The Lords of Ruin -- Battletech/Killzone

A warm welcome home

Article:

Hundreds of people stand alongside the street looking upward to their sons and daughters returning home after the successful defense of the Rasalhague Republic. In the air confetti can be seen raining down as the Helghan Republic anthem plays and the people celebrate. They throw flowers and gifts up to the street some of which are picked up by the soldiers making the trip from the spaceport to the nearest military base. As the mechs pass the people the cheering becomes even louder however the MechWarrior piloting these machines keep their discipline and continue moving without delay. On there path they cross path with a monument for a conflict long past it seemingly saluting the passing soldiers. This day is a celebration for all. For the Helghan Republic's sons and daughters have returned home.

This moment was captured by at the time up and coming artist Matthew Logachev and was what inspired him to visit the worlds these soldiers fought on and would serve as inspiration for his future art like Rode the Smoke Jaguars.
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[Would You Like To Know More?]

AN: So I have been sitting on this for a while but didn't think it was right to post it until we got the conclusion of Lyndon. But now that we have conformation of Comstars win our soldiers will likely begin making there way home and I wanted a glimpse of the celebration that would surely follow. I hope you all enjoy this piece of art which was made by always amazing MattPLOG.

Introduction

This annual report of current and potential threats to the national security of the Helghan Republic responds to Section 312 of the FY51 Intelligence Authorisation Act (Pub. L. No. 86-113). This report reflects the collective insights of the Republic Intelligence Community (RIC), which is committed to providing the nuanced, independent, and unvarnished intelligence that policymakers need to protect Helghan lives and advance Republic interests throughout the galaxy.

This assessment focuses on the recent outcome of ComStar's battles against the Invading Clans as well as the most direct, serious threats to the Helghan Republic over the coming decades. The order of the topics presented in this assessment does not necessarily indicate their relative importance or the magnitude of the threats in the RIC's view. All require a robust intelligence response, including those where a near-term focus may help head off greater threats in the future.

Information available as of 25 May 3051 was used in the preparation of this document.

Foreword

During the next decades, the Helghan Republic will face an increasingly fragile galactic order strained by accelerating strategic competition among major powers, powerful and unpredictable technological developments, and regional conflicts with far-reaching implications. The ambitious but wounded Clans, the confrontational and increasingly right-wing Federated Suns, divergent interests, and the potential for unforeseen agents are just a few things that threaten the stability and well-being of the Helghan Republic, its citizens, and its allies over the coming years. One need only look at the Outback Conflict—triggered by the Federated Suns's economic exploitation of a long-neglected province and exacerbated by narratives encouraged by the Helghan Republic and its allies—to see how a regional crisis can have widespread spillover effects and lead to wars between major nations. The galaxy that emerges from this tumultuous period will be shaped by whoever offers the most persuasive arguments for how societies should be organised, and by the powers that are most able and willing to act on solutions to transnational issues, internal questions, and regional crises.

The 3051 Annual Threat Assessment report supports the Foreign Office's commitment to transparency and the tradition of providing regular threat updates to the Helghan public and the Republic Parliament. The RIC is vigilant in monitoring and assessing direct and indirect threats to Helghan and allied interests. For this requirement, the RIC's National Intelligence Officers work closely and regularly with analysts across the RIC. This work diagnostically examines the most serious immediate and long-term threats to the Helghan Republic—along with the evolving galactic order and other macro trends—that will most influence the direction and potential impact of said threats.

As always, the RIC and its personnel stand ready to support policymakers with additional information in a classified setting.

The Battle of Lyndon Outcome

To the relief of countless billions throughout the Inner Sphere, late May saw the ComGuard under Precentor-Martial Anastasius Focht successfully defeat representatives of the ten Invading Clans on battlefields scattered across the Lyran world of Lyndon. Fighting a gruelling war using LosTech warmachines presumably stockpiled for many centuries and combat vehicles, power armour, and weapons platforms purchased from numerous IS and Periphery nations, the ComGuard captured and held eleven out of twenty victory points on the planet. Despite the small margin, the ComGuard's victory over the Clans has officially secured a twelve-year ceasefire between the Clans and the Inner Sphere—time the Spheroid nations will need to rebuild, rearm, and recover from the devastation of the Clan Invasion.

A significant turning point in modern history, the victory on Lyndon has also seen the Invading Clans take substantial material and personnel losses; some participating Clans suffered as much as 89% casualties among the forces they deployed. Worse from the Clans' perspective, several have lost experienced Khans and SaKhans whose leadership abilities will doubtlessly be sorely missed during the coming ceasefire. How the Clans will respond to these losses remains to be seen. In addition, Helghan intelligence analysts deem it likely that, even without an official armistice, these casualties—combined with the losses sustained throughout the Invasion—would have resulted in a pause for a considerable period regardless as the Clans focused on recovering their losses and rebuilding their Warrior's skills.

