Draconis Combine

Overview

The Draconis Combine is one of the Successor States, located in the "north-east" quadrant of the Inner Sphere. The Draconis Combine has been ruled by House Kurita since its founding in 2319 by Shiro Kurita, perhaps a descendant of Takeo Kurita, a Vice-Admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II on Terra. The chief of state, the Coordinator, is the head of the Kurita family. The Coordinator is a hereditary dictator, who rules over his domain armed with a well-equipped, fanatical military and an ever-pervasive, all-seeing civilian bureaucracy. Two rival intelligence agencies, the ISF (Internal Security Force) and the O5P (Order of the Five Pillars) keep watch against any potential internal threat from commoners, ambitious nobles, and members of the Coordinator's own family. (However, the physical protection of the Coordinator falls to his own personal cohort, who are recruited from the military, not the intelligence services).

The idée fixe of the Combine and the Coordinator is conquest. The Combine employs a large, skilled military that has often been used to expand the realm at the expense of its neighbors known as the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery. Its current capital at Luthien was established during the Star League.

History

Beginnings

The Draconis Combine may have been officially founding in 2319, but the history of the Combine begins before then. Shiro Kurita was an ambitious man and sought control. At the age of 26, he was able to unite all of his homeworld, New Samarkand, through diplomacy or force, under his sole authority. Six years later he concluded an alliance with the nearby world of Galedon V and became the Director of the Alliance of Galedon. Their first target was the nearby by Ozawa Mercantile Alliance, and Shiro used the profits from their privateering to finance a growing merchant navy.

In the meantime, Shiro's brother Urizen trained the newly-equipped Galedonian militia on New Samarkand. Almost this entire force assaulted the world of Sverdlovsk and took it quickly and easily because they had no army of their own. Shiro implied that other worlds that refused his offer of alliance could meet similar fates, and the Alliance of Galedon grew. His fledgling empire almost doubled in size after he convinced nearby worlds that their neighbor was ready to attack, but that they could receive protection if they joined his alliance. They all agreed, though tensions quickly flared as some worlds realized thatt heir enemies had been offered the very same deal. The army of the Kurita brothers met these challenges quickly and fiercely, quelling rebellions that sprung up haphazardly.

Founding

In 2319, Kurita dispensed with the formality of maintaining the Alliance of Galedon. In recognition of the fact that his nation now bordered the lifeless Draconis Rift, Shiro declared himself Coordinator of the Draconis Combine. As Coordinator of Worlds, Shiro instilled his people with the same sense of martial discipline and spartan living that his father had instilled in him. Bushido, the way of the samurai, was taught to his soldiers and Shiro vowed to control all of humankind. While he did control millions, he would have everything.

Shiro's nation had grown ever larger, beginning to abut upon neighboring power like the Terran Hegemony. Kurita decided to assault the Principality of Rasalhague, a mostly peaceful, but densely populated nation, in 2330. During this war, a new generation of Kurita leaders came to the fore. Urizen was replaced as Warlord by his son Adam, and Tenno took over for Shiro after his death in 2348.

In 2367, Tenno declared victory in the war against Rasalhague, but the Rasalhagians maintained their independence, albeit with brutal Kurita rule. Tenno was not the military strategist that his father was. His abilities lie in administration, and it was Tenno that set down the system of districts and prefectures that is still in use. He encouraged large families and indoctrinated his subjects into the feudal Japanese culture that would come to dominate the Combine. He committed seppuku in 2376 after the assassination of his sister, paving the way for his son Nihongi and his descendants.

Age of War

Nihongi's rule was ineffective and his untimely death in 2396 saved his son Robert the trouble of assassinating him. Robert Kurita joined in the Age of War happily, launching an invasion of the Lyran Commonwealth in 2407. He was assassinated, and his brother's reign was cut short by a coup in 2421 led by the bastard Nihongi Von Rohrs, who was the son of Robert's sister Marika and a stable hand. To cement his rule, he immediately exiled all other members of the Kurita family, excepting a few who supported him. The Von Rohrs dynasty ruled for 89 years, amid a bizarre secrecy that left the Coordinator separated from his subjects, leading few to knew who their leader was and when power changed hands.

In 2461, Combine agents were able to successfully steal the technology to create BattleMechs from their Steiner counterparts. Lyran leaders decided to press their advantage while they had it and launched a full-scale invasion, leading to the Battle of Nox in 2475, the first true 'Mech-on-'Mech engagement. The Lyrans were able to make gains, but once Combine BattleMechs entered full-scale production, the DCMS was able to recoup their losses.

