Sandbox:Hazelmouse-4

Overview

The flag of the Order of Guardians, frequently flown in conjunction with the primary Trinarist fllag.

The Order of Guardians is a monastic and militant order that serves as both the security, naval, and military element of the Ecclesiarchy of Orepit and the wider Trinary Perfection. Lead from Orepit by Bishop-Militant Emmanuel, it operates military-grade equipment, weaponry, and spacecraft within the reaches of its native sovereign state, and additionally sends a large number of its staff abroad to the many dioceses of the church to serve as bodyguards to high-ranking clergy. In this capacity, the Order of Guardians functions both as a state military and a private security force.

Having been sent under a rapid process of reform and expansion under Bishop-Militant Emmanuel and Ecclesiarch ARM-1DRIL, spurred on by repeated humiliations and defeats at the hands of both external and internal enemies, the mood within the Order at present has become as vehement as it is fervent. While any follower of the faith may volunteer for trials to join the Order, with even relatively unskilled volunteers being accepted given the organisation's need for rapid growth, recruits with pre-existing experience in military, paramilitary, or private security organisations are typically favoured. Feverishly eager to succeed next where it has failed before, the Order of Guardians is enthusiastic to induct any advantage to its side that it can field; the next time it is tested, it cannot fail.

When not on direct assignment, members of the Order of Guardians are frequently permitted to go off-duty for months or even years at a time. These off-duty Guardians can be frequently seen in megacorporate employment, both for the wage to support themselves and their diocese and for the experience gained by their employment. While these may wear visible insignia of their membership in the Order, they are not formally representing it or serving under it while off-duty - if put under a circumstance of conflicting loyalties between their employer and the church, an off-duty Guardian is expected to side with their employer in the moment and to make all possible amends for any counterproductive consequences therein afterwards. Accordingly, while off-duty Guardians may work in any on-ship job and department and may wear Trinarist or Guardian paraphernalia while doing so, an on-duty Guardian may not work in any on-ship job bar passenger - on-duty Guardians are not hired by the megacorporations for fear of a conflict of interest.

Organization

Every member of the Order of Guardians is clergy, formally holding either the position of Priest-Militant or Priestess-Militant, or the position of Bishop-Militant if of a sufficiently high rank. The Order organises itself according to the same diocese system as the wider church, wherein each Bishop-Militant manages the Order activities within a single diocese, and all Priest-Militants within that diocese report to their local Bishop-Militant. Their activities hinge on the diocese to which they are assigned - whereas Guardians may find itself engaged in traditional terrestrial military deployments on Orepit itself, sent to man sentry posts or to guard sanctuaries and cathedrals throughout the planet, they may equally be assigned to function both as the bodyguard and security advisor of notable figures within the church. Typically, a particularly prestigious priest may have one Guardian on retainer, whereas a bishop may have several, and an archbishop will widely have an entire platoon assigned to ensure their continued safety.

Hierarchically, the Order of Guardians functions on a simple rank system in which all new recruits begin at the bottom and advance at a rate determined by their commanding officer - this may be extremely slowly or very quickly depending on the apparent aptitude and pre-existing experience. There is no distinction between enlisted and commissioned staff. Separately from rank, every Guardian is additionally assigned an occupational role, specifying the responsibilities they hold within the organisation.

Members of the Order of Guardians are organised into a squad as the smallest unit, comprising approximately four to ten soldiers. Squads are typically kept together while on-duty for long periods. These squads are then organised into platoons, and then to battalions, and then to brigades. At this time, no unit larger than a brigade is recognized within the Order of Guardians, although this is anticipated to change with the rapid growth of the organisation. These units do not apply to Guardians assigned as retainers to church officials, who may work alone or in smaller groups than these.

When addressing a commanding officer, a Guardian will typically declare themselves by both their rank and their role; for instance, Guardian-Navigator Haddad, Ordinary of the Order. Roles are assigned according to the skills of the Guardian, either predating their recruitment or as a result of training within the Order by a more experienced member. Humans and synthetics are not treated differently within this system, progressing through the ranks in the same way.

Hierarchal Ranks

Marshal of the Order

Constituting the highest rank within the Order of Guardians, the Marshal is responsible for the coordination, management, organisation, and command of the entire organisation throughout every diocese and sector of the Orion Spur. There is only a singular Marshal at any given time - the role at present is held by Bishop-Militant Emmanuel, who is the highest authority with the Order of Guardians bar Ecclesiarch ARM-1DRIL themselves. The Marshal holds the ecclesiastical position of Bishop-Militant.

Preceptor of the Order

As the highest ranking officer most Guardians will ever actually encounter during their service, a Preceptor is an officer responsible for the management of the operations of the Order of Guardians throughout any single diocese; appropriately, they also hold the ecclesiastical position of Bishop-Militant. These report directly to the Marshal, and are responsible for the management of every unit operating within their diocese at any time. It is also possible for a Preceptor to be assigned operational command of any given unit by order of the Marshal themselves - for instance, they may be assigned command of anything from a battalion to an entire brigade, should there be a deployment in need of command.

