NationStates Jolt Archive

First off, Star of the Morning, being a firm believer in 'small government' has no official standing army. What they do have is a few 'Heavy Security' firms kept on retainer by the majority of the upper class population. This is also where a fair number of the lower class population end up. There are three major firms, each with their own speciality, which I'll get to in a moment. There are also a number of smaller firms, essentially being local militias, usually controlled by a single wealthy individual.

The three major firms are Soldiers Incorporated, specializing in infantry and armor; AirSea, specializing in sea and aircraft (shocking!) and StatDef, who own and maintain most of the bunkers, artillery emplacements, SAM/RADAR sites, etc. The major focus of all of these companies is national defense, with a small section dedicated to overseas expansion.

It should be noted that although their major focuses are as above, there is some degree of diversification. Soldiers Incorporated has some planes and landing boats, AirSea has a few Marine teams and airborne teams, and StatDef has some aircraft, lightly armed seacraft to repair defense platforms, and armed personal manning the bunkers.

Soldiers Incorporated and AirSea focus more on quality than quantity, emphasizing small teams of highly trained, well equipped Agents/ (the term soldiers only being used for the extremely small Internal Affairs bureau of the tiny government) StatDef, realizing it doesn't matter how imprenetrable your bunker is if the enemy can go around and cut off supplies, endeavours to plot a middle course between the two.

The Klxkts are a vital influence on the military and culture of Star of the Morning. To be basic, they are a large (size of a medium dog) form of beetle-like insect life. They can be trained to follow simple orders, based on sensory input through their antennae. Their primary usage is through direct charges at the enemy, occasionally used as a flanking manuever. Due to the fact that they can't use weaponry, or really hold a position, they are used as shock troops more than anything else. The fact that they are short lived, (several days) is used to continously breed them to be more useful in their selected role.

Their exoskeleton, in view of this, has been genetically bred to the point where it is capable of deflecting small arms fire with minimal damage. Anything designed to pierce body armor is quite capable of penetrating the exoskeleton, and destruction of the antennae will effectively blind the creature.

Due to the difficulty of pronouncing the official name (derived from ancient scriptures) the Klxkts are commonly known as the Beetles (capital B), or simply, among the Agents, 'The big ass bugs'.

In addition to the fact that when charging forward, the will hit with enough impact to knock an average sized man over, and often break bones, the Klxkts have two pincers, capable of piercing human flesh and breaking bones.