Aoshanti Empire (Pomaria)/Military Organization

Overview Population Military Espionage
Due to the decentralized nature of the Pomarian Empire, the many military forces of the Empire have begun to employ divergent tactics and methods of organization. However, most trace their roots back to the organization of the armed forces of the Ascendancy of the Broken Ring, which means that they tend to follow the same general pattern, with branch and regional variations.

## Navy

### Traits

* **Battleship Service:** The battleship service is the strongest arm of the Orbitritan Navy, and the most prestigious. In Orbitritan thinking, battleships win wars. Fleet strengths are often reckoned in numbers of battleships, and Orbitritans imagine battles ending in a decisive battleship-on-battleship engagement. The battleship arm receives the Orbitritan aristocracy's most gifted officers and is the most strictly segregated on the basis of race. With almost no exceptions, the navy's flag officers come from the battleship arm. Orbitritan battleship gunnery relies on precise AI-aided calculations and is among the best in the cluster. The ability to stand fearlessly in the line of battle and trade blows with other battleships is a mythologized and highly valued trait in Orbitritan crews and leaders.

* **Artillery Arm:** Orbitritan doctrine provides for a support arm of artillery frigates armed with spine-mounted particle cannons which can focus their fire on targets at great distances. After recent reforms, these ships have become the most formidable concentrated space artillery formations in the cluster. The artillery arm is not as prestigious as the battleship arm and obtaining an officer's commission within it is not nearly as competitive. Merit and competence are the primary markers which lead to advancement, unlike in the battleship service, where patronage, politics, rank, and seniority heavily influence decisions. Orbitritan artillery gunnery relies on precise AI-aided mathematical calculations, with a great amount of emphasis being placed on the right amount of concentrated fire being applied to each target.

* **Drone Carrier Arm:** The carrier arm is the weakest of the arms of the imperial navy. The Ascendancy's drone carrier arm was born from a recognition by Orbitritan leaders that Orbitritum's battleship-centric doctrine was gradually growing obsolete in the face of Grand Alliance experimentation and perfection of carrier-centric doctrines. However, despite repeated attempts to start a transition to a viable Orbitritan carrier doctrine, their efforts met with stiff resistance from other parts of the navy. The drone carrier arm of the imperial navy is no different. The drone carrier arm is attempting to restore and fully utilize the highly advanced and experimental technology of the Ascendancy's carrier arm, including nearly automated ships and fully automated drone squadrons. Despite using such advanced tech, the drone carrier arm still struggles to obtain needed resources and funding. Drone carrier officers must fight for every opportunity to prove their worth and are at extreme risk of being underutilized, misused, and squandered by Orbitritan field commanders.

* **Skirmish Arm:** The Skirmish Arm is a temporary, free-wheeling service which sees drastic expansion in wartime. Unlike other branches, the skirmish arm employs looser regulations around crew composition and leadership, employing an eclectic group of commanders from different nationalities, species, and races. The skirmish arm prescribes a strict doctrine and allocates ships to ship commanders on a large roll on the basis of merit. The commanders are then responsible for assembling their crews. The skirmish arm employs mass-produced Fulmen and Rapier-type corvettes and destroyers as a sort of cavalry fleet capable of responding to threats quickly, moving to take advantage of openings, and engaging in reconnaissance. The Skirmish Arm prizes individual initiative and the ability of commanders to switch between operating as part of a massive fleet and breaking off and operating on their own.

* **Warrior Aristocracy:** The Orbitritan elite is a warrior aristocracy. All members of the elite are expected to serve in the military in one capacity or another as a prerequisite for continued relevance in public life.

* **Impressment:** Enlisted crewmembers are composed of a cadre of professionals augmented by conscripts levied from imperial vassals or impressed from captured vessels for long terms of service. Imperial vessels are notable for their harsh discipline.

* **Scientific Methods:** At every level, the Orbitritan military is highly technical and scientific. In the Orbitritan way of war, the application of military force is an exact science involving prescribed mathematical formulas, methods, and techniques. Intuition, judgement, initiative, courage, and leadership are downplayed in favor to strict adherence to method, formations, and doctrine.

