[MH] Caribbean by Night

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

Having a more generic name allows references to the group in situations that may raise more issues than not. Particularly with any paper work on weapons, cars, etc.

J.R. Kessler, the Patron that funds them, specifically hasn't named them anything official. Weapons, cars and salaries are all handled through networks of companies, both offshore and US-based. Some of these include IYR Inc., Sentinel Risk Managment Inc., ISHIM Ltd., as well as probably many others that don't happen to be ones that pay the PCs any money on a regular basis. Kessler believes that names have power and once you name a thing, you define it. You may make it stronger, in a way, but you also limit it and constrain its nature. You also make it easier for others to notice it, discuss it, target it and destroy it.

To Kessler, the hunters are definitely 'that thing of ours'. He ran a casino in Havana back in the fifties, for crying out loud. The man practically oozes Mob connections, at least back in the day.

When I say I'm looking for a name, I'm looking for what those who are in on the secret call the group, purely unofficially.

Originally Posted by adm

Given the various connections to PMCs, Stewards or Wardens should be a good fit. Official they are company MPs making sure the other groups the over all company controls are well behaved. Having a real group labeled Wardens would increase that cover, while they are a subgroup directly working with their boss, and referred to as Stewards works very well.

Officially, the hunters are employed by one or more of the PSCs that Kessler owns through a layered web of offshore companies and/or by IYR Inc., the company that pays the yacht staff for the Penemue and other yachts, boats, ships, helicopters, seaplanes and marinas owned by Kessler.

I'm thinking of what the people on the eight person away team on Penemue, as well as the three other four men teams, call themselves. It's not written down on any paperwork. It doesn't have an official existence. It's what rough men who face death while defending a world that doesn't know about the threat call their very exclusive and select group, even if their Patron would prefer that they do not call it anything at all.

Though Kessler wouldn't actively prevent them from adopting an unofficial moniker. He understands their position well enough. Almost eighty years ago, he joined the Foreign Legion and only a few months after that, the country he agreed to fight for didn't exist any more, or rather, was now composed of Vichy France and some ragged remnants of a defeated army, scattered around backwater colonies or fleeing to the land of their ancient enemies.

A legion of the lost, fighting for an oblivious and uncaring people, in defiance of a government that denies the threat and the cause, traitors if they lose, ignored when they win, is really nothing new to him.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

When I say I'm looking for a name, I'm looking for what those who are in on the secret call the group, purely unofficially.

"SMS", which is short for "Special Monster Service", although that name is never used. It allows improvisation of references in speech that may be overheard, along the lines of "texting" and it has a few other referents.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

"SMS", which is short for "Special Monster Service", although that name is never used. It allows improvisation of references in speech that may be overheard, along the lines of "texting" and it has a few other referents.

I'm guessing when they need coded references, they'll use the actual cover companies they work for.

A name for the monster hunters would be something they'd use among themselves. Technically they don't gain anything from it and it's probably a small extra, unneeded risk in terms of information security.

But humans are funny that way. They are tribal and feel the need to belong. If they fight and die beside a small group of other people, united by being in on a secret were few others know, and by all of them being courageous and capable, the odds are that they'll adopt a moniker that excludes outsiders.

It might be something simple, like 'The Team'*, but they'll have a way to distinguish themselves from every other security guard working for the cover companies as well as the others in the Penemue's crew.

Do you see 'Special Monster Service' as resonating enough with them?

There is actually at least one former SAS man on board the Penemue, though that still means that US SOF personnel heavily predominates in terms of numbers, whereas in terms of the founder effect and past and present leadership roles, former French Foreign Legion men are influential. There will also be some Caribbean and Latin American recruits, of course, both immigrants who've been in the US military and former military or police from Caribbean or Latin American countries.

*Well, except that while the eight man Penemue away team is the most prestigious and important monster hunting team, there are three other teams with four hunters each. And 'the Teams' already means something to US Special Operations Forces operators and those associated with them.

[Icelander]

Ghost Brigades. It is an incredibly specific reference, but if someone about a decade ago was a science-fiction fan, well, then the former SOF personnel and mercenaries of the hunter teams are fighting an Old Man's War, doing the bidding of an eccentric billionaire, based on his outlandish theories of Vile Vortices that release mystic energies building to an occult apocalypse. And the nickname for the Colonial Special Forces there is the 'Ghost Brigades' and that is also the name of Scalzi's second novel in the series, published in 2006. I dunno, maybe too specific, but if a couple of influential guys among the ca 30-50 people that constitute the hunters, full time and part time, were big Scalzi fans, it's theoretically possible. Not that I'm saying that any already established NPCs were, but I'm just throwing out ideas.

A Few Good Men. For obvious reasons and with varying degrees of self-deprecation or deadly sincerity. It's very possible for Monster Hunters, who by the law are vigilantes, filibusters, mercenaries, traitors and murderers, and who by their very nature can receive no thanks or respect from the society they guard, to believe exactly what Col. Jessup does:

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know -- that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall.

We use words like "honor," "code," "loyalty." We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

I would rather that you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don't give a DAMN what you think you're entitled to!

