Vulpine

"You know that eons-old maxim that dogs are man’s best friend? I’m pretty sure it has to do with their loyalty and versatility to adapt. In some ways, I’m of the opinion that Vulpine are also man’s best friend – what with their loyalty, companionship, and intelligence. It might be a terrible thing to say about another sapient species, but I know I’m not the only one with that opinion."

- Second Lieutenant Kevin P. Hodgens, UNSC Marine Corps; 2572.

The Vulpine were a species of sapient furred mammals found on the planet (and later, colony) of New Blenheim. The Vulpine were naturally clever, quick to learn, and very adept and innovative with machinery and technology. Thanks to prolonged coexistence with members of humanity on New Blenheim, the Vulpine were on very good terms with the United Earth Government, and eventually became a UEG protectorate.

Characteristics
The size of Vulpine varied greatly due environmental factors – such as (but not limited to) diet and exercise. The mass of the average adult male lay roughly between 55 to 68 kilograms, while the average female was 50 to 60 kilograms; sexual dimorphism was somewhat apparent. The average lifespan of the average male Vulpine was roughly 43.8 years; the female, meanwhile, enjoyed a slightly longer average lifespan of 44.3 years. However, medical and technological advances significantly increased lifespan up to the mid-60s to early 70s for both sexes. The Vulpine were digitigradal bipedal humanoids, roughly 149 to 164 centimetres (4.9 to 5.4 feet) in height; and capable of walking on their four-toed padded feet, hence leaving their arms free to manipulate tools with four fingered padded hands and an opposable thumb. .

All Vulpine process a thick pelt of fur across their bodies; the colour of the fur is dependent on the genes of the parents. However, the most common fur colours are either an almost ruddy red/brown or grey.

Given New Blenheim’s bitterly cold winters, Vulpine grew thicker winter coats to allow them to survive in such climates. They shed these coats mid-way through the spring; roughly half a year after they grew them.

Another trademark of the Vulpine was their “fox-like” faces, an obvious muzzle, and two large pointed ears on the top of the head. They also processed bushy tails; roughly two-fifths of their height, complete with a white tip.

Early History
Little is known about the Vulpine in their early history; as much of the little that is actually known was passed down by word of mouth through countless generations, before eventually being transcribed upon the adoption of a written language. Hence, these tales lack much in the way of credibility, although certainly not in the way of creativity. However, archaeology shows that early Human and Vulpine development to be similar; both seemed to evolve from more primitive quadruped species to a more advanced tool-using biped. In addition to this, early histories seem to be remarkably similar.

Early Vulpines formed small transient hunting communities that moved north in summer and south in winter in pursuit of prey. These ‘tribes’ (in lieu of a better term) were led by a single leading figure who ruled over the entire group, with a close friend or a mate effectively being the second in command; under whom were the ‘lieutenants’ of sorts, who lead sections of the tribe to hunt successfully. The hunting tribes seemed to have followed the same routes north and south on their travels year in and year out – possibly due to prey following the same route tracks or because of the drawing of crude maps.

Civilization
Around 200 BCE (in human-chronology), the first permanent settlements seem to have been founded in areas that were naturally easily defendable. Many of the previously mentioned transient tribes relocated to these larger settlements for numerous reasons: the most prominent seemed to be the division of labour (allowing for the workload to be distributed more evenly) and better shelter (most shelter was of wood and stone construction). Furthermore, the largest advantages of living in a permanent settlement were increased safety and increased access to food stuffs year round. Slowly, most nomadic groups ended up living in these settlements; correspondingly, the population of Vulpine grew exponentially thanks to the longer lifespans of Vulpine. These settlements were initially led by an absolute monarchy – with an appointed family member of the founding leader being chosen to take over in the event of the monarch’s death. However, as time progressed towards the early CE years, the monarchy slowly evolved into a form of an oligarchy due to the difficulties of overseeing a large state. As each city-state’s population grew, the need for agricultural land increased in order to keep the population fed. As a direct result, the first large-scale Vulpine-on-Vulpine fighting began to occur over land in between city states. Wars between these states were brutal and often neither side gave quarter to the end short of unconditional surrender – though the victors usually allowed the losing side’s civilian population to be integrated into their state. Slowly, technological advances were made due to armed conflict; essentially a well-advanced entry into a ‘Bronze age’ of sorts.

