Draconis Combine
Sarna News
Overview
In the BattleTech universe, the Draconis Combine is one of the Successor States 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 Forces) and the O5P (Order of the Five Pillars) keep watch against any potential internal threat from lowly commoners, ambitious nobles, and members of the Coordinator's own family. (However, the physical protection of the Coordinator falls to his own personal cohort, the Otomo, who are recruited from the military, not the intelligence services.)
The idée fixe of the Combine and the Coordinator is conquest. 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. 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 Kokuryukai, 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.
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.