Page 6 of the Northwind Highlanders Sourcebook:
The first Scottish regiments began to appear around the
seventeenth century, raised to fight abroad or defend at home
by the Crown or by barons and earls powerful enough to command
a unit of men. The next two centuries saw the formation
of dozens of Scottish regiments. During this period of military
growth, the precursors of the current Northwind Highlanders
were raised: the 78th Regiment of (Highland) Foot, the 78th
(Highland) Regiment of Foot, the 79th Regiment of Foot
(Cameronian Volunteers), the 75th Highland Regiment
(Abercromby's) and the 1 OOth (Highland) Regiment of Foot
(Gordon Highlanders). These five regiments were all created
within sixteen years of one another in the latter part of the eighteenth
century. Like all the Scottish regiments, they served with
distinction in nearly every war fought during the troubled times
of Terran history immediately prior to man's first steps into
space.
As humankind learned to walk on the moon and technology
linked the world in a single communications network, the global
wars that had raged during earlier periods of the twentieth century
began to decline. Consequently, Terra's nations began to
downsize their militaries. In 1994, the last two Highland regiments-
the Queen's Own Highlanders (Seaforth & Camerons),
formed from the 78th (Highland) Regiment and 79th Regiment,
and the Gordon Highlanders, formed from the 75th Highland
Regiment and 1 OOth (Highland) Regiment-were amalgamated
to form the Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons & Camerons). This
bittersweet joining marked the beginning of a period in which
more and more of the Highland regiments' separate traditions
and histories merged or were lost and forgotten as the world's
governments evolved toward a central world power.
In 2014, following the Second Soviet Civil War, the United
States of America stood unopposed as Terra's strongest nation.
When the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom called for "a
new alliance of Western nations," the Western Alliance was
born. One of the new government's first acts was to create the
Western Alliance Armed Forces, a military that would differ from
previous multinational armies. The WAAF was conceived as a
single military under a single command structure and supplied
with standard weapons and equipment produced by all member
nations. Because the time was relatively peacful, and in an
effort to further bolster the new Western Alliance and WAAF,
most member nations continued downsizing their own militaries.
By 2086, with more than 80 percent of Terra's population
represented under the Western Alliance, its name was formally
changed to the Terran Alliance. In that same year, the universal
downsizing of militaries that had gone on for several decades
was almost complete; the WAAF had become the military for
virtually all of Terra. All the Scottish regiments save for the
Royal Black Watch Regiment and the Highlanders had been
disbanded, and the two surviving regiments were hardly more
than parade units barely fit for combat.
Page 8 then states:
THE ROYAL BLACK WATCH REGIMENT
After lan Cameron became First Lord of the Star League,
one of his first acts was to create a unit that would, in his words,
"embody the traditions, heart and soul of the ideals of the Star
League." With this in mind, he unveiled the Royal Black Watch
regiment, which he had built around the core of the original unit
of the same name. For centuries, Lord Cameron's family had
kept the Black Watch alive and intact, attaching Black Watch
members to their personal guards. These soldiers' undying loyalty
to their own traditions and to the Cameron family-to whom
they had sworn fealty-convinced Lord lan to form a new Black
Watch regiment.
The announcement of the new unit's existence startled
many on Northwind, none more than the existing Highlander
regiments. They had kept the oral histories and traditions of
their Scottish past very much alive, and remembered the long
history their ancestors had shared with the original Royal Black
Watch. Memories long dormant sparked to life in many
Northwind Scots, and many who joined the SLDF served in the
new Black Watch, which was soon to become the most famous
of units.
Throughout the Star League era, mutual respect between
the Black Watch and the Northwind Highlander regiments grew.
Overcoming several centuries of separation, members from all
six regiments of the Northwind Highlanders eventually served
with the Watch. Stuart's Highlanders in particular proved to be
kindred spirits with the Black Watch, and those two regiments
exchanged an unusually large number of warriors.
