So their goal is exploration? Why military-equipment? What good will it do? What if they find another group of Clans; their military-equipment will be futile.
Given that many of their early work was more akin to grave robbing and the rampant plundering of suspected treasure troves, IE would likely have hired mercs and such for security against those who would try to take their loot (or take their loot back, as the case may be; many a dead/isolated world is actually still inhabited by enough locals to make a stink of some kind). Venturing off the beaten path also brings with it the risk of stumbling across a pirate band or two, in which case any military force just might be enough to make them think twice. In more modern times, active resistance to IE operations emerged in the form of the Green Ghosts, and their increased focus on being a more unified and directed Sphere-wide organization means more need for proper military-grade security to discourage pirates, Green Ghosts, and Clan patrol groups. The mercs' job in such cases thus run the gamut from being just an internal, dig-site security team, to acting as a deterrent against pirates and angry locals, to the means to take and hold a cache long enough for IE to plunder it, or to be a sacrificial lamb that keeps a hostile force at bay long enough for the IE folks to skitter off with whatever loot they can.
It's a dangerous universe; IE would be careless to NOT bring military hardware along for the ride.
Best to send two or more jump-ships with good communications-equipment, you can haul and HPG with you in space right? And a lot of good engineers that can solve any problems, and transmit regular-reports on their progress.
Portable HPG tech has remained prohibitively expensive throughout the history of the Inner Sphere, and using such might prove problematic if you don't have your own relay network (as ComStar/WoB/the Clans would pick up anything you sent via their networks). The deeper you go into space from your base of operations, that only gets more and more chancy. I suspect that IE *may* have some scavenged form of HPG or black box tech kicking around that they've come upon at various dig sites, but any commnet they'd put together with such stuff would be short-ranged and spotty at best. Meanwhile, they have outposts that are several hundred LY apart, with few to no charted/habitable worlds between them--well past the range of any single HPG.
The Explorer Corps might be able to use a mobile HPG but interstellar expeditions is not COMSTAR affiliated so they wouldn't have access to it. Military equipment is for defense against poorly equipped pirates or hostile natives. I don't expect that IE sent back reports they'd probably have a resupply stop somewhere along the expedition route and dropships full of spare everything.
Being non-governmental, IE's reports would likely be meant for IE alone (and/or whoever happened to tap them for help looking for something), so odds are heavy that any IE outposts and supply ports would become parts of any comm relay they'd set up. Given the aforementioned unreliability of any HPG/Black Box tech they might find that ComStar/WoB/the Clans, and other nations have not already gobbled up, it's quite likely that these ports and outposts also double as relays for a courier-based communications service and data gathering network. I imagine a lot of juicy records and discoveries might pass through these points as well, making a standing guard of mercs and other military-equipped forces invaluable to their defense.
Even if that defense can only hold for however long it takes them to run, hide, or destroy their own data to avoid its capture.
- Herb
