Rheinland Military

The Rheinwehr (known to non-Rheinlanders as the Rheinland Military) is the national armed forces of the Federal Republic of Rheinland.

History
House Rheinland maintains a proud military tradition going back for centuries. After the reorganization of the government following the loss of the 80-Years War and the Von Rohe's Day rebellions, the Rheinland Imperial Navy was remade into the Rheinland Military and remains as such in its modern incarnation. With that change came many alterations in training, recruitment, and attitude- no longer was the military merely a sword that Daumann and Kruger could point where they willed, but rather the main force of law and order in Rheinland, taking over when Rheinland's many foes became too well armed for the Federal Police. Mostly, the Military focused on dealing with the Red Hessians and Corsairs while the Police kept tabs on the Landwirtrechtbewegung and Bundschuh.

On the tip of the ninth century A.S., a Rheinland exploration team discovered ruins on a distant planet in the far reaches of space, dozens of lightyears from the rest of Sirius. Their investigations awoke the Nomads, who learned from them the state of their birthright and how to control humans. The team came back to Rheinland bearing most dangerous cargo- newly developed Nomad Incubi, an engineered organism designed to infest and control humans while remaining undetected, and to create more of itself to spread the Nomads' influence throughout the colonies. Before long, the Nomads controlled Chancellor Gustav Niemann and many of the Rheinland Military's high-ranking officers, in particular Admiral Schultsky.

However, the Incubi were not the only things sent back with the ill-fated explorers- the Nomads had also developed a way to use a ship's powercore to empower a specially grown organism to project a "veil" similar to their own; a veil capable of redirecting light in such a manner as to render a ship undetectable by the naked eye or the scanners in use on most spacecraft. The organism and it's surrounding electronics made up a "cloaking device" that could be manufactured and installed easily onto all of Rheinland's ships. With this new technology, Rheinland was able to eliminate any threats to it's Nomad guided war preparations and establish supremacy in their space and that around it. At the direction of the Nomads, Rheinland became more militaristic and eventually totalitarian than ever before- the remaining resources in Rheinland and the neaby independent worlds were fully devoted to the building of warships.

With an armada the likes of which had never been seen before in Sirius, and cloaking devices capable of allowing entire fleets to move unobserved, the Rheinland Military was an unmatchable force against which there could be no victory. One by one, the Houses would fall to the Nomads and their pawns. However, they did not anticipate the likes of Edison Trent- a man worthy of the title "demigod" by most reckonings, he and a handful of friends from all walks of life repeatedly defeated the best of the Rheinland Military, even dismantling an entire battlegroup in Tau-29 with only four ships at his back.

Rheinland's armadas fared considerably better against the navies of Kusari and Bretonia, bringing the former to its knees in a matter of days and even occupying New Tokyo. When the Nomads brought Liberty fully into the fold, Bretonia was all that remained- but before they had a chance to launch the invasion, Edison Trent and the Order activated the Daam K'Vosh hypergate network and disrupted the Nomads' control on their pawns. With the help of the Order, much of Rheinland was freed from the grasp of the Nomads, with the directly infested being hunted down or scattered.

While the government worked to recover its relations to those unaware of the Nomads' involvement, the Military turned inward. From their losses against Edison Trent and other small bands of very skilled fighters like the Blood Dragons, the Military focused on having a smaller number of well-trained, well-coordinated pilots. Such pilots could function well even on their own, and smaller numbers would ease the strain on Rheinland's crippled economy and exhausted resources.

Throughout the next decade and a half, the Rheinland Military became the best of the best. Defeating one of their pilots was held to be such an acheivement that fortune-seekers from all across Sirius would journey to Rheinland to try their luck- most were unsuccessful, but not all- at one point this led to a ban of mercenaries in Rheinland on pain of death.

Then the Corsairs came. Frustrated with their lack of progress in Omega-5 and Omega-41 against the Red Hessians, they resolved to outflank their opponent- by conquering eastern Rheinland. Knowing the martial prowess of the Rheinland Military, the Brotherhood was assigned this task while all other Corsairs maintained pressure on the Hessians in the south.

