UNICOM Maritime Commission

This fanfiction article, UNICOM Maritime Commission, was written by Distant Tide. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission.

"From the Sea cometh. Bring justice, security, and care to all."

―Mission Statement of the UNSC Maritime Commission.

UNSC MARITCOM UNSC Maritime Commission General Information Active Insurrection period - Present Service Unified Earth Government Allegiance UNSC Armed Forces Type Military oversight organization, Maritime operations Role Maritime warfare, Sea control, Sealift, Maritime power projection, Missile defense Part of Unified Ground Command Nickname "Maritime Operations" "The Wet Fleet" "Seaborne Force" Motto "From the Sea" Commanders Angelica Hurst

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The UNSC Maritime Commission (MARITCOM), sometimes called Maritime Operations, is an oversight division within the UNSC Armed Forces responsible for managing the the military's many maritime activities. Formerly more so part of the Colonial Military Administration until its dissolution during the Insurrection, the Maritime Commission was further consolidated under United Nations Space Command jurisdiction, including its personnel and assets.

The Maritime Commission is often referred to as the "Seaborne Force" or "Wet Fleet" in passing, based entirely on its dominion and mandate in seafaring. Associated most with the UNSC Marine Corps and Air Force, the organization's staff include personnel from all branches, often determined based on local needs rather than uniformity. The Maritime Commission is not a high-profile organization and is most known for its marginal seaborne security fleets and the unique mission capability of maritime craft orbital insertions. Outside the maritime community, the organization is often treated as a dead-end posting. Some members have a reputation as rebel-sympathizers or glorified police, carrying over from their colonial roots.

Headquartered in the UEG capital of Sydney on Earth, the Maritime Commission serves as the highest authority on operations and policy for the individual maritime security organizations across human space. While branch authority has traded hands over multiple administrations, the organization remains a fixture under the Unified Ground Command (UNICOM).

Premise

While seaborne forces are not often mentioned or visible in the UNSC arsenal, they are present in countless examples. The Maritime Commission serves as a way to unify their appearance and efforts as a public-facing office within the UNSC's military hierarchy. Due to the complexity of managing many distant and uncollaborative subsections within the UNSC seaborne forces, the Maritime Commission must exist as a loose umbrella organization - responsible for setting standards and coordinating efforts but far less bureaucratic than other UNSC branch fixtures because their place is rather ambiguous within the ranks of the UNSC Armed Forces.

Covenant warships emerge from beneath a foam ocean. One of many threats the UNSC must contend with.

For that reason, the Maritime Commission exists eternally in a state of flux with a very real in-joke postulating the eventual closure of the organization despites its long, underappreciated history dating back to before even emergent-spacefaring wars of Earth. The organization must be a catch-all, supporting a multitude of different interpretations of seafaring military doctrine into the twenty-sixth century. Despite this background-relegating role, it does not hold them back from playing a role in major staging actions during contemporary events and gradual tidal shifts like the Insurrection and Human-Covenant War.

To keep a guise of relevancy for the organization going, problems and novel solutions are extrapolated from issues existing that may require their response. The ability to insert seaborne vessels from low orbit like Orbital Drop Shock Troopers makes deployment and retrieval of maritime forces more timely to keep up with the changing face of contemporary warfare. Using seaborne vessels as power projection assets on colony worlds of disputed loyalties make for reasonable justification, especially when compared to the risks and tradeoffs of permanent Army garrisons or orbital starships. Giving submarines a niche role in fighting submerged Covenant vessels and having an edge over such starships keeps one of the most potent technology shifts in maritime history relevant in an age of ancient alien civilizations and galaxy-ending superweapons.

Iconography

Organization Responsibility

While not overly uniform like other UNSC military departments, the Maritime Commission takes after the old-Earth United States Navy in doctrine and ceremony. The origins of the Maritime Commission date as far back to the combined naval task forces featured in the South American Rainforest Wars, some with or without United Nations mandate back in the late twenty-first and twenty-second centuries.

"It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."

