Rebellions in the Batarian Hegemony
Since the rise of the Hegemony, rebellions have broken out sporadically throughout its existence. In most cases, these were small uprisings on a planetary scale. In fact, many of these rebellions broke out due to internal struggles of nobles who wanted to undermine their rival. Many others planned to use it as an adventure for their adult children and a quick promotion in the Army. However, in the history of the Hegemony, there were 3 uprisings (counting the modern ones), which had a good chance of destroying the Hegemony or at least founding its own state.
The first was in the fifth century of the Hegemony calendar. It was the end of the Rachnii Wars and the Hegemony's military forces was completely devastated with military equipment abandoned in thousands of tanks, fighters, ships and other equipment. Dozens of planets have been devastated for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. When 5 years(One year on Kharshan is 1.7 years on Earth[2], the information recorded here is in Hegemony years) after the destruction of Rachnii, the Hegemony came to reclaim these colonies, found a functional state with a working system of government and economy, spanning over 50 planets and several times as many systems.
The Hegemony tried to erase records of this war, but much information survived. The state that was created was called the Adek Military Junta, the planet which at that time had over 400 million inhabitants, and was the capital of this new state. Although by human standards it was a military dictatorship, in many ways it gave more freedom to its citizens. However, to better understand this conflict, we need to know Adek's history in the previous war - Rachnii War.
This planet became a great fortress and industrial source for the main Batarian forces in this war, supplying the Hegemony forces with everything. From small arms to tanks and fighters, to dreadnoughts. In the final stages of the war, the Krogan Offensive and the ensuing Battle of the Virel system[1] broke down the forces of Rachnii, leading to an attempted offensive by Hegemony forces. However, this offensive ended in disaster and the destruction of almost the entire fleet and army sent. When word of the disaster reached Adek's leadership, the nobles and most of the officers fled, leaving a large number of rank-and-file soldiers and a few officers to defend themselves.
But the Rachnii are an intelligent race, and they simply sidestepped Adek, attacking deeper into Hegemony territory, destroying shipyards and completely ignoring ground invasions. This fleet was destroyed in battle after Krogan and Asari reinforcements arrived. Thus the Hegemony was rebuilding its core worlds, leaving most of its former territories free for the taking.
Over the next decades, the Adka Military Junta expanded the navy and army and began establishing more colonies, factories, and more. It was especially important that the Rachnii retreated from these territories, brutally destroyed by Krogan and Asari, who simply left Adek alone, which gave him a huge field of development and after more than 45 years, the Hegemony returned to its former colonies.
The Adek Rebellion, as this conflict was named, lasted for nearly 17 years and killed nearly a billion Batarians in that war. Since the Hegemony had a huge economic and numerical advantage over Adek and his worlds, it was thought that it would be an easy war. But the leaders of the Hegemony were very wrong.
Due to the Rachni War, the Hegemony's fleet was a shadow of its former power, and the forces that were sent were quickly destroyed in a trap. The next 10 years were just a continuous series of failures for the Hegemony. Adek gathered a sizeable fleet estimated at 5,000 ships and used it in 100%. Although the Hegemony was able to repair its losses quickly, Adek's constant attacks caused each new ship to be sent to the front lines, where it was quickly destroyed. The ground forces had comparable equipment, much of it was the same as the Hegemony forces, but the soldiers were better trained and used doctrine that counter Hegemony.
These ten years doubled the territory of the Adek Military Junta and allowed the near-negation of peace with the Hegemony and its recognition by the Citadel Council. But then the legendary Admiral Befgebar appeared for the Hegemony. In the eleventh year of the war, he led Adek's forces to lay siege to the Hegemony colony of Merlari. Due to the erasure of records of this conflict and the almost legendary status of Admiral Befgebar, it is impossible to separate most of the lies from the truth, but a few facts about this siege have been discovered.
