Freedom

This article is about the planet. For the Vengeance-class carrier DropShip, see Freedom (Vengeance).

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Freedom
← 3135 3151
240px Freedom nearby systems (Map Legend)
System Information
X:Y Coordinates	-64.28 : 107.74
Spectral class	M5V
Recharge time	206 hours
Recharge station(s)	Nadir

Note: X and Y are coordinates (light years on XY plane) relative to Terra at (0, 0)

Political Affiliation

• 2234 - Terran Alliance
• 2235 - Independent world (From May 27th)
• 2236 - Terran Alliance (from August)
• 2237 - Independent world (from autumn)
• 2242 - Independent world
• 2319 - Independent world
• 2341 - Federation of Skye
• 2571 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2596 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2750 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2764 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2765 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2822 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2864 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 2912 - Draconis Combine
• 2913 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 3025 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 3030 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 3040 - Federated Commonwealth
• 3050 - Federated Commonwealth
• 3052 - Federated Commonwealth
• 3057 - Lyran Alliance
• 3063 - Lyran Alliance
• 3067 - Lyran Alliance
• 3075 - Lyran Alliance
• 3079 - Lyran Alliance
• 3081 - Lyran Alliance
• 3085 - Lyran Alliance
• 3130 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 3135 - Lyran Commonwealth
• 3145 - Clan Jade Falcon

Planetary History

Outer Reaches Rebellion

Freedom was directly involved in the events that led to the eventual collapse of the Terran Alliance in the twenty-third century. Originally a Terran Alliance colony, in January 2236 Freedom declared itself independent from Terran authority. The rebellion was originally peaceful, and was dirven by opposition to both high taxes and the social constraints imposed on the planetary population by various high-handed Terran planetary governors and other administrative officials.

Freedom's declaration of independence was swiftly followed by similar declarations from the worlds of Sevren, Morningside and Summit, and the news of the rebellion provoked an immediate military response from the Alliance Parliament. The Alliance Parliament dispatched a military force - the Second Interstellar Combined Assault Force, under the command of Major General Gunther Stein - to quell the rebellion and bring the worlds back into line.

Stein believed that the resulting military campaign would take a little over four months at most to complete; computer projections, double-checked against every available contingency, agreed with Stein, citing a maximum campaign length of just eighteen weeks. The calculations were wrong, and the resulting military campaign escalated, lasting eighteen months and involve more than a million soldiers.

Composed of several squadrons of strike cruisers, assault carriers and transports, the Second Interstellar Combined Assault Force was planned to be reinforced by troops from other Alliance worlds, and the military campaign was to be partly funded by loans from various financial concerns. Almost immediately the Alliance faced problems on both fronts; the Alliance militia battalions on some worlds, such as Lipton, refused to participate in the campaign, while major financial firms on planets like Kaus Australis refused to float the Alliance government loans to pay for the campaign. Without realising it, Stein's military campaign was already cut off from many of its anticipated sources of supply before the Second Interstellar Combined Assault Force arrived in the Freedom system.

When the Second arrived in the Freedom system, he discovered that the rebel forces had placed armed merchant ships at the main jump points in the system. None of those involved in planning the campaign had anticipated that the rebels would contest control of the jump points, and while the merchant ships were more lightly armed than the alliance's armed cruisers, they were also more maneuverable. The rebel ships avoided a slugging match with the more powerful Alliance ships, but many of rebel ships launched ramming attacks against the various Alliance transports and supply ships, hoping that their suicide tactics would take as many of the Terran marines with them as possible. More than ten percent of Stein's ground forces had been lost before his troops managed to make groundfall on Freedom.

The Second was attempting to launch campaigns in more than one system at the same time; troops first landed on Izar, only to discover that capital city was deserted, with the population having decamped into the thickly-forested hills around the capital, terrain they knew well but which hampered the efforts of the Alliance troopers to deploy their high-tech but cumbersome weaponry. The rebels on Freedom took a different course; anticipating the worst, the city fathers of Jefferson City had spent months preparing a vast array of fortifications before the first Alliance landings in June 2236. Having constructed fortifications capable of withstanding anything short of orbital bombardment, President Tudella Dupont was determined to resist the Terran Alliance, despite having just fifteen hundred men available to defend the entire planet. Vowing to burn the city down before letting it be captured, Dupont responded to the first attack from Stein's forces - an assault against the weak southern gate of the fortifcations conducted by the six-thousand strong Fourth Para-Cavalry Division, led by General Desmond - by leading a sortie out against the attackers. Dupont had predicted the attack against the southern gate and planned accordingly, and his sortie captured several mobile artillery batteries that he quickly pressed into service against the Alliance, forcing Desmond to put a siege in place and call for reinforcements.

According to accounts from individuals on Freedom after the end of the conflict, during the siege the Alliance forces killed anyone found outside the city walls after dark, regardless of age or gender, and Desmond ordered the bodies of the dead - many of which had been horribly mutilated - dropped over the city. In retaliation, insurgents frequently slipped into the Alliance camps after dark to kill Terran soldiers and steal weapons. Alliance reinforcements finally arrived on the 25th of August, in the form of General Seth Van Dome and the Twenty-third Alliance Striker Regiment. Van Dome and the Twenty-third had spent four months engaged in a battle to recapture Summit that was described as a holocaust that killed more than ten thousand civilians, and his freshly-blooded forces - equipped with heavy laser cannon - were enough to turn the battle for Freedom in favor of the Alliance.

