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Despite the decentralized nature of the Frontier Alliance, its members have made a concerted effort to ensure that all military elements are operating on the same page. This unified front consists of six command operations, separated into a ground force and a space force. These forces are the Allied Frontier Guard and the Alliance United Flotillas, with the former being a ground force and the latter being a coordinated front of armed spacecraft. Despite the separation of these two forces and the six operations, they cooperate closely: sharing resources, intelligence, and manpower as needed to ensure their goals. The decentralized nature of the Alliance makes the rigid military structure present in most galactic militaries harder to achieve, and as such, the military of the Frontier Alliance is intentionally fluid in organization and composition.
Medal System
To maintain coherence in their fluid structure, the Alliance military issues its members one of three medals that dictate one's position on the overall chain of command. Each medal is a four-pointed tin star worn around the neck. While each command operation of the Alliance handles its rank structure differently, the medals are kept consistent throughout the entirety of the Alliance as a reflection of command and a reminder of the shared vision of a free frontier. All sapient members of the Alliance are entitled to earn all medals – humans, positronics, and Unathi can be seen in a myriad of positions within the Alliance military.
Guardsman Medal
The easiest medal to obtain, the Guardsman Medal is given to anyone who joins the Frontier Guard or United Flotillas. Recipients are often referred to as "guardsmen" – guardsmen make up the backbone of the Alliance’s military, with assignments ranging from standard infantry duty and ship maintenance to diplomatic duties and special operations.
Being a guardsman doesn't mean someone is unqualified, however. Many doctors, engineers, and other highly-trained specialists receive this medal for volunteering to serve with the Alliance. Among personnel who formerly served with the SCG Fleet or SCG Army, it's common for many postings to retain their previous rank structures, and thus Guardsmen may outrank one another dependent on training and post.
Warden Medal
Warden Medal recipients, called "wardens" for short, fill the bulk of leadership positions within the Alliance's military. Wardens fill a similar role as non-commissioned officers in traditional militaries, and can find themselves in a wide range of postings. A warden typically has anywhere from 10 to 200 guardsmen under their command, depending on their posting and responsibilities. Wardens can also answer to other wardens if the situation dictates, but the decentralization of the Alliance means that decisions are usually made by committee.
By and large, the ranks of the wardens are made up of those with combat or organizational experience. Among Fleet mutineers and Army transplants, chiefs and junior officers proudly wear the Warden Medal, and wardens fill niches aboard ships ranging from team leadership to departmental command.
Star Marshal Medal
Star marshals – the recipients of the Star Marshal Medal – are the closest thing the Alliance has to an officer corps. Ship captains and pilots, architects and civil engineers, and others with political or capital clout over Alliance military forces get to wear the coveted medal. While your average guardsman is only expected to answer to their direct warden, all guardsmen and wardens are expected to carry out the orders of all star marshals.
There is a great disparity of competence among star marshals, with seasoned veterans in complex fields serving alongside people who were rich enough to own a ship when the Alliance broke free. Six of these star marshals serve on the Council of Operation-Generals, the commanders-in-chief of the Alliance’s largest military divisions.
Equipment
The bulk of equipment used by the Alliance is Sol-standard, and is either surplus from the days before Copernican independence or stolen and fenced from the core systems. It’s impossible to guess what equipment any given member of the Alliance military will use due to their decentralized nature, but every member carries both a primary and secondary firearm while on duty.
In the years since the formation of the Frontier Alliance, it has had plenty of time to source new vessels for its operations. While many ships are stolen from cargo lines or private security enterprises, some ship captains in frontier space have cast their lot in with the United Flotillas – either willingly or through civil asset forfeiture. Smuggled materials have also allowed the shipyards over Iolaus to continue operation, and although development has slowed, new Iolan ships appear more often the longer the Alliance remains independent. These new ships that aren’t repurposed from the Solar fleet often deploy experimental or ramshackle weaponry systems – from makeshift canons to battering rams, fighting the Alliance in the void is an unpredictable affair.
Operations
The military of the Alliance – both the Frontier Guard and the United Flotillas – currently cooperate on six independent operations, each with a different tactical goal important to the political aims of the Alliance. The decentralized nature of the Frontier Alliance as a political entity makes military organizational structure difficult, and the operation-generals who spearhead Alliance military efforts occasionally find they have conflicting goals.
