Clan Ghost Bear
Sarna News
 | This article needs to be updated with material from Historical: Operation Klondike, Era Digest: Golden Century, Wars of Reaving. Once these titles clear the Moratorium period, or if they already have, please consider revisiting this article and updating it with the new material. |
Property "Update Needed From" (as page type) with input value "Historical: Operation Klondike]], Era Digest: Golden Century, [[Wars of Reaving" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.
You must add a |reason= parameter to this Cleanup template – replace it with {{Cleanup|reason=<Fill reason here>}}, or remove the Cleanup template.
Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. |
| Clan Ghost Bear | |
|---|---|
| Faction Profile | |
| Time period: | 2807 – 3060 |
| Classification: | Clan |
| Controlled systems: | ? |
| Capital world: | ? |
| Ruler title: | Khan |
| Military: | Clan Ghost Bear Touman |
| Secret Service: | Clan Ghost Bear Watch |
Powerful Clansmen, the Clan Ghost Bears were one of the original twenty Clans founded by Nicholas Kerensky. Just like their totem animal, the ghost bears found on Strana Mechty, members of this Clan are known for their conservative nature and their strong sense of family. Amongst the strongest of the Clans and the most stable, their cautious nature ensures they never rush into a situation unprepared but also makes them slow to change with their unofficial mantra being "wait and see." Originally of the Crusader mindset, they were one of the four original Clans to participate in the Clan Invasion in 3050, but following the Battle of Tukayyid their philosophy changed towards the Wardens, which they officially announced on the eve of the Great Refusal. Since then the Clan has moved whole-sale into the Inner Sphere where they renamed their realm the the Ghost Bear Dominion.
Contents
History
| “ |
|
” |
Founding
Clan Ghost Bear founders Hans Ole Jorgensson and Sandra Tseng were elite warriors serving Nicholas Kerensky during the Second Exodus from the Pentagon Worlds to the Kerensky Cluster. They were also husband and wife. When Kerensky created the Clans, he decided Jorgensson and Tseng were too valuable to assign together to a single clan and would have separated the pair. Rather than be separated or directly refuse the orders of the Founder, they chose to die together. They traveled into the antarctic wilderness of the planet Strana Mechty, wandering until their supplies ran out.
In a mountain cave, waiting for death, they encountered a ghost bear. Despite their circumstance, they would not go quietly, and roared a defiant challenge at the bear. The bear did not attack, but circled and investigated until the pair, succumbing to cold and hunger, collapsed into unconsciousness. For unknown reasons, the bear did not take them as prey while they slept, but warmed them with its body, and upon waking, brought them fresh meat to eat. For three days it tended them this way, until they regained their strength. Upon emerging from their shelter, they found they had not been adopted by a solitary hunter, but by a pack.
Inspired, they returned to the Founder and argued for the clans to embrace the virtues of family and communal strength as a supplement to that of the individual. Hearing their tale, he granted their request to remain together, and honored their wilderness trial by naming their clan 'Ghost Bear'.
Operation Klondike
 | This Section looks to be a Stub This section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help us by expanding it. Please remove this tag when that effort is complete. |
The Golden Century
| This Section looks to be a Stub This section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help us by expanding it. Please remove this tag when that effort is complete. |
Clan Invasion
Periphery Actions
Battle of Tukayyid
As of 3000, their Khan was Nadia Winson. It was in that year that she made the suggestion regarding sending a reconnaissance unit to the Inner Sphere. This ultimately led to the creation of Wolf's Dragoons.[citation needed]
During the Great Refusal on Strana Mechty, the Ghost Bears abandoned their Crusader beliefs and embraced the Warden faction, leading them out of the Trial of Refusal being waged by the Inner Sphere. They subsequently relocated to the Inner Sphere, abandoning all their Clan holdings save for their enclave on Arcadia and their posting on Strana Mechty.
They are a now a permanent feature of the Inner Sphere and have remained tranquil, save for a brief war with the Draconis Combine following the latter's attack on their capital, Alshain. Currently they have merged with the Inner Sphere faction Free Rasalhague Republic to form the Ghost Bear Dominion. It was the first true merger between a Clan and an Inner Sphere nation where the citizens treat the Clan Warrior caste as the rulers, but the ruling warriors give free reign to their Rasalhague citizens. The Ghost Bear Khan holds the main power and there is a Prince voted for by the people to control all matters concerning the population.
