Fleet Support Branch
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The Fleet Support Branch was one of the four organizational arms of the Imperial Navy, consisting of those officers responsible for maintenance and engineering duties. Organizationally, it is likely to have been connected to the Fleet Support which developed on Coruscant during the Clone Wars, but it provided personnel throughout the Navy, subdivided into two subordinate commands:
- Engineering Division was responsible for maintaining ships' sublight and hyperspace engines, and also for the structural integrity of their hulls.
- Technical Services was responsible for power-distribution systems, life-support, and the maintenance and repair of other shipboard systems and equipment. The dedicated maintenance ships of Force Technical Services can probably be inferred to be part of the Technical Services division, although it would be strange if they did not carry personnel with the engineering and hull-repair specialities that were associated with Engineering Division.
Aboard escort frigates, and perhaps aboard all Imperial capital ships, the Fleet Support Branch chain of command was organized so that the Engineering Department had authority over Secondary Engineering and Life Support, which can be identified as the two main Technical Services subdivisions.
It is not clear whether Technical Services also had a role in the maintenance of shipboard droids, or the repair of the specialist equipment used by Support Service Branch personnel, including weapons, communications, navigation and medical systems. Such a role might be inferred, however, from evidence that Technical Services did have some responsibility for starfighters, which we might otherwise have expected to be entirely assigned to internal specialists within Flight Branch: in 3 ABY, Commander Brandei, serving in the role of Technical Services Officer aboard the Super Star Destroyer Executor, was responsible for ensuring the readiness of the ship's TIE Fighter squadrons.
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