Difference between revisions of "History"

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''(Author: BattleTech 3056 MUSE)''
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The fictional events of the [[BattleTech]] universe constitute a "future history" that describes the course of humanity from modern times until the mid [[thirty-second century]]. It can also be considered an alternate history distinct from our own, since its point of divergence from the real world occurs in the past; this is not the focus of the series, though, and is more the result of real-world history overtaking the early years of the BattleTech timeline.
  
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By the 31st century, humanity has spread to thousands of worlds, while a handful of powerful empires wage continual war for the right to rule the stars. Foremost among the weapons used in that struggle are BattleMechs. Loaded with autocannons, missile launchers, lasers, and charged-particle beam weapons, these fusion-powered war machines of articulated armor stand upward of ten meters high. Piloting them are MechWarriors, the best, most intensively trained men and women available. Like the armored knights of an earlier age, MechWarriors are popular heroes, and their exploits are the stuff of legends.
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Given its central theme of military conflict, the events of the BattleTech universe can be classed as a military history, albeit a fictional one. Incessant wars are the backdrop of most BattleTech stories and historical happenings, the majority of which concern individuals in the military rather than civilian sectors.  Equally important to BattleTech history are politics and technology.
  
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==Breakthrough (2001-2100)==
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Some sections of this article contain real-world annotations. These are noted by indented italics.
  
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At the beginning of the 21st century, life on Terra had not changed much from what it had been at the close of the 20th century. Despite attempts at reconciliation in the 1990s, the planet's two giant superpowers still opposed one another, but now their tangled web of weaponry stretched outward into space. Over the next 100 years, however, the situation changed dramatically. By the end of the 21st century, the people of Terra stood poised in apparent unity on the brink of their first expansion into the stars.
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==Early History==
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The earliest events distinct to the BattleTech universe occur after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The [[United States of America|United States]], Europe and Japan announced in [[1994]] their intention to jointly construct an orbiting industrial facility named Crippen Station, which was successfully launched eleven years later. A [[1997]] coup d'état by hardline communists restored a militant, Soviet-style government in Russia and sparked a "Second Cold War" with NATO that lasted until the start of peaceful reforms under premier Oleg Tikonov in [[2005]]. The republic crumbled in 2011, igniting a civil war that drew in NATO and saw the successful use of the Western Orbital Defense Network (WODeN), successor to the earlier Strategic Defense Initiative, to intercept a preemptive Russian missile attack against western targets.  The war ended with a [[Western Alliance]] victory in [[2014]].
  
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Politically, humanity's new age began in 2011 when the bloody Second Soviet Civil War tore that nation permanently asunder. As the Soviet strife threatened to bring the rest of the planet to the brink of nuclear war, a joint force of North American and Western European troops intervened to end hostilities in 2014. This outcome greatly strengthened political ties between nations of the Western Alliance, resulting in a formal unification of Western military forces. By 2024, the Western Alliance included Japan, the newly liberated Eastern European nations, and the now-separate seven Russian states. Replacing the defunct United Nations as a world forum was the Alliance Parliament. As a vigorous sponsor of scientific research and space- exploration activities, the Alliance handsomely rewarded similar efforts by its member states.
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Beginning with the establishment of the Alliance Space Command in [[2016]], humanity began moving out into the solar system. The first lunar settlement was established in December 2016, and the first manned mission to [[Terra|Mars]] launched the following year.  The advent of fusion power in [[2020]] led to the first fusion-powered interplanetary spacecraft, the AS ''Columbia'', which launched from Crippen Station on October 12, [[2027]]. Colonies were soon established on Mars and the Moon, and automated probes launched to neighboring star systems which returned evidence by 2050 of nearby habitable worlds.
  
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As the economic benefits of Alliance membership became obvious, nation after nation petitioned the Alliance for membership status. By 2086, the Western Alliance had become the Terran Alliance, embracing more than 120 member- states. A complex formula based on date of entry, wealth, population, and military power determined each member's voting strength in Parliament.
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By the beginning of the [[twenty-second century]] the [[Western Alliance]] had grown to become the [[Terran Alliance]], and despite discontent from some of its poorer constituents pursued an agenda of rapid technological development. Faster-than-light travel, the theories of which were first postulated by Thomas Kearny and Takayoshi Fuchida in the early twenty-first century, were realized on September 3, [[2107]] with the successful voyage of the first FTL spacecraft, the TAS ''Pathfinder'', which made a 12-light year jump to the [[Tau Ceti]] star system.
  
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The 21st century was an age of unsurpassed scientific innovation, most notably the development of fusion power as a major source of power. Alliance scientists built the first full-scale fusion reactor in 2020, and sent the first fusion-powered spacecraft from Terra to Mars in 2027. The voyage took only 14 days, a fraction of the five months the trip had previously required. Because of the fusion-power plant's efficiency, space vessels could now maintain higher-acceleration burns for much longer periods.
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==Era of Colonization==
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Beginning with the establishment of the first extra-solar colony on [[New Earth]] (Tau Ceti IV) in [[2116]], a wave of colonization began that continued for centuries. By 2235, some 600 colonies had been established within 120 light years of Earth, but the difficulties maintaining authority over such far-flung worlds sparked the first rebellion against the [[Terran Alliance]]. Known as the "Outer Reaches Rebellion" and led by the colony world of [[Denebola]], it precipitated the downfall of the Alliance Parliament's Expansionist Party and swept the Liberal Party into power. The Liberals announced that the Alliance would withdraw to a thirty light-year radius (or two-jump) sphere surrounding Earth, thus granting the outer colonies independence.  Numerous small kingdoms rapidly formed, most of which quickly conquered or merged with their neighbors leaving a handful of larger nations.
  
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The development of efficient fusion drives made possible the first widespread exploration of Terra's star system. By 2050, the Alliance had scientific outposts throughout the Sol system, had dispatched unmanned interstellar probes to Tau Ceti, Epsilon Eridani, and Epsilon Indi. By this time, private multinational corporations also began to participate in spacefaring activity, establishing mining colonies in the asteroid belt, and then transporting entire asteroids from the belt to the Terra-Moon system. These corporations also engaged in technological research that resulted in breakthroughs such as the development of dense-but-lightweight materials for spacecraft and space-station construction and a variety of small, portable fusion reactors for equipment use.
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Political corruption and instability, and the economic strain of supporting its colonies, eroded support for the [[Terran Alliance]], and in [[2314]] it descended into civil war. The Alliance Global Militia under the direction of Navy Admiral [[James McKenna]] imposed an end to the conflict in [[2315]], dissolved the Parliament, and established in its place the [[Terran Hegemony]], with McKenna elected as its first Director-General the following year.  During McKenna's 23-year tenure the Hegemony sought to reassert its authority over the outer colonies, but though achieving some early successes the effort was ultimately a failure and galvanized resistance to the Hegemony; McKenna's successor, cousin [[Michael Cameron (24th c.)|Michael Cameron]], concentrated on establishing more peaceful international relations.
  
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Not all the breakthrough research of the 21st century took immediate effect, however. Working together at Stanford University, America's Thomas Kearny and Japan's Takayoshi Fuchida published a series of papers from 2018-2021 that attacked the theoretical underpinnings of modern physics. The scientific community ridiculed their work, and both men died in obscurity before the century was half over. As had been the case with so many innovators, only future generations would respect and honor the value of these two men's daring research. It would be another 80 years before their theories would come to fruition.
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One of Cameron's most lasting legacies was a system of aristocratic rule, originally based on individual achievement but later conferred by heredity, which he introduced in [[2351]].  The ranks of nobility created by his Peer List led to the formation of numerous feudal ruling families and was the foundation of many of the [[Great Houses]] of later centuries.
  
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Meanwhile, medical prosthetics research had led to the development of polyacetene fibers called "myomers." Under the influence of electricity, bundles of these fibers would contract strongly, like muscles. Unfortunately, the minimum bundle length required for the process was far longer than any human limb. This line of research would lie fallow for the next three centuries.
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==Age of War==
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{{main|Age of War}}
  
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The fledgling nations that earlier had fought to resist Hegemony aggression began in the mid-[[twenty-fourth century]] to turn against each other.  A territorial dispute between the [[Capellan Confederation]] and the [[Free Worlds League]] in [[2398]] escalated into open hostilities (the First Andurien War), which in turn prompted "land grabs" and efforts at territorial expansion by the surrounding states.  By the end of the century the "Age of War" had begun in earnest and violent combat raged between the forces of nearly all the major nations, including the [[Terran Hegemony|Hegemony]] and states in the [[Periphery]].  The near-annihilation of the population of the Capellan world of [[Tintavel]] in [[2412]] exemplified the vicious excesses of the age, and led later that year to the adoption by all the major nations of the Ares Conventions.  The conventions imposed strict prohibitions on how and where war could be waged and what constituted legitimate targets, discouraged orbital bombardment, and also outlawed the use of most nuclear and biological weapons.  However, though intended to limit civilian casualties and prevent atrocities like those on Tintavel, the conventions also inadvertently institutionalized war as a means of settling disputes and ushered in an era of near-constant warfare.
  
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==Exodus (2102-2313)==
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Emerging from the new military restrictions set by the [[Ares Conventions]], huge robotic war machines known as [[BattleMechs]] were developed by the Terran Hegemony in 2439 and first used in combat against the [[Draconis Combine]] in [[2443]].  Both powerful and intimidating, BattleMechs drew attention away from space combat and onto the ground, and remained the most high-profile military units throughout all subsequent BattleTech history.  The design secrets of the BattleMech were stolen during a raid by [[Lyran Commonwealth]] commandos on a Terran 'Mech factory and subsequently spread by trade and conquest to all the other [[Great Houses]].
  
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In 2102, scientists announced the greatest scientific breakthrough of the last two centuries, the theoretical prototype for a faster-than-light starship. Ironically, their work was based on the once-scorned theories of Kearny and Fuchida. The Terran Parliament authorized the Deimos Project, a crash program to develop an FTL drive. Although the Deimos project culminated in the maiden voyage of the first FTL ship to Tau Ceti in 2108, the billions spent on it created resentment and even rioting in some of the poorer Alliance member-states. This rift in the apparent unity of Terra was never completely repaired and the struggle between the "haves" and "have- nots" would continue to plague the Alliance.
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With the major combatants exhausted, the Age of War wound down in the mid-[[twenty-sixth century]].
  
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Shortly afterward, Alliance shipyards began producing FTL-drive ships. By 2116, the first permanant space colony was established on Tau Ceti IV (New Earth). As engineering improvements reduced the cost of building FTL ships, corporations and even dissident private groups began to acquire their own vessels to exploit the seemingly limitless potential of the stars. The Terran Parliament soon acted to place colonization under its sole authority, passing laws requiring that all ships have a Terran naval escort, and placing all colonies under Terran jurisdiction in the form of an Alliance-appointed governor. In 2172, the first Alliance Grand Survey reported the existence of more than 100 settled human colonies spread across a sphere 80 light years in diameter. The fourth survey, conducted in 2235, recorded the settlement of more than 600 worlds.
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==Formation of the Star League==
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Near the ending of the [[Age of War]], [[Ian Cameron]] led the formation of the [[Star League]] with help of the [[Free Worlds League]] and the [[Capellan Confederation]]. Then after the two supporting states, the future [[Star League]] gained the willing support of the Houses, Ian Cameron formed the Star League. The formation of the Star League in [[2571]] led almost immediately into The [[Reunification War]]. The attempt to force the periphery states into the League lasted for twenty long years. This fighting would impact the history of those realms for the next several hundred years.
  
