Death to Mercenaries
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- This article is about Takashi Kurita's edict. For the OTP product, see Operational Turning Points: Death to Mercenaries.
The "Death to Mercenaries" edict was issued by Coordinator Takashi Kurita during the Fourth Succession War. Prompted by the embarrassing defeat of DCMS forces by Wolf's Dragoons on Crossing in August 3029, and Jaime Wolf's more personal insults to Takashi at the wedding of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner a year earlier, this decree called for the outright execution of captured mercenaries. The edict also led to a near-total death of mercenary hiring on the Combine's behalf for at least two decades.[1]
Some mercenary commands were fortunate enough to escape the Draconis Combine when the edict was first issued but others were caught and executed. While a handful of mercenaries were still employed by corporations or strategically unimportant worlds (usually after the application of Combine or corporate livery), mercenary units started to be employed again in large numbers only in the 3050s following the Clan Invasion and the succession of Theodore Kurita as ruler of the Combine.[1] [2]
One exception to this rule was the Fifth Amphigean Light Assault Group; while they were technically mercenaries, they were viewed as internally raised corporate security troops serving under perpetual contract to the DCMS, rather than mercenaries per se.[3]