Spotlight on:

National Flag

The Co-Prosperity Tetrasphere of The United Dominion

“CLEFT FOR THEE HIDE IN ME”

Category: Inoffensive Centrist Democracy
Civil Rights:
Average
Economy:
Strong
Political Freedoms:
Some

Regional Influence: Negotiator

Location: The Local Cluster

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3

United Dominion - Defense and War

Contents
Ground Forces
Space Forces
Intelligence Network
- Humans
Treatment of Prisoners
Defense of the United Dominion relies on a small fleet of tough warships run directly by the United Dominion's military arm, coordination with community and world militias, and maintaining a vast intelligence network.

They also have myriad defense outposts throughout inhabited systems, also run by the same military arm that manages its space fleet.

The first line of defense is always considered to be their intelligence network, which seeks to ensure they are not the subjects of any surprises, and also attempts to resolve conflicts before they begin.


Ground Forces

A deployed heavy disc drone

The United Dominion's army is comprised of units assigned to it from the various militias of the settlements within its purview. The army can best be classified as a levy, since it only exists or is reinforced by calling upon its constituent settlements to provide what it requires. Since this is one of the few requirements the United Dominion has of its constituent settlements, it is a well-maintained and very large force.

An ixee deployment often outnumbers its enemy many times over, as from the perspective of most other species, they rarely suffer from a lack of manpower. They are also consistently able to arm and train their soldiers well enough; however, since units are drawn from disparate militias, this is not a simple quality vs. quantity dichotomy - some worlds produce high quality soldiers in smaller numbers, others produce a great many with less training, and some manage both: large numbers of very talented troops.

Due to what can generally be perceived as a constant excess of manpower, ixee don't believe in situations where they are outnumbered. Unless they are caught off-guard and have no choice, they always try to maintain superiority of four or five to one. In some instances, they have fielded as many as ten times the opposing force; these cases are typically to force negotiations for ending whatever conflict is taking place.

An aerial recon drone

While some specialist ixee soldiers are trained to capture and operate enemy (or even allied) vehicles, the ixee did not develop very many land-based wheeled or tracked vehicles at any point in their history, and so do not operate almost any now. Ixee ground forces are almost entirely infantry, and are supported by aerial drones and ships in orbit, or by a small number of heavy disc drones (approximately ixee-sized) on ground. In some cases, they will deploy ocean-based long-range artillery and command structures, particularly on planets whose surface is more than 80% water. Infantry may be supported with power armor, which is of a segmented snake-like design, each segment of which can rotate to bring various forms of shielding and weaponry out from compartments and to bear.

It has not been unknown for ixee to also make use of wave tactics, taking advantage of both their oft-superior numbers, physical strength and speed, and their command body's general ability to control and motivate the ixee below them. Forcing enemies, especially those who are well-entrenched into close quarters combat may result in many losses, but they are most typically within acceptable ranges, and few have been known or are expected to be able to withstand such an assault.


Space Forces

Mwansamixmwota
Roughly: Destroyers Amongst the Stars

Ixee ships do not match their general perspective regarding preservation of lives. While the ground force doctrine can and will factor into their plans a minimum number of expected deaths, the minimum expected ship losses is always zero. Ixee ships are by and large built to last; they are very expensive to build and maintain, and so are heavily invested in having the best possible defenses available.

Ships are predominantly crewed by a rare kind of ixee, ones who have a measure of individuality greater than average, but not so great that they have trouble operating as a single unit. Not very many ixee are well-suited to the task, and while some positions may not really need that particular mold of ixee (such as basic maintenance or security), piloting and navigation crewmembers must. Ships themselves become their own communities, possibly including a creche father and distributed creche system in the deep interior of the vessel.

The ships themselves are spherical in shape and are armed with arrays of lasers and gravitic projectors. The laser arrays are set up more to target incoming projectiles or other bodies of mass often acting like a broom to sweep away dangerous objects, but this is not to say they are only for point defense - since they have to be able to destroy almost anything coming toward them, they can still be used as offensive, anti-ship weapons. The gravitic projectors have various uses including logistical (such as putting sensor and messenger probes into FTL) but are most well known for their ability to redirect or curve incoming projectiles, particles, and energy weapons. It has also been noted that they are capable of projecting concentrated force against distant targets, "punching" at them.

