Warrior Unit

The warriors (戦士) are an organization of the Marley military composed entirely of volunteer Eldian youths. Out of the hundreds of warriors in service to Marley, a total of seven are given the privilege of holding the power of the Titans.

Duty
The Eldian warriors in service of Marley are obligated 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 subjugation within isolated internment zones. Most Eldian warriors serve as cannon fodder on the battlefield, performing the riskiest and deadliest tasks and strategies while the other Marleyan soldiers remain out of harms way. When the need arises, the warriors who demonstrate the most exceptional performance on the battlefield are given the privilege of inheriting one of the seven Titans which Marley obtained during the Great Titan War. Due to the rarity of these individuals, efforts are taken to ensure that, if possible, these warriors are not put into situations which could lead to the loss of one of Marley's Titans.

In recent years, the Titan warriors 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 of the Walls on the island of Paradis. However, when the plan was deemed a failure after the battle of Shiganshina District, the remaining Titans warriors served instead as the primary means of land-based assault during the Marley Mid-East War.

Structure
Cadets make up the main force of the warriors of Marley. These cadets can vary in age, ranging from young adults to some as young as twelve years old. New warriors entering training range in ages between five and seven, young enough to be strongly susceptible to Marleyan propaganda. Pre-adolescent warriors may also be potential candidates for inheriting the power of the Titans. Out of the many hundreds of warriors enlisted in the Marleyan military, only seven at any given time are able to inherit the power of the Titans. While these Titan warriors are not spared from deadly situations in combat or infiltration missions, efforts are taken to ensure that these warriors are not killed in action if possible. Upon inheriting a Titan, these warriors keep their Titans for a 13-year "term" before they are passed down to a warrior cadet chosen for the inheritance. This term limit was not established by choice, but due to the "Curse of Ymir" which ensures that any Eldian who inherits the power of the Titans will die 13 years after receiving the power.

Out of the seven Titan warriors in service to Marley, the greatest of these is the warchief. In the absence of Marleyan authority, such as during the Paradis Island Operation, the warchief acts as the head strategist in battle and has the final say over the fates of the other warriors. While warchiefs are still expected to demonstrate respect and submission before their Marleyan peers, the warchiefs are granted the privilege of participating in discussions and meetings between the highest leaders of the Marley military.

Despite the authority of the warchief, all warriors including the warchief are under the control of a Marleyan commander to whom they must answer.

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 their superiors and 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. The only known 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 decided upon.

Trivia

 * The name of this organization, "warriors" has occasionally been mistranslated as "soldier" in the official English release. The most notable example of his 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 "soldiers" and "warriors" not being made until Chapter 39 in Volume 10.