It’s so surprising to me, not that they could justify it, but that the Clan council even allowed them to bring some clan tech into the sphere. Is that the only instance of it? Or did anyone try to sneak a mad cat in too just in case?
I know that it's actually due to real world factors with how the setting was developed, but it is kinda amusing to me that the Dragoons managed to nail exactly the right level to downgrade all their tech to, while being at "How do you do, fellow kids" levels of failing to fit in in so many other regards.
They actually didn't.. at first. See they'd initially downgraded to the level the inner sphere had been when the star league fell. Even had a few warships, because in the 2780's everyone still had whole fleets of them, many the same classes as used by the sldf.
As they worked their way around the side of the inner sphere via deep periphery towards the outworlds region (as the plan was to basically go all the way around and come in on the davion side to keep people from connecting them to the sldf exodus route) they'd been sending spies into the inner sphere to get updated intel.. and found they had to downgrade even further to match. So they stripped all the fancy armor, engines, guns, etc out, rebuilding everything they could. Then stuffed all that star league hardware into the holds of the warships and some spare dropships, and turned them into a sort of orbital brian cache in the oort cloud of a star. (After the clan invasion the dragoons would send an expedition to recover all that stuff, since they no longer had to hide. It forms part of the story from the "Wolf Pack" novel)
But they still didn't figure out even during the extra time they took them that the IS didn't have Imps or Annihilators or Fireflys or Hoplites or any of the rest of the funky Mechs they brought. I would think that would be easier to figure out than whether or not CASE or Endo Steel were still in use anywhere.
It is important to note that what the IS had was really weird. Some 'Mechs are "practically extinct" but there still are some hanging around here and there. Like there are a few Mackies still kicking around in early 3000s!
Also, as much as it is a meme, people WERE discovering SLDF era warehouses and bunkers with Lostech. So it was plausible that these guys had simply stumbled onto a couple such stockpiles and decided to make a merc unit.
Heck, Snord's gang of cleptomaniacs repeatedly "accidentally luckily" found a bunch of SLDF stockpiles to arm their unit with. (Yes, I know why he was that lucky) so this all managed to add plausibility to the Dragoons.
(I do love the fanmade 3028 tech book that takes every opportunity that they can to ponder out loud how the heck do these Dragoons keep finding these rare 'Mechs.)
Zalman's are big names in clan steel viper, since it's the bloodname from their founder, lots of their Khans were Zalman's. Given the vipers were a pivotal vote in the clan council to get the Dragoons Compromise they had to be placated.. especially since their support was fairly tenative. Their khans at the time saw the wisdom of gaining information and being prepared but most of their warriors were crusaders who looked forward to invading.
So humoring one of the few trueborns to go along, and one that had major political ties would have been important. Sorta like how Natasha Kerensky had that highly customized Marauder originally.
I always wondered what motivated some Trueborns, including a bloodnamed Kerensky, to go with a bunch of freeborns to the Inner Sphere to pose as mercenaries.
She was an item with Jaime's brother, so she was already a bit Clan rebel who could back it up, but also a Warden and the Kerensky line in particular seemed liberal with their knowledge and heritage, I'm guessing they shared the unedited Journals with their line and not just ilKhans from their line.
Given that they were allowed some Star League tech, and the original "Behemoth" was retconned into a Stone Rhino, I will never forgive Catalyst for not making it a 2/3/0 with four Star League era LB10Xs and six medium lasers.
(Yes, I know theres a version with four LB5Xs but thats not the same)
Mark my words- there’s something strange about that enormous elite mercenary unit that appeared out of nowhere with mechs that haven’t been seen on the battlefield in centuries and a warrior named Kerensky.
The 7th commando was stacking bodies like corded fire wood. The dragoon intelligence assests would identify what was snopping around the 7th showed up and kindly asked the offending party to leave and would come home.
Worst part is, if ComStar wins everyone in that system is getting glassed. They cannot let rumors of WarShips still being around get out, and they will scour a system of life to make sure of it...
The Clans don't really do WarShip combat on principle (orbital bombardment is Dezgra), so they probably just kept what they had from the Exodus Fleet in relatively good condition, most likely only laying a new hull when the old ones were rendered unfit for service. Plus, the Wolf's Dragoons are on a Recon mission, so they probably sent the smallest, fastest ships available so they could get out of dodge rather than stand and fight.
