Londerholm Revolt

Property "Update Needed From" (as page type) with input value "Clan Spaniel Sourcebook" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process. The Londerholm Revolt took place in 2912 on the planet Londerholm and other holdings of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Already suffering from decades of shortsighted and oppressive rule by the Smoke Jaguar warrior caste, a famine on Londerholm prompted a rebellion by local Jaguar laborer caste members; discontent elsewhere resulted in revolts by other Jaguar merchants and laborers. The dissidents were swiftly crushed by the Jaguar warrior caste, but the damage wrought left the Clan weakened in the long run.

Background

The civilian castes of Clan Smoke Jaguar had gotten somewhat used to the callous belligerence expressed towards them by the warrior caste, but only through methods that would one day put them under the guns of their warrior masters. Smoke Jaguar warriors have historically viewed their lower castes as a burden, an arrogant point of view that has often caused harm to their entire Clan on many levels - levels that are usually beneath their warriors' concern. The Jaguar warrior caste would receive the lion's share of all foodstuffs produced, leaving many of their citizens to starve in certain instances. Smoke Jaguar warriors likewise disallowed their merchants from taking part in ventures that could have made great returns for their Clan, believing that economics had little or nothing to do with their Clan's way of life.

With no true recourse for their plight - the Smoke Jaguar Clan Council was of little avail to the lower castes - the lower castes who supported the warriors would have to resort to holding out on those same warriors, a perilous situation at best. It would be circumstances like these that forced the merchant caste into a position where they would have to set aside a portion of Londerholm's food supplies to get the lower castes by on a basic subsistence level. This situation would last for several years until inevitable disaster finally struck.

The Famine

In 2912 on the Jaguar breadbasket world of Londerholm, a blight would kill almost all of their crop of a root vegetable (called the cholach) that the lower castes survived on in lieu of the grains and livestock that they grew and shipped largely to their warriors under the strict supervision of the Clan Council. When representatives of the laborer caste petitioned the warriors to ask for a larger portion of the food supplies in order to survive, their plea for help was rejected for selfishly daring to beg the warriors for their food.

Revolt on Londerholm

The citizens of Londerholm would take matters into their own hands by not allowing a transport filled with foodstuffs to leave the port city of Vostok. A furious Smoke Jaguar Khan Ian Moon would react by dispatching the 181st Battle Cluster to take charge of every spaceport on the planet. After the departure of the final shipments of foodstuffs, the Cluster leveled the city of Vostok as an object lesson to the lower castemen regarding the rights of the warrior caste.

The Jaguar warriors proceeded to slaughter lower caste members to alleviate the food shortage. Neighboring Clans who needed workers themselves dispatched warriors to Trial for these people, but far from welcoming this less brutal alternative the Jaguars viewed it as interference with their Clan's sovereignty and resisted ferociously. In one notable action a Star of Clan Wolf MechWarriors held off four times their number as their kin escaped with the population of an entire town. The enraged Jaguars killed all the Wolf warriors but the fallen defenders were enshrined in the Wolf Remembrance and breeding program.

In seizing the port of Vostok, the merchant ship manifests fell under the scrutiny of the warrior caste. Upon discovering the merchants' history of skimming profits from the Clan's economic ventures, Khan Moon announced that the merchant caste would receive no profits from the grain shipments, and further punished them by declaring that the merchant caste would make restitution to the Clan Council by handing over half of their wealth. This amount would be determined by chosen members of the Warrior caste. When an explanation for this crippling punishment was demanded by representatives of the merchant caste, the Clan Council simply replied that they were being punished for stealing and inciting the laborer caste of Londerholm to rebel.

Desperate Revolution

Smoke Jaguar merchant caste members across the Kerensky Cluster revolted against the draconian measures taken by their warrior caste. On Atreus, merchants centered around the trade of gemstones refused the landing of two Trinaries of the First Jaguar Caviliers. This would not stop them from doing so anyway, leveling the city in the ensuing massacre. The lower castes begged for forgiveness from their protectors, citing the words of the Great Kerenskys regarding their warrior's duty to the lower castes. Instead of shaming his warriors by denouncing their unsanctioned attack on the city, the Smoke Jaguar khan commended their actions and ordered every merchant and their families executed for revolting against the authority of the warrior caste.

In a separate incident on the world of Albion - which was held jointly by the Smoke Jaguars, Clan Coyote and Clan Burrock - the lower caste civilians revolted upon hearing the news of their slaughtered castemen on Londerholm. When the Jaguar garrison began punishing the populace for their rebellion, the citizens would plea for help from the other Clans on Albion. Sensing an opportunity to make significant gains for his Clan at the expense of a foe, Coyote Galaxy Commander David Christofferson quickly readied his troops and launched a Trial of Possession against the Smoke Jaguar enclave. His second line units would deal a humiliating blow to the OmniMech equipped Twenty-fifth Jaguar Dragoons. Claiming the entire colony, its population, the entire Cluster and everything else that they possessed, Christofferson then assigned his new Smoke Jaguar bondsmen to the laborer caste, allowing them the opportunity to reap what they had sown.

Aftermath

With the rebellions crushed, Khan Ian Moon stripped the lower castes of their meager rights, placing all political power with the Smoke Jaguar warrior caste. The Khans of several other Clans raised objections in the Grand Council regarding the harsh treatment of his civilians, but Khan Moon argued that if any Clans interfered in this internal dispute within Clan Smoke Jaguar it would set a precedent other Clans might come to regret. Acknowledging the logic of this, the objecting Khans took the matter no further.

Legacy

After the Smoke Jaguars put down the revolt, they would reign unchallenged by their civilian populace for well over a century. But the mass-execution of their merchant caste civilians would hurt Clan Smoke Jaguar as a whole for decades to come, regardless of their warrior's lack of acknowledgement or even understanding of how economics affected their Clan. However, one Inner Sphere analyst noted that the massive death toll did reduce the laborer and merchants' food requirements to manageable levels; her conclusion - perhaps cynical or tongue-in-cheek - was that the Jaguar warrior caste thus displayed better economic understanding than they were normally given credit for.

In later years the Smoke Jaguar warrior caste came to regard the Londerholm Revolt as an event to be unacknowledged where possible. The city of Vostock was not rebuilt and its ruins became viewed with more than a little superstitious reverence.

See also

• Clan Smoke Jaguar
• Ian Moon
• Londerholm
• Atreus
• Albion
• David Christofferson

Bibliography

• The Clans: Warriors of Kerensky
• Field Manual: Warden Clans
• Invading Clans
• Operational Turning Points: REVIVAL Trials
• Technical Readout: Golden Century
• The Wars of Reaving