Hegemony Army
From FABT
| |
|---|---|
|
Active: |
|
|
Organization: |
|
|
Affiliation: |
|
|
Type: |
|
|
Role: |
Land warfare |
|
Size: |
33.7 million (regular) |
|
Part of: |
|
|
Headquarters: |
|
|
Nickname(s): |
Batarian army |
|
Motto: |
"Honor Above." |
|
Colors: |
Dark green and white |
|
Anniversaries): |
Ragbastar Day |
|
Engagements: |
|
|
Commanders: |
Field Marshal Oseros Khor'ravan |
- "Honor Above."
- — Army motto.
The Hegemony Army, also referred to as the Imperial Army and simply the Batarian Army to aliens, was the land service branch of the Hegemony Armed Forces, and one of the four uniformed services of the Batarian Hegemony. The Hegemony Army was formed from the reorganized remnants of the People's Liberation Army of Khar'Shan in 1538 CE, and was subsequently heavily rearmed and their equipment significantly altered as a result of the military reforms enforced by Edhagrom Brapsalok, the first Supreme Regent, who wanted to make the batarian military entirely reliant on batarian-only equipment and technology, with any and all exports and imports of weapons halted: as such, the Hegemony Army was supplied with its weapons and equipment by Batarian State Arms, a state-owned batarian weapons and military vehicle manufacturer that provided solely for the batarian military. Shortly after its founding, the Hegemony Army proved itself as an instrument of the state when it had to participate in crushing numerous citizen revolts against the new regime, quickly developing a ruthless and dogmatic reputation as loyal servants of their Regent and the Batarian Empire. With the help of the Hegemony Navy, the Hegemony Army could be deployed rapidly to the theaters of conflict they were needed at most, with a strict policy of mercilessly completing their missions. As a result of relentless batarian state propaganda filling the minds of batarians with batarian supremacist doctrine, those joining the Hegemony Army hoped to kill as many aliens as they could, and the Hegemony Army was praised by every batarian as the most powerful land force in the galaxy, capable of utilizing brute force and firepower to overwhelm their enemies and crush them. It was a claim not entirely without merit, as the Hegemony Army had access to an arsenal of weaponry and vehicles that could deliver devastating firepower and was focused entirely on obliterating their targets with little regard to collateral damage or ethics.
The Hegemony Army was the largest branch of the batarian military, and thus far was the most commonly encountered Hegemony force by foreign powers on the field of battle. The Hegemony Army was bolstered by tank divisions, specialized artillery regiments and an array of gunships and dropships for providing air support in combat operations, as well as ferrying troops to and from necessary battlefields at will. While the Hegemony Army lacked many options for air support compared to its contemporaries, its ground troops were some of the finest in the galaxy, with natural batarian body strength making them a formidable combatant in hand-to-hand combat. Despite this, the Hegemony Army in its latter days became increasingly more poorly equipped, with batarian soldiers either lacking the supplies necessary to carry out their missions or their weaponry and/or vehicles not receiving the proper maintenance, leading to breakdowns or jamming. To showcase this, the Hegemony was slow to follow up on the switch from heat sink-based weapons to thermal clips in 2184 CE, with the Hegemony Army only beginning to receive modified, thermal clip-based weapons in early 2186 CE, with the transition taking two years longer than the rest of the galaxy. Power struggles among batarian army brass also led to an increasingly fractured command structure as commanders and their field marshal undermined each other to win favor with the Regent. This and the intense rivalry between the Army, Navy and Slaver Corps only worsened the Army's ability to act effectively, and so the power and strength the Army boasted that should have existed in practice was largely reduced to a theoretical state at best. Despite this, the Hegemony's temerity never allowed this to restrict or limit its ambitions, and the Army was frequently deployed to varying success. The Hegemony Army was humiliated by its defeat during the First Battle of Torfan, where it lost control of the batarian fortress world of Torfan and was soundly defeated by the Alliance Army and Marine Corps, a better equipped force with superior training and tactics. Despite this, the Hegemony Army continued to remain stagnant, falling behind the rest of the galaxy in terms of quality of equipment, resources and logistics, although its reputation for crushing rebellions remained infamous: the Hegemony Army was frequently labelled as a "counter-insurgent force" more so than a traditional war for this very reason.
Perhaps the worst day for the Hegemony Army in its entire history was 2 June 2186 CE, also known as "Reaper Day", when the Reapers began their invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy by emerging in Hegemony space. The Hegemony Army suffered a staggering 40% casualties from this day alone, with the poor logistics, command structure and equipment issues only compounding upon the initial surprise and confusion of the invasion, with thousands of batarian troops being lost before ever even seeing combat. Indoctrinated agents that had infiltrated the Hegemony leadership fed the Supreme Regent false intelligence reports and information, claiming it was an Alliance attack, causing the Regent to give confused orders. Following the final Hegemony defeat in the Battle of Harsa that broke the back of the Hegemony military as a whole, what was left of the Army fled with the rest out of Hegemony space and mostly scattered or were left trapped on occupied batarian worlds with no means of escape, disintegrating into resistance groups or being captured/turning themselves in to the Reapers. A mere 9% of the Army managed to escape the fall of Hegemony space, and of that only 3% took part in combat operations afterwards as part of the United Galactic Confederacy, with the other 6% becoming deserters, either masquerading as refugees or fleeing into the larger galaxy. Balak Uhtero showed no mercy to these deserters when he came across them, but otherwise was able to turn what was left of the Army into a powerful strike force as part of Operation Cobblestone, the batarian military operation to slowly liberate Hegemony space. Following the Reaper War, the Army was able to recoup 30% of its losses when many of the resistance groups disbanded and rejoined the Army and this, coupled with more being conscripted from batarians who had now matured enough to join the Army, the Hegemony Army was restored to around 40% of its former strength. This was not nearly enough to crush the many uprisings that continued to well up following the war, with many of them becoming far more intense and violent following batarian exposure to the outside world, with many demands for reform being backed by numbers. The Hegemony Army now faced rebellions that brought with them weapons, equipment, tactics and other knowledge taught to them by Army soldiers who had been part of the resistance against the Reapers, as well as from the UGC: the Army no longer held the upperhand or a monopoly on tactical superiority, and their logistical issues were only fully further exploited by the rebels who knew of it. Many members of the Army began to desert to the rebels or already had, while others began to feed intelligence reports and other vital tactical and strategic information to rebel groups to give them an upperhand. This led to a purge of Army leadership by the Feksogar, which only further weakened the Army. By the time the Border War came along, the Army was in no fit state to fight a war anymore, and it crumbled in the face of determined and swift attacks from Systems Coalition forces, who often worked in concert with rebel forces. The Hegemony Army officially surrendered on 10 February 2198 CE, although by this point most of it had already surrendered or defected. Its dissolution was formalized on 14 February 2198 CE with the Treaty of Khar'Shan, and it was replaced by the Batarian Ground Forces.