Relocation to Combine-Ghost Bear War
| This Section looks to be a Stub This section is a stub (i.e., in need of additional material). You can help us by expanding it. Please remove this tag when that effort is complete. |
Jihad
The Ghost Bears deployed forces to Tukayyid while the world was blockaded by the Word of Blake, forces which arrived on the 11th of July 3070 and destroyed the Blakist ships in the system. This was followed shortly by Ragnar Magnusson speaking to the Free Rasalhague Republic government on Orestes on the 21st of August, where Magnusson spoke on behalf of the Ghost Bear Dominion, beginning negotiations for an accord that would represent "all Rasalhagian peoples."[1]
On 21 December 3074, the Clan deployed three Galaxies to Luthien, to fully exterminate all Word of Blake forces. The operation was complete by the end of the month.[2][3] The Clan also wiped out the Word of Blake forces on Pesht during the same time-frame; in both instances, the Ghost Bears fought without once offering zellbrigen to any Word unit, and any DCMS forces that attempted to interfere with the Ghost Bear campaigns were destroyed as well.[4][5] The Ghost Bear forces then abruptly withdrew from both worlds in mid-January 3075, leaving the Combine scrambling to find relief forces to fortify the worlds; the DCMS units that arrived in the wake of the Ghost Bear actions found no sign of any Blakist troop presence.[5][6]
Just as they had intervened on Pesht and Benjamin without any announcement, warning or discussion, the Ghost Bears soon embroiled themselves in the conflict for the hidden Word of Blake facility known as the Ruins of Gabriel, concealed in the Odessa system of the Lyran Alliance. Having been driven from the system by a coalition of allied forces, the Blakists had recaptured the facility in mid-April 3075, and proceeded to fight the initial counter-attack in mid-May by Lyran and Clan Wolf-in-Exile forces to a standstill. The Ghost Bears jumped to the Odessa system on the 21st of May, arriving via a pirate point, and ordered the Lyran and Wolf-in-Exile forces to stand down, crippling a Lyran WarShip that didn't follow their order. The Ghost Bears then attacked the Blakist forces at the Ruins of Gabriel, but were unable to prevent the Blakists from scuttling the facility and escaping.[7][8]
The Ghost Bear forces in the Draconis Combine continued to advance in August 3075, striking at the Word of Blake forces on Alya, Cebalrai, Eltanin, Kaus Borealis and Vega. The 7th Bear Regulars and the 69th Provisional Garrison Cluster were early casualties of this wave of planetary assaults; the Blakist troops on Cebalrai resorted to detonating a large neutron bomb as a part of their desperate defense, and the resulting blast wiped out both Ghost Bear units along with the remaining defenders and thousands of civilians.[8][9]
On the 14th of September, 3075, a small diplomatic party led by Devlin Stone traveled to Kaus Borealis to meet with the Ghost Bears, seeking to enlist the Ghost Bear's assistance in the growing allied coalition against the Word of Blake. The mission was successful, with the Ghost Bears agreeing to help a week after the first meeting. This was followed on the 6th of October by Ghost Bear forces assaulting the occupied worlds of Ascella, Kaus Australis and Kaus Media, although the advance on Ascella stalled when Blakist Pocket WarShips attacked the Ghost Bear DropShips as they were inbound to the planet, destroying half of the Ghost Bear ships.[8][9]
In early November 3075 the Ghost Bears sent a delegation to meet with Clan Snow Raven in the Outworlds Alliance in a bid to negotiate for the Snow Ravens to commit to supporting the coalition. By mid-December these negotiations had been successful and the Ghost Bears were able to assault Ascella for a second time, this time with assistance from Snow Raven support assets. Devlin Stone and a coalition force arrived in the Ascella system at roughly the same time, and also assaulted the Blakist forces on the planet; while the Ghost Bears battled for control of the primary industrial complexes and planetary spaceport for two weeks while the Blakists employed scorched earth tactics constantly against them, Stone's Lament captured both the HPG compound and Ascella's capital city in only a week.[10][11] The delegation headed up by Aletha Kabrinski and sent to negotiate with the Snow Ravens left the Outworlds Alliance on the 16th of February 3076, escorted by the two naval Stars of ships the Snow Ravens contributed to the coalition.[11][12]
While the Ghost Bears continued to conduct operations against the Blakists, Clan Diamond Shark initiated a Trial with the Ghost Bears on the 7th of May 3076, winning the right to establish a trading enclave on Tukayyid.[11][13]
