Special Era Report: 3142 - Beyond the Looking Glass (BattleTech Concertverse AU Sourcebook)

[Steve]

Yes. I am a nerd. Yes. I am also not sane. But what can I say? BattleTech brings out the world-building nerd in me, and writing this out makes my brain produce happiness chemicals. Needs my dopamine hit yo.

Table of Contents​

Fatal Expectations

Introduction

The Distorted Reflection

The Points of Divergence​

Sidebar 1: The Fateful Discovery​

After Kerensky's Loss
The Collapse​

Sidebar 2: ComStar — A Different Path
Sidebar 3: What about Kerensky's children?​

Chaos Reigns​

Sidebar 4: Dominion By Strength​

A New Renaissance
The Second Age of War
Operation REVIVAL: The Terran Crusade​

Sidebar 5: The Responses to the Terran Ultimatum of August 3050
Sidebar 6: Operation SERPENT​

Terra's Fall and the Successor States' Stalemate
The Fourth Succession War​

Sidebar 7: The Dragon's Contempt​

The Congress of Dieron
The Concert of the Sphere​

Sidebar 8: A Hidden War in the Deep Periphery?
​

The Successor States of 3142

Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague​

First Einherjar
Eridani Heavy Cavalry Sixty-Sixth Cavalry Regiment
Knights of St. John First Regiment
Takeda Cavalry​

Azami Confederacy​

Al-Murabutin
Azami Heavy Guard
Sixth Spahi
Second Arkab Legion​

Draconis Combine​

Second Sword of Light
Barlowe's Raiders
Ninth Galedon Regulars
Fourth Legion of Vega​

Tikonov Union​

First Tikonov Guards
Arcadian Cuirassiers
Northwind Highlanders MacLeod's Regiment
Seventh Kentares Guards​

Kilbourne Suns' Concord​

Lexington Combat Group 249th Command Regiment
Eridani Light Horse 71st Light Horse
First Solar Legion
Fifth Concord Guards​

Free Traders' Union​

Traders' Militia First Brigade
3311th Armored Cavalry
Wynn's Aces
Castro's Cowboys​

Federated Suns​

Third Davion Guards
Sharpe Rifles
Second Victoria Rangers
First Robinson Avengers​

Oriento-Capellan Empire​

Death Commandos
The Order of the Red Sword
Warrior House Aquila
First Sian Dragoons​

People's State of Andurien​

Second Defenders of Andurien
Chamberlain's Fusiliers
Third People's Defense Brigade
Lancaster's Filibusters​

Magistracy of Canopus​

Canopian Lifeguards
Four Canopian Grenadiers
Canopian Highlanders
Arano Royal Guard​

Flavian Principate​

IX Legio
Gladiator Auxilia (Gladiators Legion)
Pilpala Auxilia (The KING of Pilpala's Legion)
I Rim Auxilia (First Rim Commonality Cuirassiers)​

Royal Federation​

Proctor Heavy Guards
Eighth Strikers
Fourth Skye Rangers
First Atrean Dragoons​

Kingdom of Ghastillia​

Fourth Ghastillian Grenadiers
First Winter Lancers
Second Ghastillian Regulars
Twenty-Fifth Ghastillian Heavy Defense Brigade "Mangeurs de Feu"​

Communal League of Sudeten​

Second Autonomous Brigade
First Autonomous Wing
Communal Assault Brigade
Seventh Jaeger Brigade ​

ComStar​

Sidebar 9: The Terran Oversight Force​

Mercenaries​

Dumas' Musketeers
Gray Death Legion
The Gravediggers
Black Pants Legion​

Major Personas

Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague ​

Haakon Magnusson
Margrethe Maxwell
Lars Skafte
Anastasia Takeda-Suvorova
Tristan Denaro ​

Azami Confederacy ​

Khalid al-Abbas
Yasmin Rashid
Nasruddin Hekmatyar
Oleg Petrovsky
Maryam Nyobe ​

Draconis Combine ​

Yorinaga Kurita
Ichiro Tetsuhara
John Ballymont
Katarina Takeda-Suvorova
Musashi Honda ​

Tikonov Union ​

Martina Timoshenko
Alvin Rozhenko
Tanya Campbell
Mikhail Kamenov
Joseph Dresari ​

Kilbourne Suns' Concord ​

Milos Kavanaugh
Joan Arseid
Lawrence Avellar
Harris Tostig
Shlomo Rubenstein ​

Free Traders' Union ​

Duane Sandusky
Fidel Raoul Castro
Gerard Fetladral ​

Federated Suns ​

Grace Silver-Davion
Erik Sandoval
Arthur Silver-Davion
Victor Silver-Davion
Bao Chen Luo ​

Oriento-Capellan Empire ​

Robert Halas-Liao
Eris Halas
Xiaoli Halas-Liao
Daniel Hawkwood
Salma Chen ​

People's State of Andurien​

Karla Humphries
Jacob Chamberlain
Rama Choudhuri
Halime Cifti​

Magistracy of Canopus ​

Kamea Centrella-Arano
Alistair Wainwright
Pauline Oliver
Mateo Arano ​

Flavian Principate ​

Julia O'Reilly
Sanjeet Vulcan-Maximus
Marcus Anthony Zielinski
Mark O'Reilly
Enver Cifti-Jimenez ​

Royal Federation ​

Nathaniel Proctor-Steiner
Peter Proctor-Steiner
Arnold Proctor-Steiner
DeMarcus Bridger
Katherine Tremaine ​

Kingdom of Ghastillia ​

Gerda Bradford
Sean Callahan
Roger Cook
Joachim von Istenberg
Regina Mackey ​

Communal League of Sudeten​

Karl Luvacs
Jorge Ramirez
Silvia Dubček
Lena Zuk
Mattias Whitbrook ​

ComStar​

Evelyn Katanga
Jason Hollings
Samanthan Praust​

Mercenaries​

Roland Carlisle
Jean-Paul Dumas
Christopher Hoyal​

The Broken and the Reformed: Former Successor States of the Second Age of War

The Broken ​

Terran Union
Oberon Confederation
Rengo Directorate
McAllister Shogunate
Canaan Accord
Lancaster Authority
United Outworlds Republic
Duchy of Vicente
Filtvelt Coalition
Colorado Empire
Peripheral Union
Hyades Rim Republic
Jaipur Empire
Muskegon Empire
Capellan Hegemony
Unity of Bellatrix
Saonara Dominion
Marik Commonwealth
Kashamarka Antisuyu
Interstellar Governments Council
Grand Duchy of Tamarind
Circinus Federation
Grand Principality of Bolan
Federal Star Republic of Skye
Rift Republic
New Commonwealth
Rim Worlds Empire
Duchy of Buckminster​

The Reformed ​

Principality of Rasalhague
Rasalhague Commune
Tamar Pact
Hartshill Federal Alliance
Galedon Directorate
Lexington Concord
Solar Union
Kilbourne Commonwealth
Crucis Pact
United Hindu Collective
Brethren of the Stars
Aurigan Coalition
Marian Hegemony
Rim Commonality
Grand Duchy of Oriente
Royal Protectorate of Harsefeld
Niops Association
Arcadian Free March
Kingdom of Donegal
Defiance-Hesperus Consolidant​

 

[Steve]

Fatal Expectations​

Harlow's Wood
Umberland Continent, New Wessex
Vega Prefecture, Tok Do Military District
Draconis Combine
15 May 3140


The flash of laser fire lanced through Harlow's Wood, cleaving burning trees along the beam's path. The contours of a Tengu OmniMech showed through the smoke lifting from the smoldering forest floor. Second Lieutenant Frederick Wolfe, Third Proctor Guards, flipped to magscan to get a better image of the Drac 'Mech before centering his crosshairs on the inhumanly-shaped bipedal 'Mech and squeezing his triggers. The extended range pulse lasers in the OmniPods fitted to his Cobra's right arm and chest flashed to life in twin beams of pulsing light. He held the beams as long as possible over the machine, drilling into the armor of the Tengu.

The Tengu pilot juked, throwing his aim off enough that his torso-mounted pulse laser drifted off target, leaving a glowing streak of molten material over otherwise-intact ferro-fibrous armor. The right arm weapon kept on target until the beam ended. A deep wound in the belly armor of the Combine pilot showed, though with no spike of heat or change in balance to indicate the engine or gyro damage he'd hoped to inflict.

Wolfe extended his Cobra's straight-jointed left leg to side-step in an evasive maneuver. It kept one of the sizzling particle bolts from the enemy machine from blasting his protective armor, but the other was a direct hit on his left side. The armor held but the sensors built into the plate flashed black on his warning screens. The armor plate itself was no longer intact. Another PPC hit to that section would wreck everything.

"Battalion Command, this is Charlie Company, I say again, we have Dracs in the woods," His Company CO, Captain Minissha Kaur, spoke with deceptive calm. "Our Recon Lance is reporting enough signatures to be a battalion."

"Impossible, Charlie Command," a voice from the 3rd Battalion's HQ replied. "We have confirmation that all Second Sword of Light battalions are accounted for. There's not supposed to be anyone else here. Can you make positive unit identification?"

Wolfe wasn't going to wait for someone else to do it. Despite the smoke he switched from magscan to normal spectrum and enhanced as best he could. The Tengu was still shrouded in smoke from the burning forest floor, but another of its type and a Tanto moving up behind it, were just far enough from the thickest plumes to get a visual ID. His left hand moved over and hit a quick sequence of keys. The paired RussTech targeting and comm systems built into the Cobra collaborated electronically to transmit the data in live tri-V to Battalion Command. "Charlie Bravo-Three sending visual data, Charlie Command, Battalion Command," he said.

The opposing Tengu's arm track Wolfe fired his pulse lasers once more. One beam was a complete miss and the other slipped off too quickly to penetrate armor, but the Tengu had to jerk in a way that caused their own PPC blast to miss Wolfe and blow up a tree behind him. Particle backwash rippled over the Cobra and distorted some of his electronic displays for a couple seconds. When the effect faded Wolfe still had his target in sight.

Before he could fire, the Drac Tanto rushed into view. Its black and red color scheme and the black dragon sigil of the Draconis Combine were prominent, as was another insignia that, even if he couldn't make out the detail, made his blood chill. Instead of the blazing sword he'd expected to see, it was a bi-colored square with a sword and numeral the smoke obscured.

They're not from a Sword of Light regiment! There's another outfit here!

The Tanto was a lighter machine than the Tengu, built like one of the classic Jenners, and armed like it too. SRMs corkscrewed from the mounts built into the chest of the armless 'Mech, eight in all. Wolfe twisted to his left to take the hits on the intact right side armor. In the same motion his leveled his right arm and triggered the pulse laser mounted beside the hand. Pulsing sapphire light flashed over the Tanto just as half its missiles slammed into his arm and torso section. The powerful warheads tore chunks from the armor but did not penetrate.

The Tengu's PPC fire did.

Dammit. Wolfe watched his right arm, and almost half his firepower, go flying off at the shoulder joint. The second PPC blast smashed through the armor on the right side entirely and wrecked the Defiance B6M laser built into the housing. Okay, make that over half my firepower gone.

Heavy autocannon fire tore into the Tengu the next moment, ripping through its heart and blasting the engine to pieces. A salvo of large missiles — VCTMs! — struck at the Tanto. Though only nine hit the torso the explosions blew through the 'Mech with enough power to tell him the shooter was using short-ranged HE warhead VCTMs. A pair of emerald pulse lasers finished it off.

The remaining Tengu faded back through the smoke and began evasive maneuvers. Freed from imminent danger, Wolfe's attention switched to the machines moving up beside him. One was a Cobra like his own, but with the right side of the torso dominated by the imposing sight of a Defiance Doomblossom VCTM-12, and the name of Lieutenant Yasmin al-Garoub now erased by a laser burn beside the cockpit. The other was Lieutenant Tristan MacDougal's Culverin, five tons heavier and built like the smaller, reverse-knee-jointed cousin of the legendary Hunchback. A few wisps of smoke still gently wafted from the barrel of the massive Kali Yama Deathhammer autocannon installed in the pod space within the bulkier right torso. The Culverin was missing one of its arms and the Cobra had plentiful laser burns with no visible damage.

