Jack of Harts

Like the Federal armed services, State Marine Corps tended to be the busiest of the various State armed forces in Jack’s childhood. While in a state of peace or brushfire wars at worst, it was the smaller units that saw the most action, and the Marines were trained to go anywhere and do anything fast. They weren’t always the best force to send into action, but they were often the closest force available and capable of deploying to a threat. Like some State Armies, they fielded everything from individual grunts, to tanks, mechs, and even aerospace fighters and bombers. Space-capable descendents of the old Osprey were another favorite of the Marines, allowing them to deploy individual Marine units to any destination on Earth and beyond. They could rendezvous with ships in orbit, or drop Marines directly into a combat situation while filling the battlefield with explosive projectiles, laser pulses, or missile fire to suppress enemy defenses. The State Marine Corps were the most experienced military commands when The War began, and they took part in every major American Army, Space Force, or Navy deployment. They didn’t bring the most amount of firepower, the greatest expertise, or even the most bodies, to every single situation or battle, but State Marines were present and accounted for in every single major battle of the entire War.

Nearly all of the United States of Jack’s time had Space Forces of their own, though some combined their Space Force and Navy into a single branch. Aerospace fighters, and the various ground and orbital forts the States maintained were far cheaper and numerous than warships. They also threw out more firepower on a ton for ton basis. Fort Wichita, seen in one of the earlier actions of Jack’s career, actually belonged to Kansas, and maintained a permanent defensive orbit in the skies over that State. She also maintained a plot of ground in her central promenade made entirely of Kansas dirt and native buffalo grass, to meet the court definition of being built on State ground. The entire fort was an extension of Kansas herself, a sovereign part of the State in Earth orbit. That was the case for all State installations in space. The easiest way to defend them from territorial or colonial taxes was to plant a piece of the State inside them and claim them as official State property. The Feds did not approve of this practice, since it cost them valuable tax dollars, but they secured an agreement with the States to link these stations into the entire American defense grid during emergencies. This link became a permanent state of affairs after The War began, to the disgruntlement of the States that did not wish to lose their sovereignty. It was a delicate political balance between the necessities of total War, and the political realities on the ground. Literally.

I’ve spoken mostly about the American Federal armed forces so far. But the fact is that for all the funding that went into them, they were not the bulk of America’s armed might when The War began. They were powerful. Make no mistake about that. But most of the State governments maintained their own militaries to defend their borders. The old State Guards, National Reserves, or National Guard units from before the Second Great Depression stayed with the States they were part of when the Federal government collapsed. And they continued to serve those States in most cases into Jack’s time. They were the bedrock that the States built their militaries upon over months and years as the Islamic Jihad and the Cybernetic Wars ravaged what they couldn’t protect. The State militaries helped rebuild America and the Western Alliance in the years to follow. And then they took to space in the decades and centuries beyond that. They helped defend new State colonies, and spread their influence throughout the cosmos every bit as much as the Federal forces did.