It was a lazy day for Tommy Souris, but then it was the weekend for the people of the capital. He'd been flipping from channel to channel on his tri-vid set before a momentary glimpse of the most important man on the planet made him go 'round the horn to see what he'd missed. Jim Raynor indeed sat in his customary chair in the Hyperion's cantina. Evidently the broadcast had just started, since a hand could be seen off to the side waving aggressively as the Commander of the Raiders cleared his throat.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gents," he said, scratching the growth of black beard streaked with white, "This is Commander Raynor."

Raynor wasn't at all what Tommy expected. Instead of the typical rummage-sale dress of pirates, Commander Raynor looked... ordinary. His clothes seemed to consist solely of a vest strapped with equipment over a white shirt and a set of nondescript trousers. Tommy couldn't see Raynor's shoes, but from the rest of his clothes, he imagined they were in keeping with all the rest of the man's attire.

"So, I've heard through the governess that the Dumass... ers? Dumassites?" Suddenly Raynor looked outside the camera's field of vision and whispered, "Wait a minute, what do the locals call themselves?"

Another voice hissed back, "Dumassiens. And remember to pronounce it like the French."

Raynor nodded seriously, a sheepish chuckle coming from somewhere in the background.

"Anyway, I've had word from the governess that the people of Dumassas want to know what exactly it is we've come out of. Well I've decided to letcha all know."

A set of graphics overlaid the Commander as he sat to one side. "Now me and my boys are from a place on the edge of the galaxy called the Koprulu Sector. Us Terrans have been kicking around out there for centuries now. When our ancestors crash-landed there, they made do with the cards they'd been dealt, scratching out a life with two things; ingenuity, and a never-say-die spirit. That all changed when the Zerg Swarm reared its ugly head. A lot of good folks died in the chaos that followed." Raynor's face darkened, as though from some unpleasant memory. "To add insult to injury, a lowlife scum named Arcturus Mengsk formed the Dominion; a government built on the foundations of tyranny and oppression."

Descended as he was from the Taurian Concordat, Tommy could see an immediate comparison between the Hegemony-dominated Star League and the Dominion. So his smile matched Raynor's when the latter said, "But not all Terrans have bowed down to Mengsk. Some of us still believe that freedom might be worth fighting for."

The Commander seemed to be getting more comfortable with the idea of talking to a whole planet, there was something in his demeanor that changed as he spoke.

"Most of the planets in the Koprulu Sector are 'bout as far away from paradise as you can get. Terrans are no strangers to hardship. We may not have the advanced technology of the Protoss or the adaptability of the Zerg, but the fact that we'll fight together as a team right down to the last man or woman? Well that makes us a force to be reckoned with. It all starts with the Marines."

Off to the Commander's right, a picture of what looked like fifty infantrymen in the power armor so ubiquitous to the Raiders were standing off a horde of doglike monsters that Tommy supposed were the Zerg.

"These boys are the frontline soldiers; rugged grunts who can face just about anything you throw at 'em. Most times you'll see 'em joined by some hard-hitting Marauders and highly mobile Reapers." Behind the marines were several suits of a much larger variety, and others with enormous jetpacks strapped to their backs. He supposed these must be the jump infantry that so scared those pirates last year. "

"When these tough-as-nails troops hit the battlefield, you'd be hard pressed not to find heavy-duty support like the fast-moving Hellion and the devastating Siege Tank." The two vehicles he denoted seemed to be some kind of ATV with a flamethrower shooting its cargo at such high pressure that the flames had actually turned blue, and a crazy combination of a tank and a self-propelled gun.

"And Terrans ain't pushovers in the air 'neither. Banshees can sneak up on ground forces and unleash Hell, while Vikings can pull a fast one by switching between air fighter and assault walker. Last but not least when it comes to the air are the Medivacs. Their ability to transport and heal troops? That makes 'em a sight for sore eyes during the toughest battles." Out of all the surprises which the Terrans had unveiled, these two were some of the biggest yet. A gunship with an honest to god cloaking device? The only thing Tommy had heard of coming anywhere close to that was the Phantom Mech, and that was rumored to be supernatural. But the Terrans had somehow made one big enough that it could hide a whole gunship. The Viking was somewhat similar to the old concept of the LAM, but those were nowhere close to how versatile these machines were supposed to be. And the so-called Medivac was just ridiculous.

"Now when you're talking specialized units, well we've got more than a few tricks up our sleeve. The aptly named Ghost is a recon operative who can score a headshot from a mile away and bring a lot of pain to the other side by calling down tactical nukes." Tommy winced at the sight of the explosion. How often did the Terrans use those damn things? "And if that ain't enough, hi-tech Ravens can really mess with the enemy's head by contributing unique abilities that are both offensive and defensive." Tommy wondered if Kerensky and Amaris had been lobbing similar things at each other during the civil war.

"But in a really tough fight, well that's when the big boys come out to play. I'm talkin' about the Thor; a walking death machine that can go through ground forces like a hot knife through butter." Tommy's eyes widened as he took in the sheer size of what looked like the Raiders' only real battlemech. It had to be sixy feet tall at least! And were those howitzers on its back? But if that was amazing, then the showstopper quite literally took his breath away. "Then there's the old standby, the tried-and-true battlecruiser. If you wanna dominate the skies with incomparable firepower, the battlecruiser's Yamato Cannon..." Raynor's chuckle and the explosive force of four such weapons spoke for themselves.

The graphics disappeared, and Raynor's cocksure grin was the only thing on the screen as he seemed to speak directly to Tommy. "So if you think you've got what it takes to stick with an army with strong defensive tactics, but still packs enough punch to send the enemy crying home to their mama, then there's only one way to go. With the Raiders."

AN: I think I'll add the other countries later. You might consider this a bit of recruiting work done by the Raiders.