"Bravo Three, this is why you don't ride out too far," said the soprano voice of his immediately commander, Lance Lieutenant Sandra Miller. Her low-built chicken-legged Sunhawk stomped up. Like his machine and the others it bore battle damage on the plates of silver, gold, and red. Underneath the beak-like cockpit over the central torso was an insignia not dissimilar to the Draconis Combine emblem, save for the hawk-winged silver sword plunging through the black dragon's chest. Six SRM tubes were still intact to either side of the beak-ish protrusion of the cockpit, as were the four extended range medium lasers built into the arms and below the SRM launchers. A blackened ruin of a lens marked where enemy fire had killed the Defiance LightSweeper micro-pulse laser mounted just to the right side of the chest. "Their skirmishers got past you. If we hadn't been in position you'd have been flanked by two more of the bastards."

Wolfe swallowed and nodded. "Apologies, Lance Loo. Won't happen again." He turned his eyes to the wider sensor display. Aside from the Tengu falling back, more amber lights were forming in the far distance. He brought up his magscan visuals and zoomed in. The magnetic sensors looked past the trees, smoke, and flames to seek out metals and electric emissions.

The sight made him swallow. There was another company out there. No, more than one. Sixteen. Twenty. Guess that's the battalion the recces spotted.

More icons showed on his screen. Blue ones, at least, coming up beside them. "Charlie Company, assume defensive positions," Captain Kaur said.

"Battalion Command here. Good work, Charlie Bravo-Three. We've made identification. It's the Ninth Galedon Regulars."

"Figures," MacDougal snorted in his Skye brogue. "Intel didn't warn us they'd be here."

"Cut the chatter, Bravo-Four," Kaur snapped. "Battalion Command, enemy 'Mech battalion is nearly on us. Orders?"

"Hold until relieved, Charlie Company. We're vectoring supporting armor and armored infantry units as quickly as we can, but the Dracs are hitting us all along the Wood and the artillery's already tasked. If you don't keep them out they're going to cut through the forest and hit our LZ."

Wolfe swallowed. Hold and die. His heart quivered in realization at just how long the odds were. So much for avenging the Dracs' border attacks, and so damn much for the bloody 'Concert of the Sphere' and their damned Peace. He brought in a breath and gripped his joystick tightly.

Movement showed ahead. The Dracs had regrouped. They were coming.

"Alright everyone," Kaur said over their company line. "This is the job. We're the Third Proctor Guards. They call us the Dragonslayers for a reason, and I see a whole lot of Dracs coming. We hold. For the Federation!"

"For Freedom and Federation!" one of the other company pilots called out.

"For God, Liberty, and House Proctor!" Lance Lieutenant Miller added.

Wolfe added his own cry, if just to break the icy fear filling his chest. "For Donegal and the Federation!"

The first Drac 'Mechs pierced the smoke and flames. Wolfe's joystick centered on another Tengu. His finger tensed on the trigger.

Harlow's Wood burned.

 

[Steve]

Introduction




****INTELLIGENCE REPORT - ULTRA PRIORITY - READ IMMEDIATELY****​

FROM: Lady Janella Lakewood
TO: Exarch Jonah Levin
CC: Council of Paladins
RE: Timkovichi Event
DATE: 7 June 3143

By the time you're reading this, Exarch, I will have already shown you the news that Brigadier Huyten and his people delivered to us at Imbros two weeks ago. The miracle we were hoping for may have finally come in a form none of us could have ever imagined.

The Timkovichi Event on 15 August 3142 ended the threat Malvina Hazen posed to our Republic; frankly, to every soul living within the Inner Sphere. The formation and persistent existence of what has been dubbed "the Looking Glass" has also changed much of what we presumed true about the nature of reality or the functions of the Kearny-Fuchida Drive that makes interstellar civilization possible. It has enormously complicated the duties of our intelligence-gatherers now that we have to account for an entirely different Inner Sphere existing "beside" ours, one we have only limited access to at this time. We do have a starting point for that effort, at least.

Brigadier Huyten and his team compiled a lot of data for us on our cousins beyond the Looking Glass. The battleROM footage from the fighting on Timkovichi is of immense value to Paladin-Exemplar McKinnon's efforts in understanding the weaponry, machines, and fighting doctrines from the other side. Huyten also includes interviews he and his people had with the Arcadian personnel on Timkovichi, the reports through the Glass he obtained, and even some of the material Lady Trillian Steiner-Davion sent to the Kells from the other side. My staff and I have done what we can to compile it into the information within this document, which I expect to complement the personal briefing I've given you. Hopefully Huyten or one of his people will return with yet more information for us, but until then, this is what we have.

Everything has changed. And I think Huyten is right. This might just be the salvation we've been looking for.

 

[Steve]

The Distorted Reflection

There is a long-standing theory in high-level physics called the "many worlds" theory. It existed more as a thought experiment than anything, a way of resolving how time travel might resolve paradoxes, or certain exotic concepts of quantum mechanics. The Timkovichi Event has proven it more than a mere thought experiment, however. We have physical, incontrovertible proof that more than one "universe" exists. Another Inner Sphere that appears to match our own, in terms of astronomy and placement of stars and worlds, even in our histories. Up to a point.

The Points of Divergence


We're not sure precisely where the earliest divergence point is. It's possible, even likely, it was so small that it had no bearing on the flow of history. It may have been something as simple as a farmer in ancient Terra stubbing his toe on a stone in one Inner Sphere but not the other. Or Emperor Nero tried a different tune on his purported fiddle on some specific day. There is no way of knowing how many divergences exist, simply indicators that they did.

One significant example that we can confirm thanks to Arcadian records and modern news reports is that the Lyran world Gienah has a different history and culture. By the historical record there were fewer colonists of Scots and Indian extraction and more from the Middle East and North America. As a result the Gienah beyond the Looking Glass has the cities of Garvey and Armstrong on the Borealis continent at the spot where our Inner Sphere's Molfetta was built on the continent Carrobesto. The original planetary capital of Ooessay on Alliago Major is known there as Athanasius and the planet's capital is instead the city of Eilat on the coast. That city is near but not on the site of Alliago City on our side of the Glass. Alliago Major is not the name of the continent there either; the main continent of Gienah is called Tikvah, and our Alliago Minor is their Australis. The Shaltiel family have governed as Dukes since virtually the start of the Lyran Commonwealth, while in our timeline there are no records of a House Shaltiel ever holding even a barony on the planet. Each of these represents multiple, compounding divergences, and collectively are just one example of many that might exist once the records are thoroughly examined.

It is most likely one of these sorts of divergence points led to, or "butterflied", into the single most important historical diversion between our Inner Spheres. That came in early 2777 when Aleksandr Kerensky led the SLDF to Terra. During the early fighting in Eurasia Kerensky personally assumed command of the liberation of his hometown Moscow. On February 2nd, 2777, our history violently diverges from that beyond the Looking Glass. In our history nothing of special note occurred on that day. In their history the 33rd Amaris Dragoons detonated a fifty-five kiloton atomic device in the Kuntsevo District of the city. The blast inflicted serious casualties to elements of the 146th Royal BattleMech Division and destroyed their forward staff HQ. The divisional command staff were all killed, as was their visitor: Kerensky himself.

I have consulted a number of official records and historical accounts of Operation LIBERATION and the fighting against the Usurper. There are always allegations and reports that the 33rd Amaris Dragoons may have had atomic devices, and certainly Amaris would have ordered them used on Kerensky if at all possible, but in our history this obviously did not occur. Perhaps on our side a soldier was in the right place at the right time to thwart the weapon's activation, or a different junior officer made a choice the one on our side did not that saw the weapon's use. Maybe their Kerensky made his presence in Kuntsevo too obvious, costing him and many of his soldiers their lives. A more exhaustive examination of the historical record might or might not reveal the why. It does reflect the nature of these differences in history, as history is a continuing chain of linked decisions and choices. Change one link, no matter how small or insignificant, and the resulting cascade might end up with profound implications.

As we shall see, this divergence would cascade until it left the Inner Sphere beyond the Glass a very different place from our own.



Sidebar 1: The Fateful Discovery

<RECORDING OF COMMUNICATION, 2 FEBRUARY 2777, 146TH RBMR S&R DETACHMENT, OA: KUNTSEVO DISTRICT, MOSCOW, EURASIA>

"Battalion Command to SR One. Verified enemy no longer present in your OA. Have you reached 146th PHQ?"

"SR Detachment entering the building now. *crackle* Not a lot of rubble. Blast blew the thing over and exposed the room. We definitely have remains. Checking for dog tags."

"How's your counter, SR One?"

"Crackling away. Rads are still evident and above recommended. Good thing we've got the suits. Didn't matter for the staff. Surprised there's enough of them left…"

"Can you confirm identity?"

"Uniforms are burnt to a crisp, no identifying rank insignia left intact. Looks like the dogtags didn't quite melt. I've got… Colonel Jerricks, looks like."

"SR Two here, tag for Major General Scott. Only thing we'll be identifying him with. Good God the Rimmer nuke did a number on them."

"Battalion Command here. I'll inform Lieutenant General Frantisek he's in charge of the division. Any other remains?"

"SR One here, on to my next— Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

"SR One? What is it?"

"Dear God, it can't… oh God…"

"SR One? SR Detachment, proceed."

<several second pause>

"SR Detachment, this is Colonel Primmon speaking at Battalion Command, talk to me. Are you having counter problems? Rads spiking? We need an answer."

<sounds of retching are heard>

"SR Detachment—"

"SR Two here, Battalion Command. No change to rads. It's… Good God, Colonel, it's him. It's the General!"

"You already accounted for General Scott, who are you—"

"It's the General, sir! It's… it's General Kerensky!"

 

[Steve]

After Kerensky's Loss

Kerensky's death did not significantly alter the outcome of Operation LIBERATION. Aaron DeChavilier and his subordinates took over and continued to execute the plans Kerensky laid out, and while Amaris' forces did attempt further atomic attacks, SLDF special forces and the loss of critical assembly facilities did little more than buy time. In 2780 Amaris' forces laid down their arms. DeChavilier, who had already found the rotting remains of the Camerons in Unity City, did not permit Amaris and his family even a day of captivity, ordering their executions the moment Amaris' Imperial Palace was taken.

The end of the Usurper brought DeChavilier to the same situation that Kerensky faced in our own. There were no legitimate claims to the Cameron throne. The other Council Lords all claimed they had the right to become First Lord and would not vote for another. The key difference was that DeChavilier, by himself, did not, perhaps could not, envision the Exodus as Kerensky did in our history. He focused on rebuilding the SLDF and securing the former Hegemony, but he could not stop the Houses from recruiting their citizens among his forces. The battered SLDF shrunk yet further, almost to the point it could not even defend Terra. As in our history, only Jerome Blake found any headway, being made Minister of Communications by the feuding Lords of the Council in an effort to rebuild interstellar communication.

At this point the divergences pick up. The ripples are now tidal waves. Their armies much enhanced, the House Lords were even less-inclined to a diplomatic solution, and in one final vote ordered the SLDF itself to disperse. DeChavilier was stripped of all commands. At this point, DeChavilier rebelled. He could not personally suppress the Houses, but he had the support of the remnant SLDF in refusing the dispersal. In 2784 the Commanding General issued the Emergency Defense Decree, ordering all SLDF units still existing to refuse efforts to disperse them and, where applicable, withdraw to Terra or surrounding worlds. The Council Lords were understandably irate, but by this point they were already preparing for the coming contest with their rivals and did not stop DeChavilier's actions, though they all made opportunistic grabs at the former Hegemony for territory.

