Hegemony Slaver Corps
From FABT
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Active: |
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Organization: |
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Affiliation: |
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Type: |
Slaver/paramilitary |
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Role: |
Slave raiding |
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Size: |
5.9 million (regular) |
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Part of: |
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Headquarters: |
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Nickname(s): |
Batarian slaver corps |
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Motto: |
"Bringing purity to the tainted." |
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Colors: |
Dark green and white |
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Anniversaries): |
Ragbastar Day |
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Engagements: |
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Commanders: |
General Acrerag Red'gah (last) |
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Notable: |
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- "Bringing purity to the tainted."
- — Slaver Corps motto.
The Hegemony Slaver Corps, also referred to as the Imperial Slaver Army and simply the Batarian Slaver Corps to aliens, was the slaver operations branch of the Hegemony Armed Forces, and one of the four uniformed services of the Batarian Hegemony. The Hegemony Slaver Corps was formed as a unique branch in 1550 CE, twelve years after the formation of the Hegemony itself and two years after the legalization of slavery, being solely dedicated to managing and coordinating the Hegemony's enormous slave empire, both in trade and in acquisition, with most of the Hegemony's defense budget being dedicated to the Slaver Corps. Army and Navy assets were initially seized to form the Slaver Corps, giving it initial resources to utilize while it came into its own: ships would be ordered to be constructed specifically for use by the Slaver Corps along with the usual Navy orders, but personnel was chosen from the ranks of the Hegemony Army and Navy, with those wishing to join going through a rigorous vetting and training process to test their loyalty and ability to dehumanize the slaves they'll be handling, stripping their recruits of any empathy or potential sympathies that might cause a moral crisis in their recruits. With most of the budget allocated to them, the Slaver Corps was the most well supplied and trained of the branches, and as members rose through the ranks, more and more tasks would be appointed to them, with many becoming taskmasters or slave traders: taskmasters trained the slaves through brutal conditioning involving surgically implanted control chips and torture, while the traders handled the sale and acquisition of fresh slaves, often travelling the galaxy with armed detachments of troops to find fresh slaves or transport them.
The paramilitary division of the Slaver Corps involved actual military forces, consisting of ships and armed soldiers, whose role was acquiring slaves through force, deploying to attack settlements in what is known as "slaver raids" to capture civilians and enslave them, involving hit-and-run tactics where the Slaver Corps would raid a colony and escape with as many captured slaves as possible before the enemy's military could react. This division served as the face of the Slaver Corps as a whole, and was rightly feared throughout the galaxy for the unpredictable and vicious nature of these raids, with many colonies living in fear of being preyed upon by batarian slavers: the Attican Traverse was a particular hotspot for slaver activity, with many vulnerable colonies and corporate facilities being prime targets to be raided for slaves due to the lack of any sizable military presence to dissuade them. The Terminus Systems, being lawless and ungoverned, was just one more area of operation that the Slaver Corps had no limitation on scope or jurisdiction, allowing them to seize thousands upon thousands of slaves every month. In total, the slave trade raked in tens of millions for the Hegemony's economy, and this made the Slaver Corps the most vital branch of the Hegemony military by far. The organization was decreed to be a criminal organization, earning itself the number one spot on the Galaxy's Top 10 Most Evil Organizations List in 1984 CE: the Slaver Corps was accused of committing an unending amount of atrocities, war crimes and crimes against organic life to many Council nations sanctioned the batarians on numerous occasions in an attempt to strangle the Slaver Corps, although this only further incentivized them to increase their operations. While the Slaver Corps alone was not a powerful military force, its influence within Hegemony politics and foreign policy was significant enough that it became the face of the Batarian Hegemony as a whole, a powerful symbol of the regime's dedication to slavery and its brutal, often cruel control over its citizenry and complete disregard for life and ethics. The operational scope of the Slaver Corps was such that it eclipsed every other branch by a massive margin, being the most active throughout the entirety of the Hegemony's existence, despite being one of the smaller branches. It goes down in history as the most ruthlessly efficient slaving apparatuses in galactic history, yet to be rivalled by any other organization in its success and infamy.
In 2157 CE, humanity joined the galactic stage under the Systems Alliance, emerging right next door to the Batarian Hegemony: this provided the Slaver Corps with an opportunity they could not ignore, with access to a brand new species who was potentially ignorant of the wider galaxy and how it worked, and combining this with the fact that humanity was a new species with brand new potential, and this was an opportunity the Slaver Corps wasn't going to turn down. After numerous successful raids, the Slaver Corps finally, with the help of Balak Uhtero, arranged the largest and most ambitious slaver raid in its history with Elysium, forming a massive fleet and army to attack Elysium, with the aim of capturing over a hundred thousand slaves: such was the confidence of the Slaver Corps and Balak in this operation that they dedicated very little air support to the ground operation, believing the Alliance forces would crumble under the weight of their enormous attack. In actuality, the ground assault was bogged down an hour or so into the invasion when Lieutenant Shepard single-handedly halted the attacking army, buying time for civilians to be evacuated. Two hours later, the slaver army was cut to pieces and beginning to withdraw, only for the slaver fleet to be hit from behind by the Alliance Second Fleet as it entered the system and routed it. What resulted was a complete disaster for the Slaver Corps with thousands of troops and hundreds of ships lost, all for zero gain: it also dragged the Hegemony into full-scale war with the Alliance, where it incurred even further losses. The Slaver Corps would never again attempt such an ambitious attack ever again, and while Balak was demoted, he would be reassigned to command numerous Attican slaver operations, and would eventually command further raids. In 2184 CE, at the height of the Collector campaign, the Alliance listed the Slaver Corps as one of many possible suspects responsible for the sudden and total disappearance of numerous human colonies: the Slaver Corps openly denied such allegations, and they were eventually exonerated when the Alliance shifted their suspicion to Cerberus. A Slaver Corps operation on Ferris Fields in 2185 CE led by Balak himself was the first to personally witness a Collector abduction, but the Supreme Regent ordered Balak not to disclose what they saw to the Alliance so as to not compromise the operation and not to aid an enemy of the Hegemony.
Perhaps the worst day for the Slaver Corps in its entire history came on 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 Slaver Corps was utterly decimated, with the vast majority of its facilities inside the Hegemony being destroyed and the ensuing chaos and confusion leading to a frenzied, disorganized response from an organization that was not accustomed to the situation. By the time the Reapers had captured Khar'Shan itself, splintering the Hegemony, barely anything was left of the Slaver Corps, with those who survived either escaping with the rest of the Hegemony space or having already been deployed across the galaxy. When Balak was named Supreme Regent, he ordered the Slaver Corps to halt all slaver operations and merged it with the Army, effectively deactivating the organization. It wouldn't be until after the Reaper War in 2188 CE that the Slaver Corps was reactivated, although it was greatly reduced in its size and capabilities, and it struggled to re-establish the Hegemony's once sophisticated network, with the stability of the galaxy shaken so drastically that slaves were hard to come by, and what the Hegemony still had left was once again beginning to revolt. In 2197 CE, one particular slaver raid conducted by the Slaver Corps hit the Coalition colony of Fargone, but instead of capturing the slaves and leaving, Ocrolya Khabcass chose to claim the planet in the name of the Hegemony, dragging it into war with humanity once again. At the end of the Border War, the Slaver Corps was dismantled by the Systems Coalition and the organization officially dissolved as per the Treaty of Khar'Shan and the new batarian constitution, which banned the practice of slavery and granted immediate emancipation and freedom to any remaining slaves. The leaders of the Slaver Corps were rounded up and arrested, where they were put on trial at the Sancotor Trials and found guilty, leading to their collective executions.