Provincial Guard
Operation General: Star Marshal Alexis Tokadashi
The largest of the Alliance garrisons and the bulk of its military manpower pool, the Provincial Guard has existed in some form since the founding days of Iolaus. The Iolan Provincial Guard and its attached Space Guard were formerly a Planetary Defense Force of the Solar Army. Their unique maroon service coats have become a staple visual identifier for the Alliance. In the wake of Iolan independence, the Provincial Guard began absorbing local defense forces from Brahe and other frontier worlds, training a traditional standing army that mostly deals in planetary defense operations.
Umiri Wildcats
Operation General: Star Marshal John Magarac
Composed of union laborers and veterans of the Umiri Strikebreaking Operation of the 2290s, the Wildcats consider themselves the galaxy's first self-organized collective militia. After Umiri’s devastating losses against SAARE, the more militant elements of the strike went underground and the Miners, Metalworkers, and Spacefarers Union operated behind closed doors until the formation of the Frontier Alliance in 2311. The Union was welcomed into the Alliance with open arms, and its more militant elements formed the Umiri Wildcats – unique among the Frontier Guard for its wardens and star marshals holding their positions by election rather than appointment, as well as its dedication to combating private security interests. The Wildcats focus largely on labor organizing and industrial sabotage against corporate-owned installations in the frontier, but they’ve recently been seen restoring old SAARE ships and strike-bombers left behind in preparation for combat with corporate forces.
Blockade Runners
Operation General: Star Marshal Victoria York
Composed of pirate ships, stealthy haulers, and all kinds of infiltrating operatives within Solar and Confederate space, the Alliance Blockade Runners are responsible primarily for smuggling goods into Alliance space. Some of these goods are acquired by legitimate means, such as trade with Magnitka, but many are stolen or sourced from criminal elements within both Solar and Confederate space. Many Blockade Runner ships were doing piracy long before the foundation of the Alliance, and simply saw the Alliance's formation as an opportunity to legitimize their operations and present a united front against the local authorities that had been plaguing them. The Blockade Runners' operation is vital to the economy of the Alliance, as without specialty goods and medical equipment from the core, the Frontier planets would be unable to sustain themselves. Because of this, many of these pirate-captains-turned-star-marshals effectively hold the Alliance hostage for vital goods to turn ridiculous profits, and Blockade Runners are sometimes viewed with disdain by the other operations.
Sun Scout Initiative
Operation General: Star Marshal KVO-89
The tidally-locked nature of the planet Sunset means its hemispheres are home to extreme climates of both hot and cold, making the planet an excellent training ground for harsh climate operations. In the early days of Sunset’s colonization, colonists spent significant effort to chart and explore the hot and cold regions of the planet – now that Sunset is in the Alliance, that experience is being used to train a forward operating force. The Sun Scouts are in development to be used by the Alliance for finding additional resources, establishing bases of operation, and pathfinding to points of interest for the fledgling Alliance.
Resistance
Operation General: Star Marshal Vasily Siderichenkov
While the planet Valy remains heavily under the grip of the Gilgamesh Colonial Confederation, the Valy Resistance is still a prominent guerrilla organization on the planet. The foundation of the Alliance led to a schism within the Valy Resistance – those who have cast their lot in with the Alliance are among the most veteran and violent members of the planet's Resistance element. With experience in resisting an authority from the inside, it is rumored that several high-ranking resistance officials have been sprung from prisons and smuggled off-world to sow dissent across both Sol and the Confederation.
Battlegroup Mutineer
Operation General: Command Star Marshal Agni Raj The largest element of ships that mutinied from the SCG during the foundation of the Alliance was the Fifth Fleet's Special Group Alpha, under the leadership of Commodore Agni Raj. Now the bulk of mutinous Fleet elements are under her command, and the power and influence that such a large group of ships wield has given Raj the position of Command Star Marshal, Commander-in-Chief of the Frontier Guard. Ships had different motivations for their mutinies, but the general shared sentiment behind most of Fleet mutineers was that they were the best of the best. Feeling Sol didn't want to utilize its advanced Fifth Fleet for combat, this highly disciplined space warfare force struck out to find combat on their own. Unlike the rest of the Alliance military, the mutinous elements of these former Fleet vessels rigidly adhere to their pre-existing rank and command structures, and are almost fanatical in their devotion to traditional militarism and Fleet doctrine. Now, Battlegroup Mutineer is dedicated to becoming the only force that can stand against the Solar or Confederate Fleets in a head-to-head fight.