DeChavilier did not retaliate because he could not with his existing forces, but he used the pretext to reform the Terran Hegemony as the Terran Union. To ease concerns from the populace he invited civilian leadership to form and constitute a legislature and government, which became the Terran Union Congress, while as Director-General of the new Union he would lead what he now called the "Terran Union Defense Forces". A number of worlds within one or two jumps of Terra acceded to the new Union and the new TUDF, formed as they were of Star League veterans, easily repulsed the House forces that tried to take their worlds. In 2784 the Titan Shipyards were re-opened and allowed DeChavilier's fleet to become active. They were, despite the hellish losses in the war against the Usurper, still the largest fleet in the Inner Sphere. The invasions ceased under their guns. The Terran Union borders were secure. Reportedly DeChavilier considered a proposal to intervene more forcefully, but with the state of the Terran Union's economy and industry and how thin his forces were, even his fleet, he lacked the means to forcibly suppress the remaining Houses. All he could do was stand on the defensive and hope they left him alone.

In 2785 the other House Lords gave a grudging, halting admission of the new Union's status, charging them as "protectors of Terra and the rightful holdings of the First Lord". DeChavilier accepted even with the implication he would be expected to defer to whichever Successor Lord prevailed. As he and his new associate, Jerome Blake, privately discussed, the situation was unlikely to see any of the contenders prevail, either through diplomacy or force. Staying out of the dispute to allow the rebuilding of Terra and adjoining worlds was the wise choice.

When Minoru Kurita declared himself the rightful First Lord and demanded the others accede to his wishes, DeChavilier still did nothing but declare that he would act to uphold the Ares Conventions and SLDF humanitarian guidelines against "excessive and gross violations by a belligerent". He and his forces would otherwise remain behind their borders as their worlds became the sole island of calm in the raging torrent of the First Succession War.

 

[Steve]

The Collapse

No one need speak of the horrific devastation that came with the First Succession War. The same conflict was even more bloody on the other side of the Glass, with more SLDF-trained veterans on all sides to intensify the fighting of the conflict. The threat of Terran naval intervention restrained the conduct that saw some of the more infamous massacres on our side, preserving New Dallas in one instance and constraining even the volatile Jinjiro Kurita at Kentares. As you might imagine, this had follow-on effects that intensified the war elsewhere. The Federated Suns, for instance, never had the rage of Kentares to boost their faltering morale from defeats. For much of the war House Davion's armies were desperately pressed on all sides and would barely hold in the heart of the Crucis March. At the same time, the successes Liao and Kurita enjoyed against the Davions further strained their own economies from the logistical demands and the continued raiding by the desperate Federated Suns. With similar strains and damage striking at the realms of Steiner and Marik as part of their conflict, all five Great Houses were burning their muscles and sinew, their very bones, to sustain the war effort.

By the 2820s this process was breaking them down. The final offensives petered out with all Houses having gained and lost worlds to the very end, but simply incapable of continued effort. The horrific damages being inflicted were undermining the integrity of their states. Piracy was on the rise and undermining public confidence in the Successor States' ability to protect them. Local planetary governments, expeditionary commanders, and nobles were openly or quietly clawing power away for themselves. Three out of five House Lords — Paul Davion, Jinjiro Kurita, and Ilsa Liao — were killed in action in 2827, and the sons of Thaddeus Marik were waging a quiet civil war against each other and their sister Jeanette, a reluctant Captain-General who had no ComStar to flee to in this history. Jeanette's contribution to history here was her reaching out to Conrad Toyama, Chancellor of the Terran Congress, to request Terran intermediation to end the war.

Much like our history, Toyama was an associate and close friend of Jerome Blake, but as his title indicates, ComStar was not the same organization that developed in our history. With DeChavilier and a functional Terran government in place, Blake never adopted the quasi-religious organization or ideology that ComStar came to be known for here. He founded ComStar as a communications company and a company it remained. Toyama had risen in the ranks of the organization before running for public office at Blake's recommendation. As Chancellor he served in conjunction with the Director-General as head of the military. After consulting with Director-General Sarah McEvedy, Toyama agreed to the proposal. The resulting peace talks were hosted in the rebuilt sections of Unity City. An early proposal by McEvedy to restore the Star League in part was soundly rejected and the Houses would only agree to a peace at the current lines. Everyone needed to rebuild, everyone still wanted more, and the First Succession War came to a stop much as it did in our history; an armed ceasefire instead of the badly-needed general peace that came into force in 2829.

Toyama and McEvedy did what they could to promote a more permanent peace. But the former lost a key vote in Congress promoted by an emerging political rival, Raymond Karpov, and was forced to resign. Karpov assumed the Chancellorship and began a twenty year long struggle for power with McEvedy and her successors while pressing for isolationism and self-interest for the Terran state. His control of Congress and the infighting took the intact Terran fleet and all of the Union's potential influence out of the issue of enforcing and promoting the peace.

The Great Houses should have stopped at this point. But none did. Just as in our history, the Second Succession War broke out a mere few years after the First ended. With Oskar Marik's death by assassination, Jeanette Marik was outmaneuvered by her surviving brother Charles and forced to flee to Terran exile. The war between the Steiners and Mariks recommenced. Michael Davion likewise ended the peace with Liao to reclaim the Capellan March, a campaign that cost him his life on Kathil but likewise tore the guts out of the Confederation's military command. Coordinator Zabu Kurita, more conscious of the toll the first war had left on the Combine, refused to be drawn in even with the Davions and Steiners' distraction. He paid for this when armed assailants loyal to Hoichiro Ueda, the Warlord of Pesht, broke into his rooms and slaughtered Zabu and his domestic staff. His son Yoguchi and daughter Rowena sought revenge. The resulting civil conflict with Ueda accelerated the breakdown of the Combine as a state while forces from the Isle of Skye and the Draconis March continued to engage Combine forces holding worlds taken from them..

Yoguchi was not willing to ignore the war, even if his conflict with Ueda drew much of his attention. In collaboration with the ISF he arranged the delivery of a bioweapon, a debilitating respiratory illness modeled on a Terran coronavirus sample, to Tharkad. The infectious disease lingered asymptomatically in some while being crippling, even fatal, to the respiratory systems of others. Its rapid spread across Tharkad panicked the court of Archon Marcus Steiner, who was stricken from the illness. His wife and sons fled at his command to Donegal while appeals were sent to Terra for assistance. The resulting loss of confidence in Steiner authority proved the final straw in Skye, which broke into open revolt. The dissolution of the Lyran Commonwealth had begun, with Tamar later breaking away and the former Rim Worlds rebelling in 2953. By 2960, Elizabeth Steiner made the change official by declaring herself Queen of Donegal and ruling the Archonship in abeyance. The first Great House had fallen.

The Draconis Combine followed through the middle of the century. To prevent the disloyalty that killed his father, Yoguchi placed most of his commanders under ISF control, angering both the DCMS and the ISF. The various Warlords and lower ranked officers started vying for influence among Kurita, Ueda, and each other. Rowena attempted to manipulate this for the benefit of House Kurita but repeatedly saw it backfire. The Warlords of Galedon and Rasalhague, Tadakatsu Honda and Frederik Gunnarson, remained loyal but faced internal revolts, as did the Warlord of Benjamin Marcus Tachibana, who sought power for himself. In 2850 a thoroughly frustrated Yoguchi Kurita led the Swords of Light to Pesht to personally destroy Ueda, but his own forced mingling of the ISF and DCMS left to his downfall. Numerous units of the Pesht Regulars turned on him and protected Ueda, turning a lighting bolt raid into a grueling campaign that killed both Ueda and Yoguchi. Rowena was disqualified from ruling so she supported her younger brother Miyogi as the new Coordinator, with the new Warlord of Pesht Jinchiro McAllister pledging his support. McAllister suggested that to consolidate the Combine's faltering gains in the Suns' Draconis March, Miyogi should gather the DCMS' reduced WarShip fleet and reduce New Avalon. To succeed where Jinjiro had failed a generation before would give Miyogi the legitimacy to crush his rivals.

After years of getting the fleet ready and marshaling the resources of a Combine disintegrating around him, Miyogi led the surviving Combine fleet to New Avalon. Like Jinjiro, he claimed the life of a Davion ruler, and like Jinjiro, he lost his own. The Davion defenders repulsed the Kuritan assault. Back on Luthien, McAllister promptly withdrew his support and ordered Roweena placed under house arrest. The resulting violence drove both off the world and led to such widespread devastation on the already-polluted planet that civil authorities eventually turned to ComStar for governance and support. McAllister focused on reform of the Pesht District and formed the McAllister Shogunate on the corpse of the broken Dragon. By 2860, the black dragon of the Draconis Combine no longer flew in pride, and House Kurita were broken exiles living on Terra or whichever other world would take them.

The Free Worlds League remained a fiction more than a reality under Charles Marik, who was never able to exploit the collapse of the Commonwealth or the Confederation's disintegration as he was more often trying and failing to compel obedience from his own provinces. The death of House Allison's main line plunged Oriente into a civil war that further undermined Charles' military efforts, while the cadet Allisons leading the invasion of the Confederation from Harsefeld were building themselves up more than they obeyed him. At the close of the 2840s resistance from Regulus rose to the state of open rebellion with the Cameron-Joneses declaring the Regulan Principality an independent state. Charles sent his son William with the Marik Guards to restore his authority. William's subsequent death in battle with the Regulan Hussars drove Charles to allowing atomic weapons to be used "in limited fashion" to compel surrender, and the local commander chose to obliterate the Hussars and half the cities of the planet upon the permission. The Regulan Massacre broke the League's political legitimacy and Charles' Captain-Generalcy. Not even the trial and execution of the commanders on site was enough. Marik-controlled worlds were cut off from the HPG system by ComStar and the victorious Marik forces were utterly crushed by the Terrans' 3rd Regimental Combat Team, the famous Eridani Light Horse. As with Tharkad and Luthien, as well as Kentares, control of Regulus passed to ComStar to help rebuild the damaged world. Restoring the HPGs required Charles to virtually bankrupt the Marik Commonwealth, with resulting heavy levies on the nobility that sapped at his support.

When Charles died in 2854, his son Gerald spent ten years trying to restore confidence and rally the populace with further assaults on the decaying Liaos and former Lyran states. Lack of funds and the general chaos caused several FWLM units sent on offensives to go rogue. Those sent towards the Confederation tended to be snapped by promises of pay fighting in Oriente's civil war or by joining the Harsefeld Allisons' forces. The rest, especially those dispatched towards Lyran space, became pirates contributing to the destabilization of many of the systems of the League. The Oriente Civil War, and social upheaval on Andurien, did little to restore confidence. More and more members of Parliament chose to simply adjourn year after year with little done. Finally, in 2864, a motion from Andurien spelled a final end with the Parliament voting, over Gerald's passionate objection, to dissolve the Free Worlds League. Shortly thereafter nobility on and around Atreus rose up in revolt against Gerald's taxation. Gerald was killed trying to resist the rebellion with what loyal forces he could muster. Much like House Steiner, House Marik fled their own capital for the safety of a more secure system, using their original throneworld of Marik as the new capital.

The Federated Suns and Capellan Confederation survived the 29th Century in name only. Though the Davions regained Robinson, they lacked the strength or resources to restore their Federation's authority in the long run. After Melissa Davion's death resisting Miyogi Kurita's descent on New Avalon, First Prince Zachary Davion struggled to reassure the distant Periphery worlds of coming aid that his faltering government simply could not provide. His diplomacy delayed the reckoning but did not prevent it. In 2873 Filtvelt and Kilbourne both declared independence, leading several local systems out of the Federation in a cascading reaction that broke away the entire Periphery region from the Outworlds to the borders of the Hindu Collective. On New Syrtis the Haseks followed suit, save for a loyalist branch that were compelled to flee to Wernke by their kin. Kathil and Robinson remained loyal for the moment, but it was not enough. Beset by crippling depression worsened by his helplessness, Zachary committed suicide on June 26th 2873. His younger sister Laura defiantly tried to maintain the Federated Suns even as more systems broke away or were taken by other states, including Kathil and Robinson. Finally in 2916 her son Julius declared the Federated Suns were gone. House Davion had been reduced to the Crucis Pact, though it had avoided the fates of Kurita, Steiner, and Marik in losing their capitals.

