Yin Takami

Yin Takami
Personal
Died2994
AffiliationComStar
Career
Position(s)Primus of ComStar

Yin Takami was the tenth Primus of ComStar. While continuing to try and suppress the Great Houses attempts to rediscover Lostech, Takami's most notable contribution to ComStar was the introduction of the Advocate or State Precentors to the First Circuit.[1]

History[edit]

Early service to ComStar[edit]

Takami rose to the rank of Precentor New Earth, serving on the Order's First Circuit. Upon the sudden death of Adrienne Sims in 2979, the First Circuit chose Takami as her successor for the post of Primus.[1]

Primus of ComStar[edit]

Within ten days of Takami accepting the Primacy, Precentor ROM Karl Sims informed him and the rest of the First Circuit that the Taurian Concordat had discovered an ancient Black Lion-class battlecruiser, the SLS Tripitz, in orbit around New Vandenberg. With all Successor State WarShips lost in the early Succession Wars, even the slim prospect of the Taurians could return the Tripitz to service appalled the First Circuit, worsened with indications the Capellan Confederation's Maskirovka had also learned of the discovery and planned to stage their own recovery mission.[1][2]

In response, Primus Takami ordered the First Division of the ComStar Guards and Militia to the star system with orders to destroy the Tripitz rather than risk it falling into the hands of either the Taurians or the Capellans. To disguise ComStar's complicity, Takami ordered that the ships and fighters be painted white and given no identifying markings that might link them to the Order. Their advanced Star League Defense Force aerospace fighters countering their inexperience, the ComStar forces successfully destroyed the Tripitz without revealing their identity, the incident eventually inspiring the legend of the Vandenberg White Wings in Periphery folklore.[1][2]

Despite reservations in the First Circuit that an offensive response was against the neutrality professed by Jerome Blake, Takami countered that as long as the identity of ComStar's forces had been not discovered then he not breached the divine will of Blake. While the so-called Tripitz Affair was a great success, for which Takami rewarded the Com Guards with increased funds to expand their BattleMech element to fifty regiments, other efforts Takami introduced to suppress the efforts of the Great Houses to rediscover Lostech were not nearly as successful.[1][2][3]

Taking a note from the actions of Raymond Karpov, whom Takami would canonize during his own Primacy,[4] after receiving intelligence from ROM that the Great Houses were making renewed effort to recover some of the lost technology of the Star League era he instructed them to initiate Operation HOLY SHROUD II, a new wave of assassinations of scientists and engineers similar to Raymond Karpov's 2838 Operation HOLY SHROUD. However, despite a few minor successes, many of the assassinations were stopped by the Federated Suns' Ministry of Intelligence Investigations and Operations and Draconis Combine's Internal Security Force. The only area where Takami's HOLY SHROUD II matched the first was ROM's efforts to misdirect any efforts to link the Order to the assassinations, with not even a hint the supposedly neutral organization was actively seeking to cripple the Inner Sphere.[1][2][3]

Takami's most far reaching contribution ComStar would prove to be the creation of the position of Advocate-Precentor in June 14 2988. Believing that the existing First Circuit members had become more politicians than technocrats, Takami added four new members to the body to speak for all the ComStar installations within their given realms, Precentor Tharkad for the Lyran Commonwealth, Precentor Sian for the Capellan Confederation, Precentor Atreus for the Free Worlds League, and Precentor New Avalon for the Federated Suns. Precentor Dieron was made the advocate of the Draconis Combine later on.[1]

Death and Legacy[edit]

Yin Takami's primacy came to an abrupt and violent end in 2994 when his JumpShip, Pride of Blake suffered a total engine-core overload and meltdown at the Sol nadir jump point. While the Primus's DropShip was able to detach, it was caught in the explosion and Primus Takami and two members of First Circuit were killed. Having not named a successor, the surviving First Circuit elected Allen Rusenstein, Precentor Alpha C, to the post.[1]

The most lasting effect of Takami's tenure as Primus was the introduction of the Advocate-Precentor position. In the beginning these new Advocate-Precentors were an asset by providing insights into the workings of each Successor State. Over time though they were able to create a majority power base by utilizing their connections to the ruling Great Houses, giving them a larger voice in the First Circuit and the running of ComStar. As the other members of the First Circuit saw their influence wane, they eventually stopped going to the meetings altogether, in effect ceding their power and reducing the First Circuit to the Primus and the five House-aligned Precentors, allowing future Primuses to more easily control the body.[1]

Philosophical and/or political views[edit]

Like many who rose to the rank of Primus, Takami held militant views as to ComStar's role in the Inner Sphere, but Takami was among the first who was more than willing to take direct action as opposed to the indirect manipulation practiced by others.[1]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 ComStar, pp. 46–47: "The Tripitz Affair - The Activist First Circuit"
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Field Manual: ComStar, p. 13: "Bait and Switch"
  3. 3.0 3.1 Intelligence Operations Handbook, p. 105: "ROM - Brief History - Dangerous Games"
  4. ComStar, p. 33: "War Renewed"

Bibliography[edit]