The Twenty-third bombarded Jefferson City for hours; when three-quarters of the city was on fire, Desmond ordered his assault. The result was a twelve-hour marathon that saw Dupont and the people of Jefferson City fight a brutal, desperate defensive action; men, women and children all fought against the Alliance forces, making Desmond's troops fight for every meter they took; Dupont finally fled the city with just seventy surviving supporters, taking shelter in the hills to the north of the city. Desmond was left with a city in ashes and combat losses totalling more than two thousand Alliance personnel.

In the autumn of 2237, short on supplies and manpower and subject to growing criticism on Terra, the Terran Alliance withdrew the bulk of its forces from Freedom and the other worlds involved in the Outer Reaches Rebellion; while the Alliance never officially declared the conflict over, the Alliance military effectively gave up and went home, effectively ending the Outer Reaches Rebellion. A sea-change in Alliance politics saw the Expansionist Party ousted from power in the Alliance Parliament in 2242, ending more than a century of rule by the Expansionists; that same year, the Liberal Party issued the Demarcation Declaration, removing Alliance control and authority from worlds more than thirty light years from Terra, and leaving worlds like Freedom truly independent.

First discovered in 2314, Freedom spent some time under the control of the Draconis Combine, but the arrival of the 3rd Royal Guards in 2913 changed that. After fighting across both continents, the 6th Sword of Light regiment was destroyed and the world fell into the Lyran Commonwealth's hands. While he was First Lord of the Second Star League, Theodore Kurita visited Freedom to dedicate a memorial to the fallen warriors of both realms. At that time he promised that no Kuritans would attack the world again.

The world is a breadbasket for the Freedom Theater, growing crops that are exported to many of the worlds in the Theater. Industry focuses on parts for the Water Pure Industries plants on Corridan IV.

Post-Jihad Era

In the wake of the Jihad the planetary government on Freedom passed a law stating that any war materiel manufactured or used by the Word of Blake had to be destroyed by disposal in a stellar body, one of the strictest examples of the anti-salvage laws becoming common within the worlds of the former Word of Blake Protectorate and, to a lesser extent, other worlds. By destroying any such items in this manner, there was no chance that items could re-enter the manufacturing chain even as smelted metal and thereby become even the most mundane of items.

A large part of the population of Freedom felt, that despite the efforts made by the leadership of Freedom to coordinate a defense against the Word of Blake as the Blakists encroached into the Lyran Alliance, the world had somehow failed the Alliance. The Lyran government lacked the resources needed to stop the Blakists capturing world after world, and for some reason much of the population of Freedom felt somehow responsible for this, a possible legacy of Freedom's long-term role as a command hub for the outer edges of the Skye Province.

Military Deployment

3038

• Twentieth Avalon Hussars RCT

3061

• Fifth Lyran Regulars (2 Battalions)

3067

• Alexandria FTM

3079

• Alexandria FTM

- In 3079 the Alexandria FTM operating at 40% of full strength, with 50% of their equipment featuring upgraded technology.

• Planetary Militia

- The planetary militia's training programs focus on Vehicles and unarmoured infantry.

Industrial Centers

• Water Pure Industries

Nearby Systems

Systems within 60 light-years (distance in light years) Closest systems first:
Izar	14.6	Alexandria	14.9	Yed Prior	18.5	Eaton	21.6
Carnwath	26.5	Zebeneschamali	31.1	Yed Posterior	31.5	Marfik	33.8
Ryde	34.9	Kimball II	36.6	Baxter	37.9	Corridan IV	39.9
Nekkar	40.7	Whittington	43.26	Glengarry	43.3	Carstairs	44.3
Auldhouse	44.7	Edasich	45.1	Komephoros	45.9	Kochab	49.2
Kirkcaldy	51.5	Apostica	52.1	Balkan	53.9	Konstance	55.5
Unukalhai	55.9	Chaffee	56.4	Laurieston	56.5	Breukelen	57.5
New Wessex	57.6	Eaglesham	57.8

Bibliography

• Era Report: 2750
• Era Report: 3052
• Era Report: 3062
• Era Report: 3145
• FedCom Civil War (sourcebook)
• Field Manual: 3085
• Field Manual: 3145
• Field Manual: SLDF
• Field Manual: Updates
• Field Report: DCMS
• Field Report: LAAF
• Handbook: House Kurita
• Handbook: House Steiner
• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1
• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 2
• Historical: Reunification War
• Historical: War of 3039
• House Kurita (The Draconis Combine)
• House Steiner (The Lyran Commonwealth)
• Jihad: Final Reckoning
• Jihad Secrets: The Blake Documents
• Map of the Inner Sphere 3130
• Objectives: Lyran Alliance
• The Periphery, First Edition
• Shattered Sphere