Draconis Combine

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, but he left the Combine a changed place. No longer was the Draconis Combine a realm of melded cultures and regional identities. Urizen imposed the culture of feudal Japan upon his people, whether they wanted it or not, and the powers of the Internal Security Force (ISF) were greatly expanded to enforce this imposition. This restrictive society placed greater emphasis on the distinction between noble and commoner and stifled technological innovation, even as Urizen expanded the Combine's industry and made the nation more competitive economically.

First Lord Simon Cameron died in 2751, leaving his eight year-old son Richard as heir. The Star League Council appointed SLDF Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky his regent, though Kerensky was reluctant to use the power of First Lord. Takiro Kurita is credited with convincing his fellow Council members to pass two controversial laws. The first allowed the members to double the size of their militaries (which was really only a formality and most were secretly built up to begin with), while the second raised the taxes on the conquered Territorial States and distributed that wealth to the Member States. Three of the Periphery nations finally revolted in 2765 because of the higher taxes, but the leader of the Rim Worlds Republic, Stefan Amaris, was close to First Lord Richard Cameron and had a different plan in mind. Amaris had befriend Richard as a child and continued this friendship as Richard grew embittered at the bickering Council and the revolting Territorial States. Cameron sent much of the Hegemony Armed Forces to the Periphery to deal with the revolts when Amaris' plan was executed. He loaned troops from the Rim Worlds to garrison the Hegemony and, when his troops outnumbered the Terrans, he seized power in the Hegemony and executed Richard and every other Cameron. At the same time, he had secured Drago Kurita, Takiro's grand-nephew, along with the rest of the ambassador's family. Takiro died at the age of 121, leaving his son Minoru as Coordinator. Minoru feared to act against Amaris, so he denied Kerensky entry into the Combine during the General's war against Amaris. Despite that, Drago and his family were killed sometime before Kerensky liberated Terra and executed Stefan and every Amaris he could find.

First Succession War

The five Council Lords were finally able to reconvene on Terra in 2780. There, they stripped Kerensky of his title as Protector of the Realm and appointed General Jerome Blake Minister of Communications and charged him with rebuilding the damaged HPG grid. The Council Lords did nothing to attempt to come to any kind of an agreement that would have allowed the Star League to live, so, when General Kerensky led eighty percent of the SLDF into exile in 2784, he had also removed any impediment to outright warfare. Minoru Kurita declared himself First Lord in 2786, once his assault was underway. Using a diversion, Minoru was able to drive the Lyran Commonwealth back. In fact, the Lyrans seemed so weak that Minoru did not even believe them to be worth his time, so he shifted his attention to the Federated Suns.

Coordinator Minoru and his son Jinjiro launched their assault against the Federated Suns in 2787 and gained territory quickly because the Suns had shifted most of their troops to deal with the Capellan Confederation. By 2792, the DCMS had punched through the Draconis March and was assaulting the Crucis March. A successful guerrilla operation threatened the Kurita rear, so Minoru took his own 6th Sword of Light to secure Kentares IV. There, Minoru was assassinated in 2796. Jinjiro secured the world for the Combine, then ordered his troops to "kill them all." It took five months, but DCMS troops massacred ninety percent of the population of Kentares, some 52 million individuals. The effect of the Kentares Massacre was to galvanize the Davion troops, while demoralizing the Kurita forces. Indeed, many DCMS troopers committed seppuku rather than face the shame of living. The Davion forces were able to push the Combine back to the pre-war border by 2821.

The First Succession War saw the Ares Conventions being ignored for the first time on a widespread basis. The war of brutal and savage, as forces on all sides attacked civilian population centers and JumpShips, targeted factories and scientists, and engaged in a level of total war not seen in centuries. The 1st War was the beginning of mankind's backward slide.

Second Succession War

After the end of the 1st War, Jinjiro nationalized all the heavy industries in the Combine to ensure that the nation was reconstructed in exactly the way he wanted. Jinjiro also formed the People's Reconstruction Effort, led by his half-brother Zabu, who was more an intellectual than a soldier. Arguably the crowning achievement of the PRE was the establishment of the PRE Academy on Dover, which would come to be known as the Dover Institute for Higher Learning. Jinjiro was slowly descending into madness, but, after studying himself and the records of a "secret" doctor visit that the loyal ISF acquired, he discovered that, even in his less-than-sane moments, he was still a brilliant strategist. He decided to do what would give him the most chance of success by using all of his faculties. Jinjiro went to war.

