Conrad Toyama

Conrad Toyama (27?? – April 2837) assumed control of ComStar, following Jerome Blake's death in 2819.

Conrad Toyama

Biography

Early life to the First Circuit

Toyama originated from the Terran Hegemony world of Dieron.

Joining the Star League's Department of Communications as a technician shortly after Jerome Blake's appointment as Minister in the aftermath of the Amaris Coup, the young Toyama quickly earned the respect of the older man. Despite his relative youth, Blake would select Toyama for the important post as chief administrator of the restored Dieron Hyperpulse Generator, earning him a position on Blake's newly created political First Circuit, the decision making council for the Department made up the HPG First Circuit's chief administrators.

One of Toyama's first actions was to suggest that with the collapse of the Star League that the Department of Communications was no longer suitable for the organization, suggesting instead ComStar, a combination of the names of two biggest companies that formerly sold their services to the Department, Communications Enterprises Inc. and Starlight Broadcasting Ltd. After The Purification, Toyama would later claim his inspiration for the name was due to an high voltage electrical shock suffered while working on the Deiron HPG during which he was visited by the shade of Richard Cameron who whispered it to him. No matter its origin, Blake backed the proposal and the Star League Department of Communications was thereafter known as ComStar.

While some on the First Circuit questioned his level of fanatical devotion, Toyama remained on the body for the remainder of Blake's reign during the maelstrom of the First Succession War, viewing Blake as a kind of prophet and savior of humanity, following his every command with an almost religious fervor. As the elderly Blake began to increasingly withdraw from the day to day running of his organization, most frequently to a private retreat in the foothills of Green Mountains, Toyama was among the many devoted followers who regularly visited him.

Assumption of Power and The Purification

Toyama took over the leadership of ComStar following Blake's death in 2819, replacing the previous corporate structure with a hierarchy based upon religious trappings and mystic rituals. Along with the change came a new title for the highest authority within ComStar: Primus. Toyama's intent behind the cultish change was to encourage the belief that the future of humanity lay in technology and communication between the realms and that only ComStar could presently provide that protection. By bestowing the employees of ComStar with a mythical aura of knowledge, Toyama hoped to protect the organization's control of the technology. If only ComStar's adepts could operate ComStar's technology, then even the "greedy" states would work to protect his people. The Star League's legacy would then be safe under ComStar's aegis.

By 2820 and content with his full control of the Order, Toyama embarked on a public tour of the capitals of the Great Houses to meet with each of the leaders of the Inner Sphere. While the professed goal was to explain ComStar's new religious based organization and structure, it also allowed Toyama to explain personally how he had prevented Schwepps' renegade First Circuit from launching attacks against the Great Houses at a heavy cost, requiring a 15 percent increasing in transmission rates to rebuild the organization's damaged infrastructure.

Save for Archon Richard Steiner of Lyran Commonwealth, the other house lords grudgingly accepted the increase with minimal resistance. The Archon however refused to make public appearances with Toyama and only agreed to new terms after what he claimed amounted to diplomatic blackmail. Tensions between the Commonwealth and the Blessed Order only increased after this, with the Archon often openly questioning ComStar's neutrality and Toyama's motives, hinting that he suspected the organization was a front for an eventual take-over of the Inner Sphere.

Matters reached a head when Richard's son Marcus, convinced the Lyran Estates-General to pass his father's Reclamation Act of 2823, which required that ComStar's profits and property be taxed like any other business operating in the Lyran Commonwealth. Toyama knew he had to act swiftly to ram home that ComStar was not just a business, and lest any other leaders decided to follow suit. Calling a special session of the First Circuit, Toyama convinced the body to pass the Exclusion of Tharkad Act, ComStar's first Communications Interdiction against one of the Successor States.

Shortly before the first tax bill was due, on October 3rd 2823 a copy of the act was transmitted to Tharkad and delivered to the Archon, followed by the shutdown and disabling of the capital's Hyperpulse Generator. Before the Archon could even respond, all ComStar personnel were safely evacuated off world. In one fell swoop Toyama had shown all the House Lords that he was not afraid to use ComStar's power. The Interdiction lasted almost a full year with little communication between the Commonwealth and ComStar before Marcus eventually bowed to public pressure in the fall of 2824 and asked the Estates General to rescind the Act. Within 72 hours of the announcement, the Tharkad HPG was again active processing.

Basking in the success of his political showdown with the Commonwealth, in the fall of 2824 with several members of the First Circuit in tow, Toyama made another series diplomatic visits to the governments of the Inner Sphere. This time the goal was much simpler, a recruitment drive to counteract the massive decrease in applications triggered in response to ComStar's transformation into a quasi-religious organization. While few in the Inner Sphere proper and even Terra itself were willing to make a lifelong commitment to what many saw as a mystic cult, Toyama had much more success on the more marginal worlds of the Periphery, the year and half trip considered a great success.

