The Merovingian command put together three different rapid reaction teams, named after the Olympic medals. L’Équipe Bronze (Bronze Team) operates on planet Dawn, usually in support of the main Merovingian force, but also assisting the Ariadnan army if necessary. L’Équipe Argent (Silver Team) is made up of hardened, reliable troops, and supports the Ariadnan forces stationed abroad, such as Kosmoflot and the Ariadnan Expeditionary Force on Paradiso. Generally, L’Équipe Argent is held in higher regard than L’Équipe Bronze, not only because of its members’ track records, but also because of the ample experience they’ve gained in all the different situations and scenarios they’ve had to face and overcome all over the Human Sphere.
However, the créme de la créme is allegedly L’Équipe Or (Gold Team), a unit so legendary and obscure that there’s no real record of it ever having been created, let alone any operations it may have ever been involved in. Rumor has it that L’Équipe Or is fielded only for black ops ordered by the special operations command or the intelligence service of the Stavka, and it’s said to be staffed for the occasion with the very best members of L’Équipe Argent. However, there’s no real evidence of this elite unit, just hearsay and gossip. Some analysts argue that L’Équipe Or doesn’t actually exist as an independent unit, and that it’s just a name for L’Équipe Argent when it’s assigned the kind of sensitive, confidential operations that the Ariadnan government will deny having any knowledge of, a smokescreen to cover up their tracks.
The Stavka command knows well that if L’Équipe Argent is deployed close at hand, then there’s always a chance for victory.
LES APACHES, ÉQUIPE D’INTERVENTION URBAINE
Thanks to trade, Merovingia enjoys great economic prosperity, but this prosperity isn’t shared by all. Very little of that wealth can be found in the banlieues, the suburbs of the Merovingian cities, a pitiful patchwork of decayed housing projects, unemployment, crime, and dogfaces. Although there are all kinds of suburbs in Merovingia, and many of them are quiet residential areas, the word banlieue has turned into a derogatory term that in everyone’s mind translates as a slum ruled by Dogfaces. In the banlieues, we find the so-called cités, colossal concrete buildings erected during the settlement period in the brutalist style of Le Corbusier. Once envisioned as a utopia for Merovingian settlers and supposed to provide all the comforts that their previous temporary settlements lacked, they have ended up becoming hotbeds of poverty and social marginalization.
The Urban Intervention Team is a unit made up of volunteers, many of whom were recruited in the banlieues, but many others who were enlisted in the jail cells of the Merovingian police. It’s a known fact that the prison sentences of all those who join the Urban Intervention Team are suspended, but it’s also common knowledge that this unit is beyond the reach of the banlieues gangs, and it can often be the only way to escape retaliation from rival gangs, or even from one’s own gang. Everyone who joins this team has a history, usually a shady one that they don’t talk about. Many of them enlist under fake names, and it could be argued that they’re all running away from something. Their desire to outrun their past leads them directly into close combat on the front line, which is preferable to facing their former lives, rowdy pasts that can only be silenced with the blood and the screams of their enemies as they’re savagely gutted by the brutal Merovingian Apaches.
LOUP-GAROU, GROUPE MOBILE D´ACTION SPÉCIALE
The Mobile Group of Special Action is a self-sufficient rapid response team, specially trained and highly disciplined, able to react to emergencies in Merovingia as well as any other place inside the Ariadnan territories. Created as a special riot squad of the Merovingian Gendarmerie, it has a paramilitary nature and receives its training alongside Ranger and Para-Commando units. All its members are volunteers and serve as full-time agents of the Gendarmerie, in detachments spread across the entire country, available to respond to emergencies 24 hours a day.
The group also keeps a small full-time operative team in the Tactical Operations Center of the Gendarmerie in the Haie d’Étigues, where all its agents undertake extensive training focused on special weapons and tactics. These agents have to satisfy rigorous standards of physical and mental ability. Though they have special ammunition to neutralize violent Dogfaces (the so-called ‘Silver Bullets’ in their jargon) any such interventions have a high threshold of danger. But as they say: “You need a Werewolf to stop a Dogface”. When the police aren’t enough to handle a situation, it’s time to call in the Loup-Garou. As a mobile group, it is capable of reaching crisis locations swiftly and is usually the first special unit on the scene. Their primary role in the field is to stop and capture all Dogfaces and Dog-Warriors that offer resistance. Obviously, this implies frequently violent engagements. It is their ability and experience with these extreme situations that makes the difference between a successful arrest and a tragic event.
BRISCARDS, 8ème RÉGIMENT D’ INFANTERIE DE MONTAGNE
The Merovingian’s Mountain Infantry units are integrally based around veterans, experienced soldiers serving a second service. This is because a developed combat instinct is an indispensable requirement to survive the frozen torment which is being posted to the Analogue Mountains, where the environment and climate are as dangerous as the worst adversaries you could find anywhere on planet Dawn. However, the reason for the presence of these troops amongst the Analogue peaks isn’t climatology. They haven’t been placed there to rescue injured alpinists either. Briscards protect the eastern border of Merovingia against enemy raids. Ancestral home of Antipode warrior clans like the Ice Fangs and the White Knives, considered the most aggressive and dangerous of this savage race, the Analogue Mountains are full of caves, tunnels and mountain passages, appearing and disappearing with the constant avalanches and micro-quakes.
Briscards are not a scalpel, but a hammer. Their standard mission is Search and Destroy; to locate the enemy and eliminate it, so simple and direct, without unnecessary subtlety. To get there fast and hit it hard, that’s what is expected from the members of the Force de Réponse Rapide Merovingienne. Those obviously aren’t missions for ordinary soldiers, that’s why the regiment is just based on veteran troops; soldiers who have reenlisted after serving their stipulated service. It’s indispensable to be very motivated to accept this assignment. Briscards are those who, after having been demobbed, are not capable of readjusting to civilian life, which they consider a living purgatory for a man of action. These veterans come back to the Army because it is probably the only thing they can do now, the only thing that satisfies them.
13ème DE MOBLOTS
The Treizième de Moblots, Merovingian Heavy Infantry, chose its name in honor of the French mobile soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War. The regiment specializes in medium and large-scale offensive actions as well as frontline tactical operations. To maximize operational flexibility, the combat units of the 13ème include experts in a variety of military skills and specialties. Moblots are handpicked from other units for their enthusiasm, trustworthiness, endurance and ruggedness, being promoted by their officers in command. They have a reputation for adaptability and improvisation, but also for being quite annoying. Once you see them in action, you’ll know that their reputation, while well deserved, rests on a false premise. The Moblots’ ability to come out on top in any situation stems not so much from their improvisation skills which any good soldier should possess—but rather from their high level of planning.
Their boot camp lacks security protocols, as it’s a deadly playground filled with lethal boobytraps, the ultimate death arena. A gladiator pit where they’re both predator and prey. Overcoming this challenge means becoming part of this unit and deserving its reputation, both for combat skills and character. Such a ruthless training program (essential to train such key troopers) ends up building character, the kind some might call “special.” Generally speaking, most people consider Moblots a damn nuisance, which is actually true… until it’s breakfast time for Rosalie, the long French bayonet. When action calls, these elite troopers are the first into the breach, leading the charge out of sheer stubbornness and to shut people up. Why? Because like it or not, Moblots don’t need to please anyone else. They know what they are: they’re indispensable.