Captain of the Order

As possibly the most flexible role in the Order, a Captain has the responsibility of commanding any unit of any size above a squad unless their authority is superseded by an assigned Preceptor. As the lowest officerial role within the Order, this is also the first role that occupies the lesser ecclesiastical position of a Priest-Militant or Priestess-Militant. They lack any particular responsibilities to their assigned diocese, although they are subservient to the local Preceptor.

Gefreiter of the Order

Playing essentially the role of a non-commissioned officer in a more traditional military, a Gefreiter is a senior member of the Order either entrusted with the command of a single squad, or otherwise entrusted with more critical or sensitive responsibilities than those occupying lower ranks. This is the highest rank of the Order not recognized as belonging to an officer, and members with pre-existing experience in security or military work often find themselves fast-tracked to this position so that they may tutor their less experienced peers more effectively. This trend has given the position a general reputation of most typically being occupied by persons recently foreign to the church and Orepit, prompting a popular stereotype that Gefreiters are less than wholly pious.

This is the highest playable rank within the Order of Guardians.

Regular of the Order

Comprising the bulk of the Order at any time, a Regular is the highest rank most faithful initiated to the order can expect to achieve. These are the sentries on Orepit, the guards outside of the cathedrals of Biesel and Konyang, the bulk of every garrison, and the majority of the crew of any spacecraft under the oversight of the Order. This is the first rank any new recruit will receive after being successfully inducted into the Order.

Occupational Roles

Guardian-Commander

Occupied exclusively by Guardians of at least the rank of Captain, a Guardian-Commander is any member of the Order whose responsibilities in command exclude their capacity to engage in any other discipline. These are the tacticians and logisticians of the Order, often known to wear more elaborate uniforms than their subordinates; these often include colourful sashes and long capes.

Guardian-Retainer

A Guardian-Retainer is a particularly experienced and reliable member of the Order entrusted with the protection and advisement of a high-ranking church official, such as a bishop or an archbishop. As their work frequently takes them well into the space of nations beyond Orepit, such as the Republic of Biesel, these will only typically carry a sidearm unless they are posted on Orepit itself. Due to this limitation, these are usually the most thoroughly combat-trained trained members of the Order - one particularly famous technique taught to synthetic Guardian-Retainers involves simply placing their own chassis between an assailant and their assigned official in the anticipation of simply blocking any bullets fired by the assailant with their metal endoskeleton. This is easily the most reputable position one may be assigned to within the Order, carrying both the most pressure and the most prestige.

Guardian-Resuscitant

The sphere of medical work within the Trinary Perfection is taken to include both the treatment of organics and synthetics - the same tools are used for both, and frequently the same methods also. To this end, a Guardian-Resuscitant has the responsibility of ensuring the continued good health of their peers, whether they are organic or synthetic. The skillset involved therein typically includes a comprehensive knowledge of first-aid, and sufficient knowledge of synthetic frames and electronics to prevent a further cascade therein prior to a dedicated specialist repairing the damaged chassis. Resuscitants typically wear armbands bearing the Rod of Asclepius to denote their role.

Guardian-Artificer

With the increased responsibility for the maintenance and operation of spacecraft by the order, the role of Guardian-Artificer has become a far more critical component of its structure in recent years. These are the engineers and technicians of the Order, entrusted with the day-to-day operations of the Order's patrol vessels, the monitoring and maintenance of Order equipment and weaponry, and the planning and conducting of any large-scale projects on or off Orepit.

Guardian-Navigator

The newest role introduced to the structure of the Order of Guardians, Guardian-Navigators constitute the pilots and spacefaring specialists of the Order; they fly the shuttles taken by senior church officials, they pilot the many patrol ships operated by the Order, and several are often kept in close consultation with Guardian-Commanders on any Order movement involving spaceflight. Famously, many Guardian-Navigators spend months or years without touching solid ground.

Guardian-Ordinary

Constituting the numerical majority of the Order, a Guardian-Ordinary is simply any Guardian whose primary responsibility is sentry duty, guard duty, foot patrols at a garrison, or otherwise anything that is not performed by any particular specialisation. These also often serve as the crews of Order spacecraft, serving under the guidance of a Guardian-Navigator, and would be the bulk of the force deployed in the scenario that the Ecclesiarchy of Orepit ever deployed to a theatre of war.

Equipment

On the large, the equipment of the Order of Guardians is unusual and archaic by the standards of the wider spur. It is one of the youngest state militaries in existence, and it additionally lacks the extensive funded boasted by an organisation such as the Hoplan. While this frustrates the ability of the Order to field personnel with equivalently advanced equipment to contemporary militaries, it has also earned it a particularly pragmatic character in the acquisition and use of equipment - there is almost nothing the Order of Guardians is unwilling to turn into a weapon, almost no ship they are unwilling to jury-rig to serve as a patrol craft, and almost no option they will refuse to consider for implementation.

