Settlement Defense Front

"Make no mistake, we will rip you from the history books. Every last trace of you gone! You will know loss. We will be the architects of your pain, we will build monuments to your destruction. The whole world will bear witness to this, our ascension. We will blot out your skies, we will bury you in darkness. Know this and know us. We are your enemy. We are the Settlement Defense Front."

- Caleb Thies

The Settlement Defense Front (SDF), or SetDef, are the main antagonistic terrorist faction in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. They fight against the UNSA and SATO.

Overview


SetDef is composed of off-world insurgents who seek to control the solar system. They see themselves as the true inheritors of the solar system, and believe their way of life to be "stronger, more pure," than the people of Earth.

In SetDef's mind, living off-world has made them more worthy of ruling the solar system, while those who reside on Earth are weak "fat cats," living off the bounty of the off-world colonies.

They value functionality over style, an attitude reflected in everything from their ships to their weapons and armor, which is modular, with everything designed to protect them from the harshness of space. They have re-purposed service robots into military roles, adding to their legions of troops. For SetDef, a true victory would mean the utter cessation of all planetary resources reaching Earth. They are willing to kill civilians, soldiers, and anyone who gets in their way.

Origins
The origins of SetDef lie in the 'gold rush' period of planetary colonization, when colonists first began leaving Earth. The Front was first created as a means of enforcing martial law on off world colonies. Thirty years before the events of Infinite Warfare, SetDef initiated the "Secession Wars", in which they won sovereignty over Mars.

Europa Incident
18 hours before their attack on Geneva, SetDef launched an attack on a SATO weapons facility on Jupiter's moon, Europa. Although dealt heavy casualties by a SCAR "clean up crew" and losing much of the physical contents of the base, the mission was a success as they were able to eliminate all defenders and retrieved much of the weapons data SATO kept stored on site.

Attack on Geneva
During the annual Fleet Week Parade held in Geneva, the SDF launched their attack. A sleeper-cell agent hijacked Earth's planetary defense system, AATIS, destroying the majority of SATO's fleet in moments. This was in conjunction with a ground assault launched on the city, seeking to take out the world's leaders and other attendees. While the initial attack was repelled after chasing the SetDef fleet into orbit, the Olympus Mons "dropped" into Earths orbit, dealing significant damage to the SATO fleet, resulting in only two ships surviving, the Retribution and Tigris.

SATO and UNSA Counter-Attack
After Geneva incident, Retribution and Tigris are charged to engage and sabotage SDF's military activities to buy Earth more times to rebuild the fleet. Despite high casualty in infrantry regime; the death of Captain Reyes, Captain Farran, Staff Segeant Omar, Private Kashima, Petty Office Ethan as well as others official alongs with the destruction of both Retribution supercarrier and Tirgis destroyer, the mission succeed with the destruction of SDF Mars main shipyard; Olympus Mons supercarrier; at least 6 SDF carriers; multiple SDF Skelters and Destroyers; extensive loss in infantry force and amored vehicles as well as the death of the entire SDF commanding official.

Society
The influence of SDF rule extends, but is limited to, Mars, Titan, Eris, and several other Jovian moons. Their society is largely authoritarian and social status is based largely on individual citizens' loyalties to the regime. The SDF are also known to have a secret police organization known as Intracore.

SDF society is also heavily influenced by state run propaganda, as the state sponsored propaganda center, the "Veritas", controls much of the spread of information within SDF territories, going so far as to block out any UNSA transmissions to SDF space. Gun ownership is mandatory within SDF territory. The SDF also maintains force labor camps to gather more resources to fight the UNSA.

Military
The Settlement Defense Front is deeply militaristic, requiring all of its citizens to attend 15 years of military service beginning at age 12. Therefore, the Front has 900% more soldiers, per capita, than the UNSA and holds several fleets powerful enough to challenge it. Its military is commanded by the SDF High Command. In terms of technology, the SDF is at a greater technological level than the SATO as seen by the operating F-SpAr cannon on the Olympus Mons while that type of weapon was in a prototype state in a UNSA blacksite on Europa before its destruction by the Front.

The Front is a decidedly male-dominated society, women are not represented in high levels in the military, only support. They see races as equal, however, as long as their allegiance is to SDF. The Front uses many ranks from the Russian Navy as well as the Royal Air Force, suggesting their influence. Many high-ranking officers, such as Salen Kotch himself, are of very young age, suggesting that promotions are much faster in the SetDef military.

The SetDef is not above using unconventional warfare like backing pirates who steal UNSA cargo with resources bound for Earth or committing war crimes as their attack on Geneva and the Luna Gateway Port left thousands of civilians dead by mass shootings or summary executions. They also possess chemical weapons of mass destruction, as a SCAR team discovered on the SDF carrier Hellas located in Venus' atmosphere before retrieving samples of it.