The war was brutal. The "Road to Rheinland" campaign as it was sometimes called was the first major campaign since the Nomad War, and Rheinland's strategies were put to the test. In short, they succeeded. While the Brotherhood had aces of its own to match Rheinland's, not all were as skilled as their leaders. Under the direction of Admirals Krieg and Hiltraud, and with the tactical and stategic advice of the (then) lowly officer Dieter Schprockets, the Corsairs were kept from going any farther than Mannheim Station. Slowly but surely, the Rheinland Military pushed back the Brotherhood, finally defeating them in the Sigma-13 system in a battle that cost the Brotherhood both their flagship and their pride.

For the years following the repulsion of the Brotherhood, the Rheinland Military continued much as it had before. With the Federal Police occupied on the ground, the Military took over space policing duties, which included stopping pirates and smugglers. However, as time went on, and with the disappearences, deaths, or retirements of several high-ranking members, the Military gradually wore down to only a shadow of what it once was. Rheinland space was quiet, save for the tradelane from Bonn to Planet New Berlin. Recruiting failed to bring in the pilots to deal with the Red Hessians, and when Das Wilde returned to terrorize Rheinland's populace there were few to stop them.

While Kanzler Reinhardt was effective, he could only do so much- the Military needed a new leader to replace the likes of Admirals Krieg, Hiltraud, and Freelamen. It found it in Malexa Malte, an enterprising new recruit who quickly rose through the ranks. Before long she was the leading Admiral in the Military, and went on a veritable crusade to bring the Rheinland Military back to its former glory.

Under Malte's leadership, recruits began pouring in like never before. Retired pilots returned to serve their homeland, and to once again fight off the Red Hessians and Das Wilde. Rheinland had pilots to defend it again, although they were not the crack team that had defeated the Brotherhood's invasion.

However, there was little time to bring them up to the legendary skill of their predecessors. Rheinland had uncovered evidence that Liberty was experimenting on Nomad material procured in the deep Omicrons, and was using it to develop superior technology with which to prepare for war. Although both houses fell to the Nomads during the war, Rheinland had been adamant about destroying them wherever they were found and vigilantly obliterating anything coming in from the Omicrons that could potentially allow them a second foothold. Rheinland's battles with Das Wilde did not make them any more lenient in this position, but Liberty had no experience with such horrors and ignored their pleas. Rheinland then argued that if Nomads were to be studied, it should be to find ways to fight them; but fighting the Nomads was a much less pressing concern for Liberty, cushioned as they were by the Order and the Bounty Hunters Guild Core. The story leaked to Rheinland's press, and quickly escalated from there.

Once war broke out, Rheinland quickly learned the strengths of its weaknesses of its forces. Liberty maintained the largest known armada of capital warships, as well as possessing a squadron of expert fighter pilots- the kind which Rheinland had used to defeat the Brotherhood years before. However, while Rheinland was vastly outnumbered by warships and severely outclassed in fighter engagements, the fractured and nebulous wings of the Liberty Navy were, by and large, inferior to their opposite number in Rheinland. Liberty warships were designed to deal with other vessels of their class, and while Rheinland's capital fleet suffered gravely in all confrontations with their outnumbering Liberty counterparts, Rheinland's bomber squadrons found Liberty warships to be easy pickings. In one instance, a lone Bergelmir pilot sent to hold off a marauding Liberty Assault Battlecruiser equipped with the finest in armor decided to engage the ship, and by the time reinforcements arrived had almost completely crippled the ship single-handedly. While Liberty's forces nearly always triumphed over their Rheinland counterparts, fleet engagements went far better for the Rheinlanders, who had retained the tactics and cohesion learned in the war with the Brotherhood.

As the war continues, and as threats to Rheinland slowly rise in significance, the Rheinland Military becomes more and more hard-pressed to keep the citizenry safe. But they are vigilant, and they have survived invaders from both within and without in the recent past. If anything, Rheinland has proven its capacity to adapt to whatever force is sent against it- and the Military stands ready for the trials ahead.

Known Bases

 * Battleship Westfalen, Hamburg
 * Battleship Altenburg, Dresden
 * Battleship Karlsruhe, Stuttgart
 * Battleship Koblenz, Frankfurt
 * Battleship Regensburg, Munich
 * Battleship Schwerin, Omega-15
 * Battleship Strausberg, New Berlin