The combined Ghost Bear and Snow Raven forces launched a number of major assaults in July and September 3076, with the first wave in July striking at the Protectorate worlds of Dyev, Kervil, Ko, Lambrecht, Moore and Sabik, followed by a second wave in September that expanded the combined Clan front against the Protectorate by striking at Lyons, Pike IV and Skandia.[14][15] The Ghost Bears chose to respond to a mutiny at home in the Ghost Bear Dominion among certain Rasalhague units by stalling their combat actions against the Word of Blake Protectorate to allow them to return all of the deployed units that were ethnically Rasalhagian commands back to Dominion space to deal with the mutiny. The various units departed for Dominion space on the 5th of November, and by the end of December the revolt had failed, with the various Free Rasalhague resistance groups in Dominion space going dormant.[15][16]
In early December 3076 a news report entitled "A Time of War" produced by the interstellar news company INN contained opinions from an INN Senior Analyst named Farouk O'Reilly on the major contributing factors behind the genocidal tactics the Ghost Bears had been using against the Word of Blake. O'Reilly cited the apparent death of Khan Bjorn Jorgensson in the terrorist bombing on Arc-Royal in 3073, the Blakist attacks on Tukayyid and later Radstadt and, most of all, the destruction of almost the entire Tseng Bloodhouse. While the article couldn't confirm the rumors that House Tseng had been destroyed, it led to speculation that only the Ghost Bear Loremaster Laurie Tseng and a handful of bloodnamed warriors had survived an attempt to eliminate the entire Bloodhouse, and that the damage inflicted on the house had been administered via some sort of gene-tailored bio-weapon.[17]
The Dominion world of Alshain was rocked by a terrorist bombing on the 31st of December 3078, for which the Motstånd terrorist group claimed responsibility. The explosion killed several hundred Rasalhagian and Ghost Bear civilians, several members of the Unity Council and the former First Prince, Christian Månsdottir. Ghost Bear paramilitary police pursued the Motstånd leadership as a result, killing Albert Gronvold-Minami on Stanzach on the 2nd of January 3079, and nearly capturing Cilla Amdahl a week later on Tinaca.[18]
Operation SCOUR
The Ghost Bears took an active part in Operation SCOUR, the four-pronged invasion of the Word of Blake Protectorate conducted by the allied coalition assembled by Devlin Stone. Prominent actions the Ghost Bears were involved in included the campaign to liberate Asta in March 3077 which saw the noted officer Andrew Redburn rescued from captivity after being presumed dead years before on Tukayyid,[19] as well as joining with DCMS forces in October to liberate Dieron, one of the largest coalition deployments of 3077.[20]
Dark Age
In 3103, the Ghost Bear Dominion was renamed the Rasalhague Dominion. It is ruled by the Dominion Council.[citation needed]
Culture
While they have few official ceremonies and customs, the Ghost Bears can be defined by a number of broad traditions which are reinforced through education and the military chain of command. First among these is the virtue of strength; even Mechwarrior and aerospace pilots undergo hand-to-hand training as intense as Elemental training, and every year teams from every Galaxy compete in a Clan decathlon, with the winner earning respect and a seat at the head of the table in the feast afterwards. However this virtue is limited not just to physical strength but also strength in purpose and character, a factor which has helped the Clan survive even their own self-inflicted wounds.[21]
This reverence for strength is perhaps best personified in the Clawing Ritual, a rite of passage undertaken by only the bravest Ghost Bear warriors. Every year the highest-ranking unClawed warrior in each Cluster goes to Strana Mechty, where they participate in a month-long period of reflection and purification led by the Clan Loremaster. Once this period is over the candidates are grouped by Galaxy into hunting parties, given basic provisions including a simple metal spear and hunting dogs, and then enter the planet's punishing Antarctic to kill a ghost bear and bring back its carcass as proof. This ritual, an attempt to relieve the experiences of the Clan's Founders, results in less than half of the hunting parties returning from their journey, and fewer still successfully, though usually at least one will return with a ghost bear. Amid great ceremony the ghost bear is skinned, its pelt fashioned into cloaks for the victors, and its flesh roasted and eaten by all so that they may ingest a portion of its essence. While there is no dishonor in failure, those who survive are destined to rise to the Clan's highest echelons.[21]
