Commerce Guild Punitive Security Forces

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Warning: This infobox has missing parameters: subgroup, type and unrecognized parameters: members, era

The Commerce Guild Punitive Security Forces were the security group that protected the members and assets of the Commerce Guild. It was merged into the Separatist Droid Army when the Commerce Guild joined the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

History

"Attention, Koro-1 Deluxe Airspeeder. Land and show documentation. Stolen vehicle check. This is the Commerce Guild Army Patrol."
"Correction. Owner loaned the vehicle. Please check with owner Teluron Thacker."
"Negative. Owner Teluron Thacker reported vehicle stolen. Land or undergo firepower from laser cannon."
"Thacker betrayed us. That's why he was so jumpy. Somebody got to him ... Someone he's more afraid of than the Jedi."

―Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, en route to the Korriban's Valley of the Dark Lords, responds to the Commerce Guild Army Patrol's order to land his Jedi coalition team's 'stolen' vehicle.^[src]

The Commerce Guild employed a force of security personnel and battle droids whose major function was to keep the Commerce Guild's member worlds and systems in line. The organic personnel generally worked separately from the droids, though most of the Commerce Guild's droid forces were commanded and maintained by Gossams.

In 24 BBY, the Commerce Guild opened an office on the tax-free world of Korriban. Guild members deserving punishment were sent there. But the Guild motivated other corporations to join them by opening new offices of their own in the Korriban spaceport of Dreshdae. But by 23 BBY, local Guild executives were being robbed in their hotels with alarming frequency by black market thieves, as a Jedi coalition team learned from their Korriban informant, Teluron Thacker. Using rampant local crime against Guild workers as an excuse, therefore, but in violation of Republic law, the Guild sent to Korriban a droid army, which it placed in the front ranks of its local officers and troops clad in full plastoid armor and battlefield helmets. The droid contingency included dwarf and homing spider droids. The aim of the Guild's army and security forces on Korriban, beyond protecting the Guild's workers from petty crime, was to crush the local black market, for Guild executives were tired of having to buy back their own items from the thieves who stole them.^[1]

The Commerce Guild Army and Punitive Security Forces on Korriban also got caught up (surely by the machinations of the Guild with the galaxy's re-emergent Sith) in the pursuit of a Jedi Order coalition team (headed by Obi-Wan Kenobi) sent by the Jedi High Council to track down galactic criminals Granta Omega and Jenna Zan Arbor. While the army battled Kenobi and three other Jedi Masters within the Great Sith Temple's long-abandoned Sith Academy, the Guild's local security forces—the Commerce Guild Army Patrol—led a high-speed chase of the Jedi (whose Koro-1 airspeeder was piloted by 18-year-old Anakin Skywalker) into the Valley of the Dark Lords, which ended in the scorching demise of each of the patrol's cruisers.^[1]

This pre-Clone Wars state of affairs in the galaxy's "cradle of darkness" provided the setting for what was likely the beginning of the corroborative relationship of Guild Presidente Shu Mai and Count Dooku. For, in addition to the spider droids, the illegal new super battle droids were employed by Dooku's alter-ego Darth Tyranus in fending off the Jedi's intrusion into the Sith Academy. There, the Jedi Master-turned-Sith Lord had set up a base for rendezvousing with Omega and Zan Arbor, to establish an 'alliance' with them, which, in actuality, was but a cover to exploit their uses for his recently established Confederacy of Independent Systems—the Sith-backed prelude to galactic civil war.^[1]^[2]

During the early stages of the Clone Wars, the Punitive Security Forces maintained their original organizational system; however this was inefficient as the command structures of the various commerce guild armies proved incompatible. Under the command of General Grievous, the Separatist Army was reorganized around task forces specifically created to achieve particular objectives.

The army was eradicated when Darth Vader gave the order to shut down the droid forces. The remaining forces were overtaken and destroyed by the Galactic Empire.

Forces

Organic Forces

Division (216 officers plus support personnel): A division consisted of 6 troops, led by six security chiefs and a division commander.
- Troop (36 officers): A troop consisted of six squads, including six squad leaders. They were generally led by a single Gossam with the title of security chief.
  - Squad (6 officers): A squad consisted of six Gossam security officers (usually Gossam Commandos), one of whom acted as a squad leader.

Droid forces

Heavy dwarf spider droid unit: One advanced dwarf spider droid and one squad of B1 or B2 battle droids were considered to be one unit.
Spelunker probe droid unit: Consisted of five spelunker probe droids. For especially hard targets, a force of 20 units was sometimes deployed.
DSD1 dwarf spider droid unit: Consisted of four dwarf spider droids. Also organized in forces of 2-5 units.
A-DSD advanced dwarf spider droid unit: Organized identically as DSD1 dwarf spider droid units.
OG-9 homing spider droid unit: A single homing spider droid, with four DSD1 dwarf spider droids acting as spotters, operated as one unit.