Betel Sky Spears

Sky Spears
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Summary
Founded	High Chancellor Nol Byervid's Reign
Empire	Betel Recyclers
Branch	Navy
Size	Unknown
Preceded By	The Fighter Companies
Commanders
Overlance	Tachko Irukon
Sky Commission Lead	Golik Maelotumn

History

Origins

Since their inception, through the Doisu Wars and for another 24 years after them, the Fighter Companies consisted of primarily of non-standardized strikecraft and makeshift carriers. Each "carrier" would have a Shield Captain responsible for the carrier and all strikecraft within. The company would rely on the charisma of Shield Captains to take leadership of the Company as needed. After the Doisu Wars, some standardization efforts were made on the behalf of the Golden Face, but they were generally limited.

The raids of The Xeverra six years into Nol Byervid's term was all the motivation the High Chancellor needed to begin a radical and rapid restructuring of the Betel Fighter Companies. Alacastur Ersin's reform of the Home Braves into the Arms recently helped ease the efforts at reform by taking lessons from their experience. High Chancellor Nol was also an ardent Innovationist, and had already spent a great deal of time studying foreign navy technology and determined to create an effective modern Recycler space force. In particular, Nol was fascinated by the recent reforms conducted by the Remusian Republic, and sought to emulate their success in the creation of the Sky Spears. Vestiges of this can be seen in the borrowed name "Bulwark", adopted directly from Remusian doctrine. The Grand Navy's focus on smaller ships, combined with the Betel Fighter Company tradition, ultimately dictated the flavour of the Sky Spears' tactics to this day.

The organization of the Sky Spears would be quickly changed into its current form, while still maintaining some vestiges of the Fighter Companies. The ships were standardized as best as they could be in the timeframe, with the focus on creating more concentrated carriers to reduce the number of Shield & Spear Captains needed, and the Razik Fighter was developed as a cheap but reliable fighter that was mass produced in the largest military requisition before the Military Proliferation Act. The end result was a quick response mobile space force that, while technologically far behind the Xeverran, was decently effective at curbing a much larger Xeverran incursion.

Military Proliferation Act

Two years before the Betel entered the war on the side of the Peacekeepers, High Chancellor Visas Jorental declared the Military Proliferation Act, a bid to leverage Betel resources to establish the Recyclers as a military power. The Sky Spears had already partially begun this process under Nol Byervid. Visas made further plans through direct consultation with Sky Commission Lead Golik to expand the space forces.

First Visas secretly arranged for the construction of larger Sky Commission construction facilities disguised as merchant trade stations before the Military Proliferation Act was declared. These spacedocks had even begun constructing carrier-class hulls officially designated as civilian freighters by the time it became public. Non-dedicated components used in the construction of Razik Fighters were stockpiled.

Once the process was no longer a secret, public contracts for up to Corvette-class ships were released with open-source blueprints. As a security measure, contractors would expand upon the basic design with additional features (with additional compensation) and the Sky Commission would perform another pass bringing critical aspects up to specifications. Within a year, the Sky Commission would open up similar Frigate-level contracts and announced it would be purchasing Light-Destroyer-level ships.

Perhaps the most impactful aspect of the Act was the mass production of strikecraft and munitions. Small manufacturing operations and even communities, spurred on by government cash and Neo-Salvonism, produced a staggering quantity of fighters, bombers, gunships, boarding pods, shells, and transports. The Sky Commission had to invest heavily in supply line innovations and expansions, which has resulted in the modern day hyper-dispersed network of production. The process is, while optimized, highly inefficient. However, Golik decided that the resilience would be an asset against future sabotage efforts and leaned into the status quo rather than focus on centralized manufacturing.

Organization

Grouping	Leadership	Description
Sky Spears	Overlance, Sky Commission Lead	The highest level of the Sky Spear leadership consists of two individuals. The Overlance is the supreme commander of the Sky Spears operations and directs the strategic deployment of Bulwarks to the extent he is capable. He also has the power to temporarily promote a Bulwark to an "Underlance", giving them the responsibility of coordinating fellow Bulwarks in the field if many companies are involved. The Overlance also commands a cabal of retired Shield & Spear Captains who aid him in strategic command and tactics development. The Sky Commission Lead in contrast is an appointed (by the High Chancellor) member executive of Helm's Hold dedicated to overseeing the operation of the Sky Spears program. His position is focused on the negotiation of construction contracts, procurement of resources, and recruitment procedures. He is the leader of the Recycler Sky Commission (RSC), which is a unit of administrators to aid him in accomplishing his responsibilities.
Company	Bulwark	Usually commanded from a Destriant (may also from a permanent space station or another large ship). Consists of a number of Spears.
Spear	Spear Captain & Shield Captain	Jointly lead by Spear Captain and Shield Captain which coordinate small craft and their associated large ship respectively. Consists of a number of Fighter Squads, Marauder Squads, and the large ship crew. In more recent years, this has become bloated commanding frigates or similar large craft in addition to the large ship.
Fighter Squad	Fighter Leader	Consists of 3 to 7 fighters, bombers, or gunships. The Fighter Leader may sometimes have a superior variant ship compared to his squadmates.
Marauder Squad	Squad Leader	Can vary wildly in size. Marauders are intended for boarding defense and offense, but usually serve double duty on the ships they're stationed on manning guns or performing maintenance.