Ixee ships are also heavily armored and shielded, having been built around a philosophy based on the staying power of individual craft, in stark contrast to how ixee treat their infantry and aerial platforms. By sheer virtue of physiology, these ships are also well-defended against boarding actions by most species since most corridors are little more than crawlspaces three or four feet in height at their maximum, which are all ixee need.

Despite rumors that ixee ships are full of water, this is not actually the case, though they do have water-filled compartments in the deep interiors of their craft, surrounding the gravcore.


Intelligence Apparatus

Taasysusi na Owaexenlum
Roughly: Transcommunal Institution of Galactic Knowledge and Secret Operations

Often considered the primary method with which the United Dominion defends itself, ixee have two primary sources of intel gathering: the official espionage arm of the government that operates agent and strike teams, and the volunteered information from the various ixee settlements across the galaxy.

An intel services disc drone.
Agents are typically stationed in every ixee community possible, whether in United Dominion-friendly space or not. They also can be dispatched in the guise of "exile" ixee: typically individualist ixee who do not conform enough to ixee standards to fit in with society, and so head off on their own or in small numbers to pursue their own destinies, whatever those may be. Whenever possible, the United Dominion installs legal resident spies in the cover of diplomatic, military, or cultural attaches, or as traders, since ixee tend to stick out in crowds of most other species anyway; if this is not possible, then they will still do whatever they can to install non-legal resident spies. In these cases, the use of local assets and drones rather than the ixee themselves are the main actors in any mission. The United Dominion's intelligence service uses two primary drones: a small and easily concealable type of disc drone to aid in self-defense, and aerial recon drones.

Volunteered information is always considered a useful source of intelligence, though it is almost always fact-checked by agents. Since communities share information through a variety of methods and for a variety of purposes, eventually (and typically quickly) all news in any way relevant to the ixee will pass through the United Dominion's intelligence apparatus. This provides for the majority of its open source intelligence.

The United Dominion engages in all forms of intelligence collections management, but focuses the most heavily on signals and imagery intelligence. The overwhelming majority of ixee spies are technical analysts and computer scientists with a vast array of technical skills and equipment. Those who are not maintain much of that skillset, but are more focused as strike teams and counter-intelligence spyhunters.

Humans
Bnadamu
Roughly: Ape-descended sophont

With their plentiful nature, and their natural susceptibility to the drug that ixee skin secretes, humans have made for excellent agents. While the Transcommunal Institution can and has used agents of other species, humans are a relatively recent addition to their arsenal.

While ixee were aware of various groups of humans prior to their introduction to the Serukta Sacral Empire, it was that relationship which saw a much wider use of humans.

Most recently, the United Dominion has taken in refugees from the Great Displacement for exactly this purpose, focusing primarily on humans. Because of this, humans are seen as very valuable, if generally untrustworthy as a species. In fact, that is part of their value: they are inherently violent and prone to acts of moral depravity, which makes them perfectly suited to the tasks that the Institution handlers would give them. It also makes them more likely to try the drug first.

There are some very highly valued humans who have worked for the United Dominion for years, somehow maintaining their usefulness and not dying from overdosing or becoming too dependent on the ixee drug. Even they, however, rarely get to be anywhere near a United Dominion core world.


Treatment of Prisoners


Unless a species is classified as endangered by the United Dominion's scientific academies, the ixee general disregard for individual lives extends to their prisoners. Executions of captured combatants are common, as it is frequently more efficient than trying to keep alien life comfortable and healthy in ixee habitats - these are seen as the only two choices, as keeping prisoners alive but in a state of poor health is generally frowned upon. When seeking to interrogate subjects, ixee have a tendency to avoid physical torture in most cases, but will execute individual captives to convince any others to share their knowledge. They also rely on their captives' awareness of the two choices at hand, to either die or be helpful, with essentially no middle ground.

There are always individual exceptions, however, and even some species excepted from this. For example, the combination of hroa'agh general loyalty and usefulness could make them an exception, but it is their low population and slow breeding rate which would make it ethically unsound to execute captured hostile hroa'agh.

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