Warrior Unit

"Healthy boys and girls from ages five to seven will be gathered as potential Warriors!! Only a small few will become these chosen Warriors. For these Warriors—must be worthy of inheriting...the seven Titans now under the Marley government's control!!"

- The Public Security Authorities of Marley announces the beginning of the new Warrior program

The Warrior Unit (戦士隊) is a subdivision of the Marleyan military. Its members are Subjects of Ymir under Marley's control who are given the power of the Titans.

Duty
The Marleyan Warriors are expected to carry out the needs of their superiors without question or objection. From a young age, Eldians are raised to believe that their race is responsible for all the wrongdoings in the history of the world, given the fact that they are the only humans capable of transforming into Titans, the catalysts for millennia of death and chaos. With this stigma in mind, Eldian children are at times offered up to the Marley government to become Warriors so that the families of accepted children may be granted honorary Marleyan citizenship rather than face subjugation within isolated internment zones, such as the one in Liberio.

Warriors cadets who demonstrate the most exceptional performance on the battlefield are often said to be given the privilege of inheriting one of the seven Titans which Marley obtained during the Great Titan War. Due to the rarity of the Warriors, efforts are taken to ensure that they are not put into dangerous situations which could lead to the loss of one of Marley's Titans.

In recent years, the Marley Warriors with the power of the Titans have served as the main force of the Paradis Island Operation, a critical operation for Marley in which the Founding Titan must be taken from the royal family within the Walls. However, when the plan was deemed a failure after the battle of Shiganshina District, the remaining Warriors served instead as the primary means of land-based assault during the Marley Mid-East War.

Structure
Warriors are selected from a pool of candidates who are also Subjects of Ymir. These candidates can vary in age, ranging from young adults to some as young as twelve years old. New cadets can enter the training program between the ages of five and seven.

Titan Warriors
Out of the many Warrior cadets enlisted by the Marleyan military, only six at a given time are able to inherit the power of the Titans. While these Warrior cadets are not spared from deadly situations in combat or infiltration missions, efforts are taken to ensure that these Warrior candidates are not killed in action if possible. After inheriting a Titan, the Warriors keep their Titans for a 13-year "term" before they are passed down to other candidates chosen for the inheritance. This term limit was not established by choice, but due to the "Curse of Ymir" which ensures that any Subject of Ymir who inherits the power of the Titans will die in 13 years after receiving the power.

Those who have inherited the power of the Titans are granted red Eldian armbands as opposed to the yellow bands given to Warrior cadets. Families of these Warriors also receive red bands.

Qualities
Having been raised with Marleyan propaganda from a young age, the Warriors follow the orders of their superiors without question. For some, this is done out of blind faith to Marley and an honest belief in the information they have been indoctrinated with. For others, they follow their superiors knowing that disobedience would result in death or worse. Regardless of reasoning, the Warriors abide by their sense of duty to the nation of Marley under all circumstances.

It appears that when outside of Marleyan influence, the Warriors follow a system of "might-makes-right" when settling disagreements. An example of this is the disagreement between Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover against Zeke Yeager over the fate of their fellow Warrior Annie Leonhart. While Reiner and Bertolt wanted to venture back into the Walls in order to rescue Annie, Zeke prioritized obtaining the Founding Titan from Eren Yeager, who would inevitably travel to Shiganshina District in search of the answers within their father's basement. The decision was made only after a brawl between Reiner's Armored Titan and Zeke's Beast Titan in which the latter brutally overpowered the former, receiving little to no injury in the process. With Zeke being the victor, his choice was the decided course of action.

The Warriors are superior to the Warrior Candidates not only in status but also command chain; a candidate's disobedience to a Warrior's command is an equivalent of military disobedience, and has dire consequence not only towards the disobedient candidate but also families. Eren Yeager reminded Gabi Braun of such fact to make her to comply with Pieck Finger's reluctant instruction.

Trivia

 * "Warrior" has occasionally been mistranslated as "soldier" in the official English release. The most notable example of this is in Chapter 31, in which Annie Leonhart's mentioning of being unable to become a "Warrior" is mistranslated as "soldier." However, this is likely due to the fact that the significance of the Warriors was unknown at the time of Volume 8's publication, with the first distinction between "soldier" and "Warrior" not being made until Chapter 39 in Volume 10.

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