Star Wars had its Rebel Alliance and the Imperial Navy. Star Trek the United Federation of Planets’ Starfleet. But unlike the organizations in these two juggernaut franchises, Earth Fleet is a clandestinely operating military operation, with only the highest levels of government even truly being aware of the existence of an advanced space based military.
Naturally, a space fleet with advanced technologies in a near-contemporary setting will need some explaining. But less so than two lone space adventurers gallavanting around the galaxy on their own – so I gave them the infrastructure to play with.
In the Universe
Earth Fleet, among its members colloquially more simply called ‘The Fleet’, is the primary spacefaring and defensive organization of the plant Earth. Tracing its origins to the Deep Space Treaty of 1956 between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, current signatories to the charter include the majority of European Union countries, China, Japan, South Korea as well as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, with the governments of Israel, India, Brazil, Mexico, Iran and fourteen other major nations being aware of its existence and having a status of observers or low contribution members.
Fleet member states give logistical support in form of shared installations and manpower, but little beyond that – the Fleet is almost entirely self-funded.
The insignia found on most installations is a set of three interlocking circles, one red, one blue, one black, representing the sun, the Earth and the silhouette of the moon respectively.
Financials & Manpower
While the details of how the Fleet is run is classified and a closely guarded secret, it is known that it is nearly entirely self-sufficient. Sales of raw and processed excess materials not needed by the Fleet make up the bulk of its income, with the remainder being in high tech component production where zero- or low-G facilities provide advanced manufacturing capabilities. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but estimates vary in range from as low as $900 million to $4.3 billion annually
At its peak in the early 2000s, its strength numbered 41,191 persons spread over several Earthbound locations and seven installations spread throughout the solar system.
Major installations are Longshot Point (Central Canada) and Markovo cosmodrome (Far eastern Russia) on Earth, as well as the edgeward stations of Great Light, Alexandria, Piraeus and Ostia, the Lunar Micro-Gravity training facility (known as ‘Zero’) and the Vesta manufacturing center.
The Fleets recruiting process is highly selective, screening potential candidates from the militaries of signatory states as well as through phony social programs helping social outcasts reintegrate into society. This is due to the highly specific requirements of the Fleet. Its clandestine nature requires a natural disposition to keeping secrets, as well as preferably limited personal ties to people. As much of its operations are conducted in outer space, planetary absences stretching several months to possibly years further limit the candiate pool, and as such, the fleet never grew to enormous size.
Individual members tend to perform well at numerous tasks simultaneously, owing to the fact that any one crewman may need to fill in different spots on short notice.
Organization
The Fleet is headed by the Admiralty with the Admiral of the Fleet at the helm. The Admiral is elected from a quorum of six commodores, two from each branch of Earth Fleet.
The three branches are the Expeditionary Force, Operations as well as Home Fleet.
The Expeditionary Force is the core of Earth Fleet. It pools the majority of Combat craft and soldiers and under the most direct control of the Admiral of the Fleet. Almost all capital ships and their fighter wings are assigned to it, and as such represents the mobile portions of Earth Fleet. The Expeditionary Force is not regularly subdivided, but assigns task forces of varying size and capability for different tasks from the pool.
Home Fleet on the other hand handles much of logistics, especially within the solar system. It ships raw materials, supplies and manpower between installations and the various units, as well as maintains a small strike force on both Vesta and Zero.
Operations, finally, runs the installations throughout the solar system as well as the Earthbound operations, such as the recruitment program and the numerous front companies that handle the financial aspects of running the Fleet.
The Special Operations branch – the Blue Lions – hold a somewhat special position within the Fleet. They draw their manpower from all three main branches to varying degrees, but are not specifically assigned to one or the other. Instead they are put together into temporary squadrons which are attached to specific units or task forces.
Blue Lions are highly trained individuals, often showing exceptional skill in piloting, strategy or unorthodox thinking which makes them uniquely suited to small scale surgical strike operations or as the heavy hitters at the core of a strike fleet.