On the Pennsylvania rebels

[Proselyte]

A series inspired by fanon thoughts of the Penny resistance that make useful background for later, but aren't worthy of getting their own explicit dramatized narrative with my ADHD attention span. If I run afoul of established canon, well, shit, I'll fix it.

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One of many symbols denoting the defunct Zoner government of Planet Erie.

The Erie Civil Forces

A domestic planetary security service of the Pennsylvania Protectorate government, the Erie Civil Forces' responsibilities on the surface of the world before Operation: PESTICIDE in 830 AS extended as far as supporting infrastructure projects, maintaining public order and law enforcement, frequently cooperating with the LPI during crackdowns on troublesome Rogue activity planetside.

Unofficially, owing to rising tensions between the Protectorate and their would-be guarantors in House Liberty, the Civil Forces maintained a network of liaisons among the numerous local militias and volunteer groups that had been long nurtured on the planet by outspoken critics of the Republic. While varying in strength, training and leadership style, keeping each of these paramilitaries in-touch with an official Protectorate department ensured that Erie's Zoner Council could quickly raise a ready-to-go domestic military force without Liberty oversight, should the planet ever fall under organized attack.

As many feared, that attack didn't come in the form of a second Rogue invasion like in the 770s, but from House Liberty itself arriving to forcibly dismantle and conquer its own vassal state in the wake of their victory against the Insurgency.

While the Zoner Carrier Pinnacle's hastily-assembled flotilla fought a delaying action against the Battleship Alma far above the clouds, concurrent with the Erie government and sympathetic volunteers scrambling as many hauler ships as they could to prepare for the logistics of this impromptu navy, the Civil Forces were making calls. "The sky is about to fall. Muster ASAP."

Zoner militia leaders across the whole planet were waiting anxiously for this moment. Everyone was on a hair trigger since the LSF's monitoring satellite went down in pieces a week earlier amid inflamed animosity over Insurgency refugees, buzzing among themselves to discern who was responsible.

Now, it was old news. As Marine troop transports descended towards any major population center with a starport, the planet's ramshackle military united under the auspices of ECF leadership and prepared to drive the Libertonians back into the void.

At least, those were the bold hopes of the day.

The city centers were taken by the Marines without armed contest, although they were bogged down with widespread peaceful protests and public disobedience at first. Allowing this was presumed to be wise by the rebels: the House's footholds on the planet would demand constant manpower upkeep to pacify and, although some cursed the cities as havens of Libertonian capital investment, there was little appetite among the rebels to cause painful, displacing destruction on their own soil with merciless urban fighting.

Liberty would have to tie down some troops keeping order when they decided to surge towards another major goal: the neon gas refineries, the only ones of industrial scale in the entire Sirius sector. Positioned around these were the bulk of the ECF's mustered militia, ready to deny the planet's wealth to the approaching House military.

The ill-fated defensive campaign would last only three weeks and be known among participating fighters as the Neon Front. It was a bloody struggle, but on the ground as in space, the Zoners overestimated their chances. The prospect of facing down Liberty tanks, combat walkers and armored infantry was daunting enough for the lightly-equipped Zoner military, but the House push was also supported liberally by Navy fighters and bombers. Squadrons hosted on Harrisburg Station and the Alma itself had comfortably seized orbital superiority after the Pinnacle's destruction, making mincemeat out of any Zoner ship lingering in-atmo that wasn't throwing up a white flag and disarming itself. The rare tactical victory that ECF-led militia troops managed to win on the battlefield didn't long survive the arrival of a wing of Upholders overhead, unleashing guided missiles and plasma bombs on the hapless defenders.

The rebel fighters of Pennsylvania hadn't yet grasped the kind of war they had just entered, and their education was swift and brutal. Though the sheer number of volunteers mustered was impressive, this mismanaged attempt to face the Liberty armed forces in open battle on the Neon Front saw many of the planet's pre-occupation militias cut down to size or destroyed entirely. Confidence in the idea of unified command structure with Protectorate legitimacy rapidly crumbled, and desertion became a grave problem for the survivors as former volunteers quietly dispersed back into the planet's urban populations.

