Of the 8 Career Skills, choose 4 to get a free rank. Of the 4 Specialization Skills, choose 2 to get a free rank.

Career Skills: The Recruit specialization is intended to be layered on top of an existing career.

Recruit Specialization Skills: Athletics, Discipline, Survival and Vigilance.

Due to Age of Rebellion's focus on the Galactic Civil War, most groups of PCs find themselves embroiled in conflict very quickly. Against a force like the Empire, any form of military training can mean the difference between life and death. While the Alliance isn't as organized or regimented as the Empire, they do try to give a decent number of their members some form of combat training. This training helps to enhance the Rebels' chance not only to survive in combat but to fight effectively to achieve their goals.

The Recruit specialization is a universal specialization, and the experience cost to take it is ten times the total number of specializations that the character would have after adding the new specialization. While this means that the specialization costs the same as a career specialization, note that universal specializations are not career specializations.

Alliance operatives who go through this training enhance their physical fitness, awareness, and general competency at a wide variety of skills. Those who commit extra time and effort can also enhance their abilities with weapons and ground vehicles, as well as their general knowledge of the many worlds to which they may end up traveling.

Characters from almost any career can benefit from becoming a Recruit and gaining some basic military training. Small teams of specialists going up against the Empire's best will likely need to call upon every scrap of combat ability they collectively possess to survive dramatic fights for their very lives.

The Alliance strongly recommends such training for any Rebels who are actively going into the field, regardless of their career, goals, or role in a team. Even Diplomats are actively encouraged to undergo military training; they do no good to anyone if they cannot come back alive from their latest efforts to negotiate a treaty or acquire supplies. Becoming a Recruit might not make a character a full-fledged special forces hero, but it certainly doesn't hurt.