Battlesick

Penal Battalion Echo-478.
"Nebraska" Private during the fifth year of the Varlian war.

Varlia was and industrial planet rich in ferrous ore.
A rebel politic movement known as "the League" proclaimed the independence of the planet from the United Democratic Planets (UDP).
As often, the mission to quell the rebellion and regain control of production units was assigned to penal battalions.
The brutality of the retaliation was thought to encourage the rebels to surrender.
Varlia campaign was a total disaster, and the campaign of reconquest turned into genocide. After six years of conflict, 140 million people of which 30 million soldiers of the UDP, and the destruction of all the 1269 production units, the planet was abandoned.


Penal Battalions were created by resolution 722 of the UDP to « cure the social cancer of delinquency, crime and sedition »

As careless, lazy, dissatisfied or weak willed citizen of the UDP were commonly sentenced to penal labor in terraformation teams and deprived of their rights, penal battalions were formed of convicted persons for which military service in such units was either the assigned punishment (for regular army soldiers) or an alternative to imprisonment or the death penalty (for criminals and antisocial persons).
The « criminal and antisocial » person category was very wide, and became wider at the end of the UDP. The refusal to use performance drugs, the use of contraceptives, or listening to unauthorized music could easily send someone in a Penal Battalion.

Standard rates of conversion of imprisonment terms into penal battalion terms or penal labor in terraformation terms also existed.

Every PB soldier lose his name and receive a nickname and /or number, as well as an explosive implant at the base of the neck. Refuse to obey an order from the Warcenter, or slow / bad execution of an order results in the explosion of the implant.

If a soldier survived his sentence, he would recover the rights of a UDP citizen.
The term of service in penal battalions was from one to three years. In reality, the promise of rehabilitation was mostly propaganda, because Penal Batallion were mainly used to conduct the most dangerous and dirty operations in the worst parts of the colonial empire of the UDP and casualties were dreadfully high. Injured members were often killed or left to die by the Warcenter.

During the war between the UDP and the Lone Star Theocraty, Penal battalions soldiers were treated as a worthless subspecies of soldier, useful only for absorbing heavy casualties that would otherwise be inflicted on a more worthy bio-enginered Space Marines unit . They were used in attempts to break through particularly stubborn enemy defenses; to perform hazardous patrols (reconnaissance-in-force) to determine enemy strength; and as decoys.

They were also used for the most dirty jobs like quelling colonial rebellions or food riots on industrial worlds.

Members of Pb often called themselves « cancer soldiers » in reference to resolution 772 and frequently wore symbolic images of crabs or cancer zodiac sign. PB survivors also called themselves « crabs » and played an important role in the collapsing of the UDP.


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Basic work done in Daz Studio with Both free and Purchased resources.

Heavy post done working in Photoshop: Composition, FX, camouflage and texturing.


Stock used:
Textures:[link]
Explosions:


More about Penal Battalions here:

Music for inspiration:
[link]



Comments highly appreciated