Standing Army of the City Center

The Standing Army of the City Center was composed nearly entirely of collected Natural One tribes, and for a time it served as the formal military of Dominus Columbia. Its divisions filled distinct roles: the Centurions formed the front line of every wartime siege, the primary offensive combat force; the Legion guarded and scouted Trade Union caravan lines, providing security for long-distance commerce; and smaller unique units were assigned to individual traveling Senators as personal escorts. They were an effective, organized fighting force, and they believed in what they defended.
  Then the Senate voted to change course. The decision was that conquest was not the answer, that Dominus Columbia should reach out through friendship and commerce rather than expansion. The Standing Army was formally released from duty. Every soldier was promised lifetime pay, offered citizenship for non-Psionics, and given the right to oversee their own lives. It was, on paper, a generous end to a chapter of the settlement's history.
  Many soldiers accepted the offer graciously. Then they continued serving as though the conversation had never happened. When the Senate pressured them to take their benefits and leave, those who stayed did so out of dedication to their roles, their definition of honor, and their belief in what Dominus Columbia represented. From that point forward, the Senate could no longer order the Standing Army. It could only ask. The soldiers served by choice, not by command, and the distinction mattered to everyone involved.
  Their barracks occupied the second massive structure within the Keeps of the Lords of Smithson, a large circular building where a few hundred highly trained mercenaries lived surrounded by art and historic reliquary. They patrolled both the exterior and interior of the National Keep, guarded the museum collections, staffed the Federation Complex Gates between the surface and the Complex below, provided elite guard details at the Senatorial Repository, and furnished honor guards of six soldiers each to the Three Sisters at the Vault of the Pre-Fall Burden. Warriors surrounded by beauty, serving a cause they chose rather than one imposed upon them. That was the character of the Standing Army before the fall: loyalty that outlasted its own orders.