Firearms

Orepit famously lacks substantial quantities of most of the prerequisite materials for gunpowder, or otherwise any other substance typically used to manufacture chemical cartridges. It does, however, contain extremely abundant deposits of tungsten, in addition to relatively robust power generation facilities within Providence. For this reason, among a few others, gauss weaponry - typically considered archaic throughout the Orion Spur - is almost ubiquitous within the Order of Guardians. Beyond the logistical practicality of it, several Preceptors have stated that they fit particularly well within Order doctrine as they are capable of damaging a synthetic chassis to inoperability by pure kinetic force without destroying the positronic inside, enabling potential future rehabilitation.

HI-2355 Gauss Rifle

The HI-2355 Gauss Rifle - also named the Gorski-Ali Rifle after its designers - is the main battle rifle of the Order of Guardians and a firearm of over a century of pedigree. Originally manufactured en masse by Hephaestus Industries for supply to their most remote mineral extraction colonies as defense against pirates and wildlife, a staggering number of these rifles found themselves on Orepit a little prior to the megacorporation's leave of the planet. As Hephaestus workers began to leave with the freshly absent work, the ratio of the number of rifles relative to the number of locals to wield them began to lilt so strongly that, prior to the arrival of Gregol Corkfell, it is widely theorised that Gorski-Ali rifles outnumbered humans on the planet. This produced the perfect environment for the new Trinarist migrants to adopt it for self-defence, ultimately leading to it being grandfathered into the Order of Guardians by virtue of its ubiquity as the organisation's primary weapon. Although some new Gorski-Ali rifles have been manufactured for the Order of Guardians, most in circulation are original stock from Hephaestus Industries - something its detractors assign to the lacking resources of the church, while its supporters ascribe it to the rifle's legendary durability.

In use, a Gorski-Ali is as mechanically simple as it is practical. A battery pack may be connected to a port in the stock, or it may otherwise be hooked to an external power source via the same ports used to connect a battery. It holds up to fifteen large tungsten slugs within a tubular magazine under a barrel, which are individually loaded, and which may then be fired at speeds well in excess of the speed of chemical cartridges, and another slug is then loaded semi-automatically. Remaining viable well over a kilometre of distance, the Gorski-Ali has seen extensive use across the flat deserts and grasslands of Orepit, finding particular utility in conjunction with the efficiency of synthetic sharpshooters when provided with wide open spaces - although, as the needs of the church change, it has become clear that it is not as well-suited to combat within urban environments, or within spacecraft, due to its relatively low rate of fire and inconvenient means for reloading. While several more modern rifles have been considered to replace it, none have yet been accepted.

PV7 Energy Carbine

PV12 Heavy Railgun

Spacecraft

Providence-class Orbital Patrol Craft

Although classified by the church as its own class of vessel, the Providence-class is in fact a term used to refer to a staggering variety of commercially sold vessels, repurposed freighters, and archaic military craft to whom the only shared element is a roughly equivalent set of armaments and accommodations implemented by the Order of Guardians for use as orbital patrol craft around Orepit. Anything from a Tartarus-class or Farthing-class hauler, to a Xanan commercial patrol vessel, to even an otherwise decommissioned Xansan-class gunboat may be turned into a Providence-class if prepared for a half or majority synthetic crew, fitted most typically with blasters to the exclusion of chemical weaponry, and prepared at least with sufficient amenities for patrols in orbit of Orepit. These ships semi-frequently lack a warp or bluespace drive, and are intended exclusively and strictly to ensure the continued security of Orepit's orbit and airspace after its recent violation by Hephaestus Industries. While they are neither remarkably manoeuvrable or capable of intense firepower, they represent a gambit that sheer numbers of orbital craft will be sufficient to dissuade any future attempt to bombard or otherwise transgress upon Orepit's space.

Corkfell-class Light Frigate

In stark contrast to the Providence-class, the Corkfell-class was wholly designed by the Lodge of Temple Architect and manufactured via the resources of the church from 2465, commissioned explicitly as a response to Deluge successful revolt from Orepit with a flotilla of ships. Designed with relatively high-grade warp drives and a substantial complement of ship-to-ship blasters, the Corkfell-class is designed specifically and solely with the intention of hunting and destroying Exclusionists wherever they may flee. To this end, while it is not a remarkably large ship - with many commenting that it would more rightly be categorised as a corvette if not for the aggrandisement of its designers - it is remarkably fast both in intra-system and inter-system travel, taking strong advantage of Orepit's bountiful helium-3 reserves to ensure that it can always outpace an Exclusionist vessel insofar as it knows where it is. Aiding further in this is a strong sensors suite. As payment for all these features, the ship's interior is dark and cramped, failing to be particularly comfortable for the organic members of its crew - its purpose is single-minded, and it scantly permits its crew to be anything but. While only a few dozen of these ships have been manufactured, their locations at any time are usually scarcely known; they spend more time scouring the frontier than they do in orbit of Orepit, searching studiously for any trace of their heretical quarry.