Anyway, these are the brute faction. No great scheme, no great plan; just a relatively organised and coordinated protection racket. Arguably, the most laissez-faire faction of them all, both in terms of how they treat those they have power over and the direction given to regional commanders.
A few notes I made back in the day read as follows: Ethically, they’re somewhere between Mal and
Jayne from Firefly. They look like your usual wasteland lot, though
I can’t help thinking red and black tones would be used for their official (I
use the term loosely) regalia. There’s a suggestion of a loose, rough and ready
democracy to the mercenaries – no one’s going to force them into anything. One
imagines a divide between those assigned to cushy posts in the Protectorate
interior looking after the villages that support them and the towns that act as
their headquarters and offer them the chance for R&R.
If they have a literary or cultural precedent, it lies in the history of Essex as a relatively militarised region: I call to witness the Colchester garrison and Tilbury Fort (scene of Elizabeth I's "heart and stomach of a king" speech during the Spanish Armada). The late twentieth century notions of the 'Essex man' and 'Essex girl' (if you don't know, count yourself blessed) have little to do with this - though the rural idyll notion runs stronger in Kent or the Cotswalds than it does in Essex, which rather effects the way things ended up. The seaside towns of Essex and the East Coast have a degree of mid-century significance; I quite like the notion of how such places go from holiday grounds to hives of scum and villainy. A bid thudding and obvious, but that's The Three Sabres for you.
At Best, they are Lovable Rogues who'll protect you for a cost and can be negotiated with on easy terms. At Worst, they are racketeers with all the guns and all the cards who'll steal your daughter, kill your dog and eat your baked beans.
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