One of the first actions of the Second Succession War was Jinjiro's use of the so-called Chain Gangs. The DCMS equipped effectively three regiments worth of misfits, convicts, and Unproductives with BattleMechs, gave them only the most rudimentary training, and dropped them onto neighboring industrial worlds to wreak havoc. Though this was a rather costly mission, it did have the intended effort of slowing down reconstruction in the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns.

Minnesota Tribe

In the latter part in 2828, a strange unit using SLDF tactics and bearing the insignia of Minnesota attacked Svelvik. The army unit refused to communicate with the Combine militia, took what they wanted, and left the system. They next attacked Trondheim, where the 20th Rasalhague Regulars were stationed. They defeated the regular unit, again refusing communication, even to the extreme of committing suicide before they could be captured. This scared Jinjiro, because he believed that they could be an advance unit for the return of the Kerensky's troops, so he shifted troops to the Periphery borders of both his Pesht and Rasalhague Military Districts. The army unit, which had now been labeled the "Minnesota Tribe," attacked Jarett, this time using massed AeroSpace Fighters to keep the Combine BattleMechs out of the fight. The Tribe attacked for the last time on the planet Richmond, though it is unclear whether they knew about the jail that housed political prisoners before they freed them. The Tribe loaded the freed prisoners up in their DropShips and left, never making their presence known in the Inner Sphere again.

It has been heavily hinted at that the Minnesota Tribe was the remnant of Clan Wolverine, especially with the publication of "Betrayal of Ideas" by Blaine Lee Pardoe.

War

2830 saw the true beginning of the 2nd War, as Jinjiro launched assaults against both of his Great House neighbors. In 2385, Jinjiro was driving truly insane by the gift of a perfectly angelic doll, dressed up like an SLDF soldier. He hung himself in 2841. Jinjiro was succeeded by his nephew Yoguchi, who placed the ISF under the command of the DCMS. The ISF, incensed at what they perceived as an insult, began a shadow war that severely hampered Yoguchi's offensives. While Yoguchi had limited success along the Steiner border, a powerful Davion counterattack threatened the Kurita positions along that border.

At home, Yoguchi made the mistake of appointing his sister Roweena coordinator of the PRE. She saw how the ISF was disaffected and began a tenuous alliance between the PRE and the ISF. Despite this, she organized a rescue effort when it became clear that Yoguchi was trapped, not dead, on Tishomingo. Yoguchi had decided to lead the defense of planet himself, but the force he led was vastly outnumbered by the invading Davion troops. Roweena had effectively taken control of the Combine by virtue of he position as leader of the PRE, and she honored her brother's actions by extracting him. Yoguchi did not live to see Luthien for long, as he was assassinated by a mysterious Lyran Intelligence Corps agent known only as Snow Fire, who had been undercover and became Yoguchi's favorite concubine. Yoguchi was succeeded by his brother Miyogi.

Miyogi launched more limited assaults than his predecessors had, leading to more limited gains. The Combine did manage to score a major victory with the capture of Robinson, the capital of the Federated Suns' Draconis March in 2858. Largely because of equipment breakdowns and a lack of spare parts with which to affect repairs, Coordinator Miyogi called for a halt to all offensives in 2862.

The Second Succession War saw more of the same as civilian targets were fair game and the Inner Sphere found it increasingly difficult to maintain their technology base. WarShips were the rarest of lostech, the vast majority having been destroyed in the first two Succession Wars. The Successor States now had to face the fact that ComStar was the only power that still knew how to use HPGs, thus all interstellar messages had to be passed through the Order, including military orders.

PRE

With the cessation of warfare, Miyogi turned his attention to Roweena and the PRE. His aunt had gained much power and her popularity threatened Miyogi. He directed a group of ISF agents known to be loyal to him to investigate her activities, which touched off a hidden war within the ISF. Because she allowed the ISF to use PRE channels, she wielded a large amount of influence over the spy agency. The DCMS attempted to remain neutral, but when it looked like foreign powers were gearing up to take advantage of the situation, the DCMS High Command decided to pick a side. After an impassioned speech by Taragi Kurita in favor of the Coordinator, the High Command swiftly intervened and the DCMS defeated the PRE. Miyogi eliminated the PRE, secure in his power.

Third Succession War

The Third Succession War saw an informal return to the Ares Conventions as the Successor States collectively realized that they were soon on the brink of being unable to fight their interstellar war for dominance. JumpShips and cities were again off limits, factories were fought over instead of destroyed, and raiding took the place of assaults. Losing defenders did not destroy their charges, instead they had to console themselves with the hope that their side would retake their lost territory in the future. Ironically, the return to the Ares Conventions ritualized warfare in a sense, devaluing it of its horrific connotations. This led to the idea, much as it had during the Age of War, that war was an acceptable method of political expression. This low-level war dragged on for over a hundred years and whole generations were born and died believing that a constant state of war was the natural order of humankind.

