Rudolf Schmidt

Rudolf Schmidt
Personal
Born	3100
Affiliation	Hanseatic League (formerly) Scorpion Empire
Profile
Rank	Captain-Marshal (formerly) Star Colonel
Profession	MechWarrior

Rudolf Schmidt was a Hanseatic League officer and its last surviving leader before it’s absorption into the Scorpion Empire

History

Early Career

Rudolf was born into a stonemason family on Riga. Later he joined the military and graduated first of his class into the Lübeck Military Academy in 3122. He quickly advanced through the ranks, based on his own merits. As battalion commander of the Regional Defense Force 7, in 3129, he countarattacked the Sabertooths pirate band, stopping cold their assault on the factory district of Visby, routing them with a serie of bold slashing attacks. He not only repelled them, but located later their secret base, attacking them and returning victorious with captured DropShips and JumpShips. In 3131, he was named commander of the RDF7.

Captain-Marshal

After Helga Bauer retired as Captain-Marshal of the Hanseatic Defense Force in 3135, Schmidt would chosen by the Captain-Generals and Admirals to succeed her. Like his predecessor, he was ill-inclined to rest on his laurels and sought to use constant, unannounced live-fire training exercises with hand-picked elite soldiers to push the HDF's units to improve their performance on his unique "inspection tours" across the League. This also served as a method for him to assign leaders and advisors with proven skills into each of the RDF's once said elites in the Schmidt's Petraries unit reached the end of their assignment tours. At the same time, the training exercises helped with finding potential protegees for him to induct for further training. Thanks to his work, by 3140, the HDF was an exceptionally well-drilled and skilled military forces.

During the Hanseatic Crusade, he would lead the entirety of the Hanseatic Defense Force in defending their nation against the Imperio's conquest and would command them into effective delaying actions and counter feints that delayed the League's conquest, most notably, the counterattack of Lübeck, one of the Hansa's few victories. However, all that only delayed the invaders. During the battle of Bremen, after the Merchant Council committed mass suicide and destroyed the capital cit, he would order all HDF forces to surrender in the name of saving the lives of their civilians. With the Council death, he became the last Hansa's authority, so he sent orders to all the Hansa's territory ordering them to surrender to the Scorpions, though these orders not always were obeyed.

Escorpion Empire

After the Hanseatic Crusade and the absorption of the Hanseatic League into the Scorpion Empire, he would be adopted as a warrior within the Scorpion's Empire. As tribute to his skills, Khan Magon Scott declared the founding of the new Schmidt Bloodname in 3145, in much less time than it needed for other Freeborns, in part to help quell the insurrections across the former Hansa worlds. This succeeded, though Rudolf didn't like to being paraded and giving speeches. He was, first of all, a soldier. He won his Trial of Position and became Star Captain in Alpha Galaxy (Clan Goliath Scorpion) before joining the newly created Eta Galaxy, rising to Star Colonel. When the Empire's Hellion Galaxy needed to fill several vacancies in 3149, he joined it, becoming the oldest member of the Hellion Keshik's history, and became the executive officer of SaKhan Valentina Tazegül, though his departure of Eta Galaxy, home of several clusters of former Hansa warriors, impacted their moral. Rudolf had enemies into the Keshik, most notably Arabella Sword, the Keshik's Elemental's commander, which coveted the role he took, but he defeated her into a Trial of Grievance in response to her challenges.

Bibliography

• Operational Turning Points: Hanseatic Crusade
• Spotlight On: Hellion Keshik
• Spotlight On: Schmidt's Petraries