That said, it's still even money one way or the other IMO. There are too many factors that could alter the outcome for me to feel certain saying who would win that exchange. Both sides would be fairly green (having not faced serious ship-to-ship combat in hundreds of years), and the scale of Void Navy combat makes it incredibly unpredictable at the best of times.
The main deciding factors would be if ComStar sent enough for a knock-down drag-out brawl, and whether the Wolf's Dragoons get the drop on them or not.
There were a lot of people who thought that her name was an affectation, amongst other things. Or that she was a completely unrelated Kerensky, and used it to generate attention.
The biggest thing fueling the doubters was almost certainly that, of all the ways they could imagine re-establishing contact between the IS and the Exodus Fleet, a merc group emerging from the periphery a LONG way from the fleet’s last known point of departure wasn’t high on that list.
There were a lot of people who thought that her name was an affectation, amongst other things. Or that she was a completely unrelated Kerensky, and used it to generate attention.
She also suspiciously didn't age much for the decades she was in the Inner Sphere so people also thought it was a Dread Pirate Roberts thing, that she was just a marketing gimmick who didn't actually exist, and various other silly ideas in sidebars explaining away the name.
She was always presented as a something else is going on hookline for the Dragoons. The IS agreed on interpretation was the Dragoons found an intact Brian Castle and mothballed fleet and managed to keep it secret. So the Houses were looking for that source and not Exodus Road.
Having the star Mechwarrior call herself Kerensky was just branding.
Pretty much. Pristine ancient gear, a fleet, a portable space station factory? They had found a treasure trove with all the SLDF markings. And since outside of the Black Widows the pilots were good but not unnatural it helped obscure things. Also having Cranston and later Rhonda run smoke for the Dragoons helped. Since that got them all the secrets they knew were on Outreach.
I mean, it's a pretty important name, but that also means that some people will embrace that importance. After all, we all understand that Denzel Washington isn't related to George.
In universe most of the Great Houses had their suspicions.
But realistically they all tried their damnest not to question the gift horse too much when it was on their side because from the Dragoons arrival to the clan invasion there really wasn't peace.
A lot of smart people thought that they were just mercs who found an old SLDF base. Until 'Mechs like the Imp and Annihilator showed up. And they had a space station.
It was when they would get badly hurt and then return with fresh troops and 'Mechs either not seen for decades or brand new that everyone got suspicious.
I could be wrong on this but I believe in the original rulebook that it did allude to there being suspicion that there was something "odd" about them.
I do know it also alluded to there being weird reports in that stretch of the periphery. While I'm sure FASA didn't know exactly what they'd wind up doing with it, it's what turned into the clans.I do know it also alluded to there being weird reports in that stretch of the periphery. While I'm sure FASA didn't know exactly what they'd wind up doing with it, it's what turned into the clans.
There's a blurb on the Hoplite, I think, about a CCAF intelligence officer questioning their story. They did metallurgical analysis and the "really old mech" they had was built in the last few years. He was told to not worry about it because they were coming to Capellann employment soon.
More like broadcasting on open radio channels cause by the time the enemy is in loudspeaker range they are also in weapon range (and probably dead of old age)
I named mine "Delete" painted flames on it and added as many PPC-X's as possible.
Goodbye, random locust, there isn't even scrap left, just a smoking hole!
He said small independent mercenary company when they burst onto the scene with 5 full mech regiments and full supporting arms, and dropships right when all of those things were at a critical shortage... 😀
So kind of a niche lore question, but were massive mercenary units more common during the star league? I recall a few mentions of mercs working for Amaris but otherwise not a whole lot, though I’m.sure the trade still exists. If nothing else it provides a good avenue for the great houses to creatively bypass limitations on their armed forces and a means for deniable raids and the like. But was the average mercenary unit running around at brigade or divisional strength? Because iirc, 3SW onwards, the average mercenary unit doesn’t tend to get beyond maybe a reinforced company in size. Many of the notable mercenary units are notable because they are the exceptions that buck the trend.
Did clan Wolf have reason to expect the dragoons to be easily overlooked at the size of five galaxy analogues, a naval star, and support units? Or were they just wildly out of touch and this was a casualty of their rewriting of history?
