Fleet, and Sector Planetary Army with a minimum strength requirement for each. Many Sectors would also maintain a more mobile Sector Marine Corps as well though this was not universal. The League would provide the minimum support required to meet this minimal obligation however any additional strength was paid for and maintained by Sector governments themselves.

Sector Fleets

A Sector Fleet was the naval command of an SFC, responsible for patrolling space, and if a sector lacked marines, providing limited inter ship or light expeditionary capabilities. The League mandated a minimum of a Cruiserstar squadron (consisting of a Cruisercarrier as the central capital ship, and four frigates), and three Patrol Squadrons (consisting of five ships of either a Corvette or Cutter size class). However, the majority of Sector Fleets had additional squadrons containing more cruisercarriers, cruisers, frigates, patrol ships, and support vessels to the point where a fleet of hundreds or perhaps thousands of ships was the norm. Fighter wings were of variable size, depending on the needs of the sector in question, though fighter fleets tended to number in the thousands. Sector fleets had to maintain a high degree of adaptability as they could just as frequently find themselves conducting routine patrols, hunting down mobile pirate fleets, putting down a planetary rebellion within the same earth year. As a result, modular ship designs became increasingly popular later in the history of the Sector Fleets of the Colonial Forces.

Sector Armies

A Sector Army was the primary planetary force of any SFC. Oftentimes their duties were relatively light as planetary defense forces were generally capable of managing routine security, and planetary armies were poor at pirate hunting. As a result a Sector Army was constantly training to fight a planetary rebellion, and became very elite forces, equal in training, if not armament to the vaunted Sol Sector Forces. At a minimum each SFC had to maintain five Corps sized combat elements alongside their requisite support assets and starlift ships required to transport everything (a commitment of approximately a million soldiers, thousands of combat vehicles and dozens of starlifters of various sizes). In practice most systems that were even remotely established with populous worlds possessed a force much larger, often by one or more orders of magnitude as the realities of fighting against a planetary rebellion from a civilized world would require troops in the tens of millions at least.

Sector Marines

While the smallest frontier sectors could handle their needs with their Sector Fleets, almost every other SFC maintained a dedicated corps of fleet marines to handle boarding actions and to serve as a light expeditionary force for the Sector government. These elite formations were generally fairly small and dispersed throughout the Sector Fleets, though modest expeditionary units could be assembled. As they were not strictly required by the Stellar League itself, official organizational guidelines were limited, though most Sectors organized their marines along the lines of smaller scale Army formations, with fire team sized detachments assigned to ships up to brigades and corps being assembled together to carry out planetary invasions. Marines were often equipped with the best equipment available to the sector government, in order to ensure maximal effectiveness from their small size, and were highly adaptable due to the many different needs placed upon naval infantry in interstellar society.

Assets

The Colonial Forces combined owned a truly staggering number of assets spread across the galaxy. At their peak in strength right before the Jred Scourge, they possessed almost thirty thousand warships, hundreds of thousands of support craft, millions of planetborne vehicles, and similar numbers of combat and support robots. For the most part, SFCs relied heavily on Standard Build Template based tech to supply themselves, which limited the technical complexity, intentionally, of equipment they could readily procure. According to official guidelines, the average colonial trooper would be equipped with an improved polycarapace harness and were primarily equipped with robust gauss weaponry, most notably the venerable Type 333 Gauss Rifle. In practice however, individual sector commands however often procured more capable equipment wherever they could, from securing a few suits of excess battledress from armory surplus to commissioning advanced warships from the shipyards of high tech worlds within the sector.   During the Jred Scourge there was a steady depletion of assets from the Colonial Forces, as they were the hardest hit by the initial Jred attacks. Entire Sector Force Commands and all of their assets were devoured by the Scourge, and sector fleets were seconded to Sol's command in order to fight the Jred. The intervention of the Sol Sector Forces slowed the loss and allowed some recuperation, but after The Staniza Massacre, the Colonial Forces began to suffer immensely once again. By the time of the Great Cataclysm much of the Colonial Forces had been destroyed outright though those areas further from the Scourge emerged more intact than those that had been fighting on the frontlines. It is believed that by the end of the Scourge, the combined strength of the various SFCs was about half of what it was before the Scourge.

Personnel

The Colonial Forces were collectively a very diverse lot, though individual Sector Force Commands drew from smaller, more localized pools of recruits. Each SFC was expected to draw the majority of its recruits from the local sector. In theory they are supposed to draw their entire recruitment pool from the local sector. In practice, if a frontier sector had not developed a large enough population to support the minimum force requirement, solar reservists would fill in until a sector could support its own defense. The culture of Sector Forces varied wildly depending on its nature. Due to the settlement patterns of the Stellar League during the Third Expansion, newly founded frontier sectors could be extremely homogeneous both in a cultural and socioeconomic sense. However, older sectors closer to the core could be as diverse as the Sol Sector Forces or any other large body of people in the galaxy.   After a sector had been legally founded, they would need to establish a military academy in order to train sector troops. The top 15% of recruits could be taken by the Sol Sector Forces, and any troops in the bottom 85% of the graduating classes or those rejected by Sol would make up the bulk of each SFC's military personnel. Post academy training consisted of additional basic training lasting two to four months and additional specialized training for their career lasting anywhere from a few months to two years. This training focused on adaptability, teamwork and discipline focusing on ensuring that Sector troops could operate independent of significant support for an extended period, especially on the frontiers. After this training they would be placed into units with veterans capable of continuing the education of a new soldier during the first months of their term.