Terran Hegemony

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Terran Hegemony
Faction Profile
Time period:	2315-2767
Classification:	Great House
Controlled systems:	95+
Capital world:	Terra
Ruler title:	Director-General
Military:	Hegemony Armed Forces (HAF)
Secret Service:	Hegemony Central Intelligence Department (HCID)

The Terran Hegemony was an interstellar state located at the center of the Inner Sphere. Established after a military coup led by James McKenna overthrew the vestiges of the Terran Alliance, the Hegemony quickly rose to dominating positions in the realms of technology, military innovations, and diplomacy: its early expansionist period prompted the formation of the Great Houses, its era of aggressive diplomacy eventually led to the creation of the Star League, and its destruction in the Amaris Civil War led to the Succession Wars.

History

Terran Alliance Civil War

In the decades following the Demarcation Declaration the Terran Alliance slowly descended into chaos. The two main political parties, the Expansionists and the Liberals, quickly followed one another at the reigns of power, but none could solve the Alliance's problems. In meantime, the Alliance Navy took on a life on its own: the charismatic Admiral James McKenna began construction of a real black water navy out of what was little more than an armored troop transport service. Essentially operating without political oversight, the Alliance Navy was free to construct six warships (starting with the TAS Dreadnought in 2300) and twenty support vessels until the civil war began in 2314. The political turmoil began to escalate that year, when the newly emergent People's Liberation Party began its rise. Both Expansionists and Liberalswere quick to offer the PLP's leader, Grant Zoli, concessions for an alliance. Zoli, who had formed the PLP as a money-making scheme, decided for an alliance with the highest bidder: initially accepting the Expansionists' offer, Zoli redecided after a month and promised to join forces with the Liberals after the next election. Soon afterwards, on September 5, 2314, his corpse was found in his New Zealand mansion.

The latent civil war escalated into a bloody global conflict. On June 2, 2315 Fleet Admiral McKenna's warships destroyed two small Islands (Strand Rock, near Scotland and an unnamed one near Australia) in a show of strength and demanded the founding of a new government and the formation of a new state to replace the Alliance and restore Terra's rule over the Human Sphere. While an overwhelming majority of the Alliance Global Militia flocked to his banner and support among the populace soared, the leadership of the opposing parties refused to surrender. The civil war was ended by bloody orbital bombardements and a global manhunt conducted by McKenna's Colonial Marines. While the surviving leaders of the Expansionists and Liberals were turned over to local authorities and sentenced to long prison sentences or executed, McKenna ushered the Hegemony Charter, officially ending the Terran Alliance.

Expansion

Aside from banning political parties, the Terran Hegemony in its first years was in many ways a continuation of the Terran Alliance: the offices of the national leaders were left alone, and a new democratically elected Terran Congress led by a President was established (mirrored by similar Planetary Congresses on the other Hegemony worlds). At the head of this new state McKenna placed a dictatorial Director-General (elected for life) and a High Council made up of nine Planetary Governors (elected for eighteen years with no term limit and serving on the High Council at the discretion of the Director-General). The bureocracy was decentralised and moved from Terra to Luna.

After being elected as the first Director-General of the Terran Hegemony and reasserting a measure of control over the Sol system, McKenna began the first of his "campaigns of persuasion" in 2316. Using its naval supremacy, the Hegemony began a series of planetary invasions with he goal of reasserting Terran control over all of the Human Sphere. First focusing on the systems which had been part of the Alliance until its collapse then (in a second "campaign of persuasion") on other planets, by the 2320s the Terran Hegemony had established control over more than fourty formerly independent worlds.

Around the 2330s the military campaigns ran into insurmountible technological and diplomatic trouble. The lack of a fightercraft that was both adequate in space and in athmosphere together with general problems of overstretch were the preeminent problems the military faced, while the formation of the first interstellar states (like the Marik Commonwealth, the Federation of Skye, the Crucis Pact, the Ozawa Mercantile Association, or the Capellan Republic) signalled the arrival of foes who could equal - if not overwhelm - the Terran war machine. McKenna's reply was an attempt at diplomatically keeping the interstellar states at bay, and switching both internal and external propaganda from Terran supremacy and rulership to Terran compassion, knowledge and the common root of all mankind. A third "campaign of persuasion", intended to overwhelm still independant planets within reach, came to a halt when Konrad McKenna, James' son, in an act of overconfidence bungled the invasion of Galatea and ran headlong into an ambuch over Syrma. When he attempted to lay the blame, ordered and persecuted a court-martial on Vice-Admiral Harris Cather, the commander of the first invasion wave, he was forced from his post by his irate father. Faced with overwhelming criticism after the disastrous defeats, James McKenna resigned from the post of Director-General and died of cancer within a tenday.

Cameron Neo-Feudalism

After McKenna's death, the political landscape began to tip back into chaos. The main source of conflict was his successor: although his son Konrad was ruled out by the High Council, his Nephew Michael Cameron, a passionate researcher and modern Renaissance Man, was chosen as a candidate. The other chosen candidate the Council settled on was Graham Nellas, a conservative politician and former HAF Marine Officer with a distinguished career. As no agreement within the High Council could be reached, the matter was settled in a general election. During the tightly controlled campaign Cameron and Nellas frequently held debates, in which Nellas came across as a self-assured but smug career politician while Michael Cameron's quiet competence won him voters. In the end, Michael Cameron won the election and was sworn in as Director-General on January 17, 2340.

