My theory always was that they captured dominion battlecruisers at new folson to have enough room to fit everyone.
Headcanon time.
They belong to other freedom fighting groups.
P.S. Go to Alarak vs Kerrigan thread. This might be fun.
In terms of a plague and survival and all, I agree with @BartFitz that afterwards, people would be better to one another (at least for a generation or so), as such things would ultimately pull people together.
Twenty years ago I really was hoping that Y2K would have messed everything up, as I felt we needed some kind of disaster to help get our species on track.
With respect to producing Battlecruisers, I recall Valerian specifying that he’s sharing their schematics with the Raiders so the Raiders could manufacture them, so I believe they are Raynor’s Raiders.
Is that rather realistic? No, but it also wasn’t realistic for the Raiders to be able to manufacture a fleet of Battlecruisers at the end of the Terran Campaign in the original Starcraft, but you could since by Campaign’s end they wanted the player to have access to full tech.
In StarCraft 1 it could have been chalked up to gameplay/story segregation though.
Anyway, I don’t have an issue with the Raiders producing battlecruisers. They have facilities for producing hardware on large scales, even though Swann seems to draw the line at Odin size hardware. The only way to rationalize it for me is to assume that the Raiders have other loyal planets with production facilities, or just buildings/factories floating around with them in their fleet that we just happen to never see.
What I have an issue with is them being clearly defined as a single understaffed battlecruiser at the start of the game and going on to win countless battles they have no business winning with no effort on the part of the writers at an explanation. Even with battlecruisers, they shouldn’t be able to fight the Fleet of the Executor, maneuver around Kerrigan’s swarm, break open New Folsom, etc.
The idea that they got a giant @ss fleet like that out of nowhere that puts them within striking distance of major factions is ridiculous and unbelievable, especially if Kelthar’s theory is correct that they aren’t even getting paid for the artifacts until the end when they turn them in.
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Yes, I see what you mean now.
I always chalked that up to gameplay as well, seeing as how you have infinite infantry that you can immediately throw away.
Story-wise, I guess you could say they’re simply recruiting colonists to fill the void as they go along. People from Mar Sara, Agria, Tosh’s people, etc. Not a perfect answer, of course, I know.
Did you play HotS’ space mission? 
My head canon is that they gather recruit as they go along. With the outer rim under attacked and His Holiness turtling around his core world, this shouldn’t be too hard.
I’m sure they could recruit some dirt farmers, yes, but that doesn’t really explain a whole fleet. Everything they need would be incredibly expensive, from Marine armors through Vikings, Banshees and finally to Battlecruisers.
Usually terrorist groups aren’t the most well-equipped (not universally at least) without some major help and funding from other factions. I can see Derpmoja helping them but not this much.
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Mineral and Gas, Brother. Mineral and Gas.
You’re telling me they built armor out of Minerals and used Vespene as an adhesive, 'cause if you are, I’ll laugh you in half.
Their is always good old fashion looting brother. The dominion has massive amount of equipment and even if you only salvage destroyed stuff you’ll get pretty far with it.
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Which still wouldn’t explain how the Raiders have better equipment and enough to continuously beat the Dominion and occasionally the Zerg and the Protoss. And salvaging Battlecruisers? Vikings? I find that unlikely. If they win somewhere they cannot really stick around, because the Dominion will be on their ashes in a short time to check what’s up. At least what logic would dictate, not that this whole thing isn’t devoid of logic.
The dominion is currently getting its podex handed to it by the zerg they don’t have time to chase the raiders around much.
And how they beat the dominion is simply concentration of force by being able to dictate where they fight.
Salvaging vikings is doable in my opinion and boarding battlecruisers is always an option, seeing as they raiders pulled such a move with valerian.
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They boarded a Battlecruiser that didn’t fire at them or anything. It is also safe to assume that Dominion Battlecruisers are better manned than the one the Raiders have. Vikings and generally flyers being shot to bits and crash landing as a wreckage has a dubious worth in salvaging short term, you’d need a bigger crew, somewhere to haul said flyers (after you collect them, which also requires a lot of resources and planning). Do you honestly think the Raiders realistically have the capacity for all this?
The Dominion fringe worlds are under attack by the Zerg, and they pulled back their forces from there to protect the main worlds. That means the concentration of Dominion troops (which was already higher in the core worlds) increased where they were attacking. So no.
The Battlecruisers the raiders have is by far bigger then the dominion ones and that allows them to have more men not to mention with how the dominion uses their troops its likely that the raiders have the better trained soldiers.
The thing about the viking is that in ground mode they are rely vulnerable to capture if you can get a shot in on the pilot the machine is free for the taking. Not to mention turning salvage into useful stuff is cannon hell to some extent battlefield production is a lore thing.
The problem is the only lore aspect we have is cutscenes and like I said the raiders have multiple battlecruisers as of new Folson and they never rely made the impression of being undermanned
The only core world they attacked was korhal and that was a sneak run in do the thing and run out. And seeing as matt had for some time access to the dominion network its likely the raiders had more then a few friends to help.
They boarded to Bucephalus which is the only Battlecruiser bigger than the Hyperion (save for the Loki, probably), as it was the replacement for it as a Dominion flagship. It is definitely equipped and manned more than what the Raiders have, as it is the flagship of the Dominion.
Salvaging on its own is not a problem, though it is almost impossible for every wreckage to be useful. Time and the logistics are. The Raiders don’t have the storage room needed to have these wrecks moved to, and if you look around the inside of the Hyperion, it isn’t exactly bustling with life and people, making me doubt they have the manpower to scrap, repair and build new things. And as far as buying goes, where would they buy it from, and with what money?
You’re probably right about the core world thing, but no military would just concede to losing troops to terrorists and not send something there - if nothing else, a guarded salvage group because they have the means to do it, unlike the Raiders.
Let’s not think too hard about the ridiculousness of that cutscene and Valerian being over the too there.
And I think that Raiders veterans are pretty damn hardcore if compared to standard Dominion grunts.
It’s not a very sound idea to assume everything the Dominion has is bad though, compared to all those veteran Raiders we never see. Because the only two Marines we know on the side of the Raiders are Jimbo and Tychus.
Well yeah, but the assumption is that Dominion vets are defending core worlds.
Problem is, at least as far as infantry goes, having an armor that is universal and enhances everybody to about the same level really evens the playing field. Not saying a seasoned veteran won’t benefit and have an edge, yes, he will. But it’s not the same as it would be today.
Actually it enhances the advantages coming from experience, battlefield awareness and tactical superiority.
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