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As more and more planets were settled, the colonists began to encounter the problem of impure water supplies suitable neither for human consumption nor for irrigation. As the costs of water purification equipment were prohibitive for most colony worlds, the lack of potable water tended to discourage new exploration. In 2177, however, entrepreneur Rudolph Ryan patented a process for transforming interplanetary tankers into FTL-driven "iceships" able to quickly transport huge icebergs across interstellar space. Within a few short years, the Ryan Cartel became the single most profitable enterprise within the Alliance, and its iceships stimulated the colonization of many worlds previously believed only marginally habitable.
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==The Amaris Coup==
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{{main|Amaris Civil War}}
  
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With each expansion of human-occupied space, the time needed to transmit messages to and from Terra also increased, making it difficult for Parliament to administer colony worlds directly. This forced the Alliance to delegate more authority to its appointed governors, who, in turn, had to grant extensive home-rule authority to colonists. When a coalition of colonies along the outer reaches of known space declared its independence in 2355, there began a bitter, 18-month battle with Terra, which became known as the Outer Reaches Rebellion. Much to its surprise, the Terran government lacked both the military resources and the political support needed to crush the rebellion.
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In the mid twenty-eighth century the current [[First Lord]] of the [[Star League]] died suddenly and tragically in an accident; [[Richard Cameron]], then still a boy and unready to rule, was thrust onto the throne. Commanding General [[Aleksandr Kerensky]] was appointed as regent of the Star League. The Star League Council, composed of the five Great House Lords, saw themselves as the true rulers of the Star League. Upon reaching maturity, the son of the deceased First Lord sent out edicts limiting the house armies, while also placing higher taxes on the Periphery states. This started the Border War, occupying much of the League forces with quelling civil unrest. Taking advantage of this unrest, [[Stefan Amaris]] (the leader of the [[Rim Worlds Republic]]) first became a personal friend of the First Lord, then [[Stefan Amaris]] killed all of the Cameron family—even the First Lord himself—and claimed the title. This was truly the beginning of the end for the Star League. The [[Amaris Coup]] touched off thirteen years of fighting as the [[Star League Defense Force]] fought its way from the [[Periphery]] to Terra. General Alexander Kerensky's effort to remove the Usurper claimed nearly three quarters of the SLDF. Still suffering from recent battles and unable to hold back the Houses and the coming darkness, Kerensky began an exodus of all willing troops to leave known space, thus leaving the way open for the [[History of the Succession Wars|Succession Wars]].
  
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The loss of these rebel worlds set off a political crisis within the Alliance that ultimately resulted in a vote of no-confidence against the ruling Expansionist Party. Upon taking power, the new Liberal government withdrew Terran troops and administrators from all frontier worlds, granting the colonies independence, whether they wanted it or not. This isolationist policy soon proved just as unpopular as expansionism because of the resulting political turmoil and economic upheaval. By 2242, the boundary of Alliance holdings was no more than 30 light years from Sol, a single jump by an FTL- ship. For the next 70 years, neither major political party was able to establish parliamentary control on Terra, and their respective regimes alternated, falling as quickly as they rose.
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==The Exodus==
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{{main|Operation EXODUS}}
  
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To escape the constant political unrest and economic hard times, many of Terra's best and brightest began to migrate to the now-independent colonies during the latter half of the 23rd century. Later historians dubbed this period "the Exodus." Terrans colonized more than 1500 new planets during the Exodus, extending the borders of human-occupied space to more than 150 light years from Sol. With more and more of Terra's resources devoted to colonization, scientific research lagged. On the struggling colony worlds, too, the colonists were too pressed with the problems of survival to think much about developing new technology. Meanwhile, some of the ex-colonies were attempting to consolidate their independence by banding together for mutual support. In 2271, the Treaty of Marik was signed by three minor heads of state. Thus was born the Free Worlds League, the first of the great federations that would one day vie for power and dominion over all the rest.
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Following the defeat of the Amaris Coup, General Kerensky attempted to reestablish the Star League, but the council lords stripped him of his title of Protector of the Realm, both because they feared his power and they coveted the position as First Lord for themselves. The only thing the bickering council could agree upon was to charge [[Jerome Blake]] with restoring the [[hyperpulse generator|HPG network]] that allowed the planets to communicate with their interstellar neighbors. Soon enough, each of the lords returned to their capitals and declared him or herself First Lord. They then began to wage war to see who was worthy of the position. Kerensky, seeing the battles between the Houses as only the beginning, left with approximately 80% of the Star League forces.
  
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==Succession Wars==
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{{main|History of the Succession Wars}}
  
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==Consolidation (2314-2398)==
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The [[Terran Hegemony]], ruled by [[House Cameron]], was at the center of the [[Inner Sphere]], ruling a rough sphere centered on Terra. Clockwise around that, there was [[House Kurita]]'s [[Draconis Combine]], [[House Davion]]'s [[Federated Suns]], [[House Liao]]'s [[Capellan Confederation]], [[House Marik]]'s [[Free Worlds League]], and [[House Steiner]]'s [[Lyran Commonwealth]]. These nations may have remained fairly stable, but they were incessantly at each other's throats, seeking every advantage they could find on the fields of battle. The five of the great houses, excluding the Terran Hegemony, almost immediately embarked upon the greatest war in human history. Snatching up the rulerless planets formerly of the Terran Hegemony, and fighting each other for supremacy, the Inner Sphere devolved into the [[First Succession War]]. The fires of this war wreaked havoc on human civilization, and lowered the technology level of the Inner Sphere drastically with actions such as orbital bombardments, nuclear attacks, the destruction of [[JumpShip]]s & factories, and the killing of scientists.
  
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The Terran Alliance ultimately collapsed beneath the weight of its own discontent in September 2314. When a short, vicious war vroke out between rival Expansionist and Liberal factions, Fleet Admiral James McKenna intervened with Alliance military forces to halt the conflict.
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===First Succession War===
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Being the most brutal of the [[History of the Succession Wars|Succession Wars]], the First War did the most to send humanity hurtling backwards technologically. Eventually, the First Succession War ended in an exhausted stalemate after 35 years of war, only to resume in the Second Succession War less than a decade later. The most notable event of this war was the [[Kentares Massacre]], in which Combine forces killed almost all of the denizens of the [[Federated Suns]]' planet [[Kentares IV]]. This genocidal action demoralized the Combine's ''[[bushido]]''-minded warriors and galvanized the Federated Suns' war effort that enabled them to push the invading Combine back to the border.
  
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McKenna was a proud, charismatic career officer with a spotless military record and a long family heritage of service to the Terran Alliance (and the Western Alliance before it). He was the archetypal hero, appearing at a critical juncture and turning the tide of history in a new direction. McKenna was determined to restore his native Terra to its former proud position as leader and progenitor of "Homo stellaris." After dissolving the Alliance, he declared himself ruler of a new state, the Terran Hegemony. Under his leadership, the Hegemony embarked on an active and campaign to restore Terra's political control over its former colonies. By the time of McKenna's death in 2339, the Hegemony had used military, political, and economic means to reassert its authority over more than 100 worlds.
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===Second Succession War===
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The Second Succession War lasted another 34 years, further destroying the now-irreplaceable base of Star League technology, and resumed in the Third War a mere two years later. The Second Succession War had no distinct events beyond being of such a long period of destruction, almost making it unremarkable.
  
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In 2340, Michael Cameron, McKenna's nephew, was elected to succeed his uncle as Director-General. During Cameron's term of office, the Hegemony engaged in an ambitious government-sponsored research effort. The first significant product of these efforts was the development of a prototype WorkMech, a fusion-powered mining vehicle that reproduced body movements through artificial muscle structure based on the myomer technology developed back in the 21st century.
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===Third Succession War===
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The Third War lasted for over 150 more years, on and off. Because the [[Successor States]] no longer had the knowledge to produce or repair high-tech equipment that allowed them to communicate with and travel amongst the stars, the total war of the first two Succession Wars ended in an unspoken agreement that approximated a return to the Ares Conventions. No longer were JumpShips, automated factories, or water-purification plants destroyed. Instead, they were fought over in set-piece engagements and the losers simply consoled themselves with the hope that they would retake the planet later. Moreover, large offensives were no longer the order of the day. The [[Successor States]]' militaries were depleted in every sense, so they switched to a pattern that was closer to raids than assaults. With whole generations being raised, fighting, and dying during this era, constant warfare became the norm and true peace seemed a dream.
  
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The reemergence of Terra as both a political and scientific force created a new era of detente and relatively peaceful development for the whole human sphere. Starting with the Crucis Pact of 2317, a number of mutual-defense leagues and trade agreements similar to the Treaty of Marik were signed among worlds. Although most of these agreements granted member-worlds total sovereignty over internal matters, they also allowed more developed colonies to control poorer, younger neighbors. By the time the Hegemony and other states of the Inner Sphere undertook the Grand Survey of 2389, ten separate states with strong central governments had emerged, each controlling worlds within communications range of their capitals. Six strong states had emerged in the "Inner Sphere," and other, smaller governments had sprung up at the fringes of colonized space, now known as "the Periphery." There were, however, frequent disputes over border worlds, especially those with ample water or mineral resources. This tended to make the boundaries of the various states a matter of tension or even war. As confrontations over these planets grew more frequent, an arms race followed, further exacerbating tensions throughout human space.
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By the end of the Third War in [[3025]], any remaining vestiges of the Star League in the Inner Sphere were dust on the winds of history. By the end of the war, most nations were essentially being ruled by a modern version of the feudal system of government, with thrones inherited and passed down generation to generation.
  
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Though the other federations and states tried to follow the lead of the Hegemony in supporting new research facilities, most lagged behind. In one respect, however, the other governments mirrored the Hegemony absolutely: the creation of a hereditary leadership, embodied in a single ruling family. Commenting on this, social historians have argued that the dynastic form of rule probably offered a comforting reassurance after the chaos of the Exodus years.
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:''The latter days of the Third Succession War was the first setting in which players played [[BattleTech]].''
  
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===Fourth Succession War===
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In 3022, the Lyran Archon, [[Katrina Steiner]], sent out a proposal for peace and alliance to the other Houses, who until then had been fighting on all fronts for essentially the entirety of their post–Star League history. Three of the Houses (Kurita, Liao, Marik) reacted suspiciously, but the First Prince of the Federated Suns, [[Hanse Davion]], responded favorably and the two sides eventually agreed to an alliance. Within a few years, the terms had been set - Hanse would marry Katrina's daughter [[Melissa Steiner|Melissa]], and their two nations would merge into the [[Federated Commonwealth]] when one of Hanse and Melissa's children took the throne - until then, they would merely be allies. After this alliance was announced, [[ComStar]] brokered the Concord of Kapteyn, a shaky alliance between the three other Successor States.
  
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In [[3028]], all five Successor Lords met on Terra, for the first time since the fall of the Star League, at the marriage of Hanse and Melissa. However, they were in for a surprise. At the reception, while the bride and groom were exchanging gifts, Hanse gave his immortal line "My dear... I give you the Capellan Confederation!", stupefying the head of the Confederation, [[Maximilian Liao]], who was one of the Successor Lords present. Thus began the Fourth Succession War. FedSuns units began to systematically dismantle the Capellan Confederation, as Lyran forces and a few elite mercenary regiments held off the other two prongs of the Marik-Kurita-Liao alliance that had been formed in the wake of the announced Steiner-Davion marriage. However, [[ComStar]], alarmed at the course of events, faked a FedSuns attack on one of its HPGs, and placed the FedSuns under Interdiction, cutting off all communications services. At this point, the attack began to falter, as long-range communications and attack coordination became nearly impossible, although the Capellans were still unable to force back the FedSuns. After a few more months of war, the two sides agreed to an uneasy truce, and the Interdiction was lifted.
  