A second defining aspect of the Clan is the concept of family. While the word is repugnant to other Clans, for the Ghost Bears it has unique value given their founding by a married couple. Tseng and Jorgensson did their best to impart a sense of camaraderie and fellowship among the first warriors, to make them a true family and create stronger ties of beyond that of a normal military unit. While the intensity of these feelings faded over time as the Clan grew in size and new practices such as the iron womb became normal, the general sense of them remained. Lifelong friendships are common among the Ghost Bears, and many warriors maintain tight bonds with their trothkin and Starmates.[22]
Finally the Ghost Bears are perhaps best understood by the phrase "to tread without care is to court disaster." What started as a general tendency became an overarching philosophy among the Clan, that one must take measured steps going through life and that partial commitment to a cause is worst than none at all. Nothing is undertaken without due consideration, including the introduction of new technology and concept; only after careful testing and observation, typically as another Clan employs the weapon or tactic in question in battle, and has proven its worth is it then adopted wholeheartedly by the Ghost Bears.[21]
This virtue also expresses itself in another tradition, that of the Great Work. Kilbourne Jorgensson, an accomplished sculptor and musician, worked on a life-size sculpture of the ghost bear he killed during his Clawing for his entire life. When asked one day if he was nearly finished the Khan cryptically replied "When I am finished, so will the statue be finished." He died in battle later than month, and his sculpture gave rise to the idea of each person creating their own "Great Work" to express dedication to a long-term goal or cause. By tradition every warrior is expected to begin a Great Work, along with many lower caste members, after they have come of age and work on it little by little each day, whether it be a painting, a musical composition or some other artistic work. Sometimes a Great Work will be a collaborative effort among trothkin, especially for Works of great size and complexity, and have extra value as it also emphasizes teamwork. The Work is performed or displayed at the warrior's funeral ceremony, included in their codex after death, and put on perpetual display near their Bloodname Chapel in Svoboda Zemylya on Strana Mechty.[21]
Military
Era Specific Data
3062
Ghost Bear Demographics
Affiliation: Warden
Clan Space Worlds:
Arcadia (25 percent)
Capital: Alshain (IS)
Population (Clan Space): 24,294,000 (3060)
Population growth rate: 2.1 percent (43/22)
Self-Sufficiency Index: 99 percent
Leaders:
Khan: Bjorn Jorgensson
saKhan: Aletha Kabrinski
Loremaster: Laurie Tseng
Scientist-General: Jorge (Agassiz)
Merchant Factor: Werner
Master Technician: Alejandro
Senior Laborer: Alia
Military:
Clusters: 58
WarShips: 14
Exclusive Ghost Bear Bloodnames
General Bloodnames:
- Gurdel
- Snuka
- Bekker
- Hall
- Jorgensson
- Tseng
- DelVillar
- Kabrinski
- Vong
Pilots:
- Bourjon
- Gilmour
- Devon
References
- ↑ Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 48, "The Jihad In Review"
- ↑ Jihad Turning Points: Luthien, p. 7, "Alpha Galaxy [Clan Ghost Bear]"
- ↑ Jihad Turning Points: Luthien, p. 11, "Damnation"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: 3076, p. 55, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 53, "The Jihad In Review"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 14, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 16, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 54, "The Jihad In Review"
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 18, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 19, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 55, "The Jihad In Review"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 20, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 21, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 22, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 56, "The Jihad In Review"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 23, "Timeline of the Jihad"
- ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: Terra, p. 17-18, "Righteous Fury"
- ↑ Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 60, "The Jihad in Review"
- ↑ Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 57, "The Jihad in Review"
- ↑ Jihad: Final Reckoning, p. 58, "The Jihad in Review"
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Field Manual: Warden Clans, p. 83
- ↑ Field Manual: Warden Clans, p. 84
Bibliography
The text in this article is based on this revision of the Wikipedia article "Clan Ghost Bear" used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See the BattleTechWiki's copyright notice.