GATE: The United Nations of Earth

Chapter 41: "Priority: Annexing"

--World building fact--

As mentioned before, the UNE military relies on technology to make up for their lack of numbers compare to other nations in the galaxy. Most notable is the Hellhound Legion on the ground and Black Arrows in space. Both were used to a deadly and devastating effect during the Second Intergalactic War against the Marikarian Empire.

Each Hellhound Legion consists of 10 thousand SAT8s. Multiple legions can be deployed at the same time along with human soldiers and manned vehicles, or by themselves. Unlike Hollywood movies, where combat robots often charge blindly at the enemy, the SAT8s use their agility to take cover and engage the enemy at range with their powerful armament. When deployed along with human troops, the supporting firepower of Lancer tanks and IFVs greatly enhances their combat effectiveness as well as their devastation, while the APCs provide electronic warfare defense. In many cases, Hellhound Legion with the support of combined human forces beat back reaper ground forces which no other military could do. Because of the high collateral damage caused by Hellhound Legion, they're often only deployed when collaterals are not a concern.

In space, Black Arrows are the fighter drones that supplement the SF-40s. Like the name, the drone has the shape of an arrowhead. They are smaller than SF-40s due to the lack of a cockpit and life support system but carry more firepower. In combat, each SF-40 has a wing of 6 Black Arrows as support.

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The story of commander Ava Bennett of the 5th SIF single handedly destroying hundreds of Reaper warships in seconds, a feat that even an entire Terra Fleet could achieve, has been making headlines on all media channels across the galaxy on both UNE and allies news. All most everyone is talking about it, a rare victory against the reapers made possible by the courage of a single human. Ava become the hero and the beacon of hope for the troops on the frontline. For some aliens, Ava became an icon of their faith. Depend on the culture and religion of the alien species, Ava is a messenger, an angel or a protector that whatever higher being that they're worshiping sent to help them.

In front of the Ellie Fleet Medical Center is a pedestal of The Caduceus. At its base, thousands of flowers were placed there by the people in the hope and thanks for commander Ava's recovery. Earth's ancient religions are still existing within the UNE population but with a significantly smaller ratio than in the 21st century. Many have come and pray for Ava with candles and incense, at some point, the police had to try to convince the crowd to disperse.

On the Federation's front, the UNE has been sending more fleets to reinforce the Federation as more and more are enlisting to fight and the Foreign Legion is growing fast. Federation's ship designs were reworked by UNE's engineer for better performance, ship hull and armor are no longer made of plates but instead printed out as a seamless block to provide better integrity, similar to how UNE ships are built. As the result, the weaker reaper forces on that front are stopped dead on their track. However, intel report that the reapers are also reinforcing the frontline so it is only a matter of time before they resume advancing.

Things are a lot direr on the Citadel Council's front, they have lost more than 50 percent of space and the reapers are showing no sign of slowing down. Many of the council's special force units as well as SIF units have been trying to replicate what commander Ava did during the battle of Auraelm but all ended up in failure and total loss of the unit. Terra Sphere realized that the reapers have learned from their mistake and it would be a waste of resources to continue future attempts, thus, they forbid all future similar actions and advice the citadel council to do the same.

The Citadel Council's military admires the effectiveness of the UNE's Hellhound Legion and has been developing its own version of the SAT8. Project Prima has successfully created the first prototype, Prima1, using the same model as the SAT8 but with less defensive power and firepower. The difference is that the Prima1 consists of 1x1cm blocks instead of nanites like the SAT8 and they need to be charged frequently rather than having an almost indefinite internal power source like the SAT8 nanites. However, the AI they use is inadequate to control thousands or hundreds of thousands of combat robots on the rapidly changing battlefield. In addition, their OS can be easily hacked which makes them extremely vulnerable against the reapers. Despite the warning of the UNE, the council still authorized the launch of Prima1 against the reapers in the Bulwark system and, as the result, the reapers compromise the OS and turned Prima1 to their side.