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==Age of War (2398-2550)==
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With the end of the Fourth Succession War a long stream of short but violent wars sprang up across the Inner Sphere due to public outcry, opportunistic leaders, and even the want of freedom from oppression. There would be no major fighting until the later invasion by the [[Clans]].
  
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In 2398, a territorial dispute between the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League erupted into a shooting war, as both ground and naval forces clashed in the Andurien system. This conflict was only the first of a dozen bloody but limited wars fought between 2398 and 2412 over ownership of key frontier wars, the first such wars in more than a century. A new era of bloody conflict had begun.
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During this time period a momentous discovery had been made. The mercenary unit [[Gray Death Legion]] discovered a functional Star League-era memory core on the planet [[Helm]] in the Free Worlds League in 3028.  The Gray Death Legion made the unheard of gesture of freely and openly giving a copy of the memory core to all the great houses instead of keeping it to themselves.  This triggered a technological renaissance. After a few decades, Star League weaponry and systems started to become available again, and 'Mech technology eventually advanced back to near the point it had been three hundred years earlier. And it was just in time. The rediscovered technology gave the FedSuns-Lyran alliance, with their technological and numerical advantage, supremacy over the other Successor States.
  
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In 2412, after a fierce battle in the Tintavel system resulted in thousands of civilian casualties, reppresentatives of the ten states of the Inner Sphere and the Periphery met in the city of New Olympia on the planet Ares to discuss a remarkable set of chivalric interstellar laws governing the conduct of war. Instead of attempting to prevent war, the Ares Conventions sought to legitimize its conduct, banning it in heavily populated areas and prohibiting military disruption of civlian economies. All six states of the Inner Sphere signed the agreement, but only two of the Periphery States did so.
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:''In the real world, [[FASA]] decided to essentially skip ahead in the plot from 3030 to 3050 (only briefly touching upon the Andurien Secession, Ronin Wars and War of 3039), in order to allow for the technological renaissance to take hold. This allowed them to fulfill their goal of sparking an in-universe arms race that allowed them to introduce new equipment into the tabletop war game.''
  
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As a result of the Ares Conventions, war became almost a continuous fact of life in the 25th century. It was transformed, however. From being an awesomely destructive event, war was now a curious, stylized feint and counterfeint in which outmaneuvered forces often surrendered rather than fight unfavorable odds. Compliance with the Conventions was almost universal, drastically reducing the human and economic costs of war. Unfortunately, it also promoted war as a means of resolving even the most minor dispute.
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==Andurien War of Secession==
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Following the FWL Civil War, the [[Duchy of Andurien]], in alliance with the [[Magistracy of Canopus]], seceded from the Free Worlds League and proceeded to attack the "weakened" [[Capellan Confederation]]. Following several massive defeats, the war was reversed by a remarkable display of the will to survive, and the Capellans retook most of their fallen worlds. After this reversal, the [[Canopians]] pulled out and with the war the Duchy was fighting against the [[Free Worlds League]] taxing Duchy forces to their limit, the Confederation used their Warrior Houses to return the border to prewar lines.
  
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Throughout the next century and a half, the various interstellar states fought hundreds of little wars among themselves, all of them inconclusive. None of the governments was able to form either permanant, lasting alliances with one anotheror to establish long-term supremacy over its neighbors. Nevertheless, the hereditary governments of these states survived the years of violence surprisingly intact.
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The [[Free Worlds League]] underwent many changes as Captain-General [[Janos Marik]] and his heir Duggan were assassinated by their cousin Duncan Marik. Duncan prosecuted the war to reclaim Andurien somewhat successfully, but he alienated many members of Parliament in doing so. The dissatisfaction was manifested when Janos' son Thomas (who was presumed dead in the same blast that killed his father) reappeared and many MPs wanted to replace Duncan with him. Duncan died in an assault on a fortified Andurien position, which cleared the way for Thomas to take over. He used the shock of his reappearance and his relative popularity to get many laws passed that centralized power in the Captain-General in a way that it never had been before. Thomas was soon able to return the rebellious Duchy to League authority, though it would be decades before he allowed them to regain any autonomous authority.<ref>''Historical: Brush Wars'', pp. 40–89</ref>
  
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The one exception came in 2459, when the childless, unmarried Lady Durant, leader of the Rim Worlds Republic, named Terens Amaris as her heir-apparent. In 2463, Lady Amaris succeeded Durant, and members of her line would rule in unbroken succession for almost three hundred years.
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==Ronin War==
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{{main|Ronin War}}
  
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The Terran Hegemony had its fair share of battles during the Age of War. In 2431, Director-General Richard Cameron ordered his army to seize the Kentares system from the Federated Suns, and in 2475, it crushed a Free Worlds League invasion force at Oriente. In gerneral, however, the leaders of the Hegemony hoped to avoid conflict, attempting to consolidate their power economically and technologically. Whatever the Hegemony's intentions, the state also became militarily superior with the invention of the BattleMech in 2439. Derived from the mining 'Mechs of the previous century and using the same myomer technoloy to power their movement, Terra's BattleMechs soon demonstrated greater mobility and adaptability to environments than conventional armored vehicles. They were also more heavily armed, with a full inventory of conventional and energy weaponry. The other states of the Inner Sphere also coveted 'Mech technology, but it only began to spread after a Lyran Commonwealth commando raid on the Hegemony 'Mech-production facility on Hesperus II in 2455. The Hegemony maintained superiority in the field, evolving new and better designs with more mobility and weaponry at lower cost and higher efficiency. Perhaps because of its military might, the Hegemony began to assume the role of mediator as the 25th century drew to a close.
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The [[Rasalhague Military District]] became home to a secession movement from the moment that the [[Rasalhague Principality]] was conquered by the Draconis Combine. The [[Lyran Commonwealth]] used this Mimir organization to its advantage during the [[Fourth Succession War]], but failed in granting the Rasalhagians their independence. The Combine, under the leadership of ''[[Gunji-no-Kanrei]]'' (Deputy for Military Affairs) [[Theodore Kurita]], granted the Rasalhagians their independence. This had three advantages for the Combine. First this would force the Lyrans into granting the Rasalhague worlds their independence that they had conquered, since it was that same promise that the Lyrans used to get the Rasalhagians on their side. Thus, they must give away all of their territorial gains of the Fourth Succession War. Secondly creating a peaceful buffer state with the nascent [[Federated Commonwealth]] that covered approximately three-quarters of the Combine border. Finally, because [[ComStar]] preferred weak and divided nations as they can be easily manipulated, ComStar provided aid. With the aid being given to the Combine in rebuilding their military from the Fourth Succession War, ComStar provided them with advanced technology, in the form of [[Star League]] Technology to aid them in future wars.
  
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Despite the myriad advantages, this move was seen as an unsatisfactory decision to many of the warriors of the Combine, including the warlord of the Combine's Rasalhague military district and a disaffected scion of the Kurita family. These warriors disobeyed orders and stayed in the newly created [[Free Rasalhague Republic]] to wage war against the former Combine planets almost immediately. The war got its name by the fact that the warriors disobeying the Coordinator were branded as ''ronin''. The fighting was not just between the Combine, Rasalhague, and the ''ronin''. Even the commonwealth had problems with a rogue baron wishing not to give planets of the Commonwealth to another nation. In the end this short but fierce fight was the birth of the FRR, just as the invasion of the Clans would be its death.
  
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This war also saw the new Rasalhagians nation forced to hire mercenaries to defend itself, since it had no armed forces of its own yet. The fledgling nation was unversed in contracting mercenaries, so many of the hired soldiers were able to use loopholes in their contracts to escape actual combat. This led to a negative sentiment toward mercenaries from Rasalhagians that ranged from mild contempt to undying hatred.<ref>''Historical: Brush Wars'', pp. 90–121</ref>
  
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==Imperium and Reunification (2551-2600)==
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==War of 3039==
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{{main|War of 3039}}
  
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A century and a half after the Age of War began, the Hegemony's role as mediator eventually brought an end to the wars through arbitration of a dispute between Houses Liao and Marik over the planet Andurien. In an irony of history, these same two combatants had fought over this world 150 years earlier, initiating the Age of War. Not only did Ian Cameron, 13th Director- General of the Hegemony. persuade the Capellan Confederation and Free Worlds League to sign peace agreements, but he earned the friendship of their leaders, Terrence Liao and Albert Marik. In 2556, the three states signed the Clasped Hands Agreement, a secret subtreaty to the Andurien peace accords. The secret pact established special trade relations and promises of non-agression. This led almost immediately to the Treaty of Geneva, which established these three as the founders of the Star League.
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The War of 3039 was the second war in which the [[Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces|LCAF]] and [[Armed Forces of the Federated Suns|AFFS]] would ally. Delayed by bureaucracy and logistical problems, as well as the Skye Crisis, which allowed the Combine to prepare for the war. Many other factors also affected the war effort, such as the fact that the two nations had only a decade to work together and were not able to fully integrate yet. In addition, a cache of Star League-era 'Mechs was given to the [[DCMS]] by [[ComStar]], and several elite regiments helped formed and trained by [[Wolf's Dragoons]] fought for the Combine forces. In the end, it was a feint by Theodore Kurita that led Hanse Davion to believe his military was stronger than it was that convinced Davion to cease his offensive.
  
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Between 2556 and 2569, Cameron used his mediator's skill to hammer out similar agreements with the Federated Suns, Lyran Commonwealth, and the Draconis Combine, the other three states within the borders of the Inner Sphere. In 2571, Cameron and the rulers of the other five states had established a new, unified hegemony called the Star League. In exchange for their recognition of Ian Cameron as First Lord of the Star League and arbiter of League foreign policy, the League Articles granted each of the other five leaders a seat on the High Council, autonomy over all domestic policy matters, and official sanction of the existing line of succession. Most important, all now had free access to the Terran military research apparatus.
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Unlike in the Fourth Succession War, the two nations had some time to integrate their commands, but since only having a decade and a single war where both sides had fought and won together with little interaction would not help the allies in the upcoming war. Though the war, originally planned to happen in less than a few years, turned into a decade as military planners realized that attacking the Draconis Combine would require deception on such an unmanageable scale to conceal troop movements. Unlike the Capellans the Combine leader was not as paranoid of who was planning their certain demise and realized that the recently formed [[Federated Commonwealth]] could be the only true threat in the Combine's future. Unbeknownst to ComStar and the Draconis Combine, during the Fourth Succession War a series of devices called Black Boxes, essential in defeating the communication interdiction against the Federated Commonwealth imposed by ComStar during the fourth war, were to be used by FedCom troops to coordinate troop movements. This would have provided a tactical advantage to FedCom troops but was not utilized to their fullest potential as military strategists essentially ignored their usefulness and used the faster hyperpulse generators owned by ComStar. This allowed ComStar to warn the DC military to the threat. Unfortunately during the war several of these devices were captured by DC forces and used against FedCom troops.<ref>''Historical: War of 3039'', p. ??{{cn}}</ref>
  
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The Periphery governments, on the other hand, wished to maintain their independence and resisted all diplomatic efforts to persuade them to join the League. These were the Outworlds Alliance, the Taurian Concordat, the Magistracy of Canopus, and the Rim Worlds Republic. Their traditions of autonomy were now centuries old, and they would fight to remain beyond the jurisdiction of the powerful Star League. The Periphery leaders began strengthening their militaries, knowing that confrontation was inevitable. In 2575, the Star League issued the Pollux Proclamation, ordering the Periphery states to join the League either voluntarily or or by dint of force. Two months later, the Periphery states rejected the demand outright. In the next several years, the two sides fought a number of skirmishes and battles, but all-out war against the Periphery was not declared until 2578.
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==Clan Invasion==
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{{Main|Clan Invasion}}
  
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The Reunification War was a series of desperate campaigns that lasted 20 long years and claimed more soldier and civilian lives than the entire Age of War. It finally ended in 2596, following the final bloody campaign that led to the surrender of the Taurian Concordat. In 2597, the four conquered Periphery states became Territorial States of the Star League. The League immediately launched a vast public-relations campaign aimed at building popular support for membership among the people of the conquered territories. The effort was ultimately successful, with the League able to withdraw most of its garrison troops within ten years.
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In August of [[3049]], the Inner Sphere began to hear of mysterious invaders using advanced technology, beyond that of even the Star League, in the reaches coreward of the Free Rasalhague Republic. Small periphery realms disappeared from contact and mercenary units were annihilated (including a detachment from the elite [[Kell Hounds]]). In March of [[3050]], the invaders struck at the Inner Sphere proper. The invaders, known as the [[Clans]], cut a swath through the Lyran half of the [[Federated Commonwealth]] and Draconis Combine and absolutely devastated the [[Free Rasalhague Republic]]. Using their technological superiority and impressive combat prowess, over a hundred planets fell in the first year. Four Clans rolled into the Inner Sphere that year: Clans [[Clan Wolf|Wolf]], [[Clan Jade Falcon|Jade Falcon]], [[Clan Smoke Jaguar|Smoke Jaguar]], and [[Clan Ghost Bear|Ghost Bear]]. While some counterattacks succeeded, they failed to stop their advance.
  