With Liberty victorious and its seizure of planetary infrastructure finalized, the Civil Forces' influence over rebel affairs was effectively over. The Protectorate government was overthrown and the confidence of its troops was lost, so the organization was consigned to a quiet death, mourned by few. Their failed campaign sapped the willingness of the rural resistance to risk themselves on the orders of some far-off naive strategist. This would only contribute to the later Militant difficulties organizing their fighters into a larger military structure, as many of the rebels now understood - painfully so - that the nature of this guerrilla war favored a level of secrecy and decentralization.

Working within those limitations while remaining effective, however, remains a persistent challenge for the Erie Militants of today's Pennsylvania.

[Proselyte]

A common symbol of resistance, utilized by several Militant forces and adopted with gusto by the Colonels' Own guerrillas.

The Colonels' Own

In the aftermath of the Zoner militia defeats on the Neon Front of Planet Erie in late 830 AS, what remained of Pennsylvania Protectorate strategic leadership on the planet completely broke down. Each militia force, disunited as they were, was now left to its own devices to resist Liberty encroachment. Some took the initiative to make on-the-spot arrangements with counterpart militias, going as far as contacting Xenos or even Rogue gangs as necessary to make a successful raid or prepare an adequate defense against House forces. Most simply pursued resistance in whatever way made sense to them.

In the opinion of those few officers that survived the Civil Forces' futile attempts to blunt the Marine Corps push outward from the city centers, this was the latest and most deadly expression of their inadequate preparedness for this war. If the Zoner rebels disintegrated uncontrollably into scattered bands, any real threat they could pose to Liberty's occupation would be practically neutered.

This could not go unanswered.

After licking their wounds in their secluded strongholds, the leadership of three of these badly bloodied militias - the Greyfinger Brigade, the 3rd New Vernon Irregulars, and the Tuval Hellions - radically reorganized their surviving members in 831 AS, iterating on their failure. These individual units would no longer hold meaning.

To preserve the now-precious fighting capability of those who remained, each militia divided its surviving population in half. Six Groups were created in total with their own leaders, each personally holding a line of communication to the Colonels, the founders of their mother-regiments, which constituted their leadership. By this connection, orders disseminated down through the Group captains to even further-divided cells operating under each of them. Information was highly compartmentalized, each cell knowing only their own members save for their cell leaders, taking orders from the captains. Knowledge about the fellow rebels they'd be marshalled alongside was to be kept to an absolute minimum, limiting the risk to their counterparts if any one cell was compromised or destroyed - a time-tested guerrilla power structure.

Group Clarion, descended from the 3rd New Vernon, is one such group.

Each Group of this new Militant force, informally self-identifying as the Colonels' Own, spread out from each other to take up areas of responsibility across their region near zones of Liberty control. Results for the first several months of rebel activity were impressive compared to their earlier bungling, carrying out successful infrastructure sabotage, ambushes of LPI and Marine forces and the occasional bomb attack, squeezing the occupation authorities considerably.

The LSF, though, proved their value to the Republic of Liberty once again. By means unknown to the Militants, intelligence on the Colonels' whereabouts got into the hands of the agency. An operation was launched with all due haste to cut down this sprouting of rebel leadership and relieve the pressure on the Marines. The Group captains each received only one further message from their secure lines to headquarters: "shortstop", their arranged codeword for HQ becoming compromised and to consider themselves cut loose from the command structure.

If the Colonels weren't dead, the LSF had them. And that was that.

This decapitation strike left each Group effectively independent, to varying effect. Some, like Group Beaver, became too aggressive without a big-picture command staff and wound up annihilated in battle with the Marines. Others, like Group Fulton, elected to find shelter with larger, more cautious Militant forces such as the emerging Pennsylvania Liberation Front, assimilating entirely into their ranks. Group Dauphin, as far as anyone can guess, vanished from the world entirely. All their known campsites and hideouts puzzlingly show no trace that they had ever been there, birthing fire-side ghost stories about their disappearance among Militants looking for a night's entertainment.