Smallest of the Successor States, the Capellan Confederation lasted the longest, though only out of pure stubbornness. Their disastrous invasion of Kathil in 2833 and a failed effort to dislodge the Allisons from Harsefeld and New Delos in 2835 broke the CCAF's officer corps. Infighting between House Liao, the Chamber of Scions, and other representatives of the sheng and the directorship broke the unity of the state. Ineffectual and incapable, Dainmar Liao spent his time alternating between factions trying to hold his throne. The collapse of the Free Worlds League and the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine breaking one another seemed to pave the way to safety, but Dainmar was charmed into what became a disastrous effort to reclaim Andurien. The Allisons, Haseks, and the Narayans of Jaipur struck at the Confederation from different fronts. To save their surviving mercantile interests the sheng of St. Ives declared themselves independent of the Confederation. Tikonov would follow suit and Dainmar, struck by nerves, surrendered power to his son Otto. Otto began a reform and buildup program to restore the CCAF and Liao authority. He promulgated a new series of harsh taxation decrees and compulsory relocation and labor orders, citing the usual Capellan ideology for justification.

Decades of suffering and pirate raids had eroded the national support to greatly for this to work. The orders instead triggered revolts on Sarna, Capella, and several systems at the heart of the Capellan Commonality. Otto briefly suppressed them but could not maintain the effort and throw back the assaults on territory. His angering of the House of Scions finally came back to haunt him. An open revolt on Sian itself saw Otto slain fighting intruders in the Forbidden City. His son Merlin was captured by the Scions' retainers and he was forced to agree to their terms to remain as Chancellor. Those terms allowed the Scions to recover their fortunes, somewhat, but it put an end to the attempt to suppress the anti-Confederation revolt in Capella. With the loss of these worlds, the rump remnant of the Confederation lingered on through the 29th and the 30th Centuries, bleeding system after system all the while, a pale shadow too stubborn to reform and too weak to reclaim its lost glory.

In the Periphery the brief elation of the fall of the Star League likewise gave way to economic catastrophe from refugees and the collapse of interstellar trade. The remnants of the Rim World were, like in our Inner Sphere, conquered by the Lyran Commonwealth, but with the Commonwealth's dissolution there was no accepted central authority to restore the old Republic. Likewise the economic catastrophe and raids from Kuritan and Davion commanders desperately looking for supplies hastened the retraction and then forced reform of the Outworlds, who had to abandon many colonized systems from the loss of the means to sustain them. Civil strife and conflict toppled House Avellar and forced social and religious reform upon the Omniss and other Outworlders, even as their territories were besieged by the growing numbers of pirates and warlords. The Taurian Concordat struggled through the 29th Century to rebuild from the collapse. A plan to reclaim the Pleiades from the collapsing Federated Suns instead turned into a brutal civil war that saw the ravaging of Taurus, the dethronement of the Calderons, and the Concordat's dissolution in the early 30th Century. Only Canopus weathered the storm intact, if reduced.

While the dates of their official ends stretch from 2860 to 3005, the plain fact is that the Second Succession War, such as it was, utterly broke the entirety of known space. Only the Terran Union remained intact. The Collapse was over; where five Great Houses had once ruled hundreds of star systems, now hundreds of star systems were left to fend for themselves in the chaos of an Inner Sphere teeming with warlords and pirates.

 

[Steve]

Sidebar 2: ComStar — A Different Path

(From the notes Lady Trillian wrote to the Kells that Evan Kell saw fit to share with me. — Brigadier Huyten)

Sometimes similarities can make the differences all the more stark. Traveling through the Royal Federation had been one thing. Changing JumpShips from time to time was no different, even if the number of them was greater than I was used to. Seeing at least three Olympus-class or similar-sized jump stations at every system jump point I moved through, that was the first sign I was in a completely different universe. But nothing compared to the shock I received once I was on Arcadia.

A few days after my arrival, I received a gentlewoman caller. She was a woman of fine and handsome features who came from the Flavian Principate's Kashamarkan worlds. Her clothing matched most fashions I'd seen for the business class on Arcadia and I assumed she was an executive from one corporation or another, perhaps a representative from one of the arms manufacturers I was contacting on behalf of the LCAF. Yet even then I noticed the familiar logo of ComStar on her lapels. When Lord Marienberg invited her to introduce herself, I was stunned to hear the answer: "Luz Yupanqui-Georgiu, Planetary Communications Manager for ComStar Communications".

Planetary Communications Manager. Not Precentor. Not Demi-Precentor. Just… "Manager". She was the woman in charge of all five (five!) HPG stations on Arcadia, a position that would have demanded a highly-ranked Precentor of our ComStar, but she might as well have been the arms manufacturer I took her for in her presentation, demeanor, and speech. Indeed, throughout our ten minute conversation she never once brought up a purported saying of Jerome Blake or referenced anything you or I would hear even the newest ComStar acolyte say. She was simply present to express support for my efforts and give me the finer details of the communications channel that High King Nathaniel was funding for my reports back to you.

It is not that I found Manager Yupanqui-Georgiu objectionable. I just wasn't prepared for the shock of the difference. Even today, with ComStar a broken organization on our side, a lifetime of interacting with robed acolytes and adepts and precentors left me conditioned to not conceiving of it being otherwise, not as it is on this side of the Glass.

The ComStar here never became the Order we know,. The Blakist ideology and ideals never developed. To these people, the very idea of ComStar as we know it is as surreal as if we witnessed Defiance Industries executives wearing robes and declaring House Brewer to be a source of spiritual wisdom. Jerome Blake is remembered solely as the Star League's last Minister of Communications and the founder of ComStar the corporation, as well as being a known political supporter of DeChavilier in the early decades of the Terran Union. His successors in our history, Conrad Toyama and Raymond Karpov, worked for ComStar at first, but they became politicians and are remembered as Chancellors of the Terran Union during the Succession Wars. They applied no mysticism or theology to ComStar's role. Karpov even threatened ComStar with nationalization due to violations of his strict isolationism policies.

It makes me wonder. Was the lack of a ComStar like ours a major contributing factor to the Collapse? I can't help but think about that matter, when I have time to anyhow.

It would be a mistake to think they're harmless though. While I've had nothing but amicable relations with ComStar here, there seems to be an uncertainty about them and their long-term goals. It's easy to see why. They were joined at the hip to the Terran Union when it tried to crush the Successor States, yet they not only survived the Terran War but have continued to be involved in all levels of diplomacy, interstellar finance, and communications. ComStar either directly runs or provides ready support for most HPGs in the Inner Sphere. They're arguably more influential now than they were before the Terran War. They had a direct hand in the Congress of Dieron and the peace treaty that ended the Fourth Succession War. They wield a lot of soft power and influence for a company that barely survived the fall of Terra. Is it just through being the honest broker? Or could they be playing some kind of long game?

As a final note, strangely there was at least one Blakist cult in the Cisglass Inner Sphere. It was founded by a distant descendant of Toyama on Drosendorf over a hundred years ago. When Arcadia captured the world in 3033 the cult led one of the insurgencies against them before being stamped out in 3034. If I have more time I might research that for the sheer familiar oddity it represents.



Sidebar 3: What about Kerensky's children?

(Like Lady Trillian, I have no clue how or even if we can handle this, or if we'll need to. I figure that's well above my paygrade. — Brigadier Huyten)

FROM: Lady Trillian Steiner-Davion
TO: Archduke Martin Kell
CC: Colonel Evan Kell
RE: Nicholas Kerensky's Legacy

Martin, Evan, I'm sending this information to you first because you know more about your uncle's branch of the Wolves, and the Clans in general, than anyone else I know and trust. I don't know how they're going to take this, and I'd like to be ready for it in the event someone brings this information through the Glass.



<EXCERPT FROM HISTORICAL ARCHIVES, ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF ROSLYN LAUGHLIN COLLEGE OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL SCIENCE>

<COMSTAR BROADCASTING SERVICE FOOTAGE, "Union Affairs Weekly", 18 March 2820>

Figures Present:
John Cavanaugh, Presenter
Major General Sarah McEvedy, TUDF
Congressman Nicholas Kerensky, Moscow District

J. Cavanaugh: Welcome back, dear viewers. Once again, I am here with my guests, Major General McEvedy and Congressman Kerensky. We are discussing the ongoing Succession War between the Houses and government policy on the matter. Major General, before the break we were discussing the latest terrible developments in the conflict, so I may as well ask: as you are the leading candidate to replace Director-General Hazen, what are your thoughts on the subject of intervention?

S. McEvedy: It would be the greatest mistake we could make. There's a reason General DeChavilier kept us out and that has not changed. We would simply get sucked into the fighting and we lack the strategic depth to absorb losses like the Great Houses can.

J. Cavanaugh: So you would continue the policy of neutrality?

S. McEvedy: Definitely. We should only provide diplomatic mediation or localized intervention to prevent gross war crimes. Kentares remains the greatest example of that.

N. Kerensky: The General is correct in that matter and I support this policy myself.

<McEvedy casts an annoyed glance at her co-guest>

J. Cavanaugh: <cough> Yes, Congressman, I was about to ask you about that, thank you for the input. Does that mean you support General McEvedy's candidacy?

N. Kerensky: I agree with the non-interference but I cannot endorse General McEvedy. She lacks the vision to do what is necessary to safeguard the people of the Union.

S. McEvedy: Excuse me?

J. Cavanaugh: Can you specify what you mean, Congressman?

N. Kerensky: It is quite plain that our society, all human civilization, is collapsing. We cannot live as our ancestors did. We need to rethink how we govern ourselves, how we organize ourselves socially.

S. McEvedy: <groan>

N. Kerensky: Everything must change if we are to survive the Succession War and rebuild Humanity. Everything. My voters agreed with me on that and I intend to press this to the very limits of my strength. I will see the Terran Union transformed, the Defense Forces transformed, everything—

<McEvedy bursts out laughing, Kerensky glares hatefully>

J. Cavanaugh: General?

N. Kerensky: What are you laughing at?!

S. McEvedy: You. You're a sad joke and you continue to be. <Kerensky visibly seethes> You've spent years obsessing over these bizarre social transformation ideas. Wanting to put Terran soldiers through repeated, what did you call them, duels, trials? Constant conflict with each other to "prove" their worthiness to keep their position or advance. And all this stuff about re-organizing society into castes like the Capellans—

N. Kerensky: We need a change! Our society as it is cannot survive the collapse around us! This would make us stronger! <Gestures wildly towards McEvedy> This, Mister Cavanaugh, is precisely what I have warned you, your viewers, and my colleagues about. People who live off the glories of the past and won't let go! I— <McEvedy resumes laughing, this time harder> —would see us rejuvenated, see Humanity reach its full potent— Stop laughing!

S. McEvedy: You accuse me of living off the past? You only reached your rank because of your name and because your poor brother took pity on you! You got into Congress because, let's be frank, some people would vote for a ham sandwich if it was named 'Kerensky'! Your entire career is built upon being your father's son! At least Andery earned his way through the TUDF, and we feel his loss every day!

N. Kerensky: You shut your mouth!

S. McEvedy: Poor Nicky Kerensky, the mad one, that's what you've been since the first day you signed up! But you're so full of yourself you don't see it! Instead of seeking the help you need— <Kerensky gets to his feet, McEvedy does the same as he advances> —you wallow in your narcissistic pride and—

<Kerensky punches her in the face, McEvedy takes the blow with visible blood on her lip and throws a retaliatory punch, the two start grappling and striking one another>

J. Cavanaugh: Please, Congressman, General, please return to your chairs and— cut the feed, cut the feed, and get security! We need security in—

<END OF RECORD>

 

[Steve]

Chaos Reigns

The historians across the Glass refer to a Third Succession War that is an enigma. Nobody can agree on when it started, or who fought it, and most certainly not who won. The historical profession as a whole cannot even define when it ended or which battles were part of it. Much like our Third War became a catchall term for the persistent warfare of the 30th Century, theirs became the term to describe the utter chaos and warfare that gripped the Inner Sphere after the Collapse.