* **AI Adjutants:** Orbitritan commanders are aided by networked AI adjutants which enhance their combat and decision-making abilities. AI adjutants are programmed to enforce doctrine and keep realtime logs of their ship's actions. AI Adjutants are treated as impartial observers, providing an accurate and objective account of what occurred. Extremely advanced adjutants are also used to simulate battles before they happen, helping commanders to make complex strategic decisions.

* **Leadership from the Front:** Orbitritan commanders are expected to lead from the front, placing themselves in danger to inspire confidence and respect in their subordinates. Orbitritans consider it shameful and a sign of cowardice and recklessness to order attacks without being willing to lead them personally. Casualties among Orbitritan officers tend to be higher as a result.

* **Segregated:** As in the army, the Imperial Navy is segregated by race. While crews may be of mixed races (mostly Aoshanti, due to logistical concerns), officers are exclusively Orbitritan Aoshanti on Imperial ships. Allied and vassal ships most often employ officers and captains of their own races and species and are kept separate from the imperial chain of command.

* **Casualty-averse:** At the higher levels, the commanders of the imperial navy are casualty-averse, often going to great lengths to protect the lives of vessels and their Aoshanti officers, knowing that they are much more difficult to replace than those of their enemy. This is readily apparent in imperial ship designs and a risk aversion built into Orbitritan methods. Orbitritan commanders tend not to attack unless they are sure of victory. This is in tension with the culture of the imperial navy at a personal level, where officers feel honorbound — and are at times even eager — to place themselves in danger in order to prove their courage.

* **Ult-Tech:** Orbitritans employ highly advanced ult-tech, though the ult-tech of the imperial navy is slightly degraded due to much of it being refurbished Ascendancy equipment.

* **Legacy of the Aoshanti Empire:** The legacy of the Aoshanti Empire looms large over the imperial navy. Many of the Ascendancy's factions, strategists, and engineers were fanatics who believed they had a spiritual connection with the ancient empire's technologies, aesthetics, ship designs, and tactics. The Ascendancy's military development was both furthered and hampered by attempts to recreate one-for-one the imperial military of yore. This has lessened in the Pomarian Empire given that many of the fanatics died at Orbitritum, but the legacies of this approach remain.

### Ship designs

**Additional Mechanical Limitation:** Many of the Orbitritan Empire's most advanced warships were assembled by the Orbitritan Arsenals exclusively, which were dismantled at the end of the Third War, their capabilities lost. Creating new hulls marked with ❌ is beyond imperial means. For ships with an ❌, the Empire must recover disabled or destroyed hulls of those ship models to build more of them.

#### Kolossi

  *Koloss Maximus*-class titan | Grand Battle

#### Battleships

  *Spetum VI*-class | Grand Battle
  *Spetum III Resurgence*-class | Grand Battle
  *Spetum II*-class | Grand Battle
  *Spetum I*-class | Grand Battle

#### Artillery Ships

  *Batista*-class artillery frigate | Grand Battle

## Army

### Traits

* **Static Warfare Doctrine:** The imperial army's primary doctrine is that of static warfare, making heavy use of fortifications, engineers, and artillery to shape the battlefield and heavy infantry to man Orbitritan fortification lines and assault enemy fortifications. Orbitritans are masters of siegecraft on both the attack and defense.

* **Imperial Legionaries:** The Legionaries are the main branch of the imperial army, composing extremely heavy formations equipped for static warfare. They are heavy on artillery and heavy infantry and are slow and lumbering both on the attack and the defense. To a man, they are not exceptional warriors and do not have exceptional equipment, but their strength comes from their organization, doctrine, and the consistency of their training. If they are anything, legionnaires are reliable and consistent.

* **Assault Legions:** The assault legions are the medium formations of the imperial army. They are fewer in number than the legionaries and it is disputed whether they are of a higher or lower status. Whereas the conservative and respectable members of Orbitritan society serve as legionnaires, rakes and troublemakers and considered to serve in the assault legions. Rigorously trained in offensive tactics, the assault legions do not have all of the equipment available to the legions, so they make up for it with raw aggression. They are the empire's marine and expeditionary forces, capable of being deployed and redeployed quickly.