―George Washington, First President of United States of America, in a letter addressed to French military advisor Marquis de Lafayette. (The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745-1799.)

The United Republic of North America, a successor to the United States of America on the global stage, played a founding role in predecessors to the UNSC Maritime Commission and served as the basis for future global naval practices through its international partnerships and relationships with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other global navies into the twenty-second century. The ancient Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) continued through the twenty-second century and was recognized as a particular informing event that helped international cohesion against the anti-establishment, secessionist Frieden and Kolsovic movements through the twenty-second and twenty-third centuries.

In contemporary times, the UNSC Maritime Commission is tasked with maintaining, training, and advancing a battle-ready and task-ready maritime force capable of power projection and security throughout human space through the establishment of local bases, facilities, and outposts in the core worlds and colonies. The Maritime Commission is not strictly a military organization, however, it was treated as such beginning in the Insurrection period as it became involved in deterring open war with rebellious colonial states and transitioned into a niche combat-support role during the Human-Covenant War. Mission capabilities and requirements from centuries before continue to be relevant to the Maritime Commission's greater relevancy in an Earth political climate that sees them as an arguably unneeded waste of expenditures in the government's defense budget.

Mandates

The three primary mandates of the UNSC Maritime Commission are as follows:

Maintain a battle-ready maritime force to maintain security and to do battle as necessary in times of conflict. Provide necessary mission platforms to augment the capabilities of planetary defense in coordination with other military forces. Develop and deploy the tactics, forces, strategy, and equipment to ensure the ocean domain remains uncontested by opposing forces.

Mission Capabilities

• Maritime Aviation: The primary role of maritime operations, UNSC Air Force and Marine Corps personnel maintain and deploy from aircraft carriers and aviation cruisers on planets with large bodies of water, typically against inland Insurrection or Covenant targets. Maritime Aviation can also pertain to air-to-air combat and maritime security through the use of aircraft and exoatmospheric vehicles.

• Rapid Deployment: A capability unique to the Maritime Commission, the organization coordinates with UNSC Navy and Air Force vessels for ferrying purposes, deploying maritime vessels to a planet's surface from orbit. Contained in large deployment pods, the maritime vessels are reinforced to survive reentry and allow a force of vessels to ready for missions in a matter of hours.

• Amphibious Operations: Coastal support missions remain a fixture of the Maritime Commission, requiring the ability to deploy personnel and firepower inland from the sea in a rapid, secure manner. During the Insurrection, missile submarines and semi-autonomous arsenal ships proved the mainstay in this role when space military infrastructure proved too expensive to maintain for prolonged periods. The practice was further expanded against the Covenant military.

• Maritime Domain Control: The main purpose of maritime operations, domain control encompasses a wide variety of mission sets regarding the maritime theater. Not entirely police or military in purpose, domain control serves to maintain UNSC presence and dominance above, on, and below colonial oceans. The most prolific use of this capability can be seen in the use of maritime vessels as mobile military bases in place of fixed military installations on distant, hostile colony worlds.

• Maritime Combat: A somewhat rare mission requirement, maritime combat generally focuses on preventing contestation of coastal territories by low-intensity threats, particularly Insurrection submarines in the late twenty-fifth century. The role has expanded to include occasional combat with submerge-capable Covenant starships and missile attacks against Covenant installations and ships on and over the water.

• Community Outreach: The main peacetime role for the Maritime Commission, community outreach missions are focused on serving the public interest and playing an active role in local communities, usually with towing, ferrying, and sealift services. This also includes community policing, ticketing law violators, and scientific initiatives. The Maritime Commission is best known for community outreach, giving them the reputation as glorified police and pirates.

Organizational Assets

Seaborne INKV

Main article: Interstellar Nuclear Kill Vehicle

Select UNSC submersibles became testbeds for operational seaborne INKVs.

Operational History

Battle of Alluvion

Main article: RP:Light of the Abyss

See Also

Notable Links Deployable Operations Group Umibōzu UNSC Maritime Operations

Literary Appearances

References