It is the same story that has plagued Mankind whenever civilization retracts and government authority collapses. Chaos breeds anarchy, and in the anarchy petty empires are born and crushed and born anew under a different name. This occurred on a vast scale across the Inner Sphere on the other side. With no Great House to call upon for economic aid or military defense, hundreds of star systems were left to fend for themselves. Some failed and were abandoned, much as in our history. Refugees from failed systems across the Sphere flooded the remaining systems, creating humanitarian crises that collapsed social support systems on the remaining worlds. Furthermore, with the House armies broken, the military units that once served to protect these worlds turned to brigandage or warlordism (or both) to provide for themselves. They either eradicated or subjugated the existing power structures for their own power or were suborned to the interests of existing nobility with the means to do so. The new governments were often autocracies of one form or another, led by pirate kings, warlords, or ambitious nobility. Most planets regressed socially and technologically as they suffered repeated raids from bandits and rogue units, their populaces often reduced to little more than serfs. Even the wealthier systems that retained their pre-Collapse political and economic systems were left scrambling to assemble defenses and build what they must for protection.

The suffering may not have matched the kind of wide scale destruction the House armies could visit on worlds in our Third Succession War, but it knew no borders. Even in the remnant states that initially arose from the Collapse pirate raids or other attacks were a part of life, whether you were from Argyle, Harbin, Avon, Atreus, or Donegal. A single light BattleMech may very well decide the fate of an entire community for better or for worse. For those that lost in these fights, the lucky ones only lost property looted by the victors. Those less fortunate were killed or carted away as slave labor for warlords desperately replacing myomer muscle with human muscle in their industries and resource operations.

A single light stood above this miasma of terror and pain: the Terran Union. They had rebuilt enough that at this point they were the one place in the Inner Sphere where citizens could sleep at night without wondering if pirates were going to jump into their system. While other worlds regressed to the point they could no longer produce myomer, fusion engines, or holography — sometimes not even industry at all — the Terrans not only kept the Star League's height of technology alive, they were steadily improving on it. From Terra ComStar and other agencies spread across the Sphere, keeping interstellar communications alive and making the C-Bill the preferred currency of choice (much like it was in our own Inner Sphere until very recently). For those pirate warlords or fallen Successor Lords who went too far in their raiding and pillaging, or the fanatic ideologues and demagogues who might come to power on a broken world through talk of genocide, the prospect of a visit from the Eridani Light Horse provided pause.

In truth, at this point the Terran Union might have decisively intervened to restore the Star League over the broken Houses. It's debatable whether they would have even been resisted. But they did not. Chancellor Karpov's reign had reinforced an isolationist streak in the circles of Terran power. Even his downfall in 2848 did not change that. Humanitarian interventions aside, the Terrans did not care for involving themselves with the broken Inner Sphere. The general attitude was that the rest of the Sphere were "getting what they deserved" for letting the Great Houses destroy the Star League. While individual Terrans, even those in leadership, often proved thoughtful and gave heart-rending appeals to intervene in one situation or another, the general culture of the Union shifted towards a sense of assured superiority. The peoples beyond their border were seen less and less as fellow Human beings struggling to regain normalcy and restore civilization and more as barbarian hordes of a sort. They were a mass of dirty, illiterate peasantry who bent over for whatever strongman took over their world on any given day. This attitude became more and more prevalent in Terran media and pop culture and induced apathy and distrust towards any effort to do anything more than the occasional intervention against mass-murdering forces. By 2905 even those interventions had become grounds for political debate and became reduced in frequency and intensity.

They did not, could not, end however. It was not humanitarianism that preserved them but economic necessity. The Terrans held the oldest settled worlds in the Inner Sphere, and that meant their resources were played out. Not in absolute terms, of course, but the easiest-to-reach deposits of valuable mineral, metals, and hydrocarbons had long been exhausted. More and more intensive methods were needed, at prices that were soon competing with the transport costs of more-easily-extracted resources from outside the Union. This meant the Union could not simply cut off from the rest of the Inner Sphere without pain for their own economy. Moreso, to keep their prosperity intact, the Union had to keep exporting finished goods that their own markets had no capacity for. And in the ruins of the Successor States, the most common and most desired export were armaments.

By the early 30th Century, the Terrans were, bar none, the arms suppliers for the remaining or extant states of the Inner Sphere. Factories on Terra, New Earth, and virtually every other Union world were producing standard components for Age of War-era weaponry and machines that would keep the broken down armies of the rest of the Inner Sphere fighting. To ease these efforts ComStar agreed to allowing Terran arms manufacturers to establish or rebuild armament factories on the former House worlds they held in trust. These facilities on Tharkad, Luthien, Regulus, and Kentares further expanded the reach of Terran arms merchants. Those worlds and governments that could afford the prices could even buy Star League-era material if they weren't on export control lists. While the TUDF did sometimes grumble about this trade, the economic logic made too much sense. Indeed the Terran Congress would even refuse to ban Terran engineers from helping to reactivate dormant Star League-era automated factories since said factories were reliant upon components and parts that were produced exclusively on Union worlds. Thus the Terrans were simultaneously easing the worst of the chaos while they profited from it as a whole. If they ever wondered if the chaos would end, and their actions might backfire on them, few spoke of it, and most seemed not to have considered the possibility that recovery would come to the rest of the Inner Sphere. History would prove them short-sighed.


Sidebar 4: Dominion By Strength

(Got a digital copy of the autobiography of the founder of House Proctor from one of the Arcadian officers on Timkovichi. It made for some interesting reading on the way to Imbros so I figured I'd include some of it. This part especially. It shows just what our cousins across the Glass were going through after the Great Houses fell. — Brigadier Huyten)


The day finally came I could no longer silently endure the pain of my daily condition. Perhaps it was the way Tabot entered the stables, or how his eyes thoughtlessly passed over the remaining stain left when he murdered Sean. My guilt drove me, or fury, or maybe the hand of God stirring my soul for His unknowable purpose. Tabot barked an order at me to move a bucket of droppings from his path and I simply stood there, water bucket in hand, and glared. I remember the surprise on his face. He was used to my being meek and scared. After all he'd done to me, it was as if I was a mute and dumb creature to him, not a person. Not someone whom he had injured so greatly, had taken so much from.

"Move it yourself," I said to him. Words that might well have seen my brains decorate the wall as Sean's had… as mine should have, if not for his courage and love.

But I was not shot dead where I stood. "Well, someone woke up with a pair of balls today," the tyrant sneered.

"What gives you the right?!" I can still feel the fury that shook in my voice here, now, almost eighty years later. "We're people! We have feelings, we feel pain, what gives you the Goddamned right to use us like tools?!"

Something clicked behind Tabot's eyes. He laughed. He turned to his bodyguards who laughed as well. "She… she wants to know what gives me the right! Isn't that adorable? Isn't that just fucking adorable?!" He motioned to me with an amused glint in his eyes. "Bring the bitch to the 'Mech Bay. It's time she learned how the world works."

Two of his men grabbed me by the arms, knocked the bucket from my hands, and forced me ahead. We left the stable behind and journeyed through the halls. The other slaves averted their eyes wherever we came upon them. Even Ruthie. None dared seem in sympathy with me for fear of what I'd done to provoke Lord Tabot.

When we arrived at the 'Mech bay Tabot stepped forward to one of the tallest machines there was. It was painted in his preferred colors of gold and dark red, with the clenched fist sigil of his "house" on the chest. I was not familiar with BattleMechs, but he was happy enough to identify it. "The Zeus", he said. "ZEU-5T model. One of the last new 'Mechs made before the Great Houses started smashing themselves to pieces. You can't find these outside Terran space anymore, that makes it rare, makes it one of a kind, and this one is mine. You wanna know why you're my slave? Why I get to do what I want and you can't? Because of that!" He pointed his finger at while leaning toward my face. His breath was hot and stank of wine. "Because I'm a badass MechWarrior with a badass 'Mech. Eighty tons of heavy metal death, you little bitch, and she's mine! I could go to whatever shithole town you called home and level it in a couple minutes! I can wreck whole cities by myself if I wanted, and I have."

"It's not right," I said.

"Not right? Who gives a shit what's right? Nobody, sweetheart, nobody gives a shit. There's no right in this world. There's just the weak — that's you — and the strong. Me. My 'Mech, and the 'Mechs of my followers, let me do whatever I want. You're weak, so you do as you're told or you get the boot. Servitors, serfs, peasants, Unproductives, whatever the hell your type are called, that's what you're here for. You're slaves to anyone with the strength to take what they want. I'm just honest about it. And it's not like anyone's going to stop me." He tapped at the ring on his right hand's middle finger. It bore his signet, that cruel clenched fist, etched in stolen gold. "Dominion By Strength. My new family motto. That's the world in a nutshell, slave. I have the strength, I have dominion, and you obey. Nobody's going to change that."

An instinctive protest came to my lips. "The Terrans—"

"Oh please! They don't give a shit, they never have. We're just barbarian scum to them and we always will be. Hell, they sell me the parts for my 'Mech and weapons I've had Terran arms merchants here all the time and they don't blink at slaves. So no, the Eridani bloody Light Horse aren't riding in to save your ass, the Terran Navy's not showing up to free you. You are my slave and you always will be. And to hammer that point home…"

He punched me in the gut. I had been struck before, but never like that, and never with such force. I doubled over and fell to the ground. Once there he kicked me once, twice, three times. No, four. The pain was familiar, but as unpleasant as it had ever been. The last kick hit with enough force to turn me onto my belly. Before I could move Lord Tabot set his boot on the back of my head and neck. "This is your place. Remember that." I couldn't see if he turned his head to his men or not, but I imagine he did. He was posing, and beating me made him feel strong, I'm sure. "Now boys, have some fun. Nothing too saucy, she's going to need to be intact when I ship her to Mull. We'll see how long she lasts in the mines."

His throaty laugh still echoes in my mind He had just signed my death warrant. The mines in Mull provided the raw ores he exported to the Terrans and Hesperus. But they were in the continent's interior, that harsh high desert plateau everyone called "Leng". The mine slaves there died by the hundreds. The thousands, some whispered.

The beating began. It was the worst I would ever endure. But through the pain, I prayed to the Lord God for strength and wisdom, and I made my vow. For Sean, for our lost little one, for my parents and my cousins and all those I loved, I would not die.

I would live, and I would escape.

—Excerpt from The Life of Sara Elizabeth Proctor, in her own hand, privately published 2986, publicly published 3062, © House Proctor Trust


(It gives me great satisfaction to know how that son of a bitch Carl Tabot met his end two decades later. As it turns out, Sara Proctor was one hell of a natural MechWarrior. I'm pretty sure it was humiliating to lose to his own escaped slave. Serves the bastard right. — Brigadier Huyten)

 

[Steve]

The Second Age of War

Unlike the previous ages mentioned, there is little dispute about the start of the Second Age of War. While some of the planning or intention likely dated through the prior decade, it was the 3030s that would be remembered for the profound and drastic change that decades brought to the Inner Sphere. For the next fourteen years, the political map of the Inner Sphere would change more rapidly than ever before.

The timing was such that one might almost think it was pre-arranged, or some sort of race that was suddenly declared among the Successor States. Historians have argued over which state set off the Second Age for over a century. The very question itself has become politically charged in some instances. What the historical record does show is that by the end of January, 3030, the armies of over half of the Successor States were on the move. Targeting one, two, a half dozen systems at a time, line regiments of BattleMechs with supporting forces overran the unaligned worlds over their borders, month by month. A multitude of reasons were given. Counter-attacks against pirate raiders, stabilization of faltering neighbors, humanitarian interventions, restoration campaigns to rebuild the fallen states of the past, all these reasons were asserted by various governments. Some just admitted it as open and naked expansionism. The end result was that some states literally doubled in size over the course of 3030 alone.

Given the hundreds of unaligned systems and worlds one might have imagined it would take time for the Successor States to begin conflicts with one another. But the opposite was proven true on a number of fronts, most notably in former Lyran space. Defiance-Hesperus and their allies, the New Dallas-based Interstellar Governments Council, ended the year with a massive invasion of the Skye Federal Republic, including a direct strike at Skye itself. The Second Age of War's first great conflict, the First Skye War, soon expanded to include over half a dozen Successor States in ex-Commonwealth and ex-League territory. Given the lack of strategic depth and the naval power the States could wield, no less than four capital worlds would be raided or invaded over the two year conflict, and when it came to an end, the Skye Republic and the IGC collapsed from the strain.

