Names and reproduction
The Organism do not reproduce in the conventional sense as recognised by many sentient species. Instead new and replacement population are produced to order in Replication Wombs, organic containers where a unit with the desired characteristics is generated and matured to adulthood. Produced from a single cloned cell from a bank of stored genetic material, one of many ‘Incept lines’ will be selected and then perhaps slightly customised to produce a unit with the desired characteristics and even potentials in the case of senior castes. Initial instruction is given the unit via pheromone exposure and direct feed to the nervous system so that lower caste units are decanted with all required skills whilst more senior castes have sufficient skills to rapidly acquire competence in their work assignment. For the past one thousand years, the replication wombs have been run at reduced capacity, providing replacements only. Recently, production was ramped up to maximum
Organism units are allocated names during forced maturation. Organism names have three components and are used in descending order of preference:
The designation, an arbitrary but customary set of phonemes, this is the most commonly used name.
The incept line, indicating the principal genetic pattern used prior to caste optimisation, always beginning ‘Y-‘, meaning ‘of’. These are the designations of units credited with providing the basis of these initial genetic patterns. A few human designations were added in the past few hundred years.
The serial number, twelve digits starting from 000000000000 and lapping round at bbbbbbbbbbbb. (The Organism use base12 arithmetic).
Designations are divided into customary male and female designations Thus an Organism female might be known as Nyxya, Nyxya Y-Nynlyl or Nyxya Y-Nynlyl-650936571996, making her the 650,936,571,996th female named Nyxya Y-Nynlyl since the serial number lapped round to 0. If she met Nyxya Y-Nynlyl-650936571997, they would both refer to themselves and each other in full if ambiguity needed to be avoided. She would not feel any relationship closer than that she might feel to Bya Y-Shango-198826650021. Other sentients might be tempted to see the two ‘Nyxya girls’ as sisters especially as they would look identical but all other Organism units could tell them apart by their pheromone emissions if nothing else as these would differ very slightly.
Ground unit organisation
Organism ground units are part of Security Division when deployed defensively but attached to Conflict Division for Planetary assaults and similar power projection operations.
The basic Battalion-sized unit is referred to as a Section (which proved confusing for Federation troops where a section was a rather smaller affair). Four Sections are commanded by a Subgroup Command Section and form a Subgroup. Commanding four Subgroups is a Group Command Section, similarly forming a Group. Organism Subgroups are usually formed with one Armour Section, one Assault Section, one Mobile Section and one Mobile Defence Section. The Mobile and Mobile Defence Sections are of very similar composition but are usually differentiated by their deployments, although either is capable of covering for the other. All three Section types are vehicular, with Armour equipped with heavy armoured grav vehicles, Assault equipped with heavy armoured grav vehicles and grav APCs and Mobile equipped with grav APCs and support ordinance.
Security sections garrison planets and installations. These are usually directly subordinate to the relevant planetary command.
Construction Subgroups are engineering units, usually attached to Construction Division.
Organism Soldier Units
Organism Infantry use a Grav rifle with an overslung grav missile launcher as their basic small arm. A unit carries five clips of ammunition for the Grav rifle each weighing 1 lb and containing 1000 rounds of 0.001mm hyperdense, sliver ammunition. The rifle has a cyclic rate of fire of 1200 rounds per minute. Flight velocity is 20%C and the rifle is equipped with gravitic compensators. The projectiles have an extremely high armour piercing capability and explode into plasma when they penetrate giving good antipersonnel performance, even against combat armour and excellent capability against lightly armoured vehicles. Squads of five organism soldiers were easily able to disable Human MBTs or incapacitate their crews by directing bursts of automatic fire at the side profile of the vehicle.
The integral, reloadable missile launcher contains one light, supersonic grav missile with smart guidance and a comprehensive sensor package. An Organism unit typically carries 5 reload missiles with warheads optimised for the tactical situation. These include SEFOP, Aerosol, Swarm, Hypercore and EMP. If warranted, light tactical mini-nukes with yields selectable from 0.01 to 1 kilotons can be issued.
The rifle is equipped with a dedicated HUD link to an Organism combat helmet and compact multispectral sights with IFF and targeting software.
An arm pod contains three knife missiles and provides light, semi-autonomous anti-personal armament. These homing weapons have contragrav mobility capable of ten minutes flight time and can strike a target or targets at 200 mph. They usually survive the impact undamaged. They are especially effective against lightly or unarmoured opponents and can be recovered at any time by the unit to preserve flight time or allow recharge. They have a secondary function as reconnaissance drones.
Offensive weaponry is rounded out with five smart mini-grenades (about golf ball size) with HE fragmentation warheads and a mono-edged combat blade.
Personal protection is normally limited to a combat helmet, rigid composite laminate chest and upper leg protection and combat boots. The combat helmet can be sealed in conjunction with the clamshell chest armour and is equipped with HUD, GPS and inertial navigation, hearing protection, radio with IFF, near miss indicator, radar/laser detector, filtermask and twenty minute air supply. In hostile environments this is supplemented by a nanoweave skinsuit with an oxygen supply of at least eight hours.
More mundanely, the typical Soldier Unit has twice the speed, reaction time and strength of a twenty-first century human soldier and using specialised hormone glands, can render themselves impervious to pain and fatigue. They can also trigger other mental or physical states on demand such as reaction or strength over-performance factors of up to 200% for short periods. Inter-Unit communication can be supplemented by pheromones unless fighting in a sealed environment.