By 1600 CE, several Vulpine civilizations emerged: along with common written language, currency, but different and distinct cultures. Each nation spanned a considerable portion of the planet’s surface and contained millions of citizens. These three civilizations were perpetually at war with each other; up until the political unrest at home resulted mass civil disobedience and the rejection of the monarchies/oligarchies as leaders of the nation in 1621. This occurred in all three nations almost simultaneously – resulting in anarchy and pandemonium. Several prominent Vulpine philosophers (Yend’a Kensa, Resnd Hanez, and Ewala Jaksa) rose to power within months; each making peace and implementing a form of direct democracy in each of the three nations, with a method of democratically electing a government of the people for the people. Through the newly implemented direct democratic system, the three major factions were split into 17 independent nations; each (largely) peacefully coexisting with each other and developing minor cultural differences, all the while slowly advancing technologically. By 2371 CE, the Vulpine had no contact with other sapient species, and was loitering roughly midway through the human equivalency of the Iron Age. Likely, Vulpine civilization would have eventually evolved to appear much like that of medieval Europe had Humanity’s explosive arrival on their planet of New Blenheim not occurred.

First contact with humanity
On the 13th of March 2371, the Colonial Military Administration colony vessel Cornwallis preformed an emergency exit out of ‘Slipspace’, hundreds of light-years off target - but a mere 100 million kilometres off New Blenheim. With the realization that the Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine aboard the Cornwallis was wrecked due to defective manufacturing and their calls for help futile due to the distance from any human colony, the colonists looked at New Blenheim for potential colonisation.

Scientific teams were landed on the surface of New Blenheim, and it was found that it had an atmosphere suitable for sustaining human life, a cold but bearable climate, and much in the way of unique and native wildlife. The scientific team also encountered a small patrol of Vulpine soldiers from the state of Jedufi, armed with swords and spears, and covered in iron armour. This was much to the surprise of the Cornwallis expedition, who hadn’t expected to encounter sentient life here, of all places. The encounter was peaceful, although both parties regarded each other as utterly alien and correspondingly acted coolly to in regards each other. There were, however, attempts at communication; however, these efforts on both sides proved futile as both found each other’s languages to be incomprehensible. The Vulpine soldiers eventually left the scientific team in wonder, leaving the Humans free to return to the vessel with their findings.

The Captain of the CMA Cornwallis, Captain Catherine Woods, UNSCNR, held a confidential meeting with her 73 officers and the 84 degree-holding intellectuals on board to discuss what the options were regarding these “sentient foxes”. Despite some xenophobia on the part of some of the present personnel, it was decided that the only real option the colonists had was to peacefully coexist the sentient “aboriginal” species. This done, the decision to set up the first settlement on the surface was reached; and within days, the Cornwallis began shuttling colonists and prefabricated housing components from orbit to the surface.

The Vulpine became aware of the encounter with Humanity from the warrior party, and noticed the human colonisation attempt within days of starting. The elected head of the Jedufi state, Dehn Fenez, met the new colonists head on – with a hundred of his soldiers.