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It took the suicide attack of ''Kapten'' [[Tyra Miraborg]], a pilot in the Free Rasalhague Republic's [[KungsArmé]], to do what entire regiments had failed to do: stop the Clan advance. Her suicide attack with her ''Shilone'' aerospace fighter hit the bridge of the Clan flagship, killing [[ilKhan]] [[Leo Showers]] instantly. Under Clan law, a new ilKhan could only be selected on the Clan homeworld of [[Strana Mechty]], which was almost a year's travel time from the location of the Clan forces in the Inner Sphere. So, for more than a year, the Clans halted their invasion as their individual leaders returned to their home planets, regrouped, selected a new ilKhan, and then returned to continue with the invasion. This allowed the nations of the Inner Sphere some much-needed time to recuperate and plan for the expected resumption of the invasion. This was time that they used to great effect. Aside from ending their conflicts and uniting against the threat, they also gained valuable insights into the nature of the Clans. The leader of Wolf's Dragoons revealed that his mercenary unit was, in fact, a reconnaissance mission sent by the Clan leaders, and explained the history of the Clans to the leaders of the Inner Sphere.
  
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On the Dragoons' homeworld of [[Outreach]], the leaders of the Inner Sphere (and their heirs) trained to work together against the Clan threat. When the invasion finally resumed under former Wolf Khan [[Ulric Kerensky]], the forces of the Inner Sphere were much better prepared to combat them. Ulric activated two reserve Clans, the [[Clan Steel Viper|Steel Vipers]] and [[Clan Nova Cat|Nova Cats]], though this was as much to cause strife within the [[Clan Occupation Zones]] as it was to aid the invasion by pairing them up with hated rivals, the [[Clan Jade Falcon|Jade Falcons]] and the [[Clan Smoke Jaguar|Smoke Jaguars]].
  
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==The Good Years (2601-2750)==
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The spirit of cooperation that had been forged on Outreach bore fruit when Prince Hanse Davion sent [[Wolf's Dragoons]] and the Kell Hounds to the Combine's capital, [[Luthien]], upon hearing of an imminent Clan assault upon the system. With the help of the FedCom mercenaries, the Combine was able to repulse the joint Jaguar-Nova Cat assault. However, despite the limited victories the Inner Sphere forces were able to win, the true turning point in the war came when [[ComStar]] learned of the Clans' ultimate goal -- Terra.
  
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During the 150 years following the Reunification War, the far-flung territories of the Star League experienced a new wave of scientific innovation and colonial expansion. To reduce the administrative problems caused by lengthy interstellar-communicatin lags, the Star League developed a vast and intricate network of communications relay stations employing FTL transmitters. Known as hyperpulse generators (HPGs), these transmitters were developed from technology based on Kearny-Fuchida hyperdrive principles. Research begun in 2615 came to fruition 15 years later when the first HPG message was successfully transmitted from Terra to the Lyran Commonwealth. The HPG was essentially a large "gun" that fired a high-frequency compressed pulse through K-F space at a target world. The pulse traveled the immense distance instantaneously, just like a faster-than-light spacecraft. Though the energy cost fo a single transmission was of the same magnitude as for a jump by an FTL ship, an HPG pulse could travel up to 50 light years, while a ship could jump a maximum of 30 light years. When completed, the system effectively cut the average communication time between Terra and the Periphery from more than a year to about six months. Communications time could be cut to days, but only at great cost.
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Terra -- the cradle of civilization, which ComStar alone held -- was the terminal goal of each of the Clans. Whichever Clan captured Terra would become the ilClan, the supreme Clan. Until then, ComStar had been covertly aiding the Clans through their Precentor Martial [[Anastasius Focht]]. It was only when Primus [[Myndo Waterly]] met with the ilKhan that she discovered their intentions. Since neither side wanted to damage the birthplace of humanity, they agreed to fight a proxy battle on the Rasalhagian world of [[Tukayyid]]. If the Clans won, then ComStar would grant them Terra and become the Clans' administrative arm in the [[Inner Sphere]]. If ComStar won, then no Clan could advance beyond Tukayyid for fifteen years.
  
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At the same time, League engineers developed a new, low-cost water- purification system. It was significantly cheaper to operate this system than to import water, making it economically feasible to settle Inner Sphere worlds previously ignored during the Exodus. The system also provided many settled worlds with an unexpected economic boom. The Ryan Cartel, the great iceship manufacturer and operator, was nearly driven bankrupt as fewer and fewer worlds relied on its service. By 2700, more than a thousand new worlds had been settled, and the Star League had expanded to control a sphere roughly 540 light years in diameter.
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For the battle, Ulric activated the third reserve, [[Clan Diamond Shark]]. Focht threw almost the entirety of the Com Guards at the Clans on Tukayyid. ComStar acted as the defender in the battle, and each Clan had to conquer two cities from the Com Guard forces to be successful. The battle started on May 1, [[3052]]. Focht exploited a weakness in Clan strategy. The Clans favored quick battles between small forces, so the Com Guards dug in for a protracted campaign. At the same time, Primus Waterly initiated [[Operation Scorpion]], which depended upon a complete, Sphere-wide communications blackout to force all the Inner Sphere leaders to bow to [[ComStar]]. Ultimately, Clan Wolf was the only Clan to complete their objectives, though the Ghost Bears and Jade Falcons managed to take one of their objectives, forcing a draw. The Falcons reached a draw because their destruction of many Com Guard units by the Falcon Guards, the Ghost Bears by their taking of one of their objectives. Which meant that the Com Guards was victorious, though at a stupendous cost. Once the battle ended five days later and Focht learned of Waterly's duplicity, Focht assassinated her and placed a known (to him) Combine spy in her place. Thus, the Clan Invasion ended.
  
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In a final important development, engineers working to improve BattleMech mobility were able to develop an improved, more efficient myomer. This improvement finally made it possible to construct artifical "bionic" limbs of human size, as well as full-scale, super-string human exoskeletons for use in industry.
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3052 saw other upheavals as Chancellor [[Romano Liao]] assassinated [[Justin Allard]] and then was in turn assassinated by his wife, her own sister, [[Candace Liao|Candace]], and Prince Hanse Davion died of a heart attack upon learning of the betrothal of Romano's heir [[Sun-Tzu Liao|Sun-Tzu]] to Thomas Marik's illegitimate daughter, Isis. Within ComStar, Focht and Primus Sharilar Mori's efforts to reform ComStar of its quasi-religious trappings led to a backlash from Precentor Atreus Demona Aziz. Aziz led a splinter faction to the [[Free Worlds League]] known as the [[Word of Blake]] and received protection for Thomas Marik, who had been a member of the Order.
  
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Spurred by the adoption of a universal currency and the removal of the artifical trade barriers imposed by the Age of War, trade and commerce also boomed. As prosperity grew, Star League worlds became increasingly independent. With development and transportation costs low, many planets developed highly specialized economies that made them dependent on other worlds for basic commodities such as food, water-purification equipment, and replacement parts.
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In [[3055]], Archon Melissa Steiner was assassinated by [[Katherine Steiner-Davion|her daughter]], though the blame was laid at the feet of her son [[Victor Steiner-Davion|Victor]], who succeeded her and officially inaugurated the [[Federated Commonwealth]] as its first Archon-Prince.
  
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Only on major political crisis occured during this golden age, and it was resolved fairly easily. In 2650, reports reached Terra that Tadeo Amaris, leader of the Rim Worlds Territorial-State, was expanding his personal army at an alarming rate. Michael Cameron, having recently succeeded to the title of First Lord of the Star League, convened a special meeting of the Star League High Council, whom he persuaded to issue an edict restricting te size of personal military forces that any League member could raise. To back up this administrative action, Cameron gave Amaris a warning by sending several Star League Defense Force BattleMech regiments to conduct extended maneuvers just beyond the boundary of the Rim Worlds. Shortly after, League intelligence confirmed that Amaris had apparently disbanded his extra regiments. In truth, Amaris and other state leaders continued in secret to strengthen their militia and reserves. Though the Star League represented apparent unity among the stars, member-states continued to fight "Hidden Wars" during this "golden age" of peace and prosperity.
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==Joshua Reprisals==
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On Outreach in 3052, Prince Hanse Davion had convinced Thomas Marik to retool his factories to provide refit kits with Star League-era technology for sale to the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine. Marik initially refused, but had to relent when Davion offered Marik's son Joshua, who suffered from leukemia, a chance to recover with the help of treatment at the [[New Avalon Institute of Science]]. Hanse had also prepared a plan to institute a double for the boy and, thus, place a pawn in the succession of the [[Free Worlds League]]. Hanse died, but the plan lived on.
  
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When Joshua died of his leukemia in 3057, [[Victor Steiner-Davion|Archon-Prince Victor]] instituted the plan, though he simply wanted the refit packages to continue coming, and he apparently had no intention of having the double become Captain-General. A [[Capellan Confederation|Capellan]] spy learned of the deception, and Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao told Thomas Marik. The duo then launched [[Operation Guerrero]], whose objective was to reclaim the worlds lost to the [[Federated Commonwealth]] in the [[Fourth Succession War]]. The invasion succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
  
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Because of the poor handling of an abortive succession by the Isle of Skye from the Commonwealth, Victor's popularity was extremely low in the Lyran half of the nation. In fact, it was so bad Victor retreated to the former Suns capital of [[New Avalon]] and left his sister [[Katherine Steiner-Davion|Katherine]] as his regent on the Lyran capital of [[Tharkad]]. The power-hungry Katherine used her brother's duplicity and the invasion as a pretext to enact Emergency War Powers and secede the Lyran half of the realm from the [[Federated Commonwealth]]. She was soon thereafter ratified as Archon by the Estates General. She gave Thomas Marik all the worlds the [[Free Worlds League]] had lost during the [[Fourth Succession War]] and called for all traditionally Lyran units to retreat to the pre–Fourth War border. Thus, most of the units defending the [[Sarna March]] returned to the newly christened [[Lyran Alliance]]. This action used many of the JumpShips allotted to the region, so Archon-Prince Victor was unable to reinforce the worlds the Lyrans vacated.
  