A host of other conflicts and campaigns likewise raged. The Marian Hegemony exploded into former League space and even Lyran space, striking at Kogl and Timbiqui. The pirate kingdom of the Brethren of the Stars, under the ruthless Long Tom Silver, struck out from St. Ives to conquer their own neighborhood of former Confederation and Federated Sun worlds. Harsefeld and the Capellan Hegemony went to war over the heart of Capellan territory. After Harsefeld's victory following a direct strike at Capella itself, they joined their allies in the Grand Duchy of Oriente in an invasion of the Peoples' State of Andurien that won them a number of key systems. The invasion of Andurien itself did not succeed due to intervention from other ex-League states backed diplomatically by the Marians, establishing a growing animosity between the Allisons and the O'Reillys.

Across the Inner Sphere Prince Ian Davion started a campaign of mixed military and diplomatic initiatives to restore Davion and Crucis Pact control over the Crucis March and into the old Capellan March, including securing Kathil's admission by a marriage of alliance with Grand Duchess Maria VanLees of that world. Three years of victories regained a large number of worlds in the old Crucis and Capellan Marches that led to Ian completing the dream of his life. At his 3033 wedding to Grand Duchess Maria, Prince Ian declared his wedding gift to her and to their people to be the rebirth of the Federated Suns. The formal declaration came afterward and the legend of First Prince Ian Davion the Restorer was firmly set.

In the heart of Draconis space Director Masako Honda of Galedon declared her forces were pacifying their borders as justification for her expansion campaign. House McAllister, House Takeda-Suvorov of Hartshill, and the Rengo followed suit, followed aftward by the Azami securing their new Confederacy and advancing through the old Combine-Terran Hegemony border region.

Not every state joined the rush at first, but few who didn't survived. One state that came out ahead was the Rasalhague Commune based on Nox, under the bombastic but practical ex-mercenary Karl "One-Eye" Sleipson, who only commenced offensive operations in 3031 but quickly became a major power along the old Lyran-Combine border region. When the Rengo Directorate defied Rasalhaguan threats and attempted a large diplomatic charm offensive to claim five worlds that the Commune considered rightful Rasalhague systems, Sleipson invaded the worlds before they could officially join the Directorate. In an act that inspired shock and outrage in the Rengo and a number of other states, he had the Rengo diplomatic team on Paracale marched into the planetary capital's state house before having it demolished with Inferno missile barrages. The Terrans in particular reacted, imposing export list controls on the Commune so tightly that they were banned from getting any advanced or even Star League-quality gear, but it was a sign of the times that it did not lead to a descent on Nox by the Eridani Light Horse as would have happened a century or even half a century before.

Another fortunate latecomer was the Arcadian Free March of House Proctor, along the old Lyran-League border. March-Princess Sara-Marie initially held off on offensive actions, but as the First Skye War came to a close and it was clear her state's survival was dependent upon keeping pace with their neighbors, she relented to the pleadings of her generals. In 3033 the Arcadians surged into the unaligned systems between Hesperus, Bolan, and the Marik Commonwealth, doubling in size in the space of a year thanks to the aggressive campaign. While this guaranteed the Proctors would be courted by the Mariks and Brewers to join any future Skye War, it also placed them in the path of the Marian Legions overrunning Bolan. Not content to simply stand passively by, the Arcadians became the first organized Successor State to strike at the Marian advance, landing a heavy rescue force at Bolan to extract Grand Princess Gita Umayr and her family along with thousands of other refugees. "Die Rettungsaktion", as it came to be called, provided a rallying point for Lyran unity that would see the creation of the Lyran Alliance by year's end.

The Lyrans were only one of many such alliances to form. While House O'Reilly remained politically volatile — they would see four Imperators in the span of five years, three killed by internal violence — their alliance with House Yupanqui of Cajamarca and the House Ciftci-dominated Rim Commonality had already restrained the advance of Harsefeld and Oriente. The Allisons and Halas aligned more closely in response and, due to the diplomacy of Long Tom Silver, joined a wider bloc with the Brethren and other allies, including House Davion. This St. Ives Compact, as it came to be known, was challenged by the unlikely but tightly-held alliance between Director Masako Honda's Galedon and the mercenary-led Lexington Concord. During a wedding function on Terra in 3031 Masako forged a close friendship with General Penelope Reynolds of the Lexington Combat Group, effective ruler of the Concord. Their alliance, often referred to in chatternet lingo as "GaLexi" or "the Blood Sister Pact", dismembered House Lancaster's Lancaster Authority and became the dominant power of the Anti-Spinward systems of the Inner Sphere. Gothi Sleipson meanwhile forged an alliance with the Anarcho-Syndicalist government of the Communal League of Sudeten, COMINTERSTEL, to better secure his borders and deter Donegal and the other Lyran states from striking at Arcturus.

It would be a long volume in of itself to cover every conflict and every campaign of this decade. The map of the Inner Sphere changed so often that cartographers scrambled to keep up. Worlds across the Inner Sphere armed as heavily as they could to resist whatever came for them, but to no avail. Most were easily subdued, and even insurgencies typically failed to dislodge the invading states. On the occasions such worlds did regain their independence, it was only from the collapse of their invaders due to political upheaval or outside invasion, and their typical fate was to be invaded and taken by the next power to come along. The Terrans provided discreet aid to such worlds to try and stem the tide of the Successor State expansions, often marking down weaponry and gear for them to buy beyond their capacity to pay for, but it was never enough. Some rare worlds like Palladaine may bloody their invaders and hold out for months, but in the end they lacked the resources to sustain resistance. The era of independent worlds had ended with the coming of the Second Age of War. The Inner Sphere would once more be divided amongst interstellar houses.

The new conflicting blocs and territorial disputes kept the fighting going even as the remaining independent worlds submitted or were wooed by diplomacy. The Successor States started to consume one another in a series of escalating wars. The Outback Wars in the old Davion Periphery, the War of Rasalhaguan Unification, the Second Skye and Second Andurien Wars, and the Davion Wars of Restoration saw numerous states consumed by their stronger neighbors. Even the former Great Houses were not immune, as seen in the Second Skye War when House Marik's Commonwealth succumbed to the Lyran Alliance on one front and the ambitious Halas-Allison alliance on the other. Halas and Allison later acted to prevent a Canopian conquest of Andurien, escalating the Second Andurien War to a clash to decide the future of the former Free Worlds League that drew in the Lyran Alliance against them. In turn the Halas and Allisons, unified as the Oriento-Capellan Empire, would lead their Compact allies into an attempted intervention in the War of Donegalian Succession, changing the borders yet again. Every year the borders shifted somewhere in the Inner Sphere and, up into the 3040s, states were still being wiped from the map.

At the center of the Inner Sphere, the Terran Union observed the carnage with increasing concern. Chancellor Tiepolo began a ten year long campaign to further retract the arms export business in an effort to starve the Successor States of the hardware helping to propel their advance. He was opposed by the manufacturers themselves who were enjoying record profits with the vast expanse in demand. Repeated efforts to tighten the Arms Export Control Act failed throughout the decade. At the same time, Tiepolo himself had no desire to become interventionist like a number of parties called for. Through political machinations he ensured the appointment of a like-minded Director-General in 3032. A former TUDF regimental colonel known as a skilled MechWarrior who had been forced out of the 3rd RCT for repeated violations of the ELH's honor codes, Natasha Kerensky's rise to power was not greeted warmly by her former superiors. A number of the TUDF General Staff were incensed by the appointment of such a junior officer, but Tiepolo's control of the Congress was too firm to stop it. Kerensky's subtle threat of direct intervention in the First Skye War served to consolidate her support among the populace and brought about that conflict's end. Over the course of the decade Kerensky and Tiepolo consolidated their power over the TUDF and the Union as a whole, scaling back the Union's interventionism while greatly increasing its own military power.

When General Aaron Winston, Commanding Officer of the 3rd RCT, publicly protested the failure to intervene against Harsefeld and the Brethren for reported atrocities on Capella and Sarna, Kerensky sacked him and appointed a replacement from outside the unit. The following year, over seventy-five percent of the Eridani Light Horse personnel resigned, and most of them outright left the Terran Union to take up service with the Lexington Concord, where they reformed the unit under Concord service. Director-General Kerensky defiantly had the defectors stricken from the record as deserters, not resigned officers, and reconstituted the unit with the best and brightest personnel from Terran academies.

The decade did see occasional challenges to the Terrans but it was in 3038 that the Terrans found their neighbors were truly no longer frightened of the former hegemon. In May of that year a massive force of troops from the Oriento-Capellan Empire, the newly-formed union of Harsefeld and Oriente, arrived at the Regulus system. Tense negotiations followed with ComStar's control of the system being signed away in exchange for commercial rights and basing rights. The flowery language aside, the truth of the matter was plain: the Allison-Liaos and Halas had just used naked force to compel ComStar, and thus the Union, to cede a valuable star system. This became a political disaster for Chancellor Tiepolo given his previous anti-interventionism had been of clear benefit to the new Empire. A public demand for action was raised, but Tiepolo resisted an outright invasion. It would cost too much and, given the Empire's Compact allies surrounded most of Terran space, embroil the Union in a larger conflict. They would have to ally with other States first; an unthinkable prospect for the Terrans given their low opinion of "the neo-barbarian Successor States".

Kerensky proposed a limited reaction, a reprisal to embarrass and humiliate the Empire. The perfect prospect soon came with confirmation the Empire's agents had spirited away Frederick Steiner, a respected senior officer of the DefHes Consolidant, to be used as a rallying cry for anti-Brewer rebellions to break up the Consolidant state and weaken the Lyran Alliance. In November 3038 TUDF Military Intelligence commenced a successful extraction mission that intentionally inflicted severe losses on Steiner's minders on the way in and out, even injuring Steiner himself. It was not just a slap in the face, but an act of intimidation, a reminder that the Terran Union was still greater than any Successor State.

It backfired. The Empire was one of the largest Successor States and the inheritor to the Capellan national cause. They would not let the Terran provocation pass. In February 3039 the Empire's gathered forces fell upon Sian to reclaim the Capellan Confederation capital. This time no face-saving deal was offered and, after a fierce battle, the outnumbered Terran aerospace forces were pushed aside and a large army of Oriento-Capellan regiments started seizing the planet against the Terran Union and ComStar garrisons. The Terran response was swift. ComStar shut down the Empire's HPGs and a task force of troops were dispatched to invade Harsefeld, the Empire's co-capital system, with the reconstituted Eridani Light Horse leading the way. But where just twenty years ago such a force would have likely carried all before it, the Terrans found that even with their superior kit, the Imperial forces were refusing to break. Though it cost the life of the former ruler Alexander Allison, the Harsefelders managed to hold their capital city and several strategic points until Sian fell. Imperial possession of black box technology allowed continued interstellar command of the Empire's forces in defiance of the interdiction. Moreover, the Azami and Tikonov mobilized to support their ally against any further "Terran aggression". With Sian's capture Emperor Jonah Allison-Liao offered a peace that involved paying reparations but which would see Sian and Regulus remain his.

Tiepolo felt compelled to accept, as did Kerensky. It was a death blow to Tiepolo's control of Congress. The poor performance of the Terran units in comparison to expectations should have destroyed Kerensky too, but she proved wilier than Tiepolo. She provided evidence to his political enemies, materials and orders revealing his refusal to send the overwhelming forces she wished to dispatch, and recast the matter as Terran troops being betrayed by the civilian leadership. Tiepolo lost a vote of no confidence and was replaced, in quick succession, by four more chancellors over the following two years. The sundering of Tiepolo's political bloc, and the shock of the defeat at the hands of Inner Sphere barbarians, had disrupted the entirety of the Terrans' political spectrum.

