Pax per prep obstino
—Imperial Army Special Activities Regiment motto ("Peace through resolve")
The Imperial Army Special Activities Battle Expeditionary Regiment, commonly known as the Imperial Army Special Activities Regiment, and often colloquially referred to as the "Saber Force", was an elite special operations force of the Imperial Army and the Galactic Empire Special Operations Command that was instigated during the Legacy Era as a component of Galactic Emperor Roan Fel's reform of the Imperial military.
It was originally born from the Imperial Army Special Forces—a special missions unit was eventually developed by the Army Special Operations Command to handle operations in sensitive military and political contexts, such as Imperial-sponsored proxy wars and "internal affairs" actions that involved the lethal removal of undesirable Army officers from the ranks of the Imperial Army. Such unsavory missions would be selectively handled by an unofficial hand-picked special forces team chosen by Imperial Intelligence: this covert action element would be known as Task Force Talon, responsible for delivering Intelligence's prompt and decisive retaliation across military and non-military targets across the galaxy.
However, the overthrow of Emperor Roan Fel at the hands of Darth Krayt would leave the Galactic Empire Special Operations Command with a highly unsavory and compromising situation on its hands: Roan Fel's Empire-in-Exile contained a handful of elite Imperial Knights and no small number of former Imperial commandos who were in a position to strike anywhere, anytime on Krayt's military infrastructure, likely causing substantial damage at any given point in a very small window of time. Therefore, the Imperial Special Forces would require an elite and highly-mobile reaction force to counter Fel's daring raids against Imperial military targets: Joint Task Force Talon would be formally confirmed as an independent military command, known as the Imperial Army Tactical Applications Division, with operators chosen from the veterans of the Imperial Army Special Forces, and selectively trained as counterforce operators capable of fending off the renegade Imperial Knights under Fel's command and also their former colleagues-turned-traitors that had left the Imperial Special Forces and joined the Emperor-in-Exile.
Collaborating with Naval Special Warfare and Naval Combat Search and Rescue, the Army Tactical Applications Division would prove to be a mostly-gratifying success: even despite Fel's fury and the vigor of his Imperial Knights, the Tactical Applications Division would be largely successful in mitigating the severe damage that the Emperor-in-Exile intended to incur with his fierce and savage raids.
Eventually, elite Army Tactical Applications teams would be paired with select members of Darth Krayt's Sith Assassins of the One Sith to seek out and selectively assassinate or capture some of Fel's more prominent Imperial Knights. This collaboration between the Imperial Special Forces and the Sith Order would become prized, with joint Army Special Forces—Sith Assassin units gradually picking off Fel's Imperial Knights one by one throughout the turbulent Cold Wars of the Legacy Era.
However, Army Tactical Applications would continually seek Marasiah Fel, the daughter of the Emperor-in-Exile, in an attempt to kidnap her and use her as a hostage against her father—however, the Tactical Applications Division would never be successful in hunting her down. Eventually, it would be Darth Talon, one of Krayt's trusted enforcers, who would be partially successful in tracking her down to Serocco.
The growing eminence of Tactical Applications would lead to its formal recognition with a full designation in the Imperial Army Order of Battle: the Imperial Army Special Activities Battle Expeditionary Regiment (SABER), with its obtuse and cryptic acronym partially serving to conceal its exacting lethality. Within the Galactic Empire Special Operations Command, its operators were typically referred to as "Sabers", in an honorific of the Sith Sabers of the planet Kesh, and in recognition of the close partnership between their operators and the highly-skilled Sith warriors that fought alongside them.
Alternatively, it was also commonly referred to as the Imperial Army Special Activities Regiment (SAR). The Special Activities Regiment would be the most highly-decorated unit of the Galactic Empire Special Operations Command, and even many Sith Assassins would develop close partnerships with Saber operators, finally acquiring experienced and skilled commandos that they could rely on to provide augmenting fires during their assassination missions.
The Regiment would be composed of three subdivisions: the 1st Special Activities Battalion, headquartered on Coruscant, the 2nd Special Activities Battalion, headquartered on Korriban in close proximity to the lawless Corporate Sector, and the 3rd Special Activities Battalion, headquartered on Eriadu in the Outer Rim Territories.
Known Operators
- Major Cassandra Dice, Joint Special Operations Task Force 452
- Sergeant Major Aiden Page, Joint Special Operations Task Force 452
Behind the Scenes
The acronym of "Special Activities Battle Expeditionary Regiment" is a contrived acronym for the word "Saber" — which writer RelentlessRecusant drew from the Sith Sabers, who in canon, are a variety of Sith warriors.
While the Special Activities Regiment's concept is original, writer RelentlessRecusant reused its Latin motto ("Peace through resolve") from another one of his articles, UNSC Special Operations Command on the Halo Fan Fiction Wikia.