* **Velites:** The velites are light airborne and mechanized infantry often composed of convicts, mercenaries, and conscripts. They are not highly regarded in the imperial hierarchy and are often disbanded in peacetime. Their crucial tactical role is often overlooked. They tend to remain engaged with the enemy the longest and take the most casualties of any unit in the imperial military, as they are often treated as dispensable by imperial commanders.

* **Praetorian Guard:** The Praetorian Guard are the elite shock troops of the Imperial military.

* **Reformed League forces:** Significant parts of the imperial army were created during the time of the Reformed League campaigns of 18 and 22 NE. Many of these units are still around and are now fighting for the imperial cause, integrated as best as possible into the larger imperial military. Differences in naming conventions, equipment, practices, and leadership remain.

* **Warrior Aristocracy:** The Orbitritan elite is a warrior aristocracy. All members of the elite are expected to serve in the military in one capacity or another as a prerequisite for continued relevance in public life.

* **Obligatory Military Service:** The ranks of the imperial army are filled out by imperial citizens and vassals serving one form of compulsory military service or another.

* **Scientific Methods:** At every level, the Orbitritan military is highly technical and scientific. In the Orbitritan way of war, the application of military force is an exact science involving prescribed mathematical formulas, methods, and techniques. Intuition, judgement, initiative, courage, and leadership are downplayed in favor to strict adherence to method, formations, and doctrine.

* **AI Adjutants:** Orbitritan commanders and soldiers are aided at every level by networked AI adjutants which enhance their combat and decision-making abilities.

* **Leadership from the Front:** Orbitritan commanders are expected to lead from the front, placing themselves in danger to inspire confidence and respect in their subordinates. Orbitritans consider it shameful and a sign of cowardice and recklessness to order attacks without being willing to lead them personally. Casualties among Orbitritan officers tend to be higher as a result.

* **Segregated:** As in the Navy, the Imperial Army is segregated by race. The Imperial Army is composed of several parallel institutions and chains of command, one for the imperial army as a whole (the main army), and one for each vassal kingdom (classified as auxiliaries). Only Orbitritans hold positions in the highest echelons of command, while auxiliary commanders hold consultative roles but are often left out of the decisions.

* **Casualty-averse:** Though the culture of the imperial military prizes bravery in action and the ability to stand in the face of enemy fire, it is also highly conservative and risk-averse. On a cultural level, Aoshanti in the Concourse tend to be extremely reluctant to sustain even moderate casualties among their Aoshanti officers and infantry, leading the imperial military to rely on the extensive protection granted by advanced power armored suits, slow-moving shield formations, artillery bombardments, and fortifications. This makes the imperial army a slow-moving and conservative behemoth which advances towards total victory through slow, deliberate steps.

* **Ult-Tech:** Orbitritans employ highly advanced ult-tech, though the ult-tech of the imperial army is slightly degraded due to much of it being refurbished Ascendancy equipment.

* **Legacy of the Aoshanti Empire:** The legacy of the Aoshanti Empire looms large over the imperial army. Many of the Ascendancy's factions, strategists, and engineers were fanatics who believed they had a spiritual connection with the ancient empire's technologies, aesthetics, formations, and tactics. The Ascendancy's military development was both furthered and hampered by attempts to recreate one-for-one the imperial military of yore. This has lessened in the Pomarian Empire given that many of the fanatics died at Orbitritum, but the legacies of this approach remain.

### Order of Battle

#### Army of Arboros

* Army Group Fulminata
* Army Group Indomitus
* Army Group Virgilianus
* Vigilian 4th Army

#### Army of Aengelia

* Army Group Pomaria
* Army Group Tamarlorn
* Pomarian 5th Army (Kie Sempiri)
* Vigilian Home Army
* Abilan Home Army

#### Army of the North

* Imperial 1st Assault Army
* Imperial 2nd Assault Army
* Army Group Aequum
* Army Group Vinovia
* Deva Vintrix Garrison
* Shesta Garrison

#### Army of Cormeum

* Army Group Ardent Shield
* Ajirai's Horde