Groups Alleghany, Clarion, and Elk survive into the present each roughly fifty members strong, though operating entirely separate from one another. By design, they continue the fight even without higher command, but with a hesitance to work together directly. Since the LSF is suppressing any Militant leadership that stick their necks out, nobody wants to be the one to die trying to lift the flag out of the mud, a pattern which repeats well beyond the forests and valleys of Erie out across the entire system.

Until the day comes that the LSF doesn't cast such an oppressive shadow over the Erie Militants, the former members of the Colonels' Own in the year 835 AS merely exchange cautious waves on the road, trade ammo or intelligence and lament the state of things in between operations, as there are fewer of them with every passing day.

[Proselyte]

Zoner/Militant Dispositions

While it can be said that almost every Zoner within and beyond the boundaries of the Sirius sector wrinkles their nose at military expansionism, what comes afterward is often more complicated.

Regarding the Liberty annexation of Erie, Zoner figureheads everywhere may choose to decry the Republic's actions as an obscene breach of the now meaningless Protectorate Treaty and a direct insult to Sirian diplomatic norms. The violence and instability of the past decades, however, would render these objections toothless against the military and economic power of the House governments in this new century of might-makes-right diplomacy, a far more volatile political atmosphere than before the watershed moments of the Colony Wars and later Gallic War. Liberty need only reply that it took necessary action to defend its own interests in light of an Insurgent threat, and none - not least the other Houses - would be motivated to hold them to account. The consequences of a more explicit response, such as punitive economic sanctions, may also invite a retaliation too painful for critics of Liberty to stomach.

Experiencing this messy reality first hand, Zoners on Erie and throughout the Pennsylvania system thus take different stances on the conflict, and how the Erie Militants tend to view and treat the Zoner in question depends on the individual. While not encompassing the entire spectrum, these simple categories snapshot the normal range of opinions and activities.

Collaborators
Those who cooperate to minor or major degrees with the Liberty occupation are varied. Some believe that enthusiastic, servile cooperation with the House administration will earn respect or privileges from them. As such, the actions of renegades like the Militants endangering the peace cannot be tolerated. Others might be atypically cold and pragmatic Zoners, valuing their identity only insofar as it opens doors for them or lulls suspicion. If the deal is sweet enough, a fast track to Libertonian citizenship with some special perks by snooping on their behalf would be on the table for them. Then there are other luckless folk, forced into service to the House by compromising material or threats towards loved ones, or those who have no particular care about the conflict at all who just weaponize Liberty's paranoia about the rebels in personal disputes.

Scattered among the Zoner population, they report the sympathetic to the Liberty Security Force, and the devoted among them might feign assistance to the rebels until the time is ripe for the knife. Though the number of collaborators is unknown, they aren't taken lightly. Militants who identify these Zoners repay them gruesomely for their treachery, typically deaf to their explanations or pleas to reason.

The Disinterested
For these Zoners, while they certainly aren't in support of the Republic, the invasion was an inevitability and it was foolish to think otherwise, given the very nature of the Houses they refuse to live under.

To be a Zoner, for this camp, means having the freedom to be responsible for yourself, not owe some debt of loyalty to the wider Zoner movement. Heady claims of the independence of the Pennsylvania system or a "Zoner people" quickly draw derisive snorts. Idiotically dying over nationalist ideas is a House mindset, whereas they understand that if a grav-train is barreling towards you, the smartest thing to do is stay out of the way. While they might be personally motivated to provide a modicum of support if there's an even exchange, any real alignment with the Militant fanatics is out of the question.

For the Erie Militants fighting for their homeworld, this marks them as selfish cowards. The particularly ruthless are happy to carry out a little extortion, browbeating or piracy of this lot, a cathartic way to punish their apathy if the situation permits. This self-interested attitude is sparsely present on the surface of Erie, but has a strong following on Bethlehem Station and in the Zoner movement abroad.

