S3, originally short for Special Services Section, is part of the IISS Security Branch and is the nearest thing the Scouts have to a military special operations force. It was created to provide the Scouts with an indigenous paramilitary capability to both protect/defend the Service and to serve the Imperium's interests. Because of communications lag and travel times, the Scouts would be ill served waiting for Army or Marine forces to show up and take action, especially as the IISS has law enforcement and de facto intelligence gathering functions.
S3 has fundamentally the same capabilities as Army or Marine commandos but trains and equips differently.
First, to get the priority right (i.e. first things first). Vargas, thanks! Do you have any links?
Originally posted by Ben W Bell: Message to command: Code 5TXj612
Public Enquiry. Enquirer: Jame, Blasphemer.
Location: Massachusetts, US, Terra.
Course of action request: 6ym612F
Termination Authorised: Yes/No?
Most of the original info on S3 appeared in DGP's MegaTraveller Journal #3; some of it was echoed in the GDW MT folio Arrival Vengeance. It has also appeared in GT as the 'Special Security Service' but I'm not sure of the exact books.
I don't think it is quite the nearest thing they have
to a military force: some bases must hire local lads to do garrison duty. It is sometimes more convenient than making a request to the Imperial Army.
What S-3 are is something like a combination of commandos and swat teams, designed to pull of quick and neat coups in specialized circumstances(extricating-inserting agents for instance).
Actually I belive the CIA has a primative version of S-3; you can find out about it somewhere on
strategypage.com
It could be local forces making contributions. I was thinking, however that they might directly recruit them themselves "IISS auxilery service". Either in the form of Mercs(which would be more competant)or in the form of local kids who could at least be trained well enough to shoo away pirates(cheaper). Any of these systems would work to provide protection. Of course the scouts would probably be reasonably good fighters on their own-not real good as that is not their primary mission. They are however fairly well disiplined(though disciplined to show initiative rather than work in large groups) and hardy and would force a raider to take them into account.
How are the scouts deployed? They have to be on call within a few jumps of any potential crisis. However only the biggest expeditions can just carry them around: such a resource would be in heavy demand. They would presumably be comparatively scarce. Allowances must be made for such things.
Perhaps the Imperium can continue the "deep bases" mentioned in Mileau One(Mark Miller). These would have a reserve of S3's on station to be parceled out as needed.
They presumably are used to working in groups no more than thirty or so strong at maximum, and probably less, normally. This would make life easier for the beareaucrats-but not easy.
Fortunatly a lot of ordinary scouts could probably do this kind of thing on their own to some degree. The S3's would mainly be needed for the really tough jobs.
By a J6 design derived from the Kinunir cruiser design, modified by experience with the J6 rift cruisers. For heavier back-up/intervention 'ARTs' (armed response teams) of reinforced company size deployed on IISS operated Rift cruisers. These assets could be deployed at deep bases and make covert entry into systems.
