Thomas Marik

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Thomas Marik (March 10th 2990-3???) was the seventh son of Janos Marik from his first wife, Hilda Lauber. He was described as soft-spoken, with brown hair. After he was scarred during a bomb blast in 3035, he was replaced with a body double by ComStar.[1]

His double claimed the Captain-Generalcy of the Free Worlds League from 3036 until it hopelessly fractured during the 3070s. "Thomas" led the Free Worlds League to greater unity, economic prosperity, and centralization than it had ever experienced.

The real Thomas Marik became a fanatical follower of Conrad Toyama and defected to the Word of Blake. He became the shadowy figure known as "the Master," the true mastermind of the Jihad.[2]

Biography

Early Life

Since Thomas was the seventh in line to the throne, he never conceived of the notion that he would someday become Captain-General, nor did he seem to desire the position. Instead, he threw himself into his love of technology. At the age of sixteen he joined ComStar, where he demonstrated a real knack with technical pursuits.[1]

He joined the Explorer Corps, where he stayed for seven years. He spent many more years as a deputy chief of maintenance at various HPG stations. In the 3020s, he was allowed to pursue research in medicine and astrophysics. The 3020s also saw Janos Marik negotiate for Thomas' release to be named as Janos' heir. With four of his older siblings dead, one all but disinherited, and the last found wanting; Janos decided to make his seventh child his heir. ComStar allowed this, hoping that Thomas would be more amicable to them than previous Marik rulers. The proper documents were signed on Procyon on 3021.[1]

Regent

Thomas was later promoted to Precentor of the HPG station on Son Hoa, where he was when circumstances found him. The Duchy of Andurien seceded from the Free Worlds League in 3030. Roughly a month later, Janos suffered a debilitating stroke. When his son Duggan and nephew Duncan struggled for control, Grand Duke Christopher Halas of Oriente contacted Thomas. Thomas appeared before Parliament in 3031 with documents that showed that he was Janos' designated heir. Thomas then ruled ably in his father's name, much to the dismay of ComStar and Halas, who believed that he would be easy to control. In 3035, Janos had recovered, so he resumed control.

In the same year, Janos called a meeting to discuss ways the bring the Duchy of Andurien back into the League. Duncan was called away only moments before a bomb exploded. It was believed that all inside perished, so Duncan Marik assumed the title of Captain-General, which went unopposed by Janos' three remaining children, and declared war on Andurien.

Double-Blind

Though Thomas was rescued from Duncan Marik's bomb attack by ComStar, the extensive damage done required the use of bionics to save him. Since the people of the Free Worlds League are quite bigoted towards "cyborgs," ComStar made the decision to replace Thomas with a body double, who was appropriately scarred. With Thomas back after more than a year, an enthusiastic Parliament acceded to his many demands in order to be rid of Duncan. Most of these requests were laws that concentrated more power in the hands of the Captain-General than there had ever been before, including veto power. Duncan made one last ditch effort to remain in power by defeating the Andurien troops, but he died in his failed 3037 attack.[3]

"Thomas" decided to cement his power by much the same means. Leading a much more measured response, he eventually reclaimed Andurien and rebel Dame Catherine Humphreys in 3040. Though she died from a heart attack while awaiting trial, Thomas pardoned many military and political leaders to aid reconciliation. This paid off when many members of the former Defenders of Andurien joined a new federal force that Thomas created, the Free Worlds Legionnaires.[3][4]

Marriage and Children

Thomas Marik was survived by one illegitimate child, Isis. His only legitimate child, Joshua, died in 3057 while being treated for his leukemia on New Avalon.

"Thomas Marik" was also survived by one daughter, Jessica. His two sons, Christopher and Janos, were killed during his escape from Atreus. Jessica went on to succeed her mother, Sherryl Halas, as the leader of Oriente and the Oriente Protectorate.[5][6]

Captain-General

The new Captain-General sought stability and peace above all else. Though his realm was unaffected by the Clan invasion, he still traveled to Outreach in 3051 for the summit concerning how to deal with them. There, he provided the voice of reason, the perfect counterpoint to Romano Liao. After she stormed out, Thomas and Prince Hanse Davion agreed that the Free Worlds League would convert its industry to provide refit packages to Federated Commonwealth troops so that they could more effectively combat the Clans through Star League technology. In exchange, Hanse offered to treat Marik's heir Joshua and his leukemia at the New Avalon Institute of Science.[7]

The League continued to provide refit packages, even after the Truce of Tukayyid, and the League's industry grew larger and richer with a guaranteed market for its new, high-tech goods. As the flow of refits slowed, "Thomas" directed the Free Worlds League Military to purchase them, resulting in a technologically sophisticated BattleMech force. This force was soon put to the test.