Ground Force
The Settlement Defense Front forces use primarily energy weapons like the R3K assaut rifle, the R.A.W. and Titan light machine guns and the DCM-8 shotgun but also some ballistic weapons like the HVR submachine gun. The SDF has also access to heavy weapons like the Eraser, the Ballista EM3 and some F-SpAr Torches.

The Front also uses various autonomous tactical drones like C6 (used as combat, security and working drones) and C8 both deployed from drop pods as well as C12 battle tanks and small Seeker robots. PMCs soldiers are also present among the SDF forces wearing three different Combat Rigs: FTL, Merc and Phantom. The Front use Wardens to deploy its soldiers on the battlefields.

Fleet
The Settlement Defense Front has at least eight different fleets in the Solar System. The 8th Orbital Fleet is led by Admiral Salen Kotch and Vice-admirals Caleb Thies and Vlad Derhachov. The Front main force consists of dozens of destroyers and A-Jak cutters as support as well as several carriers. Some of the SDF warships are powerful enough to destroy a UNSA destroyer or carrier in a single shot like the Olympus Mons and its F-SpAr cannon or the Cerberus and its two rail guns.

The SDF uses the R-7 Skelter as its primary fighter jet against the UNSA's Jackal while R-16 Skelters are used by SetDef aces. A prototype Skelter was stolen by Nick Reyes during Operation Phoenix.

Known Warships

 * Carriers and Supercarrier
 * SWSC-1 Olympus Mons (Crashed/Destroyed)
 * SDS Ares Vallis (Destroyed)
 * SDS Hellas (Destroyed)
 * SDS Cerberus (Out of commission)
 * Destroyers
 * SDS Icarius (Unknown)
 * SDS Galaxius (Unknown)
 * SDS Iani Chaos (Destroyed)
 * SDS Argas (Destroyed)
 * SDS Solis (Abandonned)

Leaders

 * SDF High Council
 * SDF High Command

8th Orbital Fleet

 * Admiral
 * Salen Kotch (K.I.A.)
 * Vice-Admirals
 * Caleb Thies (K.I.A.)
 * Vlad Derhachov (K.I.A.)
 * Senior Operative
 * Akeel Min Riah (K.I.A.)

Battle Force

 * Captains 1st Rank
 * Oren Emin (K.I.A.)
 * Khosi Siyada (K.I.A.)
 * Captain 3rd Rank
 * Bradley Fillion (K.I.A.)
 * Captain Lieutenant
 * Radoslav Barkov (K.I.A.)

Scouting Force

 * Senior Lieutenant
 * Attila Zalanyi (K.I.A.)
 * Lieutenant
 * Sang Yup Kim (K.I.A.)
 * Junior Lieutenants
 * Cesar Magana (K.I.A.)
 * Andrew Hawryluk (K.I.A.)

Outer Planet Squadron

 * Lieutenant-Colonel
 * Damien Nichols (K.I.A.)
 * Wing Commander
 * Ivan Perez (K.I.A.)
 * Colonel
 * Young Kim (K.I.A.)
 * Major
 * Nicholas Rado (K.I.A.)

Belt Squadron

 * Captains
 * Taras Emin (K.I.A.)
 * Hari Khalsa (K.I.A.)
 * Rion Jones (K.I.A.)
 * Yenal Kal (K.I.A.)

Surveillance and Engagement

 * Senior Lieutenants
 * Khoa Le (K.I.A.)
 * Suresh Malakar (K.I.A.)
 * Taylor Kurosaki (K.I.A.)
 * Omar Gatica (K.I.A.)
 * Lieutenants
 * Tom Szakolczay (K.I.A.)
 * Sergio Gil (K.I.A.)
 * Karl Drown (K.I.A.)
 * Rulon Raymond (K.I.A.)
 * Matthew Tovar (K.I.A.)
 * Serozh Sarkisyan (K.I.A.)
 * Junior Lieutenants
 * Moudy Hamo (K.I.A.)
 * David Schorn (K.I.A.)

Trivia

 * When designing the Settlement Defense Front, Infinity Ward took inspiration from Soviet and British designs from the 1960s. They're a "functional first" aesthetic in terms of their design.
 * After an update on the Nuk3town multiplayer map the Olympus Mons can be seen flying by in the cut scene a logo of the Settlement Defense Front after the "NUK3TOWN OFFLINE" message appears and Caleb Thies would read his quote out loud. This was changed back to original end cut scene following the reveal of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.