First, it lasted five years, both on earth and in space. Secondly, it collapsed Adka's ground and space forces, allowing the Hegemony to regain all lost territories within the next 3 years. The entire population was enslaved and scattered across hundreds of worlds, with a small number escaping to Terminus territory. Adek itself was destroyed with weapons of mass destruction, there are debates about whether it was nuclear weapons, poison gases, or kinetic bombardment, but no one survived it, and only recently this planet could be repopulated, currently with just over 6 million inhabitants.
Promoted to Supreme Admiral, Befgebar devised a plan that would break any future rebellion, called the Befgebar plan. Before the war, each planet was self-sufficient so that one noble would not threaten another by potentially cutting off some resources. After this war, special sectors of several planets were created, which only depended on each other. As a result, any future Rebellion would not be able to sustain such a scale of troops and collapsed under itself.
The second uprising where this plan was tested was during the Krogan Rebellions, and therefore it is not separated from this conflict. After activating the Genophage and rebuilding the Citadel fleets, the Krogans needed some way to eliminate at least one enemy from the war. Occupying a large part of the Hegemony, they gave weapons and many obsolete ships to a few insurgents and corrupt nobles to create their own states and keep the Hegemony. While the plan was a success, it only slowed down Krogan's defeat.
However, back to the Hegemony, which again suffered great losses in the first phase of the war and was forced to retreat to its core worlds, effectively surrendering over 80% of its territory. If the separate territories had worked together, they could have destroyed the Hegemons, but the way the Krogans built these states caused them to fight each other more often than the Hegemony.
Over the next decades, many countries had to deal alone with shortages in everything, they would never be able to build effective trade routes thanks to the pirates and mercenaries of the Hegemony. Thanks to this, and the previously mentioned lack of cooperation between the countries, the Hegemony regained territory relatively quickly and led to the destruction of many Krogan colonies before the end of the war.
While this uprising was not as much of a threat to the Hegemony as the Adek Rebellion, it did cover a much larger amount of territory.
The latest uprising takes place during the System Alliance-Batarian Hegemony war. The newly formed Batarian Free States (BFS) together with the colonies of Terminus and Humans destroyed the initial defenses of the Hegemony. From the information gained, they have a central fleet and army, but most of the armed forces are provided by separate cells and planets.
It's unknown how they'll manage Befgebar's plan, or how they acquired so much equipment. The most likely scenario is having the support of some other state or other generous funders. As for training, this is again unknown, although the symbols of several different groups of Terminus mercenaries have been seen during the fighting, so it's possible they hired instructors. The technology is also of unknown origin, but the System Alliance government, when asked if the BFS stole this technology from them, declined to answer the question. However, this technology has few original parts compared to all other known races, so it cannot be taken as an answer.
All in all, while the current uprising has done surprisingly well, it's unclear if this bluntness is sustainable, and the Hegemony has already been in many situations that were even worse than their current one, so whether this new state will survive is yet to be seen.
History of changes to the ground forces of the Batarian Hegemony
The ground forces of the Batarian Hegemony have undergone few doctrinal changes during their existence. From the greatest force in the galaxy to near-annihilation, to quite a large and formidable armed force. It's time to start the representation of these stages and changes in the doctrine.
I - From the establishment of the Hegemony to the Rachni Wars.
The Hegemony's military was created with intimidation in mind, which made it large, and until Krog's discovery, was effectively the most powerful ground military force in the Galaxy, and in modern times still holds the 3rd position behind the Geth and Turians, although the newly discovered races and war The Alliance-Batarian Hegemony system may shake this.
From the beginning, they set great importance on the large army of conscripted soldiers with heavy armor support from tanks that resembled today's MBTs and super-heavy tanks (like WW2 Ratte or WH40k Baneblade). The main objective was to break through any enemy fortifications and then flood the enemy with a huge wave of infantry. The Mass Effect was actually the most important reason why such a tactic could work. As for other elements, such as artillery, specialized infantry, or air support, it was small. It was considered too expensive since Super-heavy tanks could freely take dozens of hits from kinetic weapons. But they had specialized infantry to spread poison gas and flamethrowers.