Clan Casualties

The following list is ordered by performance against the ComGuard as a whole. Matrices to rank individual Khan and SaKhan performance have not been agreed upon by ORDI intelligence analysts and so their leadership has not been taken into account except in the abstract.

Leadership Losses

These figures have been confirmed as KIA on Lyndon. Rank changes due to battlefield promotions such as those that occurred with Khan Conal Ward have not been reflected here for ease of reading.

ComStar Casualties

Given the ferocity of the fighting involved, the nearly month-long battle between the ComGuard and Clans saw the former suffer numerous losses defending victory points from hostile forces. However, through the use of life-preserving technologies such as combat automata, force-multiplying technologies like power armour, petrusite weapons, energy shielding, etc., and a strategy aimed at, as one analyst has been quoted, "sacrificing metal to save the meat", the ComGuard suffered only 27% casualties among its forces. Though painful when the relatively small size of ComStar's armed forces is taken into consideration, the aforementioned technologies helped ensure that only a small number of these casualties resulted in death, with most taking the form of recoverable injuries. Combined with ComStar's doubtlessly still extensive stockpiles, the supply of equipment on the open market, and the recruitment opportunities that will arise from the ComGuard being—perhaps erroneously—viewed as the saviours of the Inner Sphere, Republic intelligence believes that the ComGuard will return to full strength within only a few years at most.

Clan Invasion Notes (General)

On The "Victorious" Clans

Between the relatively low casualty rates experienced by the Clan during its march towards Terra, the number of industrially developed systems it now controls, its experience with Petrusite, and the minuscule casualties suffered during its "fight" over victory points across the Bancroft salt flats, it's clear that Clan Snow Raven currently enjoys a preeminent position among the Clans. While interviews with various Clan POWs have confirmed that Clan society was established in such a way that this prominence does not equate to total dominance—Clan trials being what they are—it would be foolish to ignore the position Clan Snow Raven now holds in Clan society and how it achieved it. Given recent events, it would behove the Republic to pay close attention to Khan Lynn McKenna's actions and those of her successors over the coming years, and the Snow Ravens are likely to be a thorn in the Inner Sphere's side unless an alliance of Clans forms against them.

Speaking of the other Clans, the picture there is grimmer.

Though each of the ten clans involved in the invasion succeeded in taking a minimum of fourteen systems from Inner Sphere and Periphery states and some took many more, the losses sustained combined with restive local populations, the lengthy logistics chain to the Clan home worlds, and an Inner Sphere that is continuing to industrialise will all pose challenges for the Clans over the coming years. With a 12-year ceasefire in effect, most Inner Sphere states bordering the Clans are predicted by ORDI intelligence to be able to rebuild their militaries to effectively combat the Clans. While there is little doubt that the Clans will respond in kind—the deployment of early generation Petrusite weaponry an example of this—the demographic and institutional damage done to the Clans over the course of the Invasion is expected to take longer than a mere twelve years to fully recover from.

As the situation with the Clans remains volatile and difficult to predict despite the ceasefire, Republic intelligence services and their associates across the ORDI recommend keeping a close eye on Clan politics.

Current Territorial Standings

Clans

Inner Sphere States (Non-ORDI)

Outer Rim Defence Initiative

IS State Losses to the Clans

Concerns For the 3050s and Beyond

Clan POWs in the Republic

With the end of the Clan Invasion declared, it is understandable that minds within the Helghan Republic and its allies will have turned to the question of those POWs promised citizenship in the post-war period. Currently held in a POW camp located on an isolated Cassildan island, many hundreds of Clanners were kept from engaging in escape attempts and other activities with the promise that they would be made full-fledged citizens of the Helghan Republic or Capellan Confederation upon the war's end. A promise made in earnest by the government of the time despite concerns regarding the Clanners' cultures, comments made by certain candidates in the upcoming election have thrown into question whether it will be upheld come July. While Chancellor Tormano Liao of the Capellan Confederation has remained adamant that the Confederation will accept Clanners as citizens should they choose the Confederation for a new home, a failure on the part of the Republic to do likewise would be guaranteed to alienate said Clanners and ensure enmity between them and the Republic for many years—potentially even generations.

However, with the prospect of Clanners being made citizens closer than ever, the cultural differences between them and citizens of the Republic have been thrown into sharp relief. Though not a concern in the present moment, the continuation of the Clan Caste system to future generations—officially or otherwise—is liable to engender conflict between Clanners and other Republic citizens and face legal challenges from the federal government given the discrimination inherent in the system. Likewise, the traditional schooling and training systems used by the Clans are riven with physical, mental, and often sexual abuse, the latter of which will be of particular concern to government authorities. Finally, though by no means the last issue of concern, trials by combat will almost certainly not be permitted to continue in their current form given the risk of death, though it may prove the easiest hurdle to overcome over the coming years.