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==Crisis and Civil War (2751-2784)==
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Because the [[Free Worlds League]] thus achieved its objective, Thomas Marik pulled his forces out of the invasion, though he did allow the [[Capellan Confederation]] to purchase the contracts of many mercenary units. Sun-Tzu had activated guerrillas on many of the worlds the Commonwealth had conquered from his realm, but he lacked the military force to pacify those worlds because of the League's pullout. The Lyrans had retreated and the FedCom was unable to move troops to the region because it lacked the transport capacity, so the [[Sarna March]] became a no man's land that was dubbed the [[Chaos March]]. In this vacuum, many local leaders formed minor states, though just as many worlds were plagued by internecine fighting between groups that supported various factions. In some places, Draconis Combine troops were inserted under the auspices of peacekeepers, even further confusing the situation. To add insult to injury, [[Word of Blake]] conquered [[Terra]] from [[ComStar]] in 3058, and the two factions fought running battles between each other for control of the HPGs on various Chaos March worlds.
  
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In February 2751, Simon Cameron, the fifth First Lord of the Star League, was accidentally killed during a mining-colony inspection on New Silesia, leaving his eight-year-old son Richard as sole heir. After deliberating for more than a month, the Star League High Council named young Richard as First Lord, but appointed Aleksandr Kerensky, commander of the Star League Defense Forces, as Regent and Protector. It soon became apparent, however, that the Council Lords perceived themselves as the Star League's true authority.
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==Refusal War==
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{{main|Refusal War}}
  
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During the ten years of the Regency, the Council passed two edicts that would have far-reaching consequences for the League's future. The first was a reversal of Michael Cameron's Edict of 2650. This new edict allowed each League member-state to double the strength of its private forces, thus initiating a period of general military buildup. The second granted each of the six member-States ruled by the Council Lords a greater share of League revenues, while boosting the tax assessments on the four Territorial States. Not surprisingly, this second action provoked immediate unrest and rebellion in the Periphery, forcing Kerensky to strongly reinforce the Regular Army BattleMechs garrisoned there.
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In 3057, the Crusader faction of the [[Clans]] gained enough clout to bring trumped-up charges of genocide against ilKhan [[Ulric Kerensky]]. The Grand Council stripped Ulric of his title, but, as was his right, Ulric declared a [[Trial of Refusal]]. While most expected him to defend his actions personally, he instead instigated a war between [[Clan Jade Falcon]] and [[Clan Wolf]]. Ulric knew that the other Clans wanted to renew the invasion, so he planned to severely weaken the strongest Crusader Clan to the point that it would not be able to break the Truce of Tukayyid. His plan was successful, although he died in the last fight through the duplicity of Falcon saKhan [[Vandervahn Chistu]], who violated Clan honor by using himself as bait for an ambush. Hence Ulric was found guilty (though the point was moot). Vandervahn Chistu's actions, however, were to have later implications on his attempt to absorb Clan Wolf and the leadership of Clan Jade Falcon. Upon the defeat of Clan Wolf, [[Elias Crichell]], Khan of Jade Falcon was elected ilKhan of the Grand Council. The Falcons attempted to absorb the remaining Wolves, who were guilty by association along with Ulric.
  
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On February 9, 2762, First Lord Cameron reached his majority at age 18 and took his place on the Star League throne. A few days later, he issued Executive Order 156, ordering the complete disbandment of all private House armies. Enraged, the Council Lords wasted no time striking down the Order 156 as unconstitutional, eventually forcing young Cameron to rescind it. Only Stefan Amaris, ruler of the Rim Worlds State, supported Richard's initiative.
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A core of Clan Wolf still retained its independence however, in the form of [[Clan Wolf-in-Exile]]. At the very beginning of the [[Trial of Refusal]], Ulric had sent the strongest contingent of Wolves under the command of then-saKhan [[Phelan Ward]] to the [[Lyran Alliance]] to help defend against the Falcons in case his plan did fail. Following Ulric's death, these Wolves became [[Clan Wolf-in-Exile]]. An effort to destroy the exiles was immediately attempted by the Falcons, but Phelan and his Wolves defeated them with the help of the [[Kell Hounds]] mercenary regiment, weakening Jade Falcon to the point that any further military action on their part might neuter their forces entirely.
  
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Relations between the High Council and the First Lord further deteriorated when Richard dissolved the High Council in 2762, vowing to rule by decree. The next year Richard's Taxation Edict of 2763 further burdened the Periphery's finances, escalating civil unrest. When the people of the Periphery rejected the Edict, Richard ordered General Kerensky to the frontier to cow the Territories into submission. In 2764, Stefan Amaris signed a secret agreement with Richard, pledging to defend Terra in the event of trouble. When even more troops, including Cameron household units, were sent to the frontier following the secession of New Vandenberg and 17 other Periphery worlds in April 2765, the secret agreement seemed almost prophetic.
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Although the Wolves had technically lost the Trial, Ulric's plan was a success, despite his death. The war between the two Clans was so brutal and damaging that it came close to crippling the Falcons' military, so they absorbed the remnants of Clan Wolf. Initially, nobody opposed this until [[Vladimir Ward|Vlad]] was rescued from his downed [['Mech]]. He was present at the fight between Ulric and Vandervahn, had witnessed the death of Ulric as well as other 'Mechs carrying long-range missiles, so he knew the truth of the matter. Vlad declared a [[Trial of Refusal]] against the absorption. He won this fight and killed Chistu in single combat. Since all of Clan Wolf, by virtue of having defended Ulric, was guilty of genocide, Falcon Khan Elias Crichell split off the Wolves as [[Clan Jade Wolf]]. Vlad was incensed by this name, but bided his time. He quickly thereafter earned his Bloodname and was elected Khan Vladimir Ward.
  
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By 2766, three-quarters of the Regular Army was engaged along the Periphery. On Terra, troops borrowed from Stefan's household guard replaced the Regular units sent to New Vandenberg, eventually outnumbering Regular forces remaining on Terra. In late December of that year, Amaris seized his chance, assassinating Lord Richard Cameron as well as every other man, woman, and child with a drop of Cameron blood, simultaneously moving his troops against Terra and the other worlds of the Terran Hegemony. On the first day, 95 of the 103 planets fell to the surprise attack. In January 2767, Amaris declared himself First Lord of the Star League. News of this coup did not reach Kerensky until May of 2767 when Stefan's forces completed their takeover of the Terran Member-State, and Amaris reopened communications contact. Kerensky immediately imposed a cease-fire with all Periphery realms except the Rim Worlds Republic, while declaring war against the usurper. Both Amaris and Kerensky called on the Council Lords to aid their cause, but none would commit to either side.
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Under Ward's able leadership, his Clan slowly built its strength again. Before this was done though, Vlad showed that he had learned Clan politics well. Through the use of political manipulation, he initiated a challenge that Elias Crichell simply could not refuse: he called into question Crichell's status as a warrior. The aging Elias Crichell was no match for Vladimir who was in his prime, and Vlad killed him in a one-sided, hand-to-hand battle on the floor of the Grand Council. This gave him the political clout he needed to rename his Clan "Clan Wolf," though he made it clear that this was a new Clan and not the same Clan Wolf that fought next to ilKhan Ulric.
  
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In August 2767, Kerensky took the Rim Worlds Republic, then advanced on the Terran Hegemony worlds Amaris had captured. The ensuing struggle lasted twelve grueling years, but Kerensky's forces inexorably advanced from world to world, finally liberating Terra itself on September 3, 2779. On the last day of that month, Kerensky captured Amaris, who ordered all his troops to surrender. In retaliation for Stefan Amaris' murder of the Camerons, Kerensky executed the usurper and his entire family in November 2779. The civil war was over, but the Star League Army had taken horrifying losses, dropping from 486 divisions to 113. 0ne hundred million had died, four times that number were wounded, and ten times more left homeless. Equally disastrous was the severe damage to the interstellar communications network, the life blood of the Star League.
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With the revenge against those responsible for the near destruction of Clan Wolf and the treacherous murderer of Ulric Kerensky dead, Vlad turned his attention to rebuilding Clan Wolf. Wolf-in-Exile however, remained in the Inner Sphere, retaining their independence, and following the wishes of their deceased Khan Ulric. The result was that two forms of Clan Wolf now existed independently of each other, the Exiles retaining the original spirit of the Clan and defending the Inner Sphere, and Vlad's Crusader Wolves preparing to invade it.
  
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Kerensky proclaimed himself Protector of the Realm once more, and invited the High Council to reconvene on Terra. Fearing Kerensky's popularity, the High Council immediately removed the general from his post as Protector, ordering him to disperse his Regular Army troops to create garrisons for the Terran Member-State worlds. The Council also appointed Jerome Blake as Minister of Communications, charging him with the restoration of the League's communications network, an effort that would succeed beyond the Lords' wildest intentions. Kerensky, meanwhile, returned to New Earth, temporary headquarters of the Star League army. Though his troops were ready to help him overthrow the High Council, Kerensky refused to betray the Star League, the only government that ever united humanity under one banner.
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==Star League Reborn==
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In 3058, [[Clan Jade Falcon]] launched an invasion of the [[Lyran Alliance]] that was eventually beaten back by a multinational force under the command of [[Victor Steiner-Davion|Archon-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion]]. The cooperation fostered during the [[Jade Falcon Incursion (3058)|Battle of Coventry]] led the [[Inner Sphere]] leaders to complete the Clans' objective for them and resurrect the [[Star League]]. The [[Star League]] was composed of the [[Federated Commonwealth]], [[Draconis Combine]], [[Free Rasalhague Republic]], [[Lyran Alliance]], [[Free Worlds League]], [[Capellan Confederation]], and [[St. Ives Compact]]; with [[ComStar]] serving as a nonvoting member.
  
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The High Council, however, could make no boasts about unity. Each Council Lord asserted his own claim to the Star League throne, until all were exhausted by the futility of the struggle. On August 12, 2781, they officially dissolved the High Council, each Lord returning home determined to build his own army in order to seize power for himself. As the former Council Lords of the Star League built up their militaries, many remnants of Stefan Amaris' former regiments found new employment as mercenaries. Soon the Lords were attempting to buy the services of Regular Army regiments as well.
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While the [[Star League Defense Force]] would take time to build up, some of the military forces of the member states rotated into service under the Star League banner, and they took part in many conflicts.
  
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When Kerensky attempted to prevent the leaders of the Great Houses from their recruitment efforts among the SLDF, they called for his resignation. Instead, he summoned more than 100 division commanders and an equal number of lesser officers to a secret meeting on New Earth, on February 14, 2784. After this meeting, quartermasters spent the next six months quietly acquiring more than 200 transports as well as supplies and parts. The precoccupied Council Lords took no heed until mid-summer when they began to notice troop movements in the Periphery. On July 8, Kerensky flashed a one- word order to the ships assembled at the New Earth jump point and to those assembled above 50 other stars throughout the Inner Sphere. The one word was, "Exodus." More than a thousand ships made jumps that day. On November 5, this massive fleet had made its way to the New Samarkand system in the Draconis Combine. Eighty percent of the Star League army had chosen to join their fates to that of Kerensky. It took a whole day for the enormous armada to make its combined jumps out of the system. From that day on, Kerensky and his fleet disappeared into the dark embrace of the Periphery, apparently abandoning the Inner Sphere forever.
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===Operation BULLDOG===
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{{main|Operation BULLDOG}}
  
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In order to provide legitimacy to the New Star League, the Council decided to launch an invasion against the Clans and to utterly destroy one of them. They chose [[Clan Smoke Jaguar]], partly because a defector gave them the path to the Jaguars' capital world of Huntress but also as retribution for the many atrocities inflicted upon the [[Inner Sphere]] by [[Clan Smoke Jaguar]].
  