This second meeting resulted in pandemonium on the part of the human colonists in the process of constructing the first settlement named “New Wolverhampton” (named after a city within the now-disbanded United Kingdom). A platoon of UNSC Marines had also been deployed in the event of hostilities against the settlers on the part of the aboriginal species – sapient or not, it was reasoned that they still might make the folly of attempting to drive off the humans. The meeting between the armed Colonial Marine forces and the hundred Jedufi soldiers was anti-climactic as it turned out; the Marines held their fire (demonstrating remarkable self-control given the hundred Vulpine soldiers in iron armour approaching, brandishing swords), while the Vulpine backed down; allowing for a proper first encounter between the platoon commander and the leader of the Jedufi state. Through slow and obvious gestures, the platoon commander managed to convey the idea of not wanting to fight by placing his weapon on the ground – to which Fenez followed suit. The two leaders attempted to communicate, while a pair of linguistics specialists who happened to be among the colonists landed on the planet were bought forward to learn to communicate with the new species.

There was little initial success, as both species were still unable to effectively convey ideas through language; but thanks to ingenious usage of pictograms to relate and share basic concepts and learn vocabulary of the two species' language, advances were made, and within months human translators began to mingle with the Vulpine population to win hearts and minds.

Culture
"Its appalling, really. Humanity managed to drag the Vulpine technologically from the pre-industrial evolution to the level of our level of technological advancement; but at the price of their cultural identity. They adopted our culture instead; but yet more appalling than this loss of identity (and the subsequent adoption of human culture) is the Vulpine people themselves lack of concern in the matter. It’s just culture to them."

- Dr. Gavin Mayers, Doctor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of New Blenheim; to a class of 19 students (five of whom were Vulpine). May 15, 2531.

The Vulpine once had much in the way of unique traditions and customs. However, the vast majority were forgotten and forever lost within 250 years of humanities’ arrival on New Blenheim; due to a mass loss of cultural identity on the part of the Vulpine while adopting human technological and cultural wisdoms.

Language
"What does the Fox say?"

- The spectacularly-successful educational Slogan by the New Blenheim School Administration to prompt students to learn the Vulpine language.

Various languages were developed by cultural groups in early history to convey concepts and opinions; however, only a few major languages survived to the 400s CE; most of these the result of the merging of two or more lesser languages. Perhaps two spoken languages actually survived until Humanities intervention on the development of Vulpine civilization. The lessor language largely died out, leaving the single, very widespread spoken language to be dubbed, quite unoriginally, by most humans who learnt the languages as “Vulpish” (although members of younger generations simply referred to it as “fox speak” or simply “fox”). It was unfortunate the language had to be referred to as such, but given the Vulpine people failed to name their language, the name stuck.

There was initially difficulty between Humanity and the Vulpine attempting to understand each other’s languages; the problem stemming from how radically different the two cultures were. Fortunately, the Cornwallis had a pair of linguistic specialists aboard that had chosen to immigrate to a new colony. Through dedicated efforts, the pair managed to learn the language to a sufficient degree to communicate fluidly with the natives, and document their understanding to a degree that the Cornwallis’s AI was able to devise a translation suite, enabling easy understanding between humanity and the Vulpine.

As humanity’s influence on the Vulpine grew, almost all Vulpine learned English in addition to Vulpish – allowing for much more ease in conversing between species, and allowing the “jump-start” technological advancement of the Vulpine to occur.

Gender roles
The Vulpine were unique in the regards to the role of gender in their society; from the dawn of recorded history, the Vulpine considered the genders to be roughly equal and capable of preforming the same duties to the same standard, unlike that of Sangheili or Human cultures (though the latter amended its gender roles in the 20th century).

Even as of today, the reason behind this is unclear – but the most prominent theory states that both sexes recognized the importance of each other at some point of prehistory, and correspondingly treated the other species as an equal. The validly of this theory, however, is hotly contested by the most prominent of figures, and is somewhat dubious at this point in time.

War
"The way the Vulpine vie to get into the UNSC military is much like the Gurkhas of old trying to get into the British Army."

- Commander Rudy McFarlene, UNSC Navy; 2607

The Vulpine viewed war as a means to settle disputes over sovereignty, territory, resources or other issues when diplomacy failed. Due to Humanity’s intervention, the Vulpine only developed knowledge of warfare roughly equivalent to 14th century Europe. Contact with Humanity and the exposure to the efficiency of the Human military weapon systems and organization resulted in adoption by the Vulpine military – which, by 2395, was absorbed into the UNSC military by politicians attempting (successfully, as it turned out) to dramatically improve species relations.