Once elected, Michael Cameron showed a scientific affinity comparable to the late Terran Alliance: he created the Hegemony Research Alliance Department to centralize and coordinate non-military scientific research, non-traditional economic systems were encouraged on selected worlds, the Hegemony civil service was reinvented following the latest theories of management, and advancement within the bureocracy was dependant on merit-based tests. Unfortunately, he also showed a streak of the Cameron romanticism his descendants would often display by formally creating a new nobility system, patterned after medieval English feudalism on January 1, 2351. The initial List of Peers, the beginning of Neo-Feudalism, included 31 men and women who Cameron thought deserving of worthy of titles and land grants. Later that year, he laid the path for the Cameron dynasty with the Cameron Edict of 2351, which allowed his daughters to retain the Cameron name through marriage.

When Michael Cameron retired in 2367 his daughter Margaret, married to a wealthy industrialist and a retired Navy officer, was swiftly elected and sworn in as Director-General after a short campaign without an opposing candidate. Margaret Cameron refocused the Terran Hegemony on military matters by introducing new draft legislation which would demand every citizen of age to serve in their homeworld militia and serve one month per year in military manuevers until their 55th birthday. The contested Military Recruitment and Preparedness Bill was finally approved by the Terran Parliament after Margaret Cameron threatened to bypass it entirely.

Ironically, further advacement in the applied sciences (such as the first primitive WorkMechs) ended James McKenna's vision of Terra as the bonfire of human knowledge. Faced with increasing diplomatic tension, Margaret Cameron issued the Mother Doctrine in 2380, which was in practice a blacklist of technology which was not to be exported outside of the Hegemony. This policy would officially remain in place until the destruction of the Terran Hegemony in the First Succession War.

Suffering from cancer, Margaret Cameron retired in 2382 and was succeeded by her son Raymond Cameron. Heavy-handed protectionist and militarist policies (such as a 2385 crisis on Bryant over the HAF draft, which Raymond solved by threatening military action) turned the Hegemony citizenry against the Director-General. When his wife, Skye native Katherine McQuinston became pregnant, Richard (who had been sterile since suffering from a jet fighter accident at age 24) flew into a rage, arrested and accused his brother Brian, the likely culprit, of high treason. Two days before the trial was set to begin, Raymond died from a heart attack, leaving the High Council to pick up the pieces his unpopular reign had left behind.

With no other Cameron capable of leading the Terran Hegemony, the High Council decided to press ahead the trial against Brian Cameron, who was found innocent of all save infidelity. In September 2388, Brian Cameron was confirmed as new Director-General. His lasting legacy would be the Succession Bill of 2392, which made it nearly impossible for a non-Cameron to become Director General, and the a massive military build up starting in 2921, which included the developement and construction of the first Castle Brian military complexes.

After Brian's death in a freak accident involving a raging bull on Elba in 2403, his younger sister Judith Cameron promptly decided to nominate herself for the position of Director-General and was confirmed (despite misgivings of the High Council) for the position within two months. By and large, she continued her brother's politics and further reinforced Hegemony planets with Castle Brians. During her reign, the Age of War began to heat up and several military confrontations with the Capellan Confederation and Draconis Combine between 2407 and 2409 tested the resolve and capabilities of the HAF.

When Judith Cameron retired in 2419, the son of Brian Cameron and Katherine McQuinston was confirmed as Director-General. Notable for the seizure Kentares from the Federated Suns in 2431 and a change to the Hegemony nomination laws in 2432, which allowed a Director-General to choose their own successor, Richard Cameron soon died due a heart attack. His son, Jacob Cameron proved to be such an unpopular and unreasonable ruler that he was nearly assassinated in 2448. More capable as a warrior than a politician or a diplomat, he undertook campaigns against the Capellan Confederation and the Federated Suns. It was under his watch that the Hegemony developed the BattleMech in 2439, a research avenue which not only affected other military programs, but the buildup of a whole new arm of the HAF left the Hegemony lacking from basic goods. Following Jacob were his son Theodore and granddaughter Elizabeth, both incapable rulers remembered for little but their indulgent lifestyles and the successes the HAF enjoyed against the encroaching Great Houses. When Elizabeth died of New Earth Pox in 2501, the Hegemony public was openly discussing dissolving the government. Political parties had risen up on many planets, often riding on waves on particularist and secessionist agitation, while diplomatic relations with the neighbouring realms had soured.

Aggressive Diplomacy

Deborah Cameron assumed the position of Director-General in a Hegemony deep in crisis. Deflating much of the protests by allowing the anti-Cameron agitation to run its course while taking measures to reign in the rampant spending, after a few years the political situation in the Hegemony had become stable again.

Historical Maps Gallery

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  Terran Hegemony in 2596

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  Terran Hegemony in 2764

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  Terran Hegemony and the Inner Sphere, 2750

Images

Alternate image found in BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction

See Also

• House Cameron Family Tree
• Star League

Bibliography

• Era Digest: Age of War
• Era Report: 2750
• Field Manual: SLDF
• Historical: Reunification War
• Jihad Hot Spots: Terra
• The Star League