 +
Led by Anastasius Focht and Victor Steiner-Davion, Operation Bulldog was the first half of the Star League's invasion. The SLDF forces, which included members of [[Clan Wolf-in-Exile]] as well as every member state and many mercenaries, were startlingly successful in their assault. Unbeknownst to them, other Clans were maneuvering against the Smoke Jaguars, so no help was forthcoming. In addition, the Jaguars were gearing up for a new offensive, so they were caught off-guard by a full-scale invasion. In a war that seemed too easy, the Jaguars were forced out of the Inner Sphere, sending shattered units home to Clan space.
  
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==The Succession Wars (2785-3030)==
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===Operation SERPENT===
 +
{{main|Operation SERPENT}}
  
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Kerensky's dramatic exodus removed the last real obstacle to civil war. In December 2786, Minoru Kurita declared himself First Lord of the Star League, and the other four Council Lords quickly followed suit. Within months, war had engulfed the entire Inner Sphere.
+
SLDF units under the command of FedCom [[Armed Forces of the Federated Suns#Marshal of the Armies|Marshal of the Armies]] Morgan Hasek-Davion moved in secret to the Smoke Jaguar capital of Huntress. Though Hasek-Davion was assassinated before the force reached Huntress, the [[Eridani Light Horse]]'s General Ariana Winston was able to take Huntress. Then the remnants of the Smoke Jaguars' Inner Sphere force returned home. The Jaguars fought a fierce battle to retake their homeworld, but the [[Inner Sphere]] forces were saved by a task force composed of some of the most elite units the Inner Sphere had to offer under the command of Prince Victor.
  
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The First Succession War lasted from 2787 to 2821, a conflagration of unparalleled brutality. The warring Lords of the five Great Houses cast aside the Ares Conventions, smashing cities, destroying vital industrial facilities, and butchering hundreds of millions of civilians. Few worlds escaped unscathed, and all were affected by the complete disruption of trade, commerce, and communications. By 2815, the warring states had lost most of their FTL shipbuilding capacity. The intense concentration of economic resources into military production had also forced a major drop in consumer goods production, creating a severe decline in trade. This loss of trade proved particularly disastrous for those worlds relying on high-tech water purification equipment. Without proper maintenance or spare parts, many of these facilities began to fail, forcing abandonment of the worlds or a return to iceship technologies. By the war's end in 2821, water-rich planets had become as strategically valuable as they had been 400 years before.
+
Victor then led his force to Strana Mechty, the Clan capital. There, he initiated a Trial of Refusal against the Clan Invasion. Despite the questionable legality of such a challenge, the Clans accepted and the Crusader Clans fought against Victor's force. The Star League task force was successful, and the Clan Invasion was over. Despite this, Wolf Khan Vlad Ward abstained in the voting to accept Victor's challenge, so he claimed that the Trial's results did not apply to the Wolves. Victor led his forces against the last remaining remnant of the Smoke Jaguars, including ilKhan Lincoln Osis, and defeated them, thus completing the annihilation of the Clan.
  
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The peace of 2821 was uneasy, resulting more from exhaustion than any true reconciliation. Though no House Lord could claim to have made much progress toward his goal of dominion, too many atrocities had occurred to allow any sort of lasting settlement. From 2821 through 2827, the five surviving ruling Houses rebuilt as much of their military might as possible, concentrating their surviving scientists and engineers on those few worlds whose industrial capacity remained intact. Between 2828 and 2830, tensions along the borders of each rival state erupted, leading once more to all-out war.
+
==Capellan-St. Ives War==
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{{main|Capellan-St. Ives War}}
  
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The Second Succession War lasted from approximately 2830 to 2864, and was just as deadly, destructive, and indecisive as its predecessor. Hundreds of millions more died in countless battles across the Inner Sphere, though only a few dozen worlds ultimately changed hands. As the war destroyed more industrial facilities and killed off more scientists and engineers, some types of specialized knowledge and technology began to disappear entirely. By the end of the Second Succession War, what had become known as the Successor States' overall level of technological knowledge sunk to a level barely above that of Terra in the early 21st century. It was no longer easy to build advanced computers, large fusion power plants, or starships. Instead, the leaders of the Succesor Houses began to cannibalize existing equipment for the spare parts necessary to keep their current war machines in working order.
+
The St. Ives Commonality had split from the [[Capellan Confederation]] with the aid of the FedSuns after the [[Fourth Succession War]] and formed the [[St. Ives Compact]]. Following his election as First Lord, Sun-Tzu Liao used his position to order SLDF troops into action to aid his House troops in the reintegration of the wayward state back into his nation by 3061.
  
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After a second brief respite, the Third Succession War erupted in 2866. It began when advance forces of the Draconis Combine invaded the coreward portion of the Lyran Commonwealth; war soon spread across the Inner Sphere. In the years that followed, combat became such a fact of everyday life that the period become known simply as "the Succession Wars." Nonetheless, campaigns during this period never matched the violence of previous two wars.
+
==FedCom Civil War==
 +
{{main|FedCom Civil War}}
  
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At first, the decrease in destruction and bloodshed appeared to be more a function of each army's reduced resources than philosophical change in tactics. As time passed, however, and the exigencies of a scavenger economy took hold, each of the Houses realized it could ill afford further losses of vital resources. Gradually, an informal set of rules of war evolved, similar to the Ares Conventions. 'Mech units and armies still fought over possession of operational factories, but neither side attempted to harm the facility itself. (The losers simply consoled themselves with the idea that they would win the planet in the next war). Major 'Mech battles, especially between mercenary units, were often fought in stages, with both sides allowing enemy Techs to enter the battlefield during periods of truce to attend to damaged 'Mechs. Other 'Mech units, again especially mercenaries, revived the old tradition of surrendering to a superior force and paying a ransom to obtain their off-world release. Most important, everyone recognized the sanctity of any side's JumpShips, and strictly obeyed the prohibition against attacking such craft. After all, without JumpShips, the war for supremacy could not be waged at all.
+
When Prince Victor returned from Clan space, he found that [[Katherine Steiner-Davion|Archon Katherine]] (who preferred to be known as Katrina) had usurped the regency of their younger sister, [[Yvonne Steiner-Davion]]. Though he was initially against fighting her, Victor was compelled to take control of a rebellion that was going forward with or without him when Arthur Steiner-Davion was apparently assassinated.
  
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A second outgrowth of the destructiveness of the Succession Wars was the rise of feudalism throughout the Inner Sphere. The central governments of the ruling Houses no longer possessed either the administrative machinery or absolute military resources to maintain centralized control over their territories. Instead, each House Lord ruled a hierarchy of planetary nobles. These nobles were often drawn from the leadership of his most elite 'Mech units, having won full authority over worlds in exchange for the pledged service of their BattleMechs.
+
The war had three sides: the forces loyal to Katherine (Loyalists), the men and women who followed Victor (Allies), and the neutral citizens that saw neither side as being better or preferred to latch on to regional loyalties. Soon, there were only two sides as Katherine saw all those who did not support her as the enemy.
  
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Indeed, the years of conflict wreaked havoc beyond the borders of the Successor States, creating the phenomenon known as the Bandit Kings of the Periphery. As the wars raged back and forth along the frontier, dozens of 'Mech units - most often composed either the fragments of defeated units or mutinous mercenaries - fled into the vastness of the Periphery. Several of the units emerged again, often after a number of years, as "kings" of one or more small worlds seized by force of arms. By the end of the 30th century, more than 60 known small kingdoms and principalities ringed the Inner Sphere, creating the ever-present threat of raids and piracy to the frontier worlds of each Successor State.
+
The war touched every [[Successor States|Successor State]] in some way. The [[Lyran Alliance]] and [[Federated Commonwealth]] bore the brunt of the devastation as units from both sides attempted to crush the other. Forces from the [[Federated Commonwealth]]'s [[Draconis March]] attacked the Draconis Combine, and then suffered under their counterattack. [[Thomas Marik]]'s sister Kristen, who was the commander of the mercenary Kristen's Krushers, was killed during the war when overzealous Lyran commanders attacked the neutral unit. When her half-brother Thomas did nothing to save her, her brother-in-law Marshall Jeremy Brett of Tamarind attacked the Lyran world of Arcadia, though it failed to save any Marik who was serving with the unit and Thomas gave it back at the end of the war. The Capellans loaned Victor's best friend [[Kai Allard-Liao]] and some of his 1st St. Ives Lancers to the Allied forces during the war, though a Capellan Warrior House conquered the important industrial world of Tikonov from the [[Federated Suns]] as the war ground down.
  
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This era of tentative stability lasted for roughly a century. Interestingly, it was a call for lasting peace that marked the end of a relative balance of power among the Great Houses and began the ferocity of the Fourth Succession War.
+
With forces fighting from one end of the sundered [[Federated Commonwealth]] to the other, and mercenaries in between, navigating the military and political waters presented several challenges. Eventually, the war ended with the Allies successful and Katherine was sent into exile among [[Clan Wolf]]. Victor returned to ComStar as Precentor Martial, and named his brother Peter as Lyran Archon and his sister Yvonne as Prince-Regent for her then-unconceived child.
  
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Recognizing humanity's slow but steady slide away from the glories of the Star League era and toward barbarism, Archon Katrina Steiner of the Lyran Commonwealth issued a Peace Proposal to the other House leaders in 3020. Only Hanse Davion, Prince of the Federated Suns, welcomed the initiative. Announcing that he would "take history by the throat," Davion began negotiations with the Archon. The result of these talks was the Federated- Commonwealth Alliance Document, which Prince Hanse Davion and Archon Katrina Steiner signed on Terra in 3022. In addition to trade and military agreements, the F-C Document contained a secret provision betrothing the Archon's daughter in marriage to Hanse Davion. Though the marriage would not occur until the twelve-year-old Melissa came of age, this was the first step on the road to eventual unification of the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns.
+
:''In the real world, [[FASA]] announced that it was shutting down during the FedCom Civil War storyline. They finished the line and [[WizKids]] announced that they had purchased the [[BattleTech]] intellectual property. They then announced that they would be jumping the timeline 60 years into the future to launch [[MechWarrior: Dark Age]]. They believed that this move would give them the opportunity to attract new players without forcing them to read over a dozen novels for them to be able to understand the events that were taking place.''
  
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The other three Successor Lords were aghast at this sudden shift of power, which would lead to the eventual creation of a single state nearly as large as their three Houses combined. In October 3022, the Draconis Combine, the Free Worlds League, and the Capellan Confederation hastily signed the Concord of Kapteyn. The scope of the Concord was not as far-reaching as the F-C Document, however. It called mainly for an end to active hostilities between the three states, who now pledged mutual defense instead. This new relationship would also permit the three parties to coordinate their overt and covert efforts at derailing the Davion-Steiner alliance.
+
:''They then licensed part of [[BattleTech]] to [[Fantasy Productions]] (FanPro), a Germany-based company which has licensed the ability to publish products for the original tabletop wargame and publish sourcebooks (but not novels) set before 3130. They rebranded their products as [[Classic BattleTech]] in order to differentiate it from both the original FASA material and from WizKids' products. [[InMediaRes]] has since licensed the ability to publish new fiction set in the Classic BattleTech timeline on [http://www.battlecorps.com BattleCorps.com (dead link)]. In January 2007, they also published their first print anthology.''
  
