Umibozu

Umibōzu (海坊主, "sea initiate priest"), designated "Sea Tactics Development Organization" in official documentation, is the premier seaborne special operations unit subordinate to the UNICOM Maritime Commission (MARITCOM). Practically unknown to the public, this seaborne unit does its best work undercover, pertaining to anti-piracy, counter-terrorism, and plausible deniability missions.
For a unit lacking proper name and tradition, the Umibōzu hides a surprisingly storied past of deniable special operations units from the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries operating as privateers around the South China Sea economic corridor, targeting civilian fishing fleets in an undeclared resource war. Beginning with offshoots of the Japanese maritime special forces community, the contemporary unit's namesake references a mythical Japanese sea monster.
Since the , the Umibōzu's military role evolved from maritime policing into general combat operations including regular deployments in the space theater and supporting other units. Since the ended, they've continued deploying against Insurrectionist groups and new criminal enterprises. Due to their penetrations into the criminal underworld, their uniforms often reflect the appearances of their primary adversaries.
__TOC__
==History==
===The SEASPIRE Disappearance===
==Mission Assets==
===Dive Foils===
===Project DUTCHMAN===
*DUTCHMAN, Option One: Operational low-yield Slipspace bomb, nuclear weapon-equivalent.
*DUTCHMAN, Option Two: Operational volatile-weather control device.
*DUTCHMAN, Option Three: ████████████████
Masquerading behind an innocuous name akin to a research department, the Umibōzu/Sea Tactics Development Organization acquire research-grade intended for corporate and university applications and transformed them into varied battlefield assets under Project DUTCHMAN. Named after mythical ghost ship crewed by an immortally trapped crew, the project retained motifs of maritime myths and aimed at applying in ways to augment the UNSC Maritime Commission's combat effectiveness.
DUTCHMAN specifically refers to the use of two proven Slipspace drive applications, and a single theoretical objective yet to come to fruition by time of the . Many of these developments are bankrolled and achieved through collaboration with the famed Japanese nuclear engineering firm, . While most of these technologies are not exclusive to the Umibozu, the unit has become clandestine deliverers and escorts of the DUTCHMAN options due to their sensitive intelligence matter.
The first application is a low-yield nontraditional explosive similar to other Slipspace bomb designs. With a smaller drive, the DUTCHMAN explosive application lacks the threat of nuclear-allegory Slipspace bombs like that seen during in orbit of in but can be employed as an area denial weapon in a urban or maritime warfare capacity. Due to the bomb's theoretical simplicity, the weapon saw the most use as a plausible deniability weapon in instigating and expanding the scope of the Insurrection conflict. Reports of "Slipspace accidents" at colonial universities or "ad hoc Slipspace bombs" in the hands of might not be the work of colonial terrorist but rather Umibōzu operatives. Such details remain highly classified under the supervision of the . The official designation for the research-grade Slipspace bomb is called DUTCHMAN, Option One.
The second application is a weather-modification weapon, employing poorly-understood environmental effects of atmospheric Slipspace jumps as a warfighting asset. With a stabilization sarcophagus applied to the research-grade Slipspace drive, the weather-modification weapon sustains a micro-Slipspace singularity encouraging odd weather phenomenon to occur within the vicinity of the device. While scale and severity controls for the weapon are limited, successful tests and application of the weapon allow operations necessitating such a device to procced from a minor drunken thought to production-ready models. Most cases, the weapon will generate a spontaneous and localized storm with some control over the effectiveness. Due to the drive and sarcophagus being equivalent in size to a large semi-trailer, there are few ways the weapon can be used on Umibōzu missions other than as a favorable insertion cover. The Maritime Commission used such a weapon to demoralize Covenant forces on excavation floats during the Battle of Alluvion in . Research on non-combat, terraforming purposes are also underway on planets like to generate spontaneous rainfall. This weather-modification weapon is referred to as DUTCHMAN, Option Two. The third option remains theoretical and under wraps.
==Gallery==
Category:Office of Naval Intelligence
Category:UNICOM
Category:UNSC Army