Operation Divine Intervention and the ComStar War

With only low level rumbling of armed conflict as the Great Houses hurriedly attempted to rebuild, a increasingly dismayed Toyama saw no way for ComStar to reach its full zenity of power unless the Successor States went to war again. To this end when Jinjiro Kurita launched his Chain Gang missions, Toyama ordered the ComStar News Service to sensationalize the damage and losses hoping it would escalate matters. Unfortunately save for Chancellor Ilsa Liao's death during a thrust into Federated Suns, the tensions never reached the point of open warfare and Toyama's paitence ran out. Recognizing he would have to more overtly force the matter, Toyama proposed Operation Divine Intervention to the First Circuit in early 2827.

At Toyama's direction, ROM began to filter information with regards the inner workings, composition and movements of both the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery and the Internal Security Force to agents of Loki, the Lyran Commonwealth's intelligence agency, while the ComStar News Bureau played up the extent of the raids and tension along the Free Worlds League and Lyran border. With the LCAF consistently outmanoeuvring the Combine thanks to the leaked information, by 2830 an enraged Jinjiro launched an all-out offensive against both Commonwealth and the Federated Suns to restore the honor his troops, marking the formal start of the Second Succession War

The master-stroke of Toyama's efforts to expand the conflict would prove to be the ComStar War. When Captain-General Charles Marik attempted to overcome intelligence blind-spots due to the poor condition of SAFE by asking his sister to use her ComStar ties to provide Lyran and Capellan military in 2830, he didn't realise the Jeannette would immediately inform the Primus of his request.

Recognizing he had an opportunity beyond merely dragging the League into the Second Succession War, Toyama provided her with a document supposedly from the Lyran high command containing plans for the invasion of Graham IV, Castor and Callison. Jeannette passed on the seemingly important transmission to her brother in mid-June, never questioning its authenticity Charles refused to accept Lyran denials that such attacks weren't planned and ordered his troops into a state of readiness to launch his own attack against House Steiner, forcing the LCAF to respond in kind and create the threat the faked documents claimed.

Thrilled at the success of this plot, Toyama revealed to the First Circuit his eventual goal. With their shattered intelligence network, the Free Worlds League would be desperate for the secret intelligence ComStar could provide, and Toyama believed this could be used to damage the FWLM and Charles to the point where Jeannette would again be the only choice for the Captain-Generalcy, making the Successor State a defacto ComStar protectorate.

Between 2831 and 2836, House Marik won a series of grand military campaigns against Houses Liao and Steiner thanks to information supplied by ComStar, but also a number of setbacks and losses which Charles realized could only be due to his enemies receiving similar leaks. Suspecting ComStar was providing similar aid to his enemies, Charles leaked intel about an SLDF base discovered on Cursa via ComStar and directly to his sister in an effort to expose the Blessed Order's duplicity.

When Capellan troops attacked the unimportant and deserted Cursa with three crack regiments searching for the non-existent storehouse in early 2836, an enraged Charles responded by ordering a WarShip strike force to destroy the hyperpulse generator on Oriente and kill all ComStar personnel, including his sister. Caught completely by surprise, the First Circuit was appalled that instead of breaking the League that their actions had triggered Marik into open war against the Order. Safe nobody save Charles suspected their double game, Toyama refused a military against the League, instead choosing to play the wronged party and order a complete Communications Interdiction of the Free Worlds League until it admitted it's crime and paid three times the cost of rebuilding the station.

Sending a message publicly confirming the Interdiction was sent to every station in the Inner Sphere, Toyama followed this with a private message to all ComStar personnel in the Free World League, ordering them to selectively cripple their HPGs and go into hiding. As SAFE and ROM engaged in a desperate shadow war to protect or capture ComStar personnel, House Liao and House Steiner mounted full offensives against the hamstrung Free Worlds League.

As Houses Davion and Kurita also entered the fray and Charles lost all internal support, Toyama was overjoyed when the Captain-General finally caved in 2838 and sent his youngest son Garth to Terra to discuss terms. Unfortunately despite Primus Toyama's hopes that the League was on the verge of a complete collapse and would request direct ComStar aid, Garth was simply ordered to communicate that Charles was ready to accept responsibility for the destroying the Oriente HPG and pay damages. Even with Toyama's best efforts to force matters to ComStar's benefit and secure a "victory", House Marik merely agreed to pay costs.

Death and Legacy

As the ComStar War concluded in compromise and his support on First Circuit suffered, Primus Toyama gave consideration to retirement and hand-picked Raymond Karpov as his successor. Karpov was named Primus upon Toyama's death from a massive stroke in April 2837, his first act was to name Toyama a saint of the Blessed Order. Toyama's death, so soon after he named Karpov as his successor, led some to believe he had perhaps hastened the older man's demise, a belief that was only fuelled when Karpov proved to be even more extreme than Toyama.

The Toyama BattleMech used by the Word of Blake was named in his honor.

Bibliography

• ComStar (sourcebook)