The Stoic Majority
While in opposition to what's happened since PESTICIDE, the general majority of Pennsylvanian Zoners don't consider violence to be their best recourse. In the past, they objected with civil disobedience and non-violent protests, hoping that Liberty would suffer economic consequences that eventually lead them to reconsider what they've done. When these consequences never manifested, many among this group chose to flee and make new lives elsewhere, considering Erie's sovereignty a dead concept. Others, demoralized, slowly trickle into census and registration centers, confirming their Liberty citizenship to open up new opportunities to provide for their families under the new order. The people committed to remaining Zoners on-planet are too stubborn to flee, have no means to uproot their whole life to escape House rule, or are content to simply chug along day to day hoping that things get better.

Many dream only of a return to the pre-invasion status quo, an agreement on planetary self-rule with Liberty. Their attitude on the Militants, then, is typically a hesitant one. The idea of having to kill to secure your welfare is alien to most well-off Zoners, and safety or comfort are generally concerns that loom larger in their minds than do-or-die commitments to their principles or an ideologue's dreams of defeating House Liberty. Still, as alternatives dwindle, the right pressures could motivate a change in belief among these people.

Many Militants on Erie approach them as the primary population they need to rile against the invaders, with only the most rabid of the movement damning them all as unworthy for their lack of willingness to shed blood. The majority of the planet's urban Zoners, some in the Erie outback, and a smaller portion of those on Bethlehem represent this view.

Sympathizers
When Operation: PESTICIDE was bearing down on the system, at that early stage of the conflict, Zoners from all over the sector would offer their ships to move supplies, scout Liberty formations or construct fallback positions in space, if not go to war with Liberty directly. On the planet itself, as militias organized to do battle with the Marines, these are the people who made sure they had the rations they needed, safe places to sleep, and medical aid when things went south. No rebel movement can long survive without the support of the people, and sympathizers are the lifeblood of any Militant force on Erie that lacks advanced facilities for self-sufficiency, which is to say almost all of them. They don't always have the heart to join the fight directly, but they know who they'd prefer to win and put their money where their mouth is, and that's plenty fine for the desperate Militants in need of whatever logistical aid they can get. The most passionate Militants may exhort them to take another step and commit themselves fully to the cause, but saying so out of disrespect for their contribution would generally be frowned upon.

While spacefaring Zoners of this bent are becoming rare in Pennsylvania as Bethlehem Station avoids any overt association with rebels in-system, on Erie's surface they can be found all across the outback, as well as laying low in the cities if you can arrange a meeting with a "friend of a friend". The Liberty administration is hard at work hunting down and interring or eliminating people of this category, attempting to starve the Militants of their civilian support network.

Mobilized
This category refers to Zoner sympathizers who are so committed to support of the Militants as to practically be Militants themselves. They use their Zoner front as a weapon in its own right, deflecting suspicion while gathering intelligence and moving war material, conducting sabotage on critical Liberty infrastructure as with bomb attacks, or sowing discontent against the House via interpersonal or mass propaganda efforts.

On the financial side, organizations or companies managed by mobilized Zoners won't just slip money or food or ammo towards the rebels occasionally as a show of support. Rebellion instead becomes the overriding purpose of the organization, reflecting the drive to shift the whole of society to support the Militant cause. Front companies sheltering rebel training grounds, independent news media that fights to spread a secessionist narrative, and local freighter transit orgs that use their civilian status to covertly airlift Militant troops from place to place fall under this category. The natural desire of the Militants is that as many Zoners as possible align to this point of view, and they endeavor to protect those people and assets who have.

Unless one is exceptionally careful, or lucky enough to not be a priority, in the current environment of 835 A.S. the LSF proves capable of sniffing out such deception eventually. At that point, often the only places of safety left are alongside Militant cells. As such, there are only sparse groups of fully mobilized Zoner civilians, for now.