Marine

"You want a piece of me, boy?"

- Terran marine

Marines compose the bulk of most terran front-line forces, ranging from officially government-sanctioned units and local militias to renegades and mercenaries. Koprulu Sector marines are generally equipped with powered armor suits and rapid-fire C-14 rifles. The suit provides full life-support and NBC protection, allowing marines to deploy into environments that would otherwise be inimical to human life.

Despite such material investment into each marine, they tend to have extremely short combat lives. To improve their effectiveness and odds of survival, many marines make heavy use of Stim Packs.

Known Branches
The following known organizations employ marines:

Alliance
The Alliance Marine Corps appears to be a relatively small force, free of practices such as neural resocialization. The C-14 rifle is the standard issue weapon for Alliance marines, though the E-9 rifle and C-7 pistol are also in their arsenal.

Terran Confederacy
"The Marines? The Marines are the biggest collection of criminals outside of the Tarsonis City Council!"

- Michael Liberty

A significant proportion of the Confederate Marine Corps was manned by "culturally challenged" individuals who had been "resocialized" via brain surgery, implants such as aggression inhibitors, and resocialization tanks. Counseling and drug therapy were also used to help overcome criminal and/or anti-social tendencies. Despite this source of manpower, it was not always sufficient to replace battlefield losses, and instances of law-abiding persons being conscripted and subjected to "resoc" were not unknown. In any case, volunteers were few.

Some marines had barcodes tattooed or branded onto their foreheads.

By the time of the protoss attack on Chau Sara, each Confederate marine was officially issued a CMC-300/CMC-400 combat suit and a C-14 rifle. The slugthrower was a common sidearm. Confederate marines did not require a PEB (Preferred Experience Base) to enlist (or be conscripted as the case often was).

Terran Dominion
"A marine's work is not all fun and games. He has a duty as well...and that duty is to every world in the Terran Dominion, no matter how small."

- Major Tom Hawkins

The fall of the Confederacy and its replacement by the Dominion (the Confederate Marine Corps being replaced by the Dominion Marine Corps respectively) has seen an increase in volunteer recruitment, but not enough to supplant "resoc" conscription. Marines continue to use variants of the C-14 rifle many years after the Brood War, along with the inclusion of ballistic alloy combat shields in their arsenal. At some point, the slugthrower was replaced by the more powerful flak pistol.

United Earth Directorate
UED marines, also known as "smiths", are equipped much to the same standards as their colonial counterparts. Instead of the C-14 gauss rifle, they are equipped with the C-141 AC Gauss Rifle, the C-150 Ronin pistol serving as a sidearm. The UED included organic combat medics in tactical marine units. The improved survivability of UED marines inspired Koprulu terran forces to adopt medics in a similar fashion.

At least some UED marines were controlled through aggression inhibitors.

StarCraft

 * For StarCraft gameplay information see: Marine (StarCraft).
 * For StarCraft in-game quotations see: StarCraft I Marine Quotations.

Many changes were made to units and structures throughout the StarCraft alpha and beta and the marine was no exception. In the early beta, marines were known as marauders. By mid-beta, the title of the marauder had changed to Terran Space Marine mk 2, possibly as a reference to (or derived from) the Space Marines of Games Workshop's Warhammer 40K series.

The term marauder was resurrected for a StarCraft II unit.

By late beta, the marine bore great resemblance to its current version. However, they were stated to possess a pressurized power suit and chain-gun cannons instead of the CMC Powered Combat Suit and C-14 rifle, respectively. In addition, they were stated to possess gravity boots.

In-game, marines behave similarly to the marines from Aliens, even quoting lines from the film. One of these is "How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?".

StarCraft: Ghost


The marine in StarCraft: Ghost is a heavily armored, slowly moving unit, compared to the more lightly-equipped light infantry unit. Marines carry powerful gauss rifles that may be equipped with grenade launchers. The marines can also carry flak pistols that inflict area-of-effect damage.

In the Invasion Mode, light infantry could "upgrade" into a marine at a cost of two points.

StarCraft II

 * For StarCraft II gameplay information see: Marine (StarCraft II).
 * For StarCraft II in-game quotations see: StarCraft II Marine Quotations.

Images

 * See: the image gallery.