Riots?

[BudgetMessiah]

Dropping troops is a potential way to do it, but it dosen't scale well if you have tiny units giving the same effect as a land dreadnought.

Hmm...what do you mean by this? That it takes several small troops to give the benefit of a large troop? And that this is a bad idea?

I would think that, in terms of pacification just from a realism perspective, smaller troops would be vastly superior in ubran upheaval situations compared to larger units. This is plainly the way it works in real life. main battle tanks aren't that useful in policing people, but boots on the ground (with guns, usually) are more than up to the task.