Jack Lucas

John Peter Lucas III
Personal
Also known as	Jack Lucas
Born	25 November 2725
Died	9 December 2831
Affiliation	Star League
Profile
Rank	General
Family
Parents	John Lucas, Jr. (father) Melissa Lucas (mother)
Siblings	five siblings

John Peter Lucas III otherwise known as Jack for his entire life, was a Star League Defense Force commanding General of the Third Army.

History

Jack Lucas was born into a neo-Jesuit family on the Lyran world of Zaniah and was groomed from a young age to join the priesthood; however, he took a similarly regimented lifestyle but within the Star League Defense Force instead. He went to the Combat College on New Earth and graduated in 2747 in the top ten percent. Though his father was Hegemony-born, the paperwork had not been filed to accord his Jack and his siblings status as as Hegemony natives; because of this, Jack was turned down in his request to be assigned to a Royal regiment, instead he was assigned to the 326th BattleMech Division, part of the Fifteenth Army.

Periphery Uprising

The Periphery Uprising revealed that many senior leaders of the SLDF were unprepared to wage a war against an enemy that spanned many systems, and Jack Lucas jumped from the rank of colonel to full general in less than a year's time. Now serving in the Fourth Army, he was first given command of the 253rd Battle Regiment and later took over its parent 202nd BattleMech Division when the division was reduced to just ten battalions and forced to retreat from fighting in the Taurian Concordat. Between 2765 and 2766, he was promoted to Major General and given command of the 255th Royal Mechanized Infantry Division.

In mid-2766, Lucas was promoted to command of the Third Army by General Aaron DeChavilier, who had been keeping an eye on Lucas ever since he was a major serving in the Fourth Army's operations staff during Operation PERSUASIVE FORCE in 2757. As the Third's commanding general, they began to be known for their unbridled aggression that they showed toward their enemies. During the Uprising, Third Army was able to keep casualties low due to completing their campaigns faster than any other Star League Army.

Amaris Civil War

During all of the fighting, Lucas kept up the façade of being always-capable and unperturbed during conflicts. The longer that he kept up the façade, the more he began to internalize the stress and exhaustion that came with leadership which wreaked havoc with his health. When Stefan Amaris began his coup, and when the realization of the atrocities committed by his forces came to light, Lucas began to see the enemy on a level of subhuman. He turned a blind eye when his troops mistreated prisoners and on a few occasions, executed POWs. Lucas was eventually relieved of command by General Aleksandr Kerensky, who wanted the Third Army to have a fresh leader to help them get through the last hump of Operation LIBERATION. Lucas was officially assigned to the "Planning and Strategy" command.

With General Jack Lucas at helm, the reinvigorated Third quickly earned the distinction of the SLDF's most aggressive army during both Operations CHIEFTAIN and LIBERATION, suffering heavy losses but also inflicting even more on Amaris' troops. Desensitized by nearly twenty years of brutal war and increasingly outspoken on his views that the Republicans were less than human, an exhausted Lucas was relieved from command as the Third finished securing Australia.

Soon after Terra was liberated, Lucas retired from the army and moved to Errai. There, he got into politics and used his reputation from the SLDF along with his personality to win governorship of the planet and start the rebuilding process.

With the looming war clouds of the Succession Wars, Lucas reinvented himself for the final time. He followed the path that his father wanted for him and became a parish priest for the worlds of Errai and Northwind. He would die at the age of 106 after spending almost forty years as a reverend.

Bibliography

• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 2
• The Star League