Rasalhague

A newfound ally of the Helghan Republic and a sibling democracy surrounded by a sea of monarchies and dictatorships, the Free Rasalhague Republic has suffered greatly from the Clan Invasion. Boasting 84 systems of varying development levels prior to the invasion, the arrival of the Clans has seen the democratic state reduced to a sliver of its former glory; only 37 systems remain in the state, many of which have governments struggling to support the refugees that fled ahead of the Clans. In addition, though many industrialised systems remain in Rasalhaugian hands, many feature factories that desperately require upgrades if they are to support anything like the state's previous standard of living—the ORDI establishing only a handful of modern production lines to support the alliance's battle against the Clans. Badly strained by the loss of trade with its neighbours—a side effect of both the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine directing Jump Ships en mass to support their armed forces—the disruption caused by the invasion and the loss of valuable production lines to the Clans, the Rasalhaugian economy has begun to display signs of a major recession. While the Rasalhaugian government would ordinarily combat this with stimulus packages, the cost of mercenaries to fight the Clans and the various arms deals the nation had to make to survive has left its treasury nearly (or entirely) bankrupt.

Despite these issues, some of which bode poorly for Rasalhague's ability to defend itself following the ceasefire's end, the Free Republic's government currently enjoys widespread support from the Rasalhaugian people as a direct result of its steadfastness during the conflict. Moreover, the ORDI enjoys similar levels of popularity thanks to the decision to intercede, bleed, and die on behalf of the Free Republic—something that will predispose the nation towards the Republic and its allies for a good while. Finally, while the economic troubles the Rasalhague Republic seems certain to endure will threaten its well-being, the KungsArmé remains a powerful combined arms force with an extensive stockpile of war material thanks to ORDI donations and will serve as an effective deterrent against pirate and Clan raiders.

Capellan Revanchism

Considering the growing national pride within the Capellan Confederation combined with the state's increasingly developed industrial sector and military might, it is more than likely that the next few decades will see revanchist attitudes spread among the Capellan population and leadership. Having lost something of the order of 100 solar systems as a direct result of Maximilian Liao's failed plot to disrupt the Federated Suns' internal workings and the 4th Succession War that resulted, the Confederation is liable to start working towards their return sometime in the next few years. While the peaceful restoration of some systems is not out of the question, the Confederation will likely use military means to recover systems the Federated Suns and Free Worlds League are unwilling to part with peacefully and find itself at war with one or both nations. Similarly, the Tikonov Free Republic is likely to be an early target for reintegration due to its small size and increasingly loose ties to the Federated Suns, though the possibility exists that one or both neighbouring great houses will intervene and the utility of mercenary forces should not be underestimated.

While the question of whether the Capellan Confederation can win such a conflict is difficult to answer, that the Confederation will call on its allies in the Outer Rim Defence Initiative for assistance is all but guaranteed. Already victorious against the Federated Suns, the ORDI alliance is unlikely to lose a subsequent conflict barring any unanticipated developments in military technology. However, a conflict with both the Federated Suns and the Free Worlds League would doubtlessly prove substantially more challenging and commensurately less popular among the ORDI's populace. In addition, with the Taurian Concordat facing the challenge of integrating Outback systems into its body politic and providing its people with constitutionally guaranteed rights, Republic intelligence analysts are concerned that the Concordat may refuse to assist the Confederation with offensive conflicts in any way. Not, on the face of it, an unreasonable decision, the refusal of a single state could threaten the stability of the ORDI alliance as a whole by undermining its security guarantees.

Internal Stability of the Draconis Combine

A militaristic imperialist state whose society holds to a series of carefully crafted honour codes inspired by those historically used by Terra's Japan, the next few decades will doubtlessly hold much change for the corewards nation. Currently ruled by the reformist Theodore Kurita following the death in battle of his father during the attempted conquest of Luthien by Clans Jade Falcon and Nova Cat, the Draconis Combine is already undergoing a series of internal reforms intended to liberalise the nation's society and improve its economy before the resumption of hostilities with the Clans. However, despite the success enjoyed by these early reforms, conservative elements within the Combine have reportedly opposed further changes which would lessen their influence and disrupt tradition—military reforms seeing the most opposition, though social reforms have received their fair share of criticism. In addition, while these figures have seemingly kept their opposition quiet—understandably so given the number of honourable suicides in Combine history—the mere fact that word of this opposition has reached the Republic suggests it is a widespread position among Combine nobility.

Considering these factors, it is probable that the all-but-assured social upheaval promised by Theodore Kurita's reforms will trigger a political crisis or crises over the coming decades. Though the exact nature of these crises remains impossible to determine for now, a look through the history of the Combine and those of similar states suggests that they may be as wide-ranging as a popular revolt, a coup by conservative elements, or even a civil war. Irrespective of the crisis' shape, its impact will be felt throughout the Inner Sphere and beyond and will prompt the Clans, the Federated Suns, and the Lyran Commonwealth into some form of action at the very least.