Rough Men. For substantially the same reason. Attributed to George Orwell, Heinlein, Kipling or Churchill, though none of them ever said those exact words, the sentiment still stands:

We sleep safely in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

Rangers. Aside from the RPG meaning*, the specific task that the monster hunters have is pretty much exactly what Park Rangers do, with the slight added complication that the critters they monitor arrive from other dimensions and tend to be dangerous monsters. But considering the ecological balance, keeping down the population of predators, making the experience of 'tourists' and locals as pleasant as possible, these are all things that park rangers do.

Pretty much the biggest strike against the name, however, is that the supernatural hunters of the British conspiracy, some of whom occasionally visit the Caribbean to defend British or Commonwealth interests there, call themselves the Rangers (might be short for Queen's Rangers or tongue-in-cheek 'Queen's Park Rangers', but they mostly just say 'Rangers'). So Kessler's hunters calling themselves 'Rangers' would be very negatively received by their rivals/allies, not to mention probably be viewed as pretty declassé by the American hunters themselves. But a term that was similar, but distinct might have emerged.

That being said, the British Rangers ran their first 'official' operation in 2005 and the private American network funded by Kessler might not have become aware of them for quite a few years after that. Kessler's bunch was set up between 1986-1990 and while they first functioned more as security for scholars and investigators than actual strike teams, mission creep meant that they had in fact become full-time professional monster hunters at the latest by 2000-2002 or so, often going in as a strike team with the objectives being purely search and destroy.

So it might well be that whatever Kessler's hunter teams call themselves, it might have been fixed before they ever became aware of the secret British supernatural monster hunting Ranger teams, which despite even more informal and secret antecedents, are actually newer in their modern incarnation than Kessler's teams.

*Which might actually reflect the fact that some of the hunters are gamers. From 1995, after the loss of 16 hunters, scholars and investigators in one incident, Kessler brought Dr. Alfred L. Lapointe on board the Penemue, officially as the 'librarian', but more relevantly, as the live-in academic, researcher, occultist and ritual magician. And Dr. Lapointe was and is an avid gamer who has probably been the DM/GM/Keeper/Other in an ongoing gaming group aboard the Penemue since then. He might not get many of the hunters to play with him, but still, there's no rule that says former military personnel can't be roleplayers or decide to try out the hobby during dull times aboard ship.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Rough Men. For substantially the same reason. Attributed to George Orwell, Heinlein, Kipling or Churchill, though none of them ever said those exact words, the sentiment still stands:

Following up on that quote here, and in a similar vein, there's this quote from John Le Carre:

Thus we do disagreeable things, but we are defensive. That, I think, is still fair. We do disagreeable things so that ordinary people here and elsewhere can sleep safely in their beds at night.

Thus suggesting The Disagreeables as a moniker. Variations on the term could be used like this:
A: What do you think of the new guy? Is he agreeable?
B: Not in the slightest.
A: Good to hear. We need more like that.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Following up on that quote here, and in a similar vein, there's this quote from John Le Carre:

Thus suggesting The Disagreeables as a moniker. Variations on the term could be used like this:
A: What do you think of the new guy? Is he agreeable?
B: Not in the slightest.
A: Good to hear. We need more like that.

That's a very good suggestion.

I do think the dry humour sounds a bit more British than American, to my ears, but that might be mere prejudice against popular dreck, more of which is associated with the US than other countries primarily because more entertainment is published in the US.

And, of course, it's not as if some of the Caribbean British recruits might not have diction and sense of humour more in line with their Commonwealth allegiance than their geographical location in the New World. And there is one former SAS man associated with the venture, albeit as an armourer and not active hunter, at least these days. Not to mention that there are American humourists whose humour is dry and understated.

I'll certainly put 'The Disagreeables' on the list.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Do you see 'Special Monster Service' as resonating enough with them?

Possibly.

The thing that actually inspired it was your description of Kessler's French Foreign Legion service, which I can't now find. That resonated with the WWI German navy, who likewise found themselves fighting for a state that didn't understand them. Their ship name prefix (like USS or HMS) was SMS for "Seiner Majestät Schiff," which is German for " "His Majesty's Ship." And 'Special Monster Service' fitted that.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Possibly.

The thing that actually inspired it was your description of Kessler's French Foreign Legion service, which I can't now find. That resonated with the WWI German navy, who likewise found themselves fighting for a state that didn't understand them. Their ship name prefix (like USS or HMS) was SMS for "Seiner Majestät Schiff," which is German for " "His Majesty's Ship." And 'Special Monster Service' fitted that.

I didn't know that.

You're probably thinking of this post, though you might mean this more generic background or this post on when he started recruiting.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I didn't know that.

It isn't really connected, it just has a similar atmosphere. The line I was thinking of was:

Originally Posted by Icelander

A legion of the lost, fighting for an oblivious and uncaring people, in defiance of a government that denies the threat and the cause, traitors if they lose, ignored when they win, is really nothing new to him.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

It isn't really connected, it just has a similar atmosphere. The line I was thinking of was:

I stand accused and am found guilty, I did wax poetical.