Kerensky stepped into the vacuum, finishing two centuries of consolidation to firmly place the Union state under the Director-Generalship. She used the Harsefeld and Sian fiascos as a pretext to clamp down on dissenting commanders, promoting those she felt best fit her vision of what was necessary for the future. Under her leadership plans were put into place that would take years to come to their fruition. In the short term, she expanded mercenary hiring and forced takeovers and pressed Congress to pass the Arms and Defense Coordination Act of 3040. With that law empowering her to directly assume control of the defense industries, Kerensky quickly suspended all arms exports to all of the Successor States, regardless of their previous stance with Terra. The factories would be overhauled and churn out weapons for just one buyer: the Terran Union Defense Forces. Much of these purchases were done secretly while publicly it was proclaimed armaments were being scaled back to avoid "fueling the suffering of this new age of war". Kerensky likewise struck at domestic dissent with investigations into purported corruption or support from foreign states. All the while, the frightened Congress became more and more of a rubber stamp. The Terran populace reeling from the shock of their obvious defeat repeatedly supported Kerensky in public polls and, at her insistence, a 3042 plebiscite to approve her proposed expansion of civil powers. The Terran Union was quickly transforming into a dictatorship.

But the Director-General's goal was not mere power. She had a wider agenda, one she had already placed into action. While the Inner Sphere's armies, now bereft of easily-available Terran imports, exhausted their resources in the struggles over the Donegalian throne or other local conflicts, the Terrans began quietly building up supply bases in uninhabited and dead systems across the Inner Sphere. The shipyards started expanding the fleet by reactivating the derelict Star League ships long kept as a reserve. Regiment upon regiment of advanced BattleMechs covered in Royal technology marched from the factories on Terra, New Earth, New Dallas, Northwind, and a host of other worlds. Factories churned out infantry battle armor and new, light power armor capable of outfitting the Terrans with an army of armored infantry beyond anything the Inner Sphere had seen.

The Successor States understood that something was going on inside Terran space. But they were busy reorganizing and rebuilding. Their factories had to be greatly expanded to replace the Terran parts and components no longer flowing into their depots. Many states had new and sometimes troublesome worlds to integrate and a number of newly-fused governments had to finish the work of consolidating their institutions. The outcome of the War of Donegalian Succession, another compromise peace for ten years, had not satisfied the strategic goals of the Compact states. Yet their territorial gains had incensed the Lyran states. Hostilities between them were clearly not over. With this and other more immediate problems to deal with the Successor States were more inclined to "leave the sleeping dogs lie" when it came to the sudden Terran disengagement from their affairs.

Many even started to feel that the end to Terran arms shipments was a good thing. That with the Successor States having to scale back their expansion of armaments, they would be less aggressive, with the relative peace of the late 3040s bearing this perception out. The end of the independent systems, the sharp curtailment of piracy, and the complicated power balance of the competing blocs of states all prompted optimists to argue that the Second Age of War was already at an end. Peace had finally settled on the Inner Sphere.

They would soon find out just how wrong they were.

 

[Steve]

Operation REVIVAL: The Terran Crusade


The year 3050 started with relative quiet across the Inner Sphere. The news was focused on domestic issues and speculation on whether the sporadic raiding along the borders would continue to de-escalate or would intensify. New factories were churning out all sorts of advanced technologies not seen beyond Terran borders in two centuries. Some states had even successfully reverse-engineered Royal gear and were beginning mass production. Many had significantly increased naval spending through the 3040s thanks to expanded shipbuilding capacity, lack of reliance on Terran-based supply chains, and the lessons learned from the fighting up through the Oberon War and the War of Donegalian Succession.

The unsettling quiet from Terra itself persuaded many the Terrans were still upset over their humiliation at Sian and Harsefeld, but diplomats issued their usual confident proclamations that in private discussions the Terran Union was opening up once more. Everything seemed to be proceeding in such a way as to continue the quiet of the previous few years. 3053 was the year everyone was concerned of, and whether or not the Lyran Alliance and St. Ives Compact would commence hostilities once more when First Prince Ian's latest peace expired.

The first sign of trouble came on an otherwise auspicious holiday. On Valentine's Day 3050, over half of the HPGs in the Inner Sphere shut down without warning. Markets shook from the impact before swift ComStar reassurances came. A firmware update had been pushed that had an unexpected side effect. The restoration of communications would proceed soon. In most cases, it did, with most systems having their HPGs back up within 72 hours and every system online again within two weeks. ComStar offered refunds and paid reported damages with its usual calm reassurance. They resumed regular service and shuffled their personnel around, recalling some for "retraining" while new technicians were brought on site. Governments and populaces relaxed. Errors happened. Nothing was going wrong.

On July 4th, 3050, every HPG in the Inner Sphere went down. And this time, they didn't come back up.

Hours passed, then days, as governments, corporations, and private citizens waited patiently, then not so patiently, for ComStar to explain. But this time the explanations were terse and basic. An unknown error was at fault. Nothing more was known. ComStar personnel on Terra would deal with the problem. Nothing else could be done. As the days turned to weeks and these excuses continued, suspicious governments started investigating. Their intelligence services found a disturbing pattern in the reassignments. Experienced HPG technicians had been recalled to Terra and their replacements were overwhelmingly non-Terran and barely-trained, capable only of the most basic maintenance but lacking any higher technological knowledge. Those who did have such knowledge were uncooperative or had gone missing before or on July 4th. As August began a number of governments dispatched orders to their representation on Terra to insist on explanations. They began quiet preparations as best they could for whatever might be coming their way.

On August 15th, six weeks after the Blackout began, WarShips and JumpShips of the Terran Union conducted a massed, pre-planned operation. Every capital system across the Inner Sphere and Near Periphery found squadrons of ships and combat transports arriving, typically at pirate points. They sent messages to each government. It was an invitation to restore the peace lost three centuries before by adhering to a new Star League, under Director-General Kerensky as First Lord, with all who agreed to the terms for joining the new League promised Council Lordship seats and the support of the League against any state that refused. The terms amounted to complete naval disarmament and a strong restriction on the troops they would maintain, including the technologies they could field. All WarShips and DropShips above fifty thousand tons in mass and all war machines using Star League-era technology would be transferred to a reborn Star League Defense Force built around the TUDF. As a final condition, they would have to swear recognition of whichever Director-General the Terran Union chose to appoint as the new First Lord, acknowledging the Terran Union as the perpetual leader of the League. It was, in short, a demand to make the Terran Union the perpetual hegemon of the Inner Sphere and the Successor States its eternal subordinates.

This was the culmination of a decade of planning by Kerensky and the undoing of two centuries of Terran policy. In the near-century since it has been debated and discussed repeatedly, Some have dismissed it as egomania brought on by a wildly-successful early career as a MechWarrior and the cult of personality she built up among the Union's denizens, or of a reported fascination with her ancestor Aleksandr and an imagined sacred charge to restore what was taken. But there are clear indicators of how this was an obvious evolution of Terran attitudes and policy. The Terran mindset, for centuries, had been one of assumed superiority. They were the Cradle of Humanity, the root for all civilization, and they had a claim to the loyalty and support of every Human being. The fall of the Star League was from the betrayal of the Terran Camerons by those who owed them fealty, not just that of Amaris but of the House Lords that did not act to stop the Usurper. Since the later 29th Century the Terrans had been able to sit above the bloodshed and horror of the Collapse, letting this perceived injustice and their conceived superiority build and build in each generation. The rise of the Successor States, the defiance of Terran wishes, and the humiliating losses wrought on Sian and Harsefeld, they had all struck directly at that perception, and the resulting fury empowered Director-General Kerensky's militarization of the Union. The Successor States would either be brought to heel once more as subordinates in a reborn League, or they would be crushed and broken to reset the board.

It is quite clear that the Terrans did not accept submission from all. But they clearly expected they would get some supporters from those states recently injured or unwilling to risk their enemies submitting. It was a classic Prisoner's Dilemma situation that Kerensky thought she could exploit. But she did not account for a failure of the Successor Lords to calculate as she had. How pride, distrust, or insightfulness, from themselves or their advisors, might make them choose defiance. And here the Terran strategy failed, with long term consequences.

The vast majority of the Successor States chose resistance. Only pacifist Andurien and the outmatched United Hindu Collective accepted the terms. Suddenly the Terrans found themselves having to wage war against the entire Inner Sphere at once. It was a sobering task to handle. And it was one they quite nearly succeeded at. The refusals triggered Kerensky's fall-back plan of forcibly resetting the board. Most of the capital systems would be seized and the outermost capitals subjected to a heavy raid. Military production and advanced civilian production would be razed and every effort made to tear down the governments of each Successor State. Where feasible alternative claimants to thrones would be sought and installed to accept Terran control. One such example was used to justify the capture of Atreus, where Archduke Joshua Marik was forced to flee and hide among the population while a cousin, Alistair, was installed as Duke-General of a "restored" Marik Commonwealth. This attempt to rouse rebellion against the Arcadians and Oriento-Capellans only succeeded in spawning a few insurgencies, much to the Terrans' irritation.

The Terrans had learned many lessons from the debacle at Harsefeld. Multiple divisions and supporting brigades struck each world, with Royal-level technology giving them significant superiority over their foes' weapons. Their infantry forces were entirely in battle armor or powered armor that made them greater threats to enemy machines and absolute death to unarmored conventional infantry. The invasions were not uniformly successful, but even where Terran forces failed they inflicted significant casualties on Successor State forces and carried out their industrial razing with brutal effectiveness. While the Successor States battled to relieve or reclaim their capitals, Terran second wave forces commenced invasions across their frontiers. While these were not the elite royal units, their widespread use of power armor infantry and their mix of Royal and Star League-quality machines were more than a match for many units they faced. By the end of the year a number of major systems and former capitals had fallen, including Tikonov, Albalii, Harsefeld, Nox, Skye, and Atreus, though most of these worlds sustained significant insurgencies or local resistance, especially Harsefeld and Atreus. The Azami Confederacy was almost completely occupied, as was the Tikonov Union, and the Terran conquest of the Isle of Skye and systems near Hesperus through 3051 reduced House Brewer significantly. Much of the original Allison holdings around Harsefeld and Galedon's conquests in the former Rengo worlds likewise fell to the Terran advance.

Through 3050 and 3051 the focus of the Successor States was on fighting back. The wide scale use of "black box" fax machines enabled a degree of communication and common strategy from the start, but the early years of resisting the "Terran Crusade" was a disjointed affair. Marauding Terran naval units wreaked havoc on shipyards and facilities. Recharge stations were captured or demolished. The reformed Eridani Light Horse and similar striker and armored cavalry units frequently descended upon systems with modernized industry to destroy these factories. The Successor States scrambled to repair such damage and defend from new attacks even while trying to hold their worlds from the advancing Terran tide. On a few fronts they even managed offensive success, such as a surprise Compact attack in late 3051 that liberated Harsefeld and a thin salient of worlds connecting the Allison throneworld to the rest of Imperial territory. The last of the capital sieges, Galedon, ended early in 3052. Royal Federation forces reclaimed Tharkad from ComStar the same year, ending its use as a staging ground and, most vitally, preserving its industries to replace those the Terrans had razed on Arcadia and Donegal. Galedon completed a similar feat the same year, retaking Luthien and establishing a wider connection of systems to support Rasalhague's defense. 3053 saw a series of meeting engagements on all fronts that lasted through 3054, with Terran invasion waves being met by ever-increasing numbers of Successor State forces, now working in tandem with one another and counter-attacking wherever the Terrans made it possible.

Many volumes of material have been written on these decisive years and the major battles that raged in every corner of the Inner Sphere. To review them further in even minor detail would go beyond the scope of this document, so as a brief summation the strategic situation shifted gradually. The Terrans had indeed inflicted severe, even grievous, damage to the Successor States' capitals and other industrial worlds. But the failure to secure cooperation from more than a couple of the smallest states meant the Terrans were now a fine blade set against the grindstone. Their power-armored infantry might be using modified crew-served weapons to mow down ten times their number in conventional infantry, but another ten would simply hit them in the flanks with heavy weapons to bring them down. Their best 'Mechs were worth two or three of those the Successor States used, but as industry recovered, the Successor States could double that margin. On battlefields across the Inner Sphere, the finest and most powerful military since Aleksandr Kerensky's Star League Defense Force was being ground down by the rest of the Inner Sphere. The Terrans had, quite simply, waited too late to begin such aggressive actions, and their own sense of superiority had made the more reasonable alternative of equal alliances unthinkable. They had chosen to conquer before they might be overwhelmed; now they had to conquer or they would be overwhelmed.

