Harlech, Outreach, October 25, 3054
Since the occasion (BattleTechnology#1 7) when Wolf's Dragoons asked us to rerun two articles they had originally censored, BattleTechnology's staff have been doing some thinking and some digging. The articles mention first a number of children orphaned by the Fourth Succession War who were adopted by the Dragoons, and then another, much higher number of children being raised by the Dragoons a few years later.
Much of Outreach is off limits to off worlders. But Harlech is the center of administration for the planet, while Wolf City is the site of the Mercenary Review Board, the Mercenary Hiring Hall, and the Central HQ for the Dragoons' own regiments. Agents who spend a long time in Wolf City or Harlech hear the civilian vs military complaints, the current scandals about review cases, the sins of recent ex-employers, who's hiring, and the Dragoons' official communiques. The Dragoons hide their differences from strangers. The agents learn to watch age groups and factions when they show distaste for each other in bars, to listen with a keen ear to the very insults they use. It's not just the 'old-warriors-who-know-how-it's-done' versus the 'young pups'. It's deeper and stranger than that.
When one of the Dragoon-raised young warriors, the so- called 'Wolf Pack', refered to another with the Clans insult 'Freebirth!', our hypothesis was confirmed. Many though not all - of the children raised by the Dragoons are Clans-type clones raised in sibkos. By official Dragoon policy, all of the younger generation have equal opportunities. Yet the cadets who remember homes and family, and being treated as individuals differ significantly from the sibko-bred Dragoons. These latter refer to their unit as 'The Wolf Dragoons' and consider themselves a Clan. Not Clan Wolf, but Clan Wolf Dragoon. Their teachers were Clanbred; many of these people exhibit an arrogance and inflexibility when dealing with other social institutions that remind us irresistibly of Clans MechWarrriors.
These sibko-bred MechWarriors ally themselves with a strange group; a minority group of former MechWarriors from Clan Nova Cat and Clan Smoke Jaguar captured in the Battle of Luthien who became bondsmen to Clan Wolf Dragoon, loyal now to them. Several of these, including one Major Elson, new memberof the Council of Officers of the Dragoons, carry clout with the sibko-bred as 'true' Clans Warriors. 'True Warriors' as opposed even to long-time Dragoons recruited from the Inner Sphere's pherolds. They are gaining a significant political base. Wolf-watchers see the resurgence of the Dragoon custom of wearing patches from an old unit as significant - especially as the unit involved is the Nova Cats, and some of the wearers never served with the Cats.
Yes, the Wolves are involved in politics again. More significantly, Colonel Jaime Wolf, the only officer who commands the loyalty of all factions, is getting old. He was in his fifties at the end of the Fourth Succession War; that was more than thirty years ago. He is not a product of genetic breeding, but a 'Freebirth'; even if his parents were Clans-bred (and we don't have any data about them), his genes were not selected for long life and health, as the Clone-tank children were. It's unlikely that he will remain the prime-condition warrior for as long as a decade more.
The death earlier this year of his only remaining child, Mackenzie Wolf of the Black Widows, has left the succession open. Strangely enough, the 'True Warriors' seem to be gathering behind a freebirth, Mackenzie Wolf's son Alpin, a callow and forgettable person. To command Wolf's Dragoons (or The Wolf Dragoons) demands forceful personal charisma as well as proven ability as leader and MechWarrior. None of the available candidates have all of these qualifications.
The Warring Dragoons
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