(2786-Today) Reborn Blackthornes
Once the group had settled in to an old outpost on the planet, the acting commander of the outfit, Lt. Colonel Quentin Ericson sat down with the rest of the higher ranking officers to take stock of their situation and determine how to best direct the tattered regiment. All of the staff agreed that siding with any of the House was out of the question, given their abandonment of the SLDF in its time of need, as well as the sudden arms race that they had created after the event of the Exodus. With this in mind, the newly formed command staff would have to make several changes to its own structure, in order to survive for a duration apart from any other support.
Contracts with the local colonists were the first step. These ensured the use of the outpost, as well as the silence of the colonists themselves in return for protection from bandit or Lyran raids. The Dragoons had already been told that there was little FWL support because of the relatively low priority of the planet. The fighting force of the group was reorganized into a small strike force: 11 battlemechs, 5 tanks, 2 APCs, 2 Dropships. Only the necessary combat personnel were set aside to fill the needs of this small group, with the rest being sent to form the basis of a new workforce both in the outpost as well as the surrounding area. Support personnel were also divided up in the same manner. Only the naval crew was spared this fate, numbering so few that prior to landing they had had to borrow and train others from the support crew in order to properly maintain the ship. The naval crew did take a few of its members with deep space training to begin work on a long term project to put the mothballed jumpship in working order, in case an escape was ever needed. The rest became the flight crews for the two remaining dropships.
The newly formed workforce's first task was to transform the outpost into a fully operational and defendable Castle Brian. Much of the weaponry would be parts taken from their own cannibalized mechs that had been unable to make the trip. The dragoons would also begin work on their own farms in order keep them from being entirely dependent on the colonists. These would be worked by the regiment's dependents, many of whom were not unused to such work, as they had been sustaining the regiment during its two decades of fighting in return for protection from the Periphery Uprising. The weather and terrain on the planet, however, was far harsher than any they had worked before. Only the Blackthornes bush, a variant of a blackberry plant, seemed both able to withstand the winters as well as thrive with in the tough soil. Soon it would become the outfit's chief product, with the farmers finding as many uses for it as possible in order to maximize trade. The trade goods were often escorted by a mech to show off the Dragoon's power in the region, as well as serve as a recruitment tool for the regiment. Hearing the Dragoon name, but with no knowledge of their origins, traders would soon refer to them as the Blackthornes Dragoons.
Considered little more than a joke at first by the command staff, the new name was eventually adopted, given how far the name was spreading and the desire to keep their origin a secret from the Successor Houses, who by now had begun what would later be called the 1st Succession War. Under the new Blackthornes Dragoons banner, the strike force would become a welcome and much needed force for the system, defending against raiders and scouting parties alike. At times even FWL forces would call upon them to fulfill roles as mercenaries, though the Blackthornes were always ones to avoid being used in a major conflict, cautious that they might be recognized by their former SLDF counterparts.