It was the great and tragic irony that the state that had avoided the horrors of the Succession Wars now brought upon the Inner Sphere the most savage conflict since those wars. While the combatants bore the generational psychological scars of the Succession Wars and could not, would not, employ weapons of mass destruction to the same scale, for the first time in over a century atomic weapons were detonated in anger across the Inner Sphere. In most cases they were of tactical variety, with most Successor States using Alamo missiles and similar naval atomics on the Terran WarShip fleet and receiving the same in response. On a number of worlds the Terrans turned to tactical nuclear weapons to break enemy defenses when casualties grew too high, and were retaliated against in kind. That they petered out towards the end of the war was from an exhaustion of said devices' availability and a general unwillingness to escalate, though the Terrans would detonate nuclear mines to defend their systems in the final years. Yet even without atomics, the devastation of the war was widespread. The Terrans were out to reproduce the Collapse and targeted everything that provided for the recovery of the Renaissance. War factories were the priority targets, but civilian goods production was attacked as well, as were modernized hospitals and universities. It was as if the Terrans could not stomach that the "barbarians" might lift themselves out of barbarism, and in doing so, bring the Terrans down from their lofty perch.

By mid-3054 the TUDF Navy was reduced in strength enough that a summit was finally held by the Successor States, called and hosted by Lord Protector Jessica Sandoval of the Canaan Accord upon her battered capital world of Robinson. With a few exceptions the attendees were the actual rulers themselves, come to decide on how they would prosecute the war and how far. While Sandoval was the hostess, it was Commanding General Penelope Reynolds of the Lexington Concord who became the driving force of the summit. While usually not credited as a diplomat among her peers (though many historians hold she was woefully underestimated in her capacities there), the summit in Bueller was the proverbial woman and hour meeting. With passionate and forceful argument Reynolds stamped any thought of a negotiated settlement with Director-General Kerensky out of consideration. She argued this was not merely a single act of aggression by an ambitious woman with power but the culmination of "nine centuries of misrule, neglect, abandonment, and abuse" by Terra. The Terrans could not be allowed to rebuild or they would try again one day. Their power must be permanently, irrevocably broken. The other states agreed one by one, with varying levels of persuasion needed, until the matter was settled. A careful negotiation of spoils followed, with Reynolds again pressing forward for a united front and cooperation, until the Robinson Accords were successfully completed and signed. The Successor States, for the first time in centuries, were unified. As the year closed out, victories at Atreus, Axton, Franklin, and Sarna reflected the growing coordination between the Successor States. Furthermore, between internal political shifts or outright domestic revolt, Andurien and the United Hindu Collective broke with their Terran overlords. While Andurien initially sought neutrality, ultimately the diplomacy of Magestrix Emma Centrella and High Lady Kamea Arano brought them around to the necessity of a firmer stance. Like the Hindu Collective, they signed the Robinson Accords.

In February 3055 Director-General Kerensky transmitted a peace proposal. The fighting would end and the Terran Union would reclaim the historic borders of the Terran Hegemony and portions of the territories their forces still held. A new Star League would be formed under the basis of equality with a rotating First Lordship every three years. A vow of endless resistance, and further individual communications aimed at sowing distrust amongst the allied Successor States, accompanied the proposal. Given the holdings still under Terran control the offered peace line was a concession, but Reynolds rallied the others into a sound rejection. The Terrans could not be trusted and the new League would still be their tool to control the rest of the Inner Sphere. One by one, the other governments agreed. The war would continue through the year, with more worlds reclaimed. By year's end the Terrans had been forced out of the last deep salients and pockets lodged within the Successor States in the first year of the war. The battle would now turn into an advance towards Terra itself.

The Terrans reacted with the declaration of the Fortress Doctrine and the Reprisal Doctrine. The former was Kerensky's order that all worlds would be held tightly and all efforts made to bleed invading forces to death, even if a world could not be held. It was a signal to the Terran units on worlds like Skye, Tikonov, and Albalii to fight without regard for collateral damage and to use brutal methods to suppress domestic dissent. The Reprisal Doctrine was a suspension of all remaining laws of war, charging that by their conduct the Successor States had made this a war of annihilation against the Terran people and it would be responded to in kind. It was approval to the TUDF to expand upon collateral damage and conduct a war of terror on the Successor States. Terran raiding forces would not simply attack military targets, be they factories or power generation or industrial targets, but blatantly civilian targets like housing and commercial developments. Across the Inner Sphere the Terran Armored Cavalry regiments gained a reputation akin to Amaris' worse troops with the viciousness they employed. Their 'Mechs would spend hours leveling entire cities and industrial blocks just for being near a factory, on the grounds that they were eliminating the workers manning war material factories. Likewise the housing districts of military bases and facilities were targeted and the dependents of entire units sometimes slaughtered in rampages by light raiding 'Mechs. These two doctrines, and especially the latter, ended any remnant of humanitarian thinking in the conflict. Director-General Kerensky had ceded all moral claim to upholding the Star League and its ideals. This was to be a war of subjugation or annihilation; either Terra would be crushed and broken, or they would prevail and erase a hundred and fifty years of recovery from the rest of the Inner Sphere.

This caused a crisis in morale among some of the TUDF, including — unsurprisingly — the reconstituted Eridani Light Horse. They had loyally raided and bedeviled the Successor States for years at this point, but upon finding an attached armored cavalry regiment committing war crimes on the planet Corfu, the ELH turned on them and compelled the Terran force to submit. Director-General Kerensky replied not with approval but an order for the arrest of General Mikaela Hazen and her officers. The "New ELH" refused the orders and defected to Rasalhague. A handful of other TUDF units with prized Star League histories did the same, mostly to the forces of the Lexington Concord, or individual pilots deserting and defecting to join the remnant mercenary units like the Vegan Rangers or, for the more spiritually-inclined, the Warrior-Monks of St. Cameron.

3056 brought with it the liberation of the final occupied worlds, though Zion, Skye, and Tikonov were thoroughly wrecked worlds by the time the overwhelmed Terran survivors surrendered. The following year the invasions of Terran Union systems began. It took two and a half years of arduous fighting to push the Union back to Terra itself. With their war industries recovering every month and battle-tried veterans to lead the way, the superiority of the Successor States was obvious and the fate of Terra was clear. At Northwind in 3059, the gathered Successor Lords or suitable representatives had their final summit. A last desperate peace offer proposed by ComStar, which would have forestalled the invasion of Terra but left the Terran Union a mostly-disarmed rump state of systems only one jump from Terra, was rejected. So was the counter-offer proposed by the Robinson Accord states in general council: unconditional surrender, enforced neutrality and oversight of the same, and the relinquishing of their fleet, military hardware, and military factories as reparations to the Accord nations. Director-General Kerensky personally transmitted the rejection. Afterward General Reynolds provided a plan for the taking of Terra itself. "We will end this once and for all by striking the serpent in their lair" she told the assembled, and with those words, Operation: SERPENT was introduced, refined, and concluded.

On 28 November 3059, the largest gathered force since Kerensky's Operation LIBERATION jumped into Sol System. It consisted of over eighty percent of the Successor States' active WarShips, ninety percent of their available capital WarShips, and a mass of naval combat DropShips. Even with the battered armies of the Successor States maintaining occupations and campaigns on systems like Sirius, Caph, and Carver V, fifty-five BattleMech regiments and even more supporting units were part of the invasion's first wave. Another sixty were to follow in the succeeding waves. Divided into task forces to secure the Titan Shipyards, Mars, Venus, and Luna, with a main force to begin operations on Terra itself. Wave One was under the command of a council of current or future Successor Lords; High King Thomas Proctor, Gothi Ragnar Magnusson, First Prince Ian Davion, and Consul Lucia O'Reilly-Logan, with the lead position held by General Penelope Reynolds herself. Admiral John Silver, son of the famed pirate Grand Admiral Long Tom Silver of the Brethren, oversaw the council commanding the Inner Sphere's combined fleet. Other leaders or senior commanders would lead the upcoming waves, with Wave Two directed by a council under Director Masako Honda and Wave Three's command overseen by Emperor Jonah Allison-Liao. (Reminds me of Stone and Operation: SCOUR —Lady Janella)

The Terrans did not go quietly. Half of the invading capital WarShips and over a third of the remaining number were destroyed or badly damaged in the fighting over Terra, Luna, and Titan that finally eliminated the once-almighty Terran Union Navy. Consul O'Reilly-Logan led I Legio and a ten regiment contingent in securing the valuable facilities and factories on Mars, prevailing despite bitter and savage resistance over four months of fighting into late March. As a preliminary strike, Reynolds personally commanded the combat drop that secured Luna's habitats and refineries, freeing the way for the landings on Earth after the start of the new year. Subordinate commanders oversaw the forces landing in Africa, Australia, and North America while the SERPENT Command Council brought the cream of their forces to Europe and the fight for Geneva.

In the following months of campaigning the TUDF was brought to ground in engagements across Terra. In some notable incidents the Terran defenders were fanatical enough to employ atomic mines against their foes, but in most cases the damages to come were from the sheer scale of conventional fighting. These campaigns continued on through almost to the end of the year, though it was in September that the climactic engagement was held in Geneva. Director-General Kerensky led the defense personally and inflicted serious losses on her opponents; as the fighting drew to the Palace of Unity in Geneva, she took to the field and led her troops in a final, desperate charge to take down Reynolds and the other commanders. Kerensky's Atlas II was a force on the battlefield and she scored numerous successful kills and cripplings, including High King Thomas' Black Knight. But even her legendary skill would not be enough to win the day. On the 16th of October 3060, the infamous Black Widow of Terra and would-be founder of a new Star League met her end under the boot of the Red Queen of the Lexington Combat Group.

Director-General Kerensky's death did not end the fighting. While it broke the morale of many units, the Terrans continued to put up ferocious resistance until the weight of numbers and the realization of doom became too much. Even as this violence continued, ComStar stepped in. For ComStar President Gabriel Deakins, the continued fighting was pointless destruction. Terra had lost and it was time to get on with the business of rebuilding the Inner Sphere and saving what his company could preserve. He harangued the Terran Congress, which had retreated to momentary safety in Cairo, into approving an unconditional surrender instead of attempting to inflict a nuclear holocaust upon the invaders, one that would only see the complete destruction of Terra. Three prospective Chancellors resigned rather than agree, but an aged and broken Daniel Tiepolo finally stepped up to accept "the painful inevitability". Assuming the Chancellorship one last time, Tiepolo signed the surrender order on November 8th. While not every unit obeyed, and fighting did continue for weeks in some areas, the majority of the surviving TUDF laid down their arms.

The Terrans had gambled and lost. The Terran Union, the great beacon of hope in the darkest decades of the Collapse, was itself now a broken ruin. The safety net they had provided against a wider collapse of human civilization was gone. The Inner Sphere would never be the same again.


[In many ways, although larger in scale than SCOUR was, the fighting in the other Inner Sphere's SERPENT was much less vicious. The Terran Union was far less profligate in the use of WMDs than the Blakists were, and their troops generally more inclined to surrender over taking their opponents down with them — rare exceptions like Singapore, damn Hogarth to hell, aside. In many ways, I think that's probably a good thing; if the Terran Union's defenders had, at their twilight hour, been as committed to victory or death at all costs as many of the Blakists were, it's questionable if Terra herself could have survived as an inhabitable world. I don't intend this, of course, as any slight upon the men and women who extirpated that dark mirror of our own Republic; they did their duty, and did it well. And the worst of the fighting the Screaming Eagles saw in the tunnels under Geneva was as bad as anything I saw in Bratislava. - Paladin-Exemplar David McKinnon]