Hopper Morrison

Hopper Morrison
Personal
Affiliation	Black Warriors Morrison's Extractors
Profile
Position(s)	Pirate Leader
Profession	MechWarrior

King Hopper Morrison was the founder and leader of Morrison's Extractors, one of the most rapacious pirate bands in the thirty-first century.

Physical description

Hopper Morrison is described as a tall, gaunt man. His thick black hair is kept to a short buzz and a small gold crow is tattooed on his right cheek. He often wears dark leathers and carries a Star League-era pistol on his hip.

History

Morrison began his career as a company commander in the Black Warriors Pirate group for the Circinus Federation. In 3032, his men stumbled on a small cache of lostech on an isolated planet while resting between raids. Though it wasn't a major find, the cache included BattleMechs, some of which where outfitted with Star League-era technology. Rather than return to the Federation with their booty, Morrison and his battalion deserted, keeping the contents of the cache for themselves and founding their own pirate group called Morrison's Extractors. They then proceeded to search for a suitable world to establish a base for future operations.

Pain and The Rack

By 3040, Morrison led his renegades to a Periphery planet called Dijonne, which he renamed Pain and designated as the Extractors main base. Unlike other pirate groups, however, the planet’s population was generally left alone, with the pirates only charging them for protection. Hopper later acquired a second planet, the generally abandoned Port Veil which he named The Rack.

Over the next decade, the Extractors would stage many successful raids against Lyran worlds. Morrison's efforts would come to produce two modern ‘Mech regiments while at the same time attracting more focused ire from the Lyran High Command. Following the postponement of the Clan invasion, Morrison and his band were officially prioritized for destruction. Even Archon Katrina Steiner actively supported the hunt for Morrison's band by offering Lyran military support and a sizeable bounty to whoever could deliver Hopper's head. Time and again, however, the Extractors successfully escaped the grasp of Lyran forces.

Morrison’s enemies weren’t limited to sedentary, law-abiding peoples. His Extractors fought whoever he determined if the endeavor produced desirable outcomes. For example, the Extractors would become responsible for destroying two battalions of Simonson's Cutthroats, another pirate group, in 3056. While most Cutthroat survivors ended up joining the Extractors, a few stragglers successfully fled, vowing revenge against Morrison personally.

The Rim Collection

By 3059, Morrison’s ambitions expanded to covet new worlds. He became determined to either shatter or dominate the nearby Rim Collection. Though he certainly had the means to accomplish this aspiration, the mercenary group Able's Aces became his main obstacle as they were contracted by the Rim Collection to provide security across its handful of worlds. Morrison’s campaign began by whittling at the Aces through smaller engagements. Through these efforts, Morrison eventually managed to secretly recruit two of the Aces in support of his cause; one of these was an intelligence officer who remained in the Aces Headquarters as a mole while the other was a skilled MechWarrior believed to have been killed in action.

Caldarium

On the planet Caldarium, Extractor forces ambushed and destroyed a full company of the Aces and their aerial support in the Battle of Birdsong Ridge. While scavenging destroyed machines, Morrison discovered a survivor named Benjamin Rassor. Morrison proposed that Benjamin join him as a fair alternative to execution; Benjamin accepted the offer, justifying it as a “simple contractual agreement”. Morrison gave him a Mad Cat OmniMech as the price of his betrayal and employed him to lead a portion of his forces in future efforts against his former compatriots.

Gillfillan’s Gold

By 3061, Morrison had destabilized the Rim Collection enough to consider an attack on its capital word, Gillfillan's Gold. Up to this point, the Extractors had sought to make the Aces lose their security contract through perceived incompetence. He also made efforts to split the unity of the Rim Collection by playing individual planets against the others in various ways. Having conducted a number of such maneuvers, Morrison determined that time was ripe to strike the Rim Collection’s capital and fulfill his goal one way or another.

However, Major Jerry Able, the leader of the Aces, suspected that Hopper had become more ambitious than the average pirate. His attacks were less oriented towards profit and more so for political outcomes, giving Major Able some insight into Morrison’s objective. The Aces anticipated Morrison’s move and orchestrated an ambush on Gillfillan's Gold in 3062. The trap was precipitated by a deception operation involving a major departure of Ace units, allegedly to earn supplemental funds through external contracts. The ruse succeeded in drawing Morrisons forces to Gillfillan's Gold where the Extractors were then attacked by the majority of the Aces and routed from the planet. Incidentally, the successful defense was in part due to Benjamin Rassor’s brother, Harley Rassor, who had only recently been recruited into the Aces.

Kingdom’s End

Soon after Morrison’s failure at Gillfillan’s Gold, the Aces followed the pirates to The Rack, liberating the planet and destroying most of the Extractors in the process. Among those killed was the traitor, Benjamin. However, Hopper's King Crab ‘Mech escaped the battle, apparently departing from the planet thanks to a hidden Leopard class DropShip.

Personality

Morrison was a greedy, ruthless, and cruel man. He was considered the perfect pirate lord: fearless in battle, but only fighting when he believed that doing so will yield considerable profit. Morrison has also proven to be very cunning: his recruitment of two Able's Aces members serves as recent testament to this characteristic.

His determination to acquire great wealth is rumored to be to compensate for a childhood spent in poverty. Other rumors hint that Morrison is mentally unstable, though he apparently has had no problems commanding his people. Additionally, his restrain with the population of Dijonne/The Pain shows than even the bloodthirsty King could be pragmatic and tolerant.

A trivial rumor about Hopper Morrison is that he renamed Dijonne to Pain simply because he couldn't spell Dijonne, though this tidbit remains unconfirmed.

BattleMechs

Hopper Morrison piloted a King Crab..

Notes

• Morrison always carries a neural whip.
• Most of the fierce reputation of the Extractors was due to the natural cruelty of Morrison himself.

Bibliography

• The Periphery, 2nd Edition
• Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised
• By Blood Betrayed (novel)
• Planet Digest: Pain in Shrapnel #10