Mercenary Review Board
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ComStar's Mercenary Review Board (MRB) and since 3052 its independent supra-national successor, the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission (MRBC), serve as the Human Sphere-wide official registrar for all legal mercenary units.
Contents
Overview
The MRBC and previously, the MRB (its predecessor organisation), functions as a mercenary guild, brokering and arbitrating mercenary contracts in the endless wars in the Inner Sphere and also in the Periphery. If a mercenary unit is not registered with the MRB/MRBC then it is not usually considered to be a legitimate mercenary, and therefore not subject to POW rights, among other drawbacks.
Apart from registering mercenaries and providing a ranking system to gauge performance and reliability, the MRBC also serves as a court of arbitration in contract disputes for both employers and mercenaries.
ComStar's MRB was at the same time also a criminal extradition service and a banking house. Arbitration of contracts by ComStar's Mercenary Review Board provided a valuable safeguard on both sides, as any unit failing to perform contracted services after taking an advance found itself unable to evade ComStar's almost universal reach. ComStar informed other potential employers of a rogue unit's actions, and had the power to threaten an Interdiction against any House employing such a unit. To ensure fair dealings on the part of employers as well as those they hired, the MRB provided for a panel of ComStar administrators to hear claims concerning breaches of faith and to judge the veracity of complaints. Upon reaching a verdict, the panel broadcasted its findings throughout the Inner Sphere. As the reputations of mercenary units and their employers have a bearing on subsequent negotiations involving other units or Houses, violating contractual terms offered little profit to any concerned. [1]
History
The Mercenary Review Board
Formed in 2789 by ComStar founder Jerome Blake, the Mercenary Review Board allowed ComStar agents to serve as brokers for all mercenaries and their employers in the Inner Sphere. [1] The world of the Galatea with its numerous Hiring Halls became the "Mercenary's Star", the greatest center of the mercenary trade in the Inner Sphere where mercenaries could train, rest, repair and negotiate their contracts.
While publicly accepted as a means to ensure neutral dealings for all parties, ComStar in truth developed the MRB as a clandestine means to monitor and control mercenary forces. Attempts by mercenaries themselves to setup their own competitors to the MRB, such as the short-lived Mercenaries Guild (2956-2968), fell prey to the determined opposition of ComStar to prevent any threat to its role as a neutral arbiter of inter-House dealings. [1]
Outreach
The first real change in the mercenary business in centuries came in small steps, and did not affect the Mercenary Review Board as such. Wolf's Dragoons were granted the world of Outreach in 3030 and began to establish it as a new Hiring Hall. The center of the Inner Sphere's mercenary business gradually shifted from Galatea to Outreach; Galatea remained a major mercenary center, and several other, minor hiring halls exist elsewhere.
The end of the Mercenary Review Board
Through their clandestine collaboration with the invading Clans and because of the ramnifications of the failed Operation Scorpion, ComStar lost most of the trust that the powers of the Inner Sphere had previously placed in the organisation. In the schism that followed the upheaval within the organization, the Word of Blake zealots broke away and ComStar reverted from a mystical sect to a commercial provider of communications and other technology. Bereft of their status as a impartial and trustworthy power, ComStar could not muster the authority anymore to control and arbitrate the mercenary business as they used to and the MRB collapsed in 3052. [1] During the peace summit that Primus Mori held on Terra in the spring of 3052, Precentor Martial Focht proposed to abandon control. [2]
The Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission
To replace the defunct MRB, the Houses agreed to have the Board re-form as a jointly administered committee made up of representatives from each government. ComStar was allowed to maintain an active seat, and another seat was granted to Wolf's Dragoons, arguably the most famous mercenary unit in existence. Outreach, the home of Wolf's Dragoons and premier hiring hall, was chosen as the official home of the new Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission (MRBC) which formed in 3053. [2]
The MRBC essentially continues the MRB's business. In reference to Wolf's Dragoons, who represent the mercenary trade, the quality ratings for mercenary units established by the MRBC became colloquially known as "Dragoon Rating".
Following the massive destruction inflicted on Outreach by the Jihad in 3067, the MRBC moved back to Galatea, where they had previously only maintained a subsidiary bureau.
The Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission reportedly is still active during the Dark Age, and once again appears to be the primary authority on the mercenary business.[citation needed]