The fallout of Primus Myndo Waterly's Operation Scorpion and her subsequent assassination by Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht led to a schism within ComStar. Focht and newly-elected Primus Sharilar Mori decided to reform the order of many of its mystical trappings, but there was a group of reactionaries who did not agree with these changes. Led by Precentor Atreus Demona Aziz, "Thomas Marik" allowed them exile on the League planet of Gibson. He was named Primus-in-exile by them, which was really an honorary title as the various factions of the Word of Blake could not agree on a real leader. The Word also took over the administration of HPGs from ComStar, ensuring them a source of revenue.

War of 3057

The death of Hanse Davion in 3052 and Melissa Steiner in 3055 resulted in the ascendance of their oldest son, Victor Steiner-Davion, as Archon-Prince of the Federated Commonwealth. However, in 3057, Joshua Marik lost his battle with leukemia. In his inexperience, Victor fell back to a plan his father had created that dealt with such a contingency. Fearing that the Captain-General would cease the flow of upgrades, Victor instituted Operation Doppelganger, replacing Joshua with a body double. Though he never intended to place a pawn on the throne of the Free Worlds League, when Thomas found out that seemed the logical end of the plan.

Marik made a tentative alliance with Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao of the Capellan Confederation to punish Victor for his duplicity. The two nations launched a joint invasion with the goal of regaining all of the territories Thomas' father has lost during the Fourth Succession War. The result of this attack went beyond anything "Thomas" could have hoped to achieve.

Although the FWL-CapCon assault took back many of the previously-conquered worlds, the greatest victory for the to erstwhile allies was yet to come. Katherine Steiner-Davion, amidst her own plots to seize power from her brother Victor, seceded the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth under emergency war powers and created the Lyran Alliance. She formally returned the League's lost worlds and immediately pledged a truce with the false Thomas. No longer in need of many of the mercenary units they had hired with their objective completed, the FWLM sold most of the contracts to the Capellans, and the alliance cooled off to a general aimity.

Star League

Now an elder statesman of the Inner Sphere, "Thomas" traveled to Tharkad to take part in the First Whitting Conference in 3058. Here, he and the other heads of state decided to resurrect the Star League and prosecute a war aimed at annihilating Clan Smoke Jaguar. There, the false Thomas supported his one-time ally Sun-Tzu Liao in that man's bid to become the first First Lord. He also contributed military forces to Task Force Serpent and Operation Bulldog. Here, Victor Steiner-Davion all but told "Thomas" that he knew he was not the real son of Janos Marik, but Victor did nothing as the false Thomas was a stabilizing influence on the Star League Council.

The Free Worlds League was relatively quiet through the late 3050s and early 3060s, until the FedCom Civil War. During that war, Kristen Marik and her mercenary unit, Kristen's Krushers, were garrisoning Coventry when they were attacked by Lyran troops. The false Thomas did nothing to help the woman who was supposedly his little sister, though Marshall Jeremy Brett defied a direct order from him to rescue what was left of the unit on Arcadia. The world was held as a protectorate through the end of the war, after which "Thomas" returned it to the Lyran Alliance.

At the 3064 Whitting Conference, "Thomas" nominated the Word of Blake for entrance into the Star League. While this was obviously desirable to him, as it would give him a member that would basically vote the way he wanted, it was also an incredibly desirable outcome to the Toyama faction of the Word. This faction contained the radical Sixth of June, led by none other than "the Master," Thomas Marik. The real Marik believed that the Word would come to greatness through three "transfers of power," the last of which was their membership in the Star League. A ComStar audit of Blakist funding turned up some corruption of the funds paid to them by the Free Worlds, but the Captain-General's internal audit revealed a much more disturbing situation. Incredible amounts of M-bills had been siphoned off to the Word, which even Precentor William Blane could not account for. Blane and "Marik" concluded that only the real Thomas Marik could have been responsible for the numbers. With that revelation, "Thomas" resigned as Primus-in-exile.

