Antares Pioneer Corps

The **Antares Confederate Pioneer Corps** (**APC**) is one of the three uniformed services branches of the **Confederate Republics of Antares Armed Forces**, responsible for conducting domestic security, search and rescue, and law enforcement combat operations. In peacetime-operations, the APC is an civil defense, military, multi-mission service unique among the Confederation's military branches for having a interplanetary law enforcement mission with jurisdiction in both domestic and international space and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its duties. In wartime-operations, the APC are the "tip of the spear", capable of operating without the guarantee of artillery vehicle aircraft or support assets, and charged with the defense of military vessels and installations from hostile forces, and its mission profiles makes the APC uniquely-suited for rapid-deployment expeditionary warfare, unconventional warfare and information warfare.

## History

Upon the dispersal of the Earhart Flotilla into many smaller groups, several hundred individuals volunteered to remain in space to maintain systems to keep the colonies in contact with each other, despite the Antares Miasma. The volunteers used smaller ships that were converted into rudimentary space stations above each of the colonized planets, in the Diego Belt orbiting Abeni, and across the trinary star system. The stations were meant to serve as a relay network to amplify signals. The group of volunteers was given the name of the Antares Pioneer Corps. Despite hopes that spaceflight could be re-achieved to resupply the volunteers, no success was achieved in this effort, and all volunteers died without resupply or rescue.

Upon the formation of the Antares Assembly, the nations of Antares made honouring the volunteers of the Pioneer Corps a priority. Schools and cities were named after the volunteers, and the organization was symbolically resurrected as a new military service. The new Antares Pioneer Corps was one of the few organizations under the Assembly and later the Confederacy that had the freedom to operate across the entire Antares System.

## Organization

The Antares Pioneer Corps is technically one of the Confederacy's uniformed services, but with a less aggressive set of objectives. Its three primary goals are to maintain the security, safety, and stewardship of the Antares System. The corps aids navigation, conducts traffic management, relays communications, and performs orbital search and rescue operations. Although it operates independently, the Pioneer Corps will work with other military services, and organizations from the Constituent Republics, by providing ships and services. Despite its focus on space, the corps will be requested to participate in terrestrial operations because of its skills. Due to its formation before the Confederate Navy and Army, the Pioneer Corps is known as the senior service of the military.

A primary headquarters is located deep in the Diego Belt, and is known colloquially as "The Lighthouse", while an administrative headquarters is located in Sagallo. The organization of the corps is highly decentralized, with even junior personnel expected to take on substantial responsibilities. This allows its well known rapid responsiveness in a wide range of emergencies, and it is one of the few organizations with the permission to operate in every republic of the Confederacy. Each republic hosts at least one terrestrial base, and each planet has at least one orbital facility for the Pioneer Corps. A network of relay and refuelling stations is maintained across the Antares System by the corps, mainly to support the corps' starship fleet. Extrasolar bases have been established with the navy on a number of stations, with the corps locating regional headquarters in the Intisar and Aljana systems.

During peacetime the corps operates under the department of public security, but can be transferred to the department of the navy during wartime. This transfer has not yet taken place before, despite pioneer corps units being previously deployed to aid military operations, in part because of the organization's experience in orbital insertions. Several units within the pioneer corps are unofficially known as special forces/special operations forces, and some units and ships participated in the Liberation of Torix during the Vrul War.

### Logistics

The corps maintains a sizeable fleet, including sizeable cutters for high stress operations, as well as auxiliary vessels and aerospace craft.

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojawefbUhsk