Special Forces
All Taldryan Army recruits are tested upon enlistment, and any male between the ages of 18 and 30 who scores in the top fifth percentile and meets the physical standards is automatically entered into the army's Special Forces. Special Forces units are tasked with ten specific missions: unconventional warfare, special reconnaissance, direct action, guerrilla warfare, information operations, assassination, combat search and rescue, hostage rescue, security assistance, and force sensitive operations.
Their training begins the same as any other army soldier, basic training and infantry training combined in a 20 week-long course. After this is completed, they are sent to the Special Forces Qualification Course to participate in a demanding two month long small unit tactics course. Immediately after the completion of the small unit tactics phase, recruits are given survival, evasion, resistance and escape training, followed by lethal hand-to-hand combat techniques, and finally advanced weaponry and demolitions instruction.
After this training has been completed, the soldiers must choose which of the five Special Forces specialties they will receive instruction in: Officer, Weapons, Medical, Communications, and Engineer. This specialty training is crucial to the successful operation of the teams and is therefore very long and intense – generally it takes 60 weeks. Finally, all soldiers receive direct instruction by Taldryan's Dark Jedi combat instructors - they are given extensive knowledge in combating the Jedi arts, and are trained to resist most forms of mental control. The training is finalized with a series of large-scale, live-fire training exercises, after which the recruits are added to the active Special Forces pool.
Special Forces teams typically consist of eight to twelve men of mixed specialties, commanded by a Captain and Master Sergeant. They are stationed throughout Taldryan's territory and can be deployed anywhere they are needed within hours. They are one of the clan's greatest assets, and have proven their worth in battle many times over. Special Forces units have reported incredibly few mission failures, leading many Army officers to become much more willing to use the elite troops when a situation arises. In addition, many teams have proven themselves very capable of killing Dark Jedi, leading SpecForce command to designate specific teams as “Jedi Capable” - this has become the highest honor a team can earn, and is therefore sought after with a vigor by every active team.