The year 3067 saw the greatest challenge to the Captain-General's rule. Kristen's daughter Alys Rousset-Marik started the Great Debate. She argued that Resolution 288, the legislation the established the Captain-General as a permanent position, should no longer be in effect, as there is no emergency (which 288 is contingent upon). With the Free Worlds League at peace and the Star League resurrected, she argued, the Captain-General should go revert to a position that was assigned as needed. While this took much of the false Thomas' attention, it ultimately came to naught.

Jihad

The Fourth Whitting Conference in 3067 saw the dissolution of the Star League. When the Capellan Confederation, Federated Suns, and host Lyran Alliance announced their intentions to pull out of the League, outgoing First Lord Christian Mansdottir called for a vote of no-confidence in the League with the intention of forcing them back in. Even with the admission of the provisional members, the vote failed and the Star League dissolved. The Word of Blake, especially Thomas Marik's Sixth of June were incensed and attempted to force the Alliance and Suns back into the League through intimidating force aimed at their respective capitals. When that failed, the Blakists engulfed the Inner Sphere and near Periphery in their Jihad.

"Thomas" finally attempted to break his dependency on the Blakists, to which they responded by using a chemical attack to kill the members of Parliament and the 1st Knights of the Inner Sphere. They also revealed the knowledge that the Captain-General was an impostor placed on the throne by ComStar. Despite that, the false Thomas attempted to stay on, but was deposed by Thomas' brother, Paul in 3069. Paul put his daughter Corrine on the throne, though she did not prove to be as malleable as the Word had hoped. Others attempted to claim the Captain-Generalcy, namely Therese Marik and Kirc Cameron-Jones, leading to four different Captain-Generals (a situation that persists into the 3130s).

"Thomas" escaped the attempted coup against him in 3069, though it cost him the lives of his two sons. Aided by none other than Corrine herself, the false Thomas ran to Oriente where his father-in-law provided him sanctuary. In order to flee, however, he was forced to leave behind his wife Sherryl and daughter Jessica as they were injured during his escape. "Thomas" continued to provide intelligence to what was left of the Free Worlds League, and to Devlin Stone, but all the respect and power he had spent decades accruing were shattered. Eventually, his wife and daughter were able to join him on Oriente. Following Duke Christopher's death in 3080, he ceased using the "Marik" surname and instead called himself "Thomas Halas." Together with Sherryl, Thomas ruled Oriente.

Death and afterward

Both Thomas and his impostor are dead.

The circumstances surrounding the impostor's death are not known, though his daughter continues to use the "Marik" surname.

Thomas Marik perished along with his Jihad. His ashes were interred in secret on Kwamashu in the Duchy of Andurien. Following the fall of the HPG grid in 3132, Republic of the Sphere Ghost Knights stole them as part of a plot to distract Andurien and other former Free Worlds League states from the Republic as it restructured during Fortress Republic.

Philosophical and/or political views

Thomas Marik was a fanatical devotee of Primus Conrad Toyama. The Jihad was launched after his interpretation of one of Toyama's prophecies did not come to fruition.

Thomas Marik's impostor did his best to concentrate political power in the Captain-General. He stripped the provinces of many of their rights and powers, created military brigades that were personally loyal to him and the Free Worlds League as a whole, cemented ties with the Duchy of Oriente and secured their military units for his own use, and stripped other provincial military units of their provincial loyalties.

Preceded by Captain-General of the Free Worlds League
3036-3078 		Succeeded by
none
Preceded by Duke of Atreus and Marik
3035-3069 		Succeeded by


References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 House Marik Sourcebook, pp 141
  2. ↑ Pardoe, Blaine Lee, Principles of Desolation
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 20-Year Update
  4. ↑ Field Manual: Free Worlds League
  5. ↑ Jihad Hot Spots: 3070
  6. ↑ Legacies of the League II--Oriente and Andurien on Wizkids' website.
  7. ↑ Stackpole, Michael A., Blood Legacy


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