The 3rd War began when Miyogi and Taragi (who had been promoted) decided to punish the Lyrans for their involvement in the struggle between Miyogi and Roweena. They targeted the industrial worlds of the Isle of Skye in 2866 and found great success. This success was marred by the successful advance of House Davion. Davion troops constantly pushed the Kurita defenders back, thanks in part to Taragi's manipulation of supply routes to make his own victories look even better. Miyogi appointed his son Jon to head the Davion front, an act that deeply insulted Taragi, who had been carefully manipulating the situation to ensure that the position would go to him. He then approached Roweena Kurita to secure her aid in become Coordinator. She offered the help of a few ISF agents that remained loyal to her. Using them and his own abilities, Taragi ensured that the Suns reclaimed Robinson in 2879, a move that embarrassed Jon and, by extension, Miyogi. When the military called for Jon's removal, Miyogi balked. Unwilling to stand his dishonor, a member of the unit that defended Robinson executed a suicide bombing of Miyogi while he was holding open court. Taragi and Roweena arranged for a trumped-up trial that implicated Jon in his father's death, leading to his execution a week later.

Taragi's only real achievement was an unsuccessful assault against Skye. He died in 2907, leaving his son Shinjiro to succeed him. The Combine's slow push into the Lyran Commonwealth brought it within striking distance of Tamar. The Combine attacked Tamar, but found themselves unable to take it, so they abandoned the world in 2916. The Lyrans then reassigned those forces. The Combine honor did not allow them to remain stoic in the face of such an insult, so they attacked it again. The Lyrans reinforced the world and successfully defended it. This scenario then played itself out over and over again as the Lyrans were able to make limited gains because they forced the DCMS to focus on Tamar.

The suddenly stiff Steiner resistance forced the DCMS to devote more resources to that front, leaving the Davion front less secure, and even invited raids from bandit kings along the edges of the Periphery. In 2925, Coordinator Shinjiro died, leaving his son Hugai as the Coordinator.

2931 saw the beginning of an odd international incident play out. Coordinator Hugai's oldest sister Necess, who was an intellectual and traveled to other states researching medicine, joined ComStar. A Kurita had never before joined the Order, and Hugai was determined not to let his sister be the first. He discovered that she was working at a hospice on Luthien and sent a team of ISF agents to return her to Imperial City. It was only with the threat of a full communications interdiction and military intervention from The Bandersnatches that Hugai agreed to release Necess.

The loss of both Hugai's mentor and his sister threw him into fits of melancholy and he withdrew from participation in the governing of the Combine in 2953, crippling the ability of the military to wage war. He died in 2963, leaving his son Hohiro to succeed him. Hohiro attempted to strengthen his grip on the nation, but efforts were rebuffed at almost every turn. ComStar opposed his attempts to close down their clinics, the ISF audaciously demonstrated when he attempted to renegotiate Coordinator Shinjiro's agreement with them, and the masses rose up when he attempted to make Japanese the only language that could be spoken legally. His largest failure came when he tried to seize power from merchants and industrialists. They closed down as many factories as they could, forcing Hohiro to back down. Hohiro's reign became increasingly tyrannical, even by Kuritan standards, so it was not much of a surprise when he was assassinated by a member of his own household guard, the Otomo, in 3002.

Hohiro's son, who had been to commander of the Otomo came to power. Takashi Kurita quickly set about reversing many of the ultra-repressive edicts his father had passed, though he proved just as ruthless silencing opposition to his rule as his father had been. Takashi devoted more resources to the Davion front than many of his predecessors had, leading to the reclamation of worlds that had been under Davion control. Katrina Steiner circulated her now-famous peace proposal to her counterparts in 3020, an offer that Takashi flatly refused, but he became concerned when Hanse Davion reacted affirmatively, leading to an alliance between the Combine's two neighboring Great Houses. He sent a delegation to both Maximilian Liao and Janos Marik to forge an alliance between them. Negotiations almost derailed when each ruler discovered the other was present, but ISF Director Subhash Indrahar managed to forge the Concord of Kapteyn, a loose alliance between Houses Kurita, Liao, and Marik. There was never an official end to the Third Succession War, so much as it simply bogged down to the point that all five Great Houses stopped launching attacks, though local treaties also helped slow the momentum of the war. The 3rd War's official ending date is 3025.

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 Kurita Sourcebook
• Field Manual: Draconis Combine
• Field Manual: Updates

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