Divine Crusaders

The "Divine Crusaders" are two distinct entities, often confused with one another. One is the Divine Crusaders proper; an organization formed by Bian Zoldark to fight the extraterrestrial menace. The second is the impressive list of political and corporate groups that have aligned themselves with the Divine Crusaders' cause. The Divine Crusaders (or DC) find their main support in Neo-Zeon, the PLANTs, and other disaffected space-colony nations. They have limited support on Earth itself, mainly Scandinavia, Zaftra, and Australia with its associated islands, although there are rumors of hidden bases.

The DC's main strength comes from its willingness to make sacrifices in the name of the future. The imminence of the alien threat justifies throwing nearly everything else out. Virtually every war crime is, if not sanctioned by DC leadership, treated as an unfortunate necessity. Some known war criminals have joined the DC primarily to pursue their own agenda, free from meddling commanders.

DC forces are nearly as varied as the EFA's, although they have fewer of the high-cost, high-performance "Super Robots," relying instead on well-trained quantities of more cost-effective units. Due to the strong military presence in what amounts to a rebel movement, individual soldiers are given relatively generous pay and, by and large, good treatment and leadership by officers... at least, when supplies and resources permit. Many low-scale DC troops write off tales of DC atrocities as Federation exaggeration, outright propaganda, or nasty necessities to prevent alien conquest (sometimes in that order).

However, the DC is more volatile compared to the relatively reliable (if imperfect) EFA: When everything works, it's great, but problems tend to arise, particularly when factions of the leadership, lacking outside structures of power, fall into schismatic conflicts. While there is no recorded outright battle between elements of the DC, there have been rumors... many revolutions have fallen, after all, to infighting long before the enemy could destroy them.

The DC is a faction for revolutionaries, terrorists and enemies of the state. It is also fitting for those whose primary purpose is alien hunting, although themes with a government-sponsored program for that can also go to the EFA. Some just flat-out evil Super Robot style villains, like Doctor Hell, are also in the DC, but the majority of its membership is searching for a better, freer, alien-free planet Earth.

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