One of the most rapacious pirate bands to form in the past
fifteen years, Morrison's Extractors owe their fierce reputation
partly to the Star League-era technology they possess and partly
to the natural cruelty of their self-styled king, Hopper
Morrison. A company commander in the Black Warriors of the
Circinus Federation, Morrison stumbled on a small cache of
lostech on an isolated planet while resting up between raids in
Lyran space. Though not a major find by most standards, the cache
included BattleMechs, and to Morrison it looked like immense
wealth. Rather than return to the Circinus Federation with their
booty, Morrison and his battalion kept the contents of the cache
and used it to start a new career in banditry.
By the end of the 3040s, less than eight years after going
rogue, Morrison's Extractors had become the scourge of Lyran
space near the Periphery border, and had also raided worlds in
their former nation with great success. The bandits' exploits
continually attracted more renegade MechWarriors in search of
action and easy money, and by 3048 the Extractors had grown to
the size of a regiment. When forming the pirate band in 3042,
Hopper Morrison had set up a base of operations on a planet far
away from civilized space; he christened the world Pain, in an
apparent attempt at dark humor. In 3048, Morrison took over
another barren world nearby, which he named The Rack.
The Clan invasion unfortunately did not touch the Extractors,
whose holdings lay some distance from the Clans' chosen route
toward Terra. In fact the invasion served as a boon to Morrison
and his men, who found their favorite Lyran targets virtually
stripped of troops, as the Commonwealth tried desperately to fend
off Clan attacks. Morrison's Extractors terrorized countless
Lyran border worlds, carefully staying just far enough from the
Clan front to keep from attracting the invaders' attention. Since
the Truce of Tukayyid halted the Clan advance in 3052, Lyran
military units have once again made the Extractors a primary
target; Archon Katrina Steiner-Davion of the Lyran Alliance
recently offered a sizable bounty for Hopper Morrison's head. So
far, however, the pirates have escaped the grasp of both Lyran
forces and units of the AFFC.
In the past two years, the Extractors have grown even larger.
The unit gained the bulk of its expansion troops when Morrison
and his men tangled with Simonson's Cutthroats, a mercenary unit
employed by the Federated Commonwealth that went rogue over
disputes about combat assignments against the Clans. When the
dust settled, the Extractors had defeated the Cutthroats and
absorbed the majority of their surviving MechWarriors. A few
stragglers fled to parts unknown in the deep Periphery, vowing
revenge against Morrison, but it remains to be seen if they will
ever have the strength to take them on with a hope of winning.
The Extractors currently field approximately two BattleMech
regiments, including some Star League-vintage machines. Morrison
has also expanded his band's list of targets to include the
fledgling Rim Collection, whose six worlds are only just
beginning to lift themselves out of centuries of poverty.
A cruel man, Hopper Morrison enjoys causing pain and
suffering. Rather than granting mercy to captured military men,
he is infamous for letting them suffer a painful death chosen by
an audience of his cronies.
(Deployment as of 3058)
Unit Name Experience Regiments Homeworld 1st Extractors Regular 1 Pain (CO: King Hopper Morrison) 2nd Extractors Regular 1 The Rack (CO: King Hopper Morrison)
[Back to the Mercenary Units of the Inner Sphere]
Battletech ® is a Registered Trademark of FASA
Corporation. Original Battletech material Copyright © 1994 by
FASA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission.
Any use of FASA Corporation's copyrighted material or trademarks
in this archive should not be viewed as a challenge to those
copyrights or trademarks. BattleTech ® is a registered trademark
of FASA Corporation.