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Perhaps most active in the covert attempts was the Capellan Confederation under the leadership of Chancellor Maximilian Liao. Liao agents had already subverted Hanse Davion's brother-in-law Michael Hasek-Davion, who was now providing them with valuable military intelligence. When the Chancellor next initiated a scheme to kidnap and kill Hanse Davion in order to replace him with a clone his scientists had created, he went too far. Davion eventually escaped capture and imprisonment and returned to his place on the throne. But he vowed revenge.
+
==Word of Blake Jihad==
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{{main|Jihad}}
  
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On 20 August 3028, Prince Hanse Davion and Archon-Designate Melissa Steiner were married at the ComStar headquarters on Terra. In attendance were all the important Steiner, Davion, Kurita, Marik, and Liao personages, as well as the great military commanders and other important persons of the Inner Sphere. Hanse and Melissa exchanged vows, and the Federated Commonwealth became a reality. At the wedding reception, the bride toasted the groom and bestowed him with gifts. When it was the groom's turn, he rose with a smile. In honor of their marriage, he said that he had for Melissa a vast prize. "Here, my love," the Prince of the Federated Suns said triumphantly, "I give you the Capellan Confederation.".
+
At the Whitting Conference of 3064, the [[Free Worlds League]] nominated [[Word of Blake]] for membership in the Star League. A radical sect of Blakists known as the Sixth of June believed that this was their path to power. Their hopes were dashed, however, when the 3067 conference resulted in the collapse of the Star League as the [[Capellan Confederation]], [[Lyran Alliance]], and [[Federated Suns]] all removed their support. The angry Blakists' attempt to force the recalcitrant nations back into the League resulted in a war that engulfed every major faction. The Jihad represented a return to total war in a way that even the FedCom Civil War did not match as the Word used orbital bombardments and nuclear and biological weapons, and wantonly attacked civilian targets.
  
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And so began Operation Rat, a surprise attack on nine Capellan worlds that was occurring that very day. But this was only the beginning of a much larger offensive against the Capellans and against the Draconis Combine - the start of the Fourth Succession War.
+
They were able to corral most leaders on their capitals, forcing regional leaders to take a more active role. They also disabled the HPG network, further complicating the attempts of sovereigns to control their countries. In addition, they were able to foster wars between many neighboring states by manipulating these regional leaders. The most stunning success was in the [[Free Worlds League]], where the nation actually broke into its constituent parts.
  
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The main weight of the attack fell on the Capellan Confederation. Having discovered Michael Hasek-Davion's treachery, Hanse Davion had been using him as a conduit to feed faulty intelligence to Maximillian Liao. Justin Allard, a Davion agent, in a position of power and authority in House Liao's military intelligence. The Capellan Confederation did not have a chance, and lost half its worlds.
+
The Jihad wreaked untold havoc on the [[Inner Sphere]] as military units were smashed, factories annihilated, people slaughtered, and whole planets wiped out. This apocalyptic war was finally stopped in 3081 when Devlin Stone led a coalition of forces to victory over the Blakists on [[Terra]].
  
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The Draconis Combine fared a bit better, losing 53 star systems to the invading Lyran Commonwealth forces, but gaining 15 from attacks against the Federated Suns. Indeed, Theodore Kurita, heir to the Combine throne, was preparing to launch his own strong counteroffensive just as the war suddenly ground to a halt. Having achieved most of their objectives in the Capellan Theater of Operations, Hanse Davion and Katrina Steiner declared victory and a cease-fire in 3030. Each had his or her reason for wanting an end to the hostilities. The economy of the Federated Suns was reeling under an interdiction on interstellar communications that ComStar had imposed. As for Katrina, her realm was threatened by the growing power of separatists who opposed the Federated Commonwealth alliance.
+
==Formation of the Republic==
 +
Stone used the exhaustion the Jihad caused to convince the war-weary [[Successor States]] to allow him to create his own nation around Terra. The [[Republic of the Sphere]] was founded in 3081 and Stone took over many of the most hotly contested worlds in an attempt to let peace have a chance. This peace was a mere illusion, however, as the [[Capellan Crusades]] against the Republic proved in the 3090s.
  
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Though the two-year-long Fourth Succession War was relatively short, it was a bloody conflict. Despite the constant border fighting that characterized the Third Succession War, the great states of the Inner Sphere had by then recovered somewhat from the ravages of the first two Succession Wars, and the political and social landscape had not much changed. In contrast, it would be 20 years before all the social, political, and military effects of the Fourth Succession War could sort themselves out.
+
A few other small conflicts took place. The [[Federated Suns]] played a prominent role in some of these, including seizing the Capellan commonality capital of Victoria and creating a buffer state between the [[Draconis March]] and the Draconis Combine.
  
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In 3029, ComStar came under the leadership of Primus Myndo Waterly. The communications inderdiction, which had been imposed on the Federated Suns after an alleged Davion attack on the ComStar station at Sarna, was lifted after Hanse Davion granted ComStar the right to garrison all its Federated Suns stations with its own troops. Similar arrangements with the other governments of the Inner Sphere soon followed. By the year 3050, ComStar had more than 50 BattleMech regiments under its control.
+
:''These events provided the filler for the events between the end of the [[FASA]] story and the beginning of [[WizKids]]'. As such, information is sketchy on purpose so as not to steal too much of FanPro's thunder.''<ref>''Dawn of the Jihad'', p. ??, and ''Jihad Hot Spots: 3070'', p. ??{{cn}}</ref>
  
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The boundaries of the Inner Sphere began to shift as a result of the war. In the Free Worlds League, the Duchy of Andurien seceded and allied itself with the Magistracy of Canopus. Ten years would pass and both Captain- General Janos Marik and his son Duggan Marik would die before Thomas Marik, the new leader of the Free Worlds League, would recover the Duchy.
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==Dark Age==
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{{main|Dark Age}}
  
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Maximilian Liao went mad during the closing days of the war, eventually committing suicide in 3036. With over half of Liao's planets under the control of the newly formed Federated Commonwealth, the mantle of the Capellan Chancellorship fell on the shoulders of Maximilian's youngest daughter, Romano Liao. Despite losing more worlds when the St. Ives Compact seceded from the Confederation, Romano used sheer ruthlessness and brutality to fight off an invasion by the Duchy of Andurien and to rebuild the Liao military. Though the Capellan military did not approach its pre-Fourth War numbers, it became feared for the utter fanaticism of its troops.
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In the early [[3130s]], attacks perpetrated by an unknown agent or agents disabled the [[HPG|HPG network]]. Theories as to who did this abound, but there are no confirmations. This event caused long-buried hatred to flare up as accusations were lobbed. The tension reached a fever pitch in the [[Republic of the Sphere]], as old hostilities came back to the fore and many people and leaders began to identify with their previous nationalities. Over half a dozen factions popped up, proclaiming a desire to have a Clan or neighboring nation rule them instead. The [[Draconis Combine]] and [[Capellan Confederation]], and even [[Clan Jade Falcon]], did try to take advantage of the chaos, while the [[Federated Suns]] instead chose to ally with the Republic.
  
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Secession fever also reached into the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine. As Deputy for Military Affairs, Theodore Kurita skillfully maneuvered to turn the Combine's rebellious Rasalhague District into a bargaining chip with ComStar. In exchange for Rasalhague's independence and the right to garrison its hyperpulse stations with its own troops, ComStar agreed to supply the Kuritans with enough BattleMechs to rebuild their army. The Lyran Commonwealth, which had used Rasalhague rebels extensively during the four Succession Wars, had by now occupied more than half the district. Faced with the Combine's support for Rasalhague independence, the Lyrans were forced to give up these worlds. With the stroke of a pen, Theodore Kurita created a neutral buffer state that reduced his borders with the armed might of the Federated Suns by more than 30 percent. Not all Kurita troops supported the move, however. A rebellion known as the Ronin Wars erupted inside the Free Rasalhague Republic, but it was quickly put down by loyal elements of the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery and the Republic's newly formed KungsArme.
+
This situation was complicated for the Republic when they were faced with information of a plot led by its senate against the military government. This civil war flared up at an inopportune moment, as many [[Inner Sphere]] leaders were on [[Terra]]; the FedSuns alliance helped the [[Exarch]] defeat the senate loyalists on Terra.
  
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Theodore Kurita's wisdom in granting Rasalhague its freedom became clear in 3039. In that year, the Federated Commonwealth launched another major war, this one aimed at eliminating the Combine once and for all. Having rebuilt his army with ComStar-supplied BattleMechs, Kurita was able to concentrate his troops against the invaders, stopping the F-C forces' attack dead in their tracks.
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With the Republic being carved up by the [[Senate Alliance]] and foreign powers, newly elected Exarch [[Jonah Levin]] announced [[Fortress Republic]]. He withdrew most Republic forces to within the boundaries of Prefecture X, the interior region. He declared the border was to remain inviolate and that the Republic would use everything at its disposal to keep it as such. In the meantime, other forces remained outside of the Fortress to try and keep Republican worlds and citizens safe for the eventual return of the Republic proper.
  
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By 3040, the Inner Sphere had settled down to its normal state of continual, low-intensity skirmishing, with no side making any major gains or taking any major losses. Nevertheless, the sheer size of the Federated Commonwealth made it seem only a matter of time before it would dominate the Inner Sphere, uniting the many worlds once more under one rule.
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==The Major Players==
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===The Star League===
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{{main|Star League}}
  
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Over the course of fifteen years, from 2556 to 2571, Cameron managed to sign deals with the other five Houses to establish an organization known as the [[Star League]]. Headed by House Cameron, though with the other five Houses given a place on the ruling Council, the organization promised an end to inter-House war (as well as some massive incentives to sign on to the deal, ranging from military support to technological aid). However, Cameron was as much power-hungry as visionary, and he was therefore not content to be the universally accepted leader of the bulk of humanity. When the Star League had finally been assembled in 2571, among his first actions was attempting to get the lesser nations of the [[Periphery]] into the Star League. When requests and negotiation failed, he moved to trade sanctions, and when those failed, the Reunification War began. Thought by the Star League powers to be a war that would cost little, it actually took over twenty years to pacify the last of the Periphery holdouts, as well as unthinkably large losses to the [[Star League Defense Force]]s and the various House armies and navies. However, the Star League was by far the more powerful of the sides, and their victory was probably inevitable, despite the heavy losses they suffered to win. When the Taurian Concordat's last bastion of defense (a heavily mined nebula that wreaked havoc on SLDF navies for years) finally fell in 2596, the Reunification War was over and Ian Cameron had achieved his dream of reuniting the whole of humanity under one banner, as it had been united during the early days of the Terran Alliance.
  
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During the nearly two hundred years that the Star League endured and relative peace reigned, technology bloomed. 'Mech and [[WarShip]] technology continued to advance at a rapid pace, and the first [[hyperpulse generator]] (HPG) went online in [[2630]], providing humans a way to communicate between planets without the need for moving JumpShips to transmit messages. The golden era of the Star League would, however, come to an end in a way few expected.
  
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==Return of Kerensky==
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In 2767, following a series of rebellions in the Periphery that drew the bulk of the SLDF forces away from the central areas of the Star League, Stefan Amaris of the Rim Worlds Republic, supposed friend of First Lord Richard Cameron, assassinated the entire Cameron family and proclaimed himself new First Lord. The SLDF, under the command of [[Aleksandr Kerensky]], regrouped quickly, drove inwards, and liberated the entire Inner Sphere from Amaris' clutches in a long and bloody 13-year war, culminating in the conquest of Terra. However, the SLDF, having been massively depleted in this war, no longer had the strength to hold the fractious Houses together, and eventually abandoned the Inner Sphere entirely in the great Exodus of the entire SLDF to the deep Periphery, not to be heard from again for three hundred years.
  