Technically, they were just an "enlarged" mercenary division, with multiple mechs companies as backup mechs.
Again, this wouldn't be that strange just before the exodus with the whole Amaris civil war resulting in massive battle groups.
The reason for all the extra mechs, is because the clanner assumed the combat loss would be intensive, since all the mechs they sent were "obsolete" 200 year old relics.
Its like sending a full battalion of Sherman tanks into Ukraine, everyone would assume it wouldn't be that much of a fight. then the other side turns out were fielding T-34s. so suddenly this museum level of shit mechs is actually on a equal power level.
Large mercenary units were only formed out of the Star League's wreckage at the start of the 1st Succession War. The Clans were assuming that militaries were still 1st Succession war sized.
There are 9 regiment-sized mercenaries. Lillian Lancers. Big Mac. Twelfth Star Guards were 7 regiments. Wolf said *don't look into our history if you want us to work for you. " And everyone said "aight" . But the force itself was ridiculous. The Dragoons even left more in the Periphery when they showed up and went " shit, look at these clowns... "
Before they left, merc companies were a thing, and IIRC one of the incidents that made Kerensky commit himself to the Exodus was a SLDF unit resigning en masse and hanging their shingle as guns for hire.
Then, generations later, the Outbound Flight showed up in Clan turf, and when their crew was captured they, among other things, confirmed the Clans started sending intelligence assets back towards the Inner Sphere (mostly landing in the Periphery and relying on secondhand reports of activity deeper in House territory )that indicated that big time mercenary commands wielding enough firepower to be regional kingmakers were a factor. This is a big part of what led to the Dragoon Compromise, figuring they could go there and get live fire evaluations of the Great Houses without blowing their cover before the invasion.
Imp. One of the more mind-boggling inclusions, since it was an entirely post-exodus design. But once they established their mech design cred by working with Blackwell, bringing the Imp in as a WD-designed new mech was doable, at a bit of a stretch.
A stretch is putting it lightly. The inner Sphere had not made a new mech design in 100 years if I'm correct? So how the fuck would they be able to explain some Mercinary "upstart" somehow having the funds to create a brand new state of the art mech design that the Sucessor states with far more money than them couldn't
Remind me of that one fic where his stuffs was indeed obsolete as C* star had pretty much kept its corporate culture and this lead to fun stuff like the DropMech.
Was that the one where the Inner Sphere went deep into bespoke artisanal custom nonsense? Like the average tech level was still slightly worse than the Star League, but they had developed all that sidegrade tech like blazers and xpulse lasers and stuff on a limited basis for their elites.
"Centuries have passed. The Spheroids have probably designed hundreds, nay THOUSANDS of new 'Mechs with vastly more advanced tech than what SLDF had. We have to give the poor Dragoons some new stuff so that they won't get outgunned by local militias."
Counterintelligence versus gathering/operational intelligence. Plus the Crusaders were often trueborn elitiests and put the worst people in those dezgra kind of positions.
Dragoons got Goliath Scorpion irregular training and the best Diamond Shark intel.
The real answer probably boils down to the Dragoons mostly taking various freebirth weirdos that Kerlin Ward and the Wolf's figured would fit in outside Clan society, and said freebirth weirdos being generally better at thinking on their feet that the trueborn clanners that make up most of the Clan Watch.
Sounds like they took all the best intelligence officers to form WolfNet. That or WolfNet understands just how much dirty work there is in intelligence operations while the Watch officers for the various Clans still largely buy into their honour bound culture a little too much to really get into skulduggery.
It would make sense that WolfNet got the best Watch officers, since this was a recon mission and sending your best intelligence spooks on a mission of gathering intelligence just ...it just seems like a perfect fit.
Also, like others said, it is way easier for WolfNet to spy on new recruits to see if they are sketchy than it is for Clan Watch to spy on the people that they are actively oppressing as invaders. Smaller scale of operations and most of the people in the operating area are NOT hostile to WolfNet when they are doing counter-intelligence.
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u/TheRealLeakycheese Aug 20 '26
"Maybe if I hide at the back and stay quiet, no one will notice me..."
....
INNER SPHERE SCREAMING ! !