Samantha Calderon

This article is about the founder of the Taurian Concordat. For the WarShip, see Samantha Calderon (Individual WarShip).
Samantha Calderon
Character Profile
Died 14 March 2268
Affiliation House Calderon
Position Founder of the Taurian Concordat
Children Timothy Calderon


Samantha Calderon of Aix-la-Chapelle was the founder of the Taurian Concordat and of House Calderon. She would lay the groundwork for the Taurian Concordat, the oldest unified interstellar nation—older even than the Inner Sphere with which the Concordat would later find itself at odds.[1]

History[edit]

In 2236, Samantha lost her first husband and both her daughters to a Terran Alliance firing squad. This bloody act gave her control of her husband's immense terraforming concern based on the planet Vega as well as the vast financial fortune that supported it. By 2245 however, Marik privateers and financial collapse spreading throughout the Outer Reaches drained away half her fortune. Believing only a radical solution was possible to save her people and treasure, she converted what remained of her wealth into a fleet of twenty-five JumpShips and support vessels. Samantha decided to leave the Inner Sphere as a result of the brutality inherent in the nascent Inner Sphere, especially during (and in the wake of) the Outer Reaches Rebellion. In 2250, Samantha led more than 2,300 volunteers away from Aix-la-Chapelle in what became known as the Calderon Expedition. The fleet avoided other Terran Alliance worlds to make brief stops at Robinson, Victoria, and New Syrtis before departing known space.[2][3]

After twenty-two months the Expedition reached the edge of the unexplored Hyades Cluster. It proved to have a massive asteroid field obscured by dust and radiation. Two ships were lost penetrating the cluster. Once inside though the Calderon Expedition found no less than eight star systems with a total of thiryt-seven planets, ten of which were ideal for human habitation. Samantha decided that the Hyades asteroid field provided a fantastic natural barrier to invasion and piracy. On 23 January 2253, Samantha Calderon set foot on the world Taurus (named for her second husband, Victor Taurens who died entering what's now called Flannagan's Nebulea).[4][3] For the next fifteen years Samantha's dream of idyllic isolation beyond the reach of governments and social oppressors was a reality. Her colony soon doubled and redoubled in size. Her dream ended in a freak accident that claimed her life on 14 March 2268, but her visionary leadership and legacy of personal courage created a foundation from which a stable interstellar political state would grow and endure for over eight centuries. Despising the hated, brutal, but democratic Terran Alliance, her son Timothy Calderon and the Taurian people agreed that the Protectorship would remain a hereditary Calderon title, further distinguishing the Taurians from the heart of the Inner Sphere.[5]

References[edit]

  1. Handbook: Major Periphery States, p. 12
  2. The Periphery, pp. 14–15
  3. 3.0 3.1 Handbook: Major Periphery States, p. 14
  4. The Periphery, p. 15
  5. The Periphery, 2nd Edition, pp. 46–47

Bibliography[edit]