Stortroopers Soldiers or glorified COPS

[Mamatried]

Yes the heading says it all.

Is the Stormtroopers as we see them actually perfoming a military role, or a law enforcement role.
If we look at them as paramilitary police I think we are more there.

This make me think that they may not at all be more skilled than the much harder fighting army, and more a symbol of opression and occupation, again to me a more police role than that of a soldier.

Thoughts?

[Dredwulf60]

I think they serve as soldiers performing occupation duties on potentially rebellious worlds.

Think of Germans in occupied France or the way some view the Western powers in the role of keeping insurgents in check in Iraq and Afghanistan

They don't replace local law enforcement in most cases, who are still there to investigate regular criminal activity, but they are there to augment them when it comes to keeping (and enforcing) Order and putting down insurgents.

I imagine on some worlds with rebel sympathies, the local law would be stripped of most of their power and remain as puppets...but when it comes down to it I don't think Storm Troopers would be all that interested in investigating the typical domestic assaults, sex assaults, local spice pushers, neighbor disputes, break and enters and speeder-theft chop-shops.

[MrNexx]

Whoever they are, they're bad boys.
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[garhkal]

They start out in a military role, but often do get used for law enforcement roles..
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[Whill]

[Naaman]

Not sure how other countries do it, but in the US, the nation is structured around a collective of individually sovereign states. Within a state, the governor has the executive (enforcement) power, which is delegated to police. The governor also has authority over the National Guard (for that state: soldiers in the NG draw their pay from state, not federal, funds). The national guard are soldiers first, but may be deployed domestically in times where local/state resources are overwhelmed or when a scenario has escalated beyond the scope of law the law enforcement mission or purview.

Storm Troopers might be similar in concept to a national guard of sorts, whereby they "enforce" the will of the emperor (rather than the written law per se), leaving the shoplifters and fender benders to the local police.
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[Yora]

I don't really see strormtroopers appearing in police functions at all. They are not deployed to prevent and investigate crimes.

Stormtroopers are what their name implies. They are assault troops. When they are send into settled areas, their task is to kill or capture their targets, and occasionally to provide protection for Imperial officers visiting local officials on official business.

When stormtroopers are send into the streets to maintain or restore order, their only method is to shot rioters and rebels.
They are not meant to be the people civilians turn to for help and protection. Their role is to intimidate the population to obey the local officials. Otherwise they show up and kill some people and blow up a few houses.
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[Raven Redstar]

[Yora]

The one thing I dislike about stormtroopers is how they have become the generic villainous mook of the Empire. The default bottom of the threat list to be swept away in masses without any real resistance.

I think there should be both a regular imperial army and local security forces, making stormtroopers at least the third tier of Imperial grunts. Above stormtroopers there should only be named elite agents. (Maybe with the emperor's guards being tier 3.5, but how often would players fight those?)
Having elite Black Stormtroopers or Red Stormtroopers seems like a step in the wrong direction, further reducing the regular stormtroopers to silly shmucks.
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[Mamatried]

[Whill]

Right. Standard Stormtroopers are sometimes an instrument of martial law but not cops. But there are specialized stormtroopers units such as patrol troopers and shock troopers which do perform some cop duties.
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[Naaman]

I think there is a distinct difference between an occupying force and a police force.

Typically, an occupying force will do things that are also done by a police force.

Apprehending "suspects," for example, is something that would be done both by a police force and a military occupation force.

An infantryman who identifies an insurgent will bind him with flexicuffs (rather than handcuffs) and deliver him to a detention facility. An infantryman who discovers intelligence (a sort of "evidence") will gather it up and either act on it or deliver it for analysis (much like a policeman would do).

Both forces act in a sort of enforcement capacity, but an occupying force enforces (in the case of stormtroopers) a totalitarian will, while a "civilian" police force would respond to requests for service--or rarely--intervene upon discovery of a crime against an imperial citizen or the government.

The main difference is that a police force is limited by whatever norms are considered "rights" of the citizens under their jurisdiction, while an occupying force is deployed as a means to override those norms in pursuit of some higher priority or agenda.
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[CRMcNeill]

I would suggest that that depends greatly on what "police" means within the context of that society. There are plenty of countries on this planet alone where police very much serve an occupying role, and there are plenty of hints dropped in the EU material to the effect that the Empire is using a variety of means to override and alter "rights" as they are normally understood by galactic society as a whole.

With regard to the OP, my view of stormtroopers (despite their lackluster WEG stats) is something akin to a combination of US Marines and Airborne, as well as Iraqi Republican Guard. By this I mean that Stormtroopers serve as a rapid response military force designed to hit fast and hard, often with heavy naval forces in support. This can be (and usually is) used against Rebel Forces, but is also a very clear threat against other Imperial forces to keep them in line. They will certainly have their own dedicated Military Police units operating in support, but not in a general law enforcement capacity.

My thinking is that the Imperial Army handles most of the occupation duties, with the Sector Army described in the Imperial Sourcebook being the sector's mobile assets only (as in, "fire brigade" units that can be relocated from planet to planet within a sector as needed), while the vast majority of the Sector Army's forces will be composed of Garrison units (Infantry equipped for static defense, assigned to specific geographic areas of a planet). Garrison units will either have beefed up MP detachments or something along the lines of the COMPNOR Intervention units I wrote up.

CompForce Assault units would serve a similar mission to Stormtroopers, but would be more integrated into the Army's Garrison and Mobile units at the Corps level.
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The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Raven Redstar]

Doesn't the ISB have their own brand of Stormtrooper?
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[CRMcNeill]