In the original module there were no fighters in the Royal Marine order
of battle. The reason that was had nothing to do with any sort of
military decision but that the writers needed a small tough scout ship
craft that was ideal for a small group or team and so we got the assault
scout which is a much beloved ship, I believe.
I wanted to play
the Warriors of White Light module but since we’ve all played or read it
I felt that it might not be very interesting. Instead I proposed to
attempt to capture the flavor of the original while being original
moving the setting 100 years into the future and use the published
modules as history. Without even considering the issue of fighter craft I
just updated the Royal Marine order of battle. Using the ships that
were on order in the original module I designated them as replacements
for older hulls plus invented a few new names but basically left the
order of battle identical to the original module. However a prospective
player had an interesting character concept that involved having a
family member that had been a fighter pilot and I started asking myself
why the Royal Marines don’t have fighters.
The answer is they
did; the Raptor Squadron. It was extremely popular but not as versatile
as assault scouts. Initially the Royal Marines relegated Raptor Squadron
to anti-piracy and outer system patrol due to their inability to board
and inspect merchant ships. They were extremely effective in anti piracy
but long patrols in the outer system lead to crew fatigue. It was
judged that the fighters weren’t fully suitable to the mission of the
Royal Marines and yet they persisted in the order of battle as they were
new and still being paid for. Eventually there was a push to use them
in support of Space Fleet missions (and thus get the UPF to pay for
them) but deploying them out system was a logistics nightmare without a
carrier. The Royal Marines improvise by attaching heavy shuttles and
latter a confiscated freighter christened the Pelican. However the final
demise of Clarion’s fighter program came in a moment reminiscent of
desperate last stands from the annals of history from places like the
Alamo and Talos IV.
The Raptor Squadron saw action first in White
Light System against pirates and one major sathar incursion. They were
credited with the destruction of a sathar destroyer.
Deployed
with Space Fleet to the Dramune System they were instrumental to the
police action at Outer Reach. The Royal Marine’s experience with this
deployment led to a brief discussion of acquiring a carrier for the
squadron but the compromise measure commissioning a confiscated
freighter as a tender was the result.
In the Liberty System, also
known as FS 30, (see module SFKH 4) they were stationed to both support
the fledgling system defense militia of the Mhemne and to be a training
cadre. Their efforts met with mixed results there as the Raptor
Squadron was a bit sensitive to the issue of whether fighters were a
suitable militia weapons platform and the Mhemne were unsuited,
physiologically, to fighter operations (see the details of the module)
as they pass out during high G maneuvers. The pilots of the Raptor
Squadron were understandably proud of their craft, the squadron and
their accomplishments but the Mhemne leadership pushed for their
reassignment requesting larger ships for training their fledgling navy.
Before the squadron could be reassigned they took on two sathar carriers
in a desperate suicidal last stand. They stopped a worm incursion but
the squadron was largely decimated.
It was decided to not replace
its losses and funds were diverted toward the purchase of War Hawk and
eventually Nightingale. A handful surviving of Raptor fighters were
stripped of weapons and fuel and stored away in stasis against a future
need. One is on display next to the Osprey Museum.