Most members of the military were Vulpine; with the Navy and Marine Corps being the only real combat capable branches. The Air Force and Army were completely neglected by the New Blenheim branch of the UNSC – thanks to an utter lack of Army and Air Force personnel present aboard the Cornwallis. It was reasoned by the CMA leadership that the implementation of a four-branch military was unnecessary and largely redundant, as the Navy had complete control of the air and the Marine Corps the ground.

The necessity of the military on New Blenheim was largely political at first; production of military hardware was intended to spur substantial growth among the fledging Vulpine industrial and engineering sectors. However, as vehemently anti-Human Vulpine Nationalist terror cells emerged in the 2390s, the military began widespread counterterrorism operations; largely utilizing special operation forces, Marines, and air power.

As a result of actively suppressing these minority elements, when the UEG rediscovered the colony of New Blenheim in 2600, the military was sizable enough to field orbital interceptors of the 247th Naval Air Squadron to fend off the UEG survey vessel, which resulted in the ship retreating. This spurred the UEG to deploy a Battlegroup as first encounter diplomacy was exercised. Due to the fact that the colony was colonized by humans but were outnumbered by the Vulpine population, New Blenheim’s military was absorbed by the UNSC, and New Blenheim became a protectorate of the UEG.

Navy
The joint Human-Vulpine Navy was initially intended to be separated into two branches following its formation in 2382: Human controlled and Vulpine controlled. However, political efforts resulted in the two being merged in 2395: much to the dissatisfactions of the CMA.

The Vulpine that were inducted into the UNSC military were found to have substantially faster reaction times than that of humans; ideal for special forces operators and piloting aircraft. While political dissident and anarchist elements were causing enough trouble to warrant the deployment of special operations units by 2398; only a few military airframes were available to allow budding Vulpine pilots to fly. However, by 2401, the Vulpine military aviation industry was producing the first generation of military aircraft in numbers – largely based off of supplied-human design and fixed wing airframes were largely reminiscent of Cold War-era delta-winged fighter interceptors. While these were aircraft provided to the Navy and Marine Corps, and were the best models available; they were centuries behind what the “real” UNSC Navy was concurrently operating throughout Human-occupied space.

In its history, the most prominent naval fighter squadron was the Fighter Attack Squadron 247 (VFA-247) – referred to as the “Flying Foxes”. This was the Navy’s proverbial “tip of the spear”: a collection of the best Naval and Marine pilots in service, piloting sleek and barely suborbital hypersonic interdictor aircraft, with the capability to provide deliver medium explosive payloads to the other side of the planet in as little as two hours. It was also notable for being one of the first integrated fighter squadrons, containing both Human and Vulpine pilots and groundcrew. However, the naval air force progressively expanded, as strategic military bases and warships to base them on were established.

The Navy was soon operating several dozen surface warships on the oceans of New Blenheim; each operating a contingent of aircraft. The “wet” Navy itself remained small throughout the “bushfire” Vulpine Civil War with anti-human insurgents and ultimately only patrolled the oceans to interdict suspicious shipping, in which there were very few casualties seizing illegally-acquired armaments – up until the UNSC Newark (FF-019) was boarded and hijacked on the 23rd of November, 2423, while searching the container ship Darter. The twenty-one naval personnel searching the Darter were engaged by insurgents. The surviving crew called out for help, before being systematically hunted down and executed. Meanwhile, the Newark moved in alongside the container ship to bear its large-calibretynaval artillery on the merchant vessel. However, additional insurgents in rigid boats managed to board the Newark. Despite close-quarters combat and fierce defence by the naval and marine personnel aboard the warship, the few handguns carried by the masters-at-arms and, later, issued armaments from the ship’s armoury proved to be useless against a guerrilla raid with the element of surprise. The ship was taken with 63 naval personnel killed, with another 42 incapacitated and/or captured. The 11 remaining human captives were summarily executed, and demanded the return of captured guerrillas for the safe return of the remaining Vulpine crew.

