Raynor's Raiders: the rebel band of Jim Raynor

Raynor's Raiders were a terran military formation once led by Commander Jim Raynor, with a long history of cooperation with the protoss owing in part to Raynor's personal connections. The Raiders were formed from Raynor's Rangers and scattered troops of other factions during the Great War, after the Rangers left the Sons of Korhal in the wake of Arcturus Mengsk abandoning Sarah Kerrigan to the zerg at the Battle of New Gettysburg. Once they ceased being Raynor's Rangers, the primary color of their paint scheme changed from red to blue. Their flagship and base of operations was the Hyperion, a Behemoth-class battlecruiser the Sons of Korhal had captured from the Confederacy and which the Raiders hijacked following the fall of Tarsonis.

Formation and break with the Sons of Korhal#

When the Confederacy abandoned Mar Sara at the start of the Great War, the Mar Sara Colonial Militia joined the Sons of Korhal to survive and formed the nucleus of the elite Raynor's Rangers. Arcturus Mengsk's ruthless behavior during the fall of Tarsonis alienated Captain Jim Raynor and many of the Rangers, who left the Sons of Korhal. The newly independent Raiders fought an immediate action over Tarsonis against their former comrades, destroying the ion cannon that the Sons of Korhal meant to use to stop their escape. They numbered some three hundred on escaping, more than Raynor had expected, and raided the Dylar IV shipyards to seize the Hyperion and several other ships, outmaneuvering General Edmund Duke in the cramped confines of the yard.

Conflict with the zerg and alliance with the protoss#

The small armada found its way to Char after Raynor was psychically called there by Sarah Kerrigan, who lay encased in a chrysalis undergoing her transformation into the Queen of Blades. When she emerged she easily defeated Raynor's forces but allowed him to leave alive. The arrival of protoss forces under Executor Tassadar scattered the fleets, and the Hyperion escaped by jumping blindly into warp space, leaving the Raiders' ground force stranded on Char with only some forty survivors.

On Char Raynor befriended both Tassadar and the Dark Templar prelate Zeratul. Rescued by a protoss fleet sent to arrest Tassadar, the Raiders accompanied the protoss back to Aiur, where Raynor witnessed the Templar rebellion against the Conclave and became friends with Praetor Fenix. The Raiders provided major assistance in the final battle against the first Overmind, holding the northwest flank while Tassadar, Fenix, and Zeratul attacked from the southeast, until Tassadar destroyed the Overmind by channeling protoss energies through the Gantrithor.

The Brood War#

From Aiur the Raiders continued to serve alongside protoss warriors, helping the Khalai refugees evacuate to Shakuras. Raynor remained behind with Fenix, and the two closed the warp gate to prevent the zerg from flooding through. Contacted by a freed Kerrigan, the Raiders rescued Arcturus Mengsk from the United Earth Directorate, which had deposed him, and placed him in cryogenic stasis. In return for destroying the UED's psi disrupter on Braxis, Kerrigan promised to topple the UED fleet, and Raynor and Fenix agreed to work with her despite believing she would betray them, judging the UED the greater threat.

After the alliance drove the UED from Korhal, Kerrigan turned on her partners while they rested, tearing into the Raiders, the Dominion, and the protoss. Fenix was killed, and Raynor swore revenge against Kerrigan before vanishing for a time. The Raiders remained active afterward, aiding Artanis against the last cerebrates on Braxis and delivering an anti-zerg cure to the infested Alexei Stukov alongside Praetor Taldarin.

The Prelude and the Second Great War#

In the years that followed, Dominion media control branded the Raiders the most wanted criminals in the sector, portraying them as a terrorist organization. The battle against the Dominion went badly: the Raiders' fighting strength was a hundredth that of the Dominion, their finances deteriorated, and Raynor turned to heavy drink, with executive Matt Horner holding the movement together. By the outbreak of the Second Great War their numbers had dwindled to a handful of volunteers.

The Second Great War found the Raiders on Mar Sara inciting an anti-Dominion revolt. They accepted a proposition from Raynor's old friend Tychus Findlay to collect xel'naga artifacts for the Moebius Foundation, a venture they needed despite the trade being illegal. Over the course of the war they rescued the colonists of Agria, defended the colony on Haven from protoss purification, broke into New Folsom Prison alongside the spectre Gabriel Tosh, and seized a Confederate adjutant on Tarsonis that proved Mengsk had used psi emitters. They stole the war machine Odin and broadcast the adjutant's recording across Korhal, inciting civilian revolt.

Char and the deposing of Mengsk#

The Raiders' artifact hunt repeatedly brought them into conflict with the Tal'darim, from whom they wrested components on Monlyth, Xil, Typhon XI, and a xel'naga worldship. When the Hyperion reached the Moebius rendezvous, Raynor discovered that Crown Prince Valerian Mengsk owned the Foundation and that the Raiders had been working for him. Valerian offered an alliance to build a device that could deinfest Kerrigan, and Raynor agreed. The combined Raider and Dominion force invaded Char, rescued General Horace Warfield, and used the charging artifact to devastate the hive's defenses and restore Kerrigan to human form. When Tychus Findlay tried to kill her under Mengsk's orders, Raynor shot him and carried Kerrigan from the ruins.

Pursued by Arcturus Mengsk's half of the Dominion Fleet, the Raiders fled with Valerian and turned Kerrigan over to the Umojan Protectorate for study. After the Dominion raided the lab and captured Raynor, the Raiders presumed him executed until Kerrigan revealed he was alive, and they supported her boarding of the prison ship Moros to free him. In the assault on Korhal the Raiders joined the zerg attack on Mengsk's palace, where Raynor arrived in time to destroy the emperor's Keystone controller and allow Kerrigan to kill Mengsk.

After the war#

In the aftermath of Mengsk's fall, the Raiders turned to rebuilding terran civilization and were absorbed into the Dominion Armed Forces under Emperor Valerian Mengsk. When Moebius Corps under Amon invaded Korhal, the Raiders, with the Daelaam under Artanis, foiled their attempt to crash the Sky Shield platform and to steal the Keystone. The Raiders fought under Raynor's command throughout the End War, and later followed Kerrigan into the Void, helping defeat Emil Narud, defend Kerrigan as she ascended into a xel'naga, and aid her in the final defeat of Amon. The group was formally granted amnesty by Emperor Valerian, and many former Raiders went on to hold high positions in his reformed Dominion.

Arsenal and members#

The Raiders favored reconnaissance and guerrilla warfare and made use of older terran technology such as wraiths, goliaths, and medics, much of it leftover from the Sons of Korhal. Over the Second Great War they gained access to more advanced equipment, including banshees and battlecruisers. The group had no standardized uniform, its members often appearing rumpled and unshaven, and it fielded a number of vehicles, aerospace craft, and infantry unique to it, including the SceeVee Special Engineering Corps. Beyond Raynor and Matt Horner, notable members included Chief Engineer Rory Swann, the scientist Egon Stetmann, the doctor Ariel Hanson, and Tychus Findlay.