Sunboat Soldiers / SUNBOAT

The 88th Sunboat Soldier Regiment was formed in 2841 in response to a large-scale Vanduul attack on a hobo township which resulted in the destruction of one dumpster, two cardboard box shelters and a wooden hand painted sign used for marking hobo territory. The loss of these four items was the turning point for the hobos, who previously focused their efforts on killing rich people and the redistribution of wealth to the poor.

1. Founding of the Sunboat Soldiers (2841)
Following news of the Vanduul attack on the hobo encampment, the legendary Hobo General Gus “Rusty Shoes” Monkami founded the Sunboat Soldiers on the abandoned hull of a luxury space cruiser, the Sunboat, that had been stripped and dumped by a group of wealthy barons who’d grown bored with it.

Monkami rounded up thirty of his closest hobo pals and the Sunboat Soldiers took to space, refurbishing the Sunboat with scavenged weaponry, repurposed alien tech, and a whole lot of duct tape. Their first missions were simple: they raided space yachts for food, shelter, and occasionally, bathing soap, something they hadn’t used in years but were trying to get comfortable with again.

2. The Golden Years of Hobo Raiding (2842 – 2871)
For three decades, the Sunboat Soldiers became a thorn in the side of both the galaxy’s ultra-rich and the Vanduul. Their antics were notorious: covert missions to leave their excrement all over the hulls of enemy spacecraft – particularly on the entrance door control buttons, midnight invasions to fill expensive hot tubs with instant ramen packets and causing mass destruction on populated wealthy planets to reduce the material available for Vanduul harvesting.

They became famous for their ingenious “Hobo Guerilla Tactics,” using garbage as camouflage and building makeshift traps out of space refuse. Notable victories included:

- The Battle of New Dandenong, where the Soldiers successfully released airborne hallucinogenic drugs against a Vanduul raiding party, causing the enemy’s nervous system and muscles to malfunction, resulting in them getting stuck in T-pose positions.
- Operation Bindle Sack, a daring raid that saw the theft of an entire season’s fashion line from the Hurston family.

3. The Vanduul War Escalates (2872 – 2920)
After several skirmishes, the Soldiers learned the horrifying truth: the Vanduul harvested and ate garbage. To a hobo army that depended on galactic refuse for survival, this was sacrilege. The Sunboat Soldiers declared an all-out “War on Trash-Eaters,” attacking Vanduul planetary harvesting encampments wherever they popped up.

A notorious victory occurred during The Rumble over Rubbish Ridge, where the Soldiers defended a junkyard moon against a fleet of Vanduul warships. Legend has it they had eaten rancid cabbage before the battle, resulting in the Soldiers project vomiting and farting in front of the Vanduul attackers, tricking them into the belief that the Sunboat Soldiers were demonic undead humans who regurgitated their innards while deploying chemical weapons. The Vanduul chose suicide instead of retreat.

4. A Rocky Alliance with the UEE (2921 – 2935)
The Vanduul threat had grown so severe that, in 2921, the Sunboat Soldiers formed an unofficial alliance with the G-men against their mutual enemy. In return, the UEE offered the Soldiers a regular shipment of slightly-used silk napkins, clean underwear and twice-purified space water.

Although the hobo army despised working with the government who supported the rich, they accepted the deal. The Sunboat Soldiers played a critical role in The Battle of Nouveau Sanchez, a high-society fine dining Mexican restaurant overrun by the Vanduul. With an ingenious plan involving catapults made from retired golf clubs, they fought alongside the UEE military, pushing the Vanduul back while still managing to steal half the galaxy’s supply of chicken burritos during the chaos.

5. The Legal Battles (2936 – 2952)
In 2936, relations between the Sunboat Soldiers and the Vanduul reached boiling point when the Vanduul allegedly initiated legal proceedings against the Hobo Brotherhood, with the Sunboat Soldiers a named party. The legal battle was in regard to the patents and trademarks associated with the Hobo Brotherhood’s “Ceremonial Blades”, with the Vanduul arguing the patents and trademarks were unlawful and restrictive against the fair use of Vanduul “Ceremonial Knives”. The legal battle escalated with the Vanduul using a form of alien regenerative technology to bring back a lawyer from earth’s past (who won a major murder trial involving an ill-fitting glove), whose legal services they engaged.

6. Present Day (2952 onwards)
As of 2952, the Sunboat Soldiers were incorporated into the Hobo Brotherhood’s Joint Hobo Operations Command, working alongside the Hobo Battle Utilisations Mob, the 169th Hobo Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Naval Hobo Warfare Rectification Umpires. This increased the command’s capabilities and refined levels of professional incompetence to wreak havoc across the universe.

They continue their war against both the rich and the Vanduul. They fight on, driven by a sense of chaotic justice and a strange loyalty to the forgotten refuse of the galaxy.

The Sunboat Soldiers’ ongoing moronic antics, such as at the recent Battle of Big Benny’s (where laxative-infused ramen was left for a Vanduul raiding party to eat), have kept their legend alive. Today, the Soldiers serve as unlikely heroes, wandering the galaxy in their dilapidated ships, upholding the hobo principles: Never pay for what you can scavenge, never surrender what you can hold, and always share your beans.