Hegemony Navy
From FABT
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Space control |
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Size: |
9.5 million (regular) |
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Batarian navy |
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Motto: |
"Undaunted." |
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Dark green and white |
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Ragbastar Day |
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Commanders: |
Regent's Grand Admiral Kran Kabfewen |
- "Undaunted."
- — Navy motto.
The Hegemony Navy, also referred to as the Imperial Navy and simply the Batarian Navy to aliens, was the naval service branch of the Hegemony Armed Forces, and one of the four uniformed services of the Batarian Hegemony. The Hegemony Navy was formed from the reorganized remnants of the People's Liberation Navy of Khar'Shan in 1538 CE, with its vessels, personnel and equipment heavily modified and refitted 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. While this had largely been the case already for the Navy, they now entirely received ships built and ordered from the Bregfess Ucacress Shipyards, which had also provided ships for the now defunct People's Liberation Navy. All former Liberation Navy warships remained in service with the Hegemony Navy after its founding, although they'd later be replaced by newer ships purpose-built for the new batarian navy, with many of the older warships being gradually phased out by 1680 CE. As an instrument of the batarian state and an arm of the Supreme Regent's will, the Hegemony Navy found itself assisting the Hegemony Army in its early days to crush citizen rebellions across its territory, violently obliterating any and all opposition to the new regime and the Supreme Regent's dominion. To this goal the Hegemony Navy proved excellent, ruthlessly used to glass planets from orbit that refused to fall in line, giving birth to the derogatory phrase "if you piss off a batarian, expect their navy to turn your planet into a glass parking lot." As the years went on, the Hegemony Navy was able to replace many of the former Liberation Navy's losses from the Quarian-Batarian War, and while not the largest of the military's four branches, it possessed several thousand warships divided into ten fleets by 1700 CE and was a powerful force to be reckoned with in its heyday. The sight of Hegemony warships over any planet was enough to strike fear into its population, and was enough to make many second guess provoking the Batarian Hegemony lest they are forced to witness a batarian fleet entering orbit over their planet one day.
The second largest branch of the batarian military, the Hegemony Navy was the most commonly encountered branch of the military during peacetime, with batarian warships frequently patrolling the Attican Traverse and their own borders, either in conjunction with the Hegemony Slaver Corps' operations or whilst running fleet exercises as a show of strength. The Hegemony Navy possessed dreadnoughts, and as a nation who had refused to sign the Treaty of Farixen, the possessed an amount of dreadnoughts eclipsing that of the asari and salarians, and dwarfed only by the turians. The batarians also possessed a larger number of other capital ships, most notable being their array of battlecruisers, with every warship coming equipped with an array of deployment options for dropping marine commandos into combat zones, as well as orbit-to-surface artillery for providing orbital support to ground forces. In space combat, Hegemony warships sacrificed speed for armor and firepower, with brute force valued over smart tactics, preferring to pound opposing forces into submission quickly. Despite this, the Hegemony Navy was not invincible and, to the contrary, it was often found to come up lacking when compared to its contemporaries. While the Hegemony Navy was large and its warships packed with bristling arsenals and heavy armor, they were poorly maintained and were frequently allowed to fall into disrepair, often taking years for a single dreadnought to be approved for repairs. The Hegemony also rarely designed new ship classes, often keeping the exact same class of ship in service for centuries, and only building a certain number of ships of a specific class before stopping. The Hegemony Navy's focus on building large capital ships also meant that their fleet of smaller ships was neglected, and their slower, bulkier craft could often be outmaneuvered by smaller ships in combat: while this wasn't a large problem initially, it became a crippling flaw by the time of the arrival of the Systems Alliance, who brought with them the advent of the aircraft carrier. When the Skyllian Blitz came around, this flaw became glaringly apparent when Alliance carriers proved to be game changers in quickly dispatching colossal battlecruisers with squadrons of bombers and fighters overwhelming them. Whilst the Hegemony Navy made an attempt to rectify this after the war by adding a greater amount of anti-aircraft systems to their ships, it was only a patchwork fix to a massive flaw, and it showed that the Hegemony Navy, while powerful in its potential, was stagnant and totally inflexible, and that any flaw exposed in it simply couldn't be rectified.
Perhaps the worst day for the Hegemony Navy 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 Navy faced off against the Reaper invasion in three separate engagements, but was picked apart in every single one, being decisively annihilated at the Battle of Harsa, which was followed shortly after by the Fall of Khar'Shan. The final battle over Harsa left the Hegemony Navy in ruins, with a projected 20% managing to escape the carnage. What was left of the Navy later rallied around Balak Uhtero, the new Supreme Regent, and participated in Operation Cobblestone, the batarian attempt to frustrate the Reaper occupation of the Hegemony and hopefully liberate their people one day, and it would continue to do this well after the Hegemony joined the UGC: a handful of batarian ships would then participate in the final battle over Earth. After the Reaper War, what was left of the Hegemony Navy tried to reconsolidate its position as a naval power, but it was finished. Of all the branches of the post-Reaper War batarian military, the Navy was in the worst shape, with at least 10% of its remaining fleet defecting and joining Ocrolya Khabcass during the Border War when he left to join the Leviathans and form the Titan Covenant. What remained was dragged into a war with the Systems Coalition Navy it couldn't possibly win, and it was decisively and finally defeated at the Battle of Verush, reducing it to a void combat effectiveness. The Hegemony Navy officially surrendered on 10 February 2198 CE, although by this point most of it had been destroyed, joined the rebels or went off with Khabcass. Its dissolution was formalized on 14 February 2198 CE with the Treaty of Khar'Shan, and it was replaced by the Batarian Naval Forces.