II - The Rachnii Wars.
Unfortunately for Hegemony, the Rachnii Wars soon showed the weak point of this doctrine. Namely, the vast numerical superiority of the Rachnii, and their amazing morale. These factors significantly reduced the combat effectiveness of the Hegemony troops and led to many losses. Accordingly, a chain of fortress worlds had to be established to defend it, and it worked for a long time.
III - Adek Rebellion.
During the Adek Rebellion, the doctrine didn't change at all, which was one of the reasons for the early victory of the Adek Military Junta over the Hegemony. Their incorporation of smaller corvette-sized ships into the atmosphere allowed super-heavy tanks to be destroyed, and the better-trained infantry with more artillery support and their own super-heavy tanks eliminated enemy units with relative ease.
However, towards the end, the Hegemony began fielding large numbers of strike fighters to eliminate enemy artillery and ships in the atmosphere, infantry fighting vehicles to support infantry, and land cruisers (like Big Trays from Gundam) for artillery support. In addition, variants of tanks with flamethrowers and toxins were created. These early changes led to the evolution of post-war combat.
IV - After the Adek Rebellion.
In later periods, a change was made to the land forces so that the Rebels would never again be able to lay their hands on such heavy and powerful equipment. All production of Super-heavy tanks, land cruisers, and dreadnoughts was moved to the core worlds as part of Befgebar's plan. The new doctrine divided divisions into two types, defensive and offensive. Defensive ones, sent to the colonies, would have only conscripted soldiers, with few officers. Their armored forces were restricted to mostly IFV with an occasional appearance by an MBT company. Their air support would be limited to a small squadron without even a single artillery group. In effect, it was a cheap force to eliminate insurgents, but would be quickly destroyed by armored forces or air support.
However, the offensive divisions were something else. Though constituting barely a third of the total personnel in even the worst of the Hegemony Wars, they were always of the highest quality, comparable to the Turian Legions, and they were always stationed on the core worlds, only dispatched when needed. They used the previously created strategy with tanks to break down enemy fortifications and infantry wave attacks, but this has been greatly improved. The infantry wave was to be supplied by the defensive divisions, and the attack was to be preceded by an artillery and air strike.
V - Krogan Rebellions.
During the Krogan Rebellions, this doctrine showed its weaknesses, and benefits, as shown by the defense of the core worlds. The Krogan Blitzkrieg destroyed the weak defensive divisions so quickly that the Hegemony didn't have time to mobilize and field their offensive divisions until they attacked the core worlds themselves. There, however, they were stopped and another trench war ensued on several worlds until the release of the Genophage.
In the later phase of the uprising, this doctrine massacred all the Batarians rebels and regained control of the lost territories.
VI - Long Peace.
The period between the Krogan Rebellions and the Relay 314 Incident, despite the Morning War, was peaceful for the entire Citadel Alliance. The only fights were with the pirates, and during this period, the armed forces of Hegmeonia didn't change at all.
VII - System Alliance-Batarian Hegemony War
Despite the hostile initial contact, no one expected a full-blown war between Humans and Batarians. However, it was the few first battles that showed why the human military is considered one of the best in the galaxy. Professional soldiers are better trained than their Batarian counterparts, and energy shields combined with much more air support, and various smart weapons such as drones and missiles quickly tipped the scales in favor of humans against all defensive divisions. As in Krogan Rebellions, the Hegemony didn't even have time to send offensive divisions into battle.
While this means that the battle between the main forces is yet to be resolved, preliminary simulations show that the technology of energy weapons and energy shields, along with plenty of smart weapons, will give the System Alliance an advantage. However, the System Alliance's logistical problems also began to show, leading to questions as to whether they could maintain 100% combat capability with their current supply lines.
[1]My fanfiction - 'Rachni War - Historical Documentation'
[2] A Batarian year is one year on Khar'shan - info from 'Khar'shan - Mass Effect Wiki'
