I hope you'll pardon a long-winded semantic discussion, but I think the history here is fascinating.
As you probably already know, the East Empire Company (EEC) is heavily based on the real world British East India Company (EIC). The EIC infamously had a royal charter to raise its own army, and at its peak the company's private army was twice the size of the state army of the British Empire. Like the crown's army, their enlistees were called soldiers, there were commissioned and non-commissioned officers, the company gave awards and commendations, they had comparable pay (at least the British EIC soldiers did, not the Indian recruits) and pensions, and comparable training and equipment. The EIC did sometimes hire Indian mercenaries, but this was unusual.
In Skyrim's Rise in the East quest, there are a handful of "East Empire Mercenary" NPCs dressed in ordinary imperial armor with imperial swords. The East Empire Expansion copies this nomenclature and equipment for the men guarding the couriers and miners in claimed sites. The backstory and lore on the EEC is a bit thin compared to many other elements of the series. What we do know from established lore is that the company is at least 500 years old at the time of Skyrim and has a legal monopoly on the trade of certain goods, both reasons to think it is mature enough to have reached the point of having their own private army. However, to my knowledge there's nothing in the games to suggest the EEC wouldn't hire mercenaries or specifically detailing whether their army is distinct at all from the Empire itself. And of course despite the inspiration from the EIC, there's certainly no obligation to mimic all of its details.
But having said that, it does seem more fitting to me if these EEC "mercenaries" were instead called "soldiers", based on their equipment, role, training, and consistently being of the Imperial race. Skyrim has five more groups of NPCs referred to as "mercenaries", which are all quite a bit more rag-tag by comparison and working for much smaller entities. They guard Black-Briar Lodge and Goldenglow Estate, work as thugs for the Silver-Blood family or personal guards for grave-robbing wizards, or as random solo adventurers tasked to do the kind of things the player might do. They tend to have random bandit-like equipment sets. The fighting men working for the EEC seem out of place among this group.
Which is all a long way of suggesting the Expansion's NPCs could be renamed. And easy thing to mod If I want to do so just for me, but something for anyone else here to think about if you're interested.
As you probably already know, the East Empire Company (EEC) is heavily based on the real world British East India Company (EIC). The EIC infamously had a royal charter to raise its own army, and at its peak the company's private army was twice the size of the state army of the British Empire. Like the crown's army, their enlistees were called soldiers, there were commissioned and non-commissioned officers, the company gave awards and commendations, they had comparable pay (at least the British EIC soldiers did, not the Indian recruits) and pensions, and comparable training and equipment. The EIC did sometimes hire Indian mercenaries, but this was unusual.
In Skyrim's Rise in the East quest, there are a handful of "East Empire Mercenary" NPCs dressed in ordinary imperial armor with imperial swords. The East Empire Expansion copies this nomenclature and equipment for the men guarding the couriers and miners in claimed sites. The backstory and lore on the EEC is a bit thin compared to many other elements of the series. What we do know from established lore is that the company is at least 500 years old at the time of Skyrim and has a legal monopoly on the trade of certain goods, both reasons to think it is mature enough to have reached the point of having their own private army. However, to my knowledge there's nothing in the games to suggest the EEC wouldn't hire mercenaries or specifically detailing whether their army is distinct at all from the Empire itself. And of course despite the inspiration from the EIC, there's certainly no obligation to mimic all of its details.
But having said that, it does seem more fitting to me if these EEC "mercenaries" were instead called "soldiers", based on their equipment, role, training, and consistently being of the Imperial race. Skyrim has five more groups of NPCs referred to as "mercenaries", which are all quite a bit more rag-tag by comparison and working for much smaller entities. They guard Black-Briar Lodge and Goldenglow Estate, work as thugs for the Silver-Blood family or personal guards for grave-robbing wizards, or as random solo adventurers tasked to do the kind of things the player might do. They tend to have random bandit-like equipment sets. The fighting men working for the EEC seem out of place among this group.
Which is all a long way of suggesting the Expansion's NPCs could be renamed. And easy thing to mod If I want to do so just for me, but something for anyone else here to think about if you're interested.