Internal Stability of the Federated Suns

Much like the Draconis Combine to the galactic north, the nearby Federated Suns is undergoing numerous internal political changes unparalleled in its recent history. Ruled over by the comparatively dovish Morgan Davion for many years, the proliferation of advanced manufacturing and communications technology has prompted an explosion of change within the nation's economy and fueled everything from greater industrialisation to localised unemployment crises, all of which have, in turn, fueled the growth of groups from every axis of the political compass. Similarly, the loss of the Outback conflict—itself prompted by the Helghan Republic's hawkish policies—has driven the growth of revanchist thought among the nation's far-right elements and created fertile ground for its spread within the Federated Suns' political establishment. Currently only held by a small percentage of people within the rimward state, the political awakening of the state's lower classes offers the same potential for crises to occur over the coming decades as it has within the Draconis Combine; its potential impacts heightened by the Suns' proximity to the ORDI, Federation of Autonomous Systems, and the United Rimward Collectives.

Additionally, despite First Price Davion's present unwillingness to confront the Outer Rim Defence Initiative militarily, a more militant First Prince supported by the far-right may come to power over the coming decades. Empowered by a robust internal economy and an expansive shipbuilding industry, this First Prince may attempt to retake systems lost during the Outback Conflict or even engage in deliberately destructive attacks against ORDI member-states—the scale of the Federated Suns allowing it to survive an ORDI response.

Petrusite Proliferation

A resource valuable to the ORDI in general and the Helghan Republic in particular, the continued efforts of rival states to cultivate their own sources of Petrusite have seen an end to the Helghan monopoly of the hyperspace-resonant substance. Used in everything from energy generation to weapons technology, the utility of the strange material greatly contributed to its spread across the Inner Sphere and beyond. A major contributor to the ORDI's victory over the Federated Suns during the Outback Conflict and the Inner Sphere's victory during the Clan Invasion, the proliferation of the substance and its variants will close the capability gap between ORDI militaries and those of other nations. Moreover, continued research into the substance will doubtlessly reveal more and more powerful uses for the material, with recent forays into short-range hyperspace jumps (also known as teleportation), Irradiated Petrusite ground weaponry, and Naval scale Petrusite weapons merely a few of the areas promising major advancements over the coming years.

Another concern whose impacts are impossible to accurately theorise ahead of time, it is nonetheless possible to say that the spread of Petrusite among and its continued development by powers outside the ORDI will, without a doubt, trigger a notable swing in the balance of galactic power as further uses for the material are developed.

Novel Technological Threats

Outside of Petrusite Proliferation, another area of concern lies within the continued and widespread development of national scientific research sectors. Though the Republic obviously welcomes the development of scientific knowledge given its contributions to improving human life over the millennia, recent developments in biotechnology, robotics, nuclear sciences, and other fields and the increasingly rapid pace of these developments have rightly worried many throughout the known galaxy. Fully autonomous weapons platforms, self-replicating robotics, biologically engineered viruses, miniaturised pure fusion devices, generational improvements in computation, increased cyberization, and countless other potential developments could both destabilise the balance of power in the galaxy and threaten the internal stability of the Helghan Republic or its allies. While nations throughout the galaxy will undoubtedly continue to pursue these and related technologies lest they be left behind by their rivals, the military, social, and political risks associated with them should not be ignored.

Outside Context Problems

An admittedly unusual concern to raise in an intelligence report, the sudden and dramatic appearance of the Helghan Republic and Clans to the galactic stage has made the discussion of similar occurrences a prerequisite for any serious analysis. In this context, an Outside Context Problem (or OCP) refers to any event generally not considered until it occurs and where the capacity to conceive of or consider the OCP in the first place may not be possible or very limited. Typical examples of OCPs are the sudden and unanticipated arrival of a technologically superior civilization or the likewise unanticipated discovery of an intelligent alien species. However, OCPs can also include events such as gamma-ray bursts and hostile artificial intelligence, as well as less physically tangible threats such as alterations to hyperspace metrics degrading or even preventing faster-than-light travel.

As the very nature of OCPs renders speculation about them an exercise in imagination more than anything else, attempting to define them ahead of time risks being too conservative and too speculative all at once. Additionally, given the relative rarity of OCPs in history, watching out for them will likely see numerous false positives raised. Regardless, it is incumbent on the Republic's government to consider the possibility of encountering Outside Context Problems and to devise potential responses for them when they arise.

Incidentally, due to my weird fixation on making org charts, I happen to have made an organizational chart for ORDI and its structure:



@prometheus110 gave it the thumbs up on discord as not being obviously wrong.