Note: A Voivode may assume the supreme command position over certain Companies as needed as part of their duties

Tactics

Despite the Sky Spear reforms of High Chancellor Nol, the tactics did not shift as much as he would have hoped. However, the poor discipline of the Betel offers an opportunity to exploit their resourcefulness and adaptability.

Doctrine calls for the deployment of strikecraft and frigate carriers outside of effective range. If the enemy boasts substantial long-range anti-fighter weaponry or has already deployed greater numbers of fighters, the carriers will press forward to close the gap before launching strikecraft and cover the approach of frigates deployed earlier. Once in range, the aim is to close to melee range with strikecraft and frigates, including launching ramming and boarding attacks. The aim is to disrupt any advantage conferred by disciplined enemy formations by enveloping their lines in Betel ships, sowing chaos and attempting to increase the the enemies' risk of firing on themselves. This tactic also reduces the effectiveness of enemy heavy weapons on frigates.

Larger non-carrier ships are very new in the Sky Spears, not to mention mostly non-standardized, and as such their usage is poorly defined (WIP - need to think on this further)

Xeverran Front

• Boarding operations are no longer attempted against large Xeverran vessels after the disastrous attempt at the Kaltax Counterattack. Xeverran ships. As it would happen, Xeverran vessels were found to be filled with vast volumes of water, completely incompatible for Betel Marauder squads. On top of this, biological differences in body shapes leaves even strikecraft less useful for capture.
• Water again proved an effective partial counter to Ramming doctrines. While hull or system damage was still viable with a good ram, personnel on board were entirely unfazed thanks to inertial dampening of the blasts.
• Xeverran use of strikecraft (which typically on their own outclass their Recycler counterparts) necessitates the use of dedicated anti-strikecraft weaponry, supported by a subsequent counterattack upon the Xeverran heavy ships.

Repzork Front

• Superior technology, numbers, and tactics have forced Sky Spears to avoid committing to full-on engages. Instead, Companies conduct harassment operations, disruption supply trains while also resupplying militants fighting in occupied territory.
• Direct engages remain a reality, although typically the Sky Spears will retreat from all of the Repzork main fleets - preferring to lure smaller groups into a fight.
• Daring Betel Marauders and North Arm Commandos have captured a number of Repzork capital vessels and turned them against

Equipment

While the production capabilities of the Betel are potentially immense, they suffer from being decentralized. Strikecraft and Frigates are small enough that they can be contracted out to small operations via the complicated requisitioning of the Sky Commmission, but larger ships simply require too much infrastructure. In addition to this, many of the most advanced Recycler ships depend on Luminarian technology, the use of which is heavily restricted and monitored (restrictions which have only intensified following earlier information leaks). These ships are generally only produced in conjunction with Golden Face teams at a scattering of shipyards. Betel corporations have, however, attempted to adapt their own medium-size designs to meet growing demand, but these are usually based on older technology, unstandardized, and often dependent on what can be scavenged from recent battlefield graveyards. Still, they are not without use even if they pale in comparison to the standard ones thanks to Betel resourcefulness.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite their massive size most carriers are able to be produced relatively easily. This is due to the simplicity of their designs, being primarily just metal with barebone fighter and frigate bays and jump drives. They sport a massive resource investment, but the metal is available in such abundance this is seldom an issue. Carriers are rarely intended to see front line service in any case, and thus require less complexity.

Ships

The following are the standardized ships in production by the Sky Spears

Current Vessels Fielded

Note: The term "Generation" in the context of the RSS is a loose classification. First Generation denotes ships produced prior to their entry into the war. These ships were typically designed under the assumption of a predominantly Xeverran threat, and saw massive production runs under High Chancellor Visas's Military Proliferation Act. Second Generation ships would be designed in response to the lessons of the initial Zaretian and then the far more substantial Repzork assaults. These craft also are the first to employ foreign knowledge and technology provided under partnerships with Peacekeeper races, in particular the Luminarians. The Third Generation generally covers the few designs that began initially rolling out in the final years of the Repzork and Xeverran fronts. These ships and most notably mechs were typically born from Remusian influence.

Colloquially, anything larger than a Destroyer is referred to as a "Heavy Duty" class ship.

Strikecraft

First Generation

• RSC Razik - Fighter
• RSC/RHW Photon - Gunship

Second Generation

• RSC Bazka Fighter
• RSC Bravado Tactical Bomber

Frigates

First Generation

• RSC Byervid - Close-Quarters Frigate
• RSC Holnok - Assault Frigate

Second Generation

• RSC Bokat - Support Frigate
• RSC Kordust - Strike Frigate
• RSC Satchel - Light Assault Carrier

Destroyer

Second Generation

• RSC Irukon Assault Destroyer
• RSC Karto Support Destroyer

Heavy-Duty

Third Generation

• RSC Vorniket Heavy-Duty

Dreadnoughts

Second Generation

• RSC Uze Limited Edition

Carriers

First Generation

• RSC Exo-Hull - Strikecraft Carrier
• RSC Destriant - Frigate Carrier

Flagships

• The Virulent Router commanded by Voivode Ruusad Hassai, a modified ZMS Galaxy-class ship