The Von Rohrs dynasty was brought to a violent end in 2510. Martin McAllister, one-time envoy to Rasalhague and the Captain of the Household Guard, colluded with Lord Blaine Sorenson of Rasalhague to engineer a coup. McAllister was actually a Kurita in hiding and, when Sorenson invaded, McAllister used his position to take advantage of the decrease in palace security to assassinate virtually everybody in the palace, a move that was necessitated by the fact that few people knew what the Coordinator looked like. With that, House Kurita emerged from the Age of War.

Star League

Martin ruled until his assassination in 2515. With no clear male heirs, his daughter Siriwan McAllister was installed as "brevet" Coordinator until a suitable male could be found. She quickly married Warren Kurita, who succeeded her a month after she ascended. A year later Hehiro Kurita was born, and Warren named him as heir. Warren died almost two years later of mysterious causes, and Siriwan was again Coordinator, though technically as regent for her infant son. She maintained peace during her forty-year reign, cleverly playing court nobles off against each other. She finally allowed her son to become Coordinator when he was 40 years old, though she stayed on as an adviser.

Hehiro was the last Inner Sphere leader to join the Star League, having signed the Treaty of Vega in 2569. Hehiro joined his nation to the other five Star League members primarily to gain access to scientific data they had collected, though his decision to join left him with a reputation as a calm peacemaker. The Director-General of the Terran Hegemony served as First Lord, while the other five members received seats on the Council. While the Star League did allow the Combine to achieve technological parity with their neighbors, it also thrust the DCMS into the Reunification War. From 2577 until 2597, the DCMS fought the Outworlds Alliance and Rim Worlds Republic in a blatant war of conquest. Ironically, this gave the DCMS an outlet and allowed the people of the Combine to display their martial prowess in a way they had not been able to do in decades.

Hehiro's death in 2591 revealed a problem in the succession: his son Leonard. Leonard was a notorious playboy who was more at home in brothels than at court. His death was another of the mysterious kind, after his inebriated fits of rage called out the Terrans, who were more than willing to use force to ensure they were not attacked. 2605 saw two new Coordinators as Leonard's sickly son Blaine took power, but died a few months later. His great-grandmother Siriwan was again inaugurated as Coordinator in October of 2605. Siriwan stepped down in 2607 because, at over 100 years of age, she did not have the energy to counter the court nobles any longer. However, she named her granddaughter Sanethia Coordinator so that she could still rule from behind the scenes until she died in 2632 at the age of 136.

During the Star League years, the DCMS became bored as they had no enemies to fight, so they turned to the Star League Defense Force. MechWarriors of the DCMS and the SLDF fought duels to satisfy Combine aggression. In this vacuum, Sanethia came up with a novel solution. In 2617, she announced that the capital was moving from New Samarkand to a resource-poor and largely agricultural world, Luthien. The state poured its resources into constructing a new capital and the people were happy as this massive spending created an economic boom. Sanethia resigned in 2620 and Urizen II oversaw the construction of the new capital. He resigned in 2691 in favor of his eldest son, Takiro.

Fourth Succession War

Since the days of Takashi Kurita, the Coordinator has been called the "Unifier of Worlds." This is considered ironic to detractors, as under Takashi's rule, many worlds slipped from the Combine's hands: first to the ceding of Rasalhague Prefecture (now the Free Rasalhague Republic), then to the invasions by Clans Smoke Jaguar, Nova Cat and Ghost Bear.

Phoenix Rising

Under the leadership of his son, Theodore Kurita, the Combine has regained some of its worlds and its fearsome reputation. Nonetheless, dissatisfaction with the current regime has lead to the emergence of the Kokuryu-kai, also known as Black Dragon Society, a widespread conspiracy against the new Coordinator and his current policy of détente with House Kurita's traditional rival, House Davion.

Enter the Raven

Recently, the Combine has earned the ire of Clan Snow Raven by destroying one of their most prized WarShips as it attempted to dock with a Combine recharge station. The Snow Ravens, following a nuclear attack that devastated their fleet, attacked the Draconis Combine world of Galedon V before learning that the attack had been orchestrated by the omnipresent Word of Blake.

References

• History
• Timeline
• House Book
• Field Manual: Draconis Combine
• Field Manual: Updates

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