The military, rattled by such an audacious and effective move, simply decided not to negotiate with terrorists, and deployed a Marine Special Operations unit to repel from tiltrotor aircraft onto the vessel to take it back by force. The Insurgents became aware of the attempt to retake the ship once the special operations team engaged the insurgents, and correspondingly detonated the ships magazine using plastic explosive; killing the rescue team, hostages and insurgents alike. The monstrous blast also took out an aircraft, bringing the death toll of the failed rescue mission to roughly 89 fatalities.

As a result of the “Newark Fiasco”, new procedures were implemented – leading to the sinking of seventeen cargo vessels attempting the same stunt over the next forty years, and the seizure of hundreds of tons of contraband military hardware.

As time progressed, the need for sea-based power slowly decreased as orbit-capable aircraft became available, all but impervious to surface-to-air weapons, and capable of searching much of the planet’s surface and providing support to land-based units with “smart weapons” from half a continent away– all from the safety of orbit. However, the “wet” Navy transitioned from classic warships to sleek, high speed missile-armed cutters with a moderate compliment of aircraft aboard; suiting the needs of the military perfectly. As the Vulpine Civil War died down in 2548, thanks to overwhelming support against the Vulpine Nationalists, the military began to downsize and modernize its forces, automating many functions to save money in employing redundant personnel. The Navy was hit hard by the downsizing, its budget slashed and ranks utterly culled. The military industry was kept busy, though, by continuing to advance the Vulpine Naval Air Force, enhancing exoatmospheric strike aircraft, and upgrading weapon systems already in service.

As a result of the extensive modernizing efforts, when on the 15th of June, 2600, when a UEG survey ship appeared in orbit, sleek orbit-capable interceptors were scrambled as part of first-encounter doctrine. The survey ship fled, in its haste failing to note the hails from the interceptors. The Vulpine military was placed in a high state of alert as a result, with the Navy deploying its forces to provide maximum strategic coverage with available units. Approximately six days later, on the 21st of June, a UNSC Battlegroup appeared in orbit, and responded to hails from intercepting aircraft.

Following successful negotiations and verification that the UNSC Battlegroup really was from the one and the same Earth both groups of humans originated from, the New Blenheim branch of the UNSC military was reorganized under the New Blenheim Defense Force. However, New Blenheim

Navy

 * Naval Units
 * Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM) – Command unit for the Naval Special Operations units, with subordinate being the Naval Special Warfare Groups 1 through 7.
 * UNSC Newark (FF-019) – Navy vessel hijacked by insurgents in 2423. It remains the only Navy vessel to be boarded and hijacked. The vessel was eventually destroyed during a Special Operations raid to free the crew and liberate the ship, killing all aboard and the Marine Force Recon team.
 * Naval Air Station Henley – A naval base, located just outside of the capital of New Wolverhampton. Notable for housing both NAVSPECWARCOM, and CMA High Command.


 * Naval Aviation
 * Fighter Attack Squadron 247 (VFA-247) “Flying Foxes” – First naval squadron to contain both Vulpine and Human personnel and the most prestigious naval fighter squadron. It was also the first operational squadron to receive F/A-424 “Firestreak” fighter-interceptors, capable of both sustained exoatmospheric and atmospheric flight.
 * Attack Medium Transport Squadron 253 (VAM-253) “Knight Hawks” - Premier tiltrotor squadron that operated largely with Special Operations units.

Marine Corps

 * Marine Units
 * 7th Vulpine Battalion, 1st New Blenheim Marine Division


 * Marine Aviation
 * Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 512 (VMFA-512) “Madpies” -