Raymond's Roughnecks - What we know so far

Irisz,

You asked me to do some digging into these re-emerged Roughnecks. This is the best that myself and the others you put on job were able to put together. I admit there’s a fair amount of speculation in filling in the gaps, but I think it’s solid enough.

Raymond’s Roughnecks were employed by the Word of Blake during the jihad. The unit was functionally destroyed in 3075 in combat with the Irregulars. Nina Raymond, the unit’s then commander, died in single combat with Annika Magyari. Colin Raymond, her older son, was captured; Bruce Raymond, her younger, survived and escaped with the rest of the command. From there we lose track of them, but conventional wisdom holds that they remained in the Word’s employ and were merged down into another command before being finally destroyed during operation SCOUR. (The MRBC’s claim that all the units that worked for the Word were destroyed has since been proven erroneous)

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Dirty tricks are a part of the mercenary trade. No unit can stay ‘clean’ forever, and sooner or later you’re going to have to do something a little dubious to get your way. And sometimes, it actually ends up that you’re doing the right thing, even if you’re going about it in the least ethical ways possible.

Case in point, what we did to Devon Wainwright. We’d had concerns about him ever since we landed on Ashburton, based on the information we’d been provided on his family’s involvement with the pirates. He had a clear motivation too; overthrow the government and restore the planetary monarchy with his family at the top, and go back to how things had been for the last few hundred years before the Jihad.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

The last twenty-four hours did a fantastic job of upending this entire campaign in a number of different ways. I shouldn’t be surprised that Assault Lance was in the middle of all of it either.

First of all, the Wolves. Okay, so we have done a good job of annoying them, granted, and I kind of understand why they would come after us. First we humiliated them on Keystone, stole a huge pile of parts and disrupted OmniMech production. Then we repeated the process on Kaldiassia, including destroying a prototype OmniMech. Finally, we started a rebellion on Shasta, destroyed half a cluster and sent the rest into a tailspin of crashing morale. I suspect that the Wolves that followed us here to Ashburton are the same ones that were burning towards Shasta as we left.

From the personal journal of Annika Magyari

A couple of ones from my Grandmother's journals that I found interesting, especially given all the edits to one of them - Irisz

3rd February, 3068

I really shouldn't be surprised at what we found. The identity of dad's killers revealed, and it was exactly who we should have expected from day one. If you ever wanted a good example of just how toxic the world of big egos and log memories that is Mercenary culture could be, this is the best proof you'll ever get.

The feud between the Irregulars and Raymond's Roughnecks never really ended. It just went away from time to time, flaring up on those occasions when our units were coincidentally in the same place at the same time. Be it on Galatea or Outreach, it would keep happening. Name calling, deliberate provocation, bar brawls... You name it. All so very petty and banal, but also very much key to the culture. Dad would try to discourage them, of course, but one way or another, these things kept on happening.

Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles

(From Bullets, Books and Bylines: a blog about mercenary literature; Galatea InfoWeb, 3144)

Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles, by Colin Raymond. Red Letter Press, 3108. 307 pages. Non-Fiction (allegedly)

Probably unsurprisingly, there's plenty of (more or less) autobiographical works by mercenaries who fought in the Jihad. With the near death of the industry in its aftermath, making the most of your experiences and trying to earn a few C-Bills off of it would seem to be a good idea. However, this stuff is almost entirely written from the perspective of those who fought against the Word of Blake and their allies. There's very little written from the other side, largely because those mercenaries in the Word's employ tended to end up dead.

So when I found today's book, I was intrigued. Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles bills itself as 'one Mercenary's harrowing tale of the struggles of the Jihad' and 'offering a unique perspective of the conflict from the point of view of a mercenary employed by the Word of Blake." I must admit that I was immediately lured in by said blurb; the fact that I had never once heard of this book before also caught my attention. Oh, and I also fund it at a flea market in a 'three for a C-Bill' box, so if nothing else, it was cheap.

Raymond's Roughecks

StarCorps Update 01-08-3075

(I’ve taken the liberty of preparing this file to aid us with our little hound problem. The MRBC info on the Roughnecks is horribly out of date and likely has been compromised anyway – TW)

Raymond's Roughnecks Insignia

History

The history of Raymond's Roughnecks begins in the mid 30th Century, when the unit formed out of the remnants of several other smaller, fragmented units on Galatea. Unified under Major Jonny Raymond (himself a veteran of numerous campaigns with the now-defunct 777th Strike Regiment), the Roughnecks were able to grow in the low-intensity conflicts that were typical of the close of the 30th century.

While never spectacular, the unit was more chracterised as being rugged ad reliable, determined to fulfill their contracts rather then cutting and running at the first sign of trouble. The result was a unit that grew in experience and capability, stabilising as a BattleMech battalion with attached infantry support. By the turn of the century, the Roughnecks, now led by Jonny's son, Jacob, were rated by the MRB as a Veteran unit and considered to be both reliable and capable. Its troops also developed a reputation for rowdiness and unruliness, considered to be an acceptable trade-off for their clear quality

However, in 3009, he Roughnecks suffered their first major setback with the death of Jacob's daughter and heir-apparent, Julia during a raiding mission. While saddened by the loss, Jacob also knew that it was a part of the mercenary life and named his son Clifford as is new second and heir. When Jacob stepped down in 3012, citing age and injury, Clifford was accepted s their new commander.