Hagen Unther

Hagen Unther
Personal
Also known as	"Deadeye"
Affiliation	Hansen's Roughriders
Profile
Rank	Sergeant
Profession	MechWarrior

Hagen "Deadeye" Unther was a MechWarrior Sergeant with the Hansen's Roughriders mercenary unit. He was noted as a colorful character and made people laugh and roll their eyes when his name was mentioned. In radio traffic during missions he came across haughty and somewhat abrasive to trainees under his command, and gleefully spoke of combat carnage. At least one of Unther's charges—the player's alter ego in the MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries game, tentatively identified as Grady Kiefer—considered him to be possibly a psychopath.

Canonicity

Sergeant Unther first appeared in the MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries computer game, and there was a later mention in the German novel Waffengefährten of an antagonistic lance leader named Hagen Unther. Both the game and its storyline as well as the German novel are apocryphal (see section about Canonicity in these articles), as neither fulfills the criteria for canonical sources for the BattleTech universe.

History

The player character from MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries notes in his journal that he thought he remembered reading something about Unther in a newspaper when he was sixteen that somehow connected Unther to a war crime near Terra.

As of June 3044, Unther—then piloting a Catapult—had been assigned as "drill sergeant" to one or more new recruits of Hansen's Roughriders as the unit deployed for a pirate-hunting mission to Venaria. By this time, others in the unit would chuckle about an unspecified "McComb incident" involving Unther, though no details are known.

Unther fought competently on Venaria, where he led successful attacks against a pirate airfield and supply convoy, and cleared out a would-be ambush from enemy 'Mechs to rescue friendly forces.

At some later point between the conclusion of the Venaria campaign and the Clan Invasion in 3050, Unther was sought over the deaths of six inexperienced academy cadets on Sinope. They unwittingly dropped into a skirmish with pirate forces on the world, where they wound up in heavy combat and came under heavy artillery. Unther abandoned his 'Mech and rejoined the Roughrider DropShip; the cadets all perished, reportedly because they had not yet been taught how to eject.

By July 3057 Sergeant Hagen "Deadeye" Unther was a lance commander for Blackwell Armtech Limited on Outreach where George Bear and his Biting Bear's Bashes, hoping for a favorable recommendation, served under him. Following a disagreement, Unther later witheld BattleROM footage in order to deny George credit and bonus payments for a combat victory over another 'Mech; George successfully sued him over this before a MRBC board.

Notes

• In the original MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries game from 1996 that introduced the character, he is consistently referred to as Sergeant "Deadeye" Unther. It was only in the 2014 German-only novel Waffengefährten that his first name, Hagen, was mentioned. There is technically a chance that these two sources refer to different characters; but author Arous Brocken included many references to other BattleTech media and the MechWarrior games in particular in his books, strongly suggesting Hagen Unther from the novel to be the Sergeant "Deadeye" Unther from the game.

Bibliography

• MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries
• Waffengefährten (German novel)