War Pigs

The War Pigs were a band of terran mercenaries operating across the Koprulu sector. They began as a Terran Confederacy military program, an alternative to neural resocialization that drew condemned criminals from the general prison population and sent them on dangerous, deniable missions as expendable assets. Despite a reputation as heavy drinkers and barroom brawlers, the War Pigs proved to be some of the most dependable mercenaries in the sector, and they later sold their services to factions including Raynor's Raiders and the Terran Dominion.

Origins#

The War Pigs were a Terran Confederacy military program used as an alternative to neural resocialization, since the process let convicts retain their unique talents and expertise rather than having their minds rewritten. Convicted criminals serving life sentences or facing death were taken from the general prison population and sent on dangerous missions as expendable troops. The War Pigs were formed as an organization around 2497, with Turfa Dei and Fen Chakra among the original members. By early 2499, prior to the Great War, they had come under the command of Center for State Security bureaucrat Tamsen Cauley, who acquired an old warship, the General Lee, and tasked War Pig Nuura Joss with retrofitting it.

The Megamedes mission#

In March 2499, the Terran Confederacy was conducting the Megamedes Project, alien research carried aboard the battlecruiser Hephaestus. When the organism got loose, Cauley was ordered to neutralize it and recover the project data, and he sent the War Pigs, Captain Brock Valevoss and his subordinates Turfa Dei, Fen Chakra, Vin Iggins, and Romy Pyrius, to do so, pointedly ordering them not to rescue anyone. Linking up with Joss and the General Lee, the team boarded the distressed Hephaestus. Dei wiped out a room full of resocialized marines to silence the ship's distress signal, while Chakra was crippled by a zergling attack and told Valevoss to leave her behind. The War Pigs escaped with the data and let the ship fall out of orbit, but the loss of Chakra deeply affected Valevoss, who did not share his superiors' view that the death of a War Pig was unimportant.

Burned#

During the Great War, Cauley dispatched the War Pigs to assassinate Arcturus Mengsk at Atticus Minor. Taking advantage of the Sons of Korhal being distracted by a zerg invasion, the team moved in, but the attack was interrupted by the zerg and they were forced to flee to a mine shaft. When the miners refused them shelter, the War Pigs killed them and held out until the General Lee could evacuate them, only to find their escape blocked by a Confederate blockade that convinced them Cauley had turned against them. Valevoss confronted Cauley, who admitted to burning them: he expected Mengsk to defeat the Confederacy and intended to switch sides, and the failed assassination made the War Pigs a loose end. Cauley offered Valevoss his freedom in exchange for luring the rest of the team into an ambush, backing the offer with soldiers of the new Cerberus Program. Valevoss made contact with the team on Tyrador VIII, but when Cerberus soldiers attacked, Cole Hickson's sniping turned the trap. Valevoss was killed, the War Pigs wiped out the Cerberus troops, left his body unburied, and scattered.

Hunting Raynor#

In 2502, Cauley, by then a Terran Dominion official, feared that Mengsk would learn of the old assassination attempt. He visited New Folsom Prison and subjected the imprisoned Cole Hickson to an experimental, subconscious form of neural resocialization, programmed to kill Jim Raynor on a pre-set prompt. Hickson reassembled the War Pigs for the job, with their records promised to be expunged, though Cauley secretly intended to have Cerberus eliminate them once the work was done. The hunt led the team from Moria, where the Kel-Morian Combine nearly killed them, to the Apollo Shipyard at Grissom IV, where the Screaming Skulls pirates captured most of them before Romy Pyrius broke them free in a stim-fueled frenzy. Tracking leads through the fixer Denny Houston, the War Pigs gradually came under the malign influence of an alien artifact Pyrius had stolen, which stirred old guilt and violence among them, until three Dark Templar boarded the General Lee, retrieved the artifact, and warned the Pigs not to harm Raynor.

The team finally tracked Raynor to the zerg-infested world of Urona Sigma. There Joss confirmed from a contact that Hickson had been covertly resocialized, while Cerberus forces under Lars Trakken, who shared a bitter history with Hickson, shadowed the Pigs on Cauley's orders. Raynor, forewarned by Dark Templar, captured the team and explained that Hickson had once saved his life and sanity in a prisoner-of-war camp. When Hickson, under his conditioning, turned his gun on Raynor, Raynor talked him into resisting the resocialization, triggering a mental breakdown. As a protoss fleet began purifying the planet, Trakken, consumed by his hatred, brought a squad down to witness Hickson's death. The War Pigs and Raynor turned the confrontation into an ambush; Pyrius wounded Trakken and rescued Hickson but was shot in the back and killed by a Cerberus trooper. The survivors escaped to the General Lee, and Hickson swore revenge on Cauley for Pyrius' death.

Second Great War and beyond#

Although the War Pigs survived Urona Sigma, they remained in a precarious position and resolved on a desperate strike against Cauley directly. By 2504 they had acquired a reputation for getting dirty jobs done and a status as the ultimate mercs for missions requiring decisive action. Their membership had grown and the unit had become more standardized, composed of scores of battle-hardened veterans. During the Second Great War they were hired by Raynor's Raiders, the Terran Dominion, the Moebius Foundation, Mira's Marauders, and Tosh's Goons, and they accompanied Raynor's Raiders during Sarah Kerrigan's invasion of Korhal and the expedition into the Void. Several War Pigs were stranded on a Kel-Morian mining colony and infested when the zerg under Amon attacked, forcing allied commanders to fight through their infested former comrades during the colony's evacuation. A group of War Pigs later accompanied the Umojan Protectorate expedition to Jarban Minor, where the survivors held out against the zerg until Nova Terra rescued them and they aided her terrazine operation.

Organization#

While the War Pigs took their orders from Cauley, field leadership was assigned nominally rather than by pre-appointment, producing a random, chaotic, and somewhat democratic method of carrying out missions, alongside a habit of getting drunk and starting fights. The term "War Pig" had also been applied more broadly to members of the Confederate Marine Corps. Over time the band became a more standardized mercenary unit composed of veteran soldiers, and during the Second Great War they offered their elite marines to clients such as Raynor's Raiders and the Moebius Foundation, the only mercenaries Raynor could enlist without paying for a contract.