Sarna News: Bad 'Mechs - Yeoman

Grady Kiefer

Grady Kiefer
Character Profile
Profession Arena Gladiator

Overview[edit]

Grady Kiefer was a MechWarrior and at least for a time, a gladiator in the arenas of the Solaris Games. He was noted as the 3049 "Champion of Solaris", a title previously held by such luminaries as Gray Noton or Justin Xiang Allard.[1]

While Grady Kiefer being listed as the 3049 champion is fully canonical, there is no (canonical) record of his actions prior to or following his 3049 championship.

Apocryphal Content Starts

The information after this notice comes from apocryphal sources; the canonicity of such information is uncertain.
Please view the reference page for information regarding their canonicity.


Apocryphal Character Information[edit]

CCG Card[edit]

Grady Kiefer is mentioned by name in the fluff text for two "Solaris Games Veteran" cards for the BattleTech Collectible Card Game (CCG), in the MechWarrior and Commander's Edition (otherwise identical):

Champion don't mean squat. Ever hear of Niculcea Dumitrescu? Grady Kiefer? Chaka Mobutu? I didn't... oh, uh, hello, Kai....

This implies that Kiefer's fame and career in the Solaris Games was short-lived, and that he was largely forgotten again a few years later already.

It should be noted that the CCG cards, although official, do explicitly not count among the canonical sources for BattleTech at this time. The fluff text quoted above must therefore be considered apocryphal.

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries[edit]

Over the course of the storyline for the (apocryphal) MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries computer game, which is set between 3044 and the 3052 battles of Luthien and Tukayyid, the player has the opportunity to partake in (and win) the 3049 Solaris Games championships: As a promotional stunt, the Solaris Game Council has invited mercenary units from across the Inner Sphere to enter the 3049 Championship Games. None of the three arenas ("Death or Glory", "Neon Grid", "Iron Skull Mountain") nor any of the other named contenders that appear in the game have been mentioned elsewhere in BattleTech canon.

Although the player can choose any name to use in the game, the 3049 championship implies that the player's "canonical" counterpart in the BattleTech universe was Grady Kiefer (a name not mentioned in the game, except if the player should name his in-game persona so).

Based on the assumption that the player character from the game is Grady Kiefer, it would establish him to have been the lone survivor of the mercenary Team Venom who continued his mercenary career with nothing but the inherited funds of the otherwise destroyed unit and his COM-7X Commando. He may subsequently have joined Hansen's Roughriders or led his own unit, which in turn may or may not have been Team Venom (if the player elects to run his own mercenary unit instead of joining the Roughriders, he has total freedom in naming the unit). He would then have experienced the basic points of the games' storyline, including being stranded behind enemy lines in the early Clan Invasion, escaping the Clans on a pirate DropShip from the Oberon Confederation (the FireStalion), and fighting against the Clans again on Wolcott and Luthien.

Being a full-time mercenary MechWarrior would explain his absence from the Solaris Games prior to and after the 3049 championship.

Apocryphal Content Ends

References[edit]

  1. Solaris VII Player's Handbook, p. 14

Bibliography[edit]