It was 2458 when the Great War first broke out. The conflict arose from the unjust governing of the newly colonized planets. While the United Nations oversaw all initial extraterrestrial colonization, the colonies themselves were established by independent countries, and were governed as such. However, such great distance proved to be detrimental to the quality of government received. The governments of the colonies back on Earth were more concerned with governing their own countries and thus neglected their newly established colonies. With the colonies slowly falling into disarray, and the quality of life of millions of people deteriorating, many of the colonies began to use what military power they had to take what they needed from their neighboring colonies.
The most prominent and successful colonies banded together to form colonial superpowers, pledging to help one another through trade. However many of these colonies were started by countries that were enemies and saw such alliances as treason of the highest scale. The first major conflict was on April 8, 2458, when the government of Russia sent a fleet of three dozen ships to their formerly controlled colony on the planet of Carthage.
With the colony resisting to back down, the fleet attacked, resulting in the deaths of over nine hundred and eighty-three million civilians, and over eight million military personnel as well as hundreds wounded in just the first few hours of conflict. The colony reached out to its allied colonies across the planet for reinforcements, which together obliterated the fleet. In retaliation the colony renounced its ties with Russia and began attacking any of the country's newly established colonies. Russia began to request help from its other allied countries and their respective colonies, until the colonies themselves sided with the former Russian colony.
The abandonment of the colonies Earthen governments resulted in an intergalactic conflict, with colonial forces attacking others from their countries of origins who would not rebel, and colonies of other countries of origins. In short, everybody was fighting everybody, yet despite the scope of the conflict, very few were reluctant to join, and thus a continuous stream of new soldiers and volunteers was constant amongst the strongest colonies. In order to prevent the growing of enemy forces, the colonies militaries resulted to unconventional and drastic tactics. They began targeting largely civilian populated areas of the colonies and eradicating them entirely. The entire premise of the strategy being that if their are no more civilians to become soldiers, the enemy forces would eventually surrender due to a lack of sufficient forces.
With millions of civilians dying, and their resources rapidly exhausted, the countries and colonies opted for a temporary cease fire to try and reach a form of peace, which they later achieved in 2478. The countries agreed to surrender the colonies over to their inhabitants and to let them govern themselves as they saw fit, but they would not receive any further aid from their countries of origins. The intent of this agreement was to return tranquility to the colonies and the planets that housed them. Instead it turned the reaches of space into a nearly lawless expanse, with colonies overtaking weaker ones and forcing their civilians into labor and subjugation, primarily of illegal or unjust circumstances. To combat these abductions, as well as maintain at least a minimal sense of order throughout the planets and colonies, a council was formed to monitor and oversee the activities of the colonies.
The council, formally known as the Council for Independent Planetary Regulations (C.I.P.R.) created an interplanetary task force of volunteer soldiers. Consequently, with the Great War coming to an end, a majority of the surviving soldiers returned home to be with their families and help rebuild their colonies. However near the end of the war, the drafting age for many colonies was lowered, and thus a large amount of new, young, somewhat trained, and eager to serve soldiers was readily at hand.
These soldiers were brought together to form the Strategic Wetwork Operations, Reconnaissance and Rescue Dynamics, dubbed S.W.O.R.R.D. With the lack of numbers ,the Council opted to replicate the elite of its soldiers to form large teams of no less than twenty five members, of which the responsibility of rescuing civilians in the field, as well as assessing and dispatching possible threats to the populous, would fall. Aside from this, these “Swordsman” would also receive cybernetic, biological, and neural augmentations and enhancements as well as top of the line armor, equipment, weapons, and gadgets, increasing their strength, speed, endurance, durability, and overall effectiveness to mitigate for the lack of numbers. The militia itself operated out of a massive warship, dubbed the Aquarius in reference to the period of time when the Great War was coming to an end, capable of interplanetary travel, and self sustainability, and was outfitted with massive weaponry, specifically a small array of varying WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) to act strictly as deterrents, should any independent force wish to dispatch the militia.
Despite its Swordsman spending a majority of their time in war zones and on the battlefield, no Swordsman was ever permitted to carry a traditional firearm or rifle. With an eminently large civilian presence within their line of work, the chance for a crossfire fatality was exponential. Instead of traditional ballistic weaponry, Swordsman’s primary weapons were made to be portable railguns, with their munitions consisting of darts carrying a nonlethal sedative or electric charge, similar to tasers or tranquilizers of earlier centuries, yet far more potent and capable, as well as an array of other non-lethal weaponry. This ensured that, should a civilian accidentally get caught in the crossfire of a Swordsman, they would not die, and enemy soldiers and combatants would not be killed, allowing for S.W.O.R.R.D. itself to remain on relatively good terms with all colonies and their governments, should they wish to enlist the militia’s service.