Alexandrian Covenant

Alexandrian Covenant
State Profile
Founding Year	2580s
Capital world:	Pharos
Demonym(s)	Alexandrians
Government
Head of State	Alternates between Protectrix or Magister
Military
Commander-in-chief	First Charioteer
Army	Alexandrian Armed Forces

History

The Alexandrian Covenant was founded at some point during the 2580s by refugees from the Taurian Concordat and Magistracy of Canopus. Both groups had fled the violence of the Reunification War and settled neighboring worlds, which they named Eros III and Phaeton. Originally uneasy allies, when a catastrophe forced the Taurian colonists to evacuate Eros III and take refuge on Phaeton, the two societies wound up merging to a new state, the Alexandrian Covenant. A third population, the descendants of the Tikonov Galactic Rangers, may also have been present on Phaeton at this time; if so, it is unclear if the Alexandrians were aware of them. Phaeton was renamed Pharos to symbolically mark the union of the two cultures, and the Covenant began to settle nearby systems. The Covenant flourished with the growth of trade and colonization, and even covertly surveilled the member states of the Star League during this period. Around this time numerous caches were constructed to preserve history, technology and culture, as the Alexandrians believed the Inner Sphere was destined to destroy itself or regress into barbarism.

Tragically, the union between the Taurian and Canopian halves of the Covenant dissolved in the early 2700s, when civil war broke out on Pharos. What precisely caused the civil war is unknown, as centuries of coups and purges have heavily distorted the historical record, but victory by the Protectrix and her House of Dames in this First Upheaval resulted in the removal of Taurian institutions from the Covenant, a redrawing of it's constitution, and the banning of men from political or military leadership. Across the Covenant cities were burned, hundreds of thousands were forced to take up subsistence lifestyles in the countryside to survive, and libraries or technological caches were accidentally destroyed in the fighting. In the 2800s, a Second Upheaval erupted, this time reinstating the old Magister and House of Lords as the sole Covenant government while disenfranchising women. The Second Upheaval proved even more destructive than the first, with political purges and hate crimes killing hundreds of thousands. Over the next 250 years, at least two more coups of unknown cause toppled the Covenant's government, each revolution more brutal and destructive than it's predecessor. At some point after the Second Upheaval, the Covenant lost the ability to maintain it's JumpShips, isolating the various worlds from one another. The Covenant's population gradually came to worship the long vanished JumpShips as a kind of sky god.

In 3042 (believed to be the Fifth Upheaval by Interstellar Expeditions), a Magister-led government was toppled due to allegedly mismanaging the response to a plague. In 3067, the Protectrix-led government was again toppled due to having failed to prevent a meteor strike from destroying a major settlement. The government was again toppled in 3082 after a prominent member of the House of Lords blasphemously suggested that a DropShip recovered from a rediscovered cache be repaired so that the Covenant could reestablish contact with the Sky God. Interstellar Expeditions discovered the surviving worlds of the Covenant in 3093 and began attempting to study their history but the Covenant responded violently to all instances of contact, as the population had come to believe that visitors from the stars were deceiving demons.

Politics

The Covenant's original government consisted of an all-male House of Lords led by a Magister and an all-female House of Dames lead by a Protectrix, who represented the Taurian and Canopian elements of the original colony. These two elements were combined into a bicameral republic. After the First Upheaval, however, the Taurian half of the government was abolished, the House of Dames reduced to a mere advisory council, and all men disenfranchised. Each cycle of coups and civil wars that followed has overthrown one side of the original government and restored the other to power, which enfranchises or disenfranchises the corresponding gender.

Military

The Alexandrian Armed Forces has minor variation in rank or organization due to the prolonged lack of contact between member worlds, but these differences are mainly cosmetic. The smallest unit of AAF organization is known as the chariot, which is roughly equivalent to a standard armor company and is led by a lieutenant. Five chariots denote a squadron, headed by a captain. Five squadrons form a division, led by a charioteer. Among all chariot divisions, the foremost charioteer holds the title of first charioteer and reports directly to the current head of state. Depending on whether a Magister or Protectrix is in power, officers ranks will be restricted to only men or only women, but enlisted personnel are mixed and usually majority male regardless. Though always prepared to fight itself in the next Upheaval, the Alexandrian Armed Forces will put aside it's political divisions and defend the nation as a whole in the event of demonic incurison (as they term offworld contact).

Due to rapid technological decline, the AAF fields no BattleMechs or aerospace fighters. The infantry, conventional vehicles and conventional fighters the Alexandrians can produce use Autocannons as their main armament and Internal Combustion Engines for their power supply due energy weapons and fusion plants being rare relics the Covenant can no longer produce. The AAF maintains crude surface-to-orbit missiles to attack "demonic" DropShips with, a mission considered so important to national security that the firebases playing host to these systems are never attacked during the Covenant's frequent civil wars.

Interstellar Expeditions believes that the Taurian expatriates who co-founded the Covenant possessed nuclear weapons, but these weapons were not used in any of the known Upheavals. Whether the AAF possess these weapons or if they are in a currently undiscovered cache was unknown by 3093.

Economy

Technology has massively regressed in the Covenant due to its frequent civil wars, and interstellar travel or communication is no longer possible. Despite this, the tendency of the various worlds to erupt into civil war around the same time they break out of Pharos implies that some unknown party must still be travelling between them, without the knowledge of Alexandrian authorities.

Culture & Society

The Covenant was founded from at least two distinct populations. The first, Canopian refugees who settled Phaeton, believed that the violence of the Inner Sphere would someday destroy it's culture, history and technology, which they hoped to preserve. The second, Taurian expatriates who had been evacuated from Eros III, had intended to use their colony to build military industries that would one day help liberate the Taurian Concordat from Star League Defense Force occupation. A third group, descendants of Capellan soldiers who fled Franco Liao's forces during the founding of the Capellan Confederation, was also present on Eros III. They may have been evacuated to Pharos, and if so formed a third, unacknowledged section of the Covenant's population.

The Covenant ultimately failed to achieve it's founders aims, and centuries of back-and-forth political violence have reduced it's people to a belligerent, insular, and paranoid state. Modern Alexandrians are deeply superstitious, believing that they are under the protection of a Sky God and that this protection will be forfeit if they ever leave their planets. Off-worlders are considered to be deceiving demons and are to be killed upon detection, a belief that may have developed from the Alexandrians past encounter with pirate groups.

Bibliography

• Interstellar Expeditions: Interstellar Players 3