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If Davion and Steiner thought their day had come, they were not destined to have all the time they needed. In 3050, an entirely new force entered the scene, and from a most unexpected direction.
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===ComStar/Word of Blake===
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{{main|ComStar}}
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{{main|Word of Blake}}
  
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When General Aleksandr Kerensky fled the Inner Sphere with most of the Star League Regular Army in 2784, he led his followers to a group of five previously unsettled worlds far from the Inner Sphere. The inhospitality of those worlds did much to forge Kerensky's followers into the almost preternaturally determined people now known as the Clans. So did the privations they suffered because the ratio of their laborers, scientists, and administrators was disproportionately low compared to the number of soldiers among them. To trim the number of warriors, Kerensky established a series of tests so grueling that only the most fit could succeed. Those who failed were retired out to civilian life. This was only fitting, for the general taught that it was his people's duty to remain strong, so that one day, after the Inner Sphere had exhausted itself with war, his followers might return as the saviors of humanity to reestablish the Star League on Terra.
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[[ComStar]] is the successor to the Star League's Ministry of Communications, and runs all of the Inner Sphere's HPGs, maintaining essential communications between every pair of star systems. Formed by [[Jerome Blake]], the last Minister of Communications, after the fall of the Star League, ComStar has slowly morphed into an organization as much religious as practical, believing in everything from the need to pray to the machines they run to an eventual apocalypse that would engulf the Inner Sphere even more thoroughly than the fall of the Star League and the ensuing Succession Wars. Early in the First War, ComStar occupied Terra and has preserved it as both neutral ground and headquarters since. As well as their obvious communications duties, ComStar is also the Inner Sphere's most important bank and money-mover, runs the [[Explorer Corps (ComStar)|Explorer Corps]] to catalog the deep periphery, runs the [[Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission]], and keeps a massive force of over seventy regiments of Star League-era 'Mechs, the Com Guards, and the only fleet of spacegoing WarShips hidden in case of a future crisis.
  
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But not everyone was ready for the privations that Kerensky demanded of his people if they were to survive. Initially, only a few officers rebelled, and Kerensky quelled their rebellion forcefully, not hesitating to execute the instigators. Just before Kerensky's death, however, tensions finally erupted into a civil war as destructive as any war among the Successor States. In the face of this conflict, Kerensky's son Nicholas gathered together those still loyal to his father's dream, including as many scientists and technicians as possible. In yet another Exodus, yet another Kerensky retreated to another cluster of worlds to let the rebels fight things out.
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===The Successor States===
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{{main|Successor States}}
  
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While the Succession Wars of the Inner Sphere resulted in the loss of much precious technology, this civil war was even more disastrous for the exiles, for whom technology meant the difference between life and death in the hostile environments of their new home. Nicholas used the war as an object lesson for his followers. He and his followers had only to remain true to their duty, for one day the Successor States would also collapse from within. During the 20 years it took for the rebels to exhaust themselves, Nicholas built the caste system, transforming his followers into a full-fledged warrior culture. By the time they returned to reclaim the five planets of their now-exhausted rebel brethren, the followers of Nicholas had become fanatically devoted to both their leader and his vision of one day returning to save the Inner Sphere.
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After the fall of the Star League and the Exodus of the SLDF, the five great houses' respective leaders claimed to lead the Star League, with no formal directive of succession as the Cameron family was unable to produce an heir. This caused the houses to wage war to see who would be the heir to the throne. With most of the Star League forces gone what was left was forces loyal to the houses that they were either formed at, stationed, or even the case in a rare circumstances still believed in the ways of the Star League, still flying the banner of the Star League, only dealing with the houses as a nicety to survive.
  
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In 3005, the Clans took the first steps toward realizing the dream of restoring the golden age of the Star League. Realizing they needed intelligence about events during their long absence from the Inner Sphere, they sent Wolf's Dragoons to the Successor States, where the unit was to operate covertly as an information-gathering unit while working overtly as mercenaries. Based on Dragoon reports, the Clans took the Successor States to be little more than children squabbling among the ruins of their ancestors, using out-dated technology to do so. In 3050, the Clans decided it was time to launch a full-fledged invasion.
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===The Periphery States===
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{{main|Periphery}}
  
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The invasion forces from Clan Wolf, Ghost Bear, Smoke Jaguar, Jade Falcon, Nova Cat, and Steel Viper tore a wedge through Rasalhague, the Lyran Commonwealth, and the Draconis Combine, a wedge aimed directly at Terra. While the forces of the Inner Sphere were able to claim a small victory on Twycross and also defeated the Clan invasion of Luthien, the Combine capital world, nothing seemed able to stop the Clans' advance toward humanity's birthworld and the home of ComStar, the planet Terra.
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The outcast, the unwanted, the rebellious; the Periphery consists of the most ragtag group of people ever to exist. Most Periphery States have a low level of technology, with only the largest approaching the early-thirtieth-century tech base.
  
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Though the Clans were in the midst of an invasion, their own ranks were divided over the question. The two sides were represented by what are called the Wardens and the Crusaders. The Crusaders pushed to take the Inner Sphere by force, while the Wardens interpreted Aleksandr Kerensky's vision as one of protecting Star League knowledge until the Successor States had matured enough to accept it once again. The Crusaders won the vote to launch the invasion, but the Wardens were not without resources. Through the medium of Wolf's Dragoons, they began preparing the states of the Inner Sphere to resist the coming invasion. Ironically, they also worked hard to lead the invasion, so that they might ameliorate the damage done to captured worlds.
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===The Clans===
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{{main|Clans}}
  
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Humanity had another self-proclaimed savior beside the Clans, this one within the Inner Sphere. Persuaded of its destiny to rule a united humanity, ComStar cooperated with the invading Clans, administering the conquered worlds and providing intelligence. The Primus of ComStar hoped in this way to play the Clans against the Successor States, letting them exhaust one another in war, leaving the way open for ComStar to step in and take power. It was only after learning of the Clans' intention to conquer Terra that ComStar reacted aggressively.
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While Kerensky's warriors may not have been heard from in the Inner Sphere, they certainly continued to exist. Though the year-long Exodus and a number of internal rebellions took their toll, remnants of the SLDF survived, and began to thrive seven hundred light-years from the Inner Sphere. After Aleksandr Kerensky died in 2801, leadership fell to his son [[Nicholas Kerensky|Nicholas]], who began to forge the SLDF into the [[Clans]]. Nicholas split his last loyal cadre of warriors into twenty Clans, each named after an animal thought to embody an important trait to a warrior. Leading the Clans to victory over another rebellion, Kerensky established the rule of the Clans. After Annihilating one of the Clans for daring to rebel against him and claim freedom from Clan structure, the new order established itself effectively. Warriors were valued over civilians, genetically engineered warriors were valued over their naturally born counterparts (''truebirths'' and ''freebirths'', respectively), and honor and military prowess were valued above all else. The system may not have been ideal, but it allowed survival in the face of hostile environments, and gave rise to an astonishing amount of military potential.
  
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Anastasius Focht, Precentor Martial of ComStar's military, challenged ilKhan Ulric Kerensky to a Trial of Possession. The planet Tukayyid would be the site of the battle, but it would be a proxy for the battle's real prize: possession of Terra. On 1 May 3052, 50 ComStar BattleMech regiments and a host of lesser units met 25 Galaxies of the dreaded Clan invaders on Tukayyid. For some 20 days, these forces threw themselves at one another in a conflagration unsurpassed in the annals of war. In the end, ComStar emerged victorious over the Clans. Terra was safe for the time being, for Focht had won a promise from the ilKhan that the Clans would halt their invasion for the next 15 years.
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For two hundred years, the Clans were content to develop and fight on their own, independent from any other humans. During this time they developed everything from powered battle armor to genetics programs and artificial wombs for their ''trueborn'' warriors, to incredibly advanced military technology, far beyond that possessed by humans even in the heyday of the Star League. However, one issue began to bubble to the surface by the end of the thirtieth century, and that issue changed the history of the Clans and the Inner Sphere forever thereafter. It all started with a message Aleksandr Kerensky had sent out to the Exodus fleet after the first rebellion, telling the SLDF remnants that it was their duty to endure and to one day return to the Inner Sphere. The Clans split two ways on the issue - there were the Crusaders, who believed it was their duty to reconquer the Inner Sphere and reestablish the Star League that had fallen centuries ago, and there were the Wardens, who believed that it had been more of an inspirational ideal than a literal order, and that if they were to return one day it would be to protect humans from an outside threat, not to conquer them all. At the beginning of the debate, the Wardens were dominant, but by about 3000, the Crusader faction began to dominate. Desperate to stave off invading, the Warden-minded [[Clan Wolf]] pushed for a compromise - they would send an old group of Star League 'Mechs to scout the Inner Sphere by disguising themselves as a mercenary group. The so-called Dragoon Compromise (the group's name was [[Wolf's Dragoons]]) worked well for a time, though eventually reports from the Dragoons started to dry up mysteriously. Though no one knew it at the time, the leader of Clan Wolf had ordered the Dragoons to prepare the Inner Sphere for the coming invasion, and prepare they did.
  
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Upon his return to Terra, the Precentor Martial found that Primus Waterly had betrayed him. Not trusting in the military capabilities of her Precentor Martial, she had violated the agreement with the Clans by trying to seize the worlds that her people administered for them. She had also attempted to interdict interstellar communications throughout the Inner Sphere, hoping to cause a complete collapse of all authority but her own. Unfortunately for the Primus, some of the leaders of the Inner Sphere had obtained intelligence on the planned interdiction and they had seized ComStar hyperpulse stations on their worlds before the plan could go into effect. The rebellions on most Clan-occupied worlds were stillborn, and the few that succeeded were quickly brought back under Clan control after the battle of Tukayyid.
+
==References==
 +
Unless otherwise cited, information is drawn from the following primary sources:
 +
* Bills, Randall N.; et al. (2007). "A Brief History of the Inner Sphere", ''Inner Sphere at a Glance'', Classic BattleTech. Lake Stevens, WA: Catalyst Game Labs (inMediaRes Productions). ISBN 978-0-9792047-3-9.
 +
* Hartford, Chris; et al. (1993). "History of Naval Warfare", in Donna Ippolito: ''BattleSpace Sourcebook''. Chicago: FASA Corporation. ISBN 1-55560-208-8.
 +
* Nystul, Mike; Lester W. Smith (1991) "Historical: Overview", in Donna Ippolito: ''MechWarrior'', Second Edition, Chicago: FASA Corporation. ISBN 1-55560-129-4.
  
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When confronted with Waterly's treachery, Focht did what his honor demanded. He executed Primus Myndo Waterlv and seized control of ComStar. He then made Sharilar Mori, Precentor Dieron the new Primus while he worked to restore ComStar to its role of guardian, repository, and disseminator of human knowledge. Though control of the HPG stations will again return to ComStar, it will be under the supervision of the Successor Houses. Some members of ComStar oppose this secularization, but Focht currently holds the upper hand.
+
Other references:
 +
<references/>
  
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In the Federated Commonwealth, joy over the Clan defeat was tempered with grief. On 17 June 3052, Hanse Davion, Duke of New Avalon, Prince of the Federated Suns, died quietly of heart failure. His son Victor Steiner- Davion succeeds him.
+
==See Also==
 +
* [[History of the Clans]]
 +
* [[History of the Inner Sphere]]
 +
* [[:Category:History|History categories]] - a list of pages detailing the history of various factions and historical events/eras
  
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The Capellan Confederation also lost its leader, Romano Liao, but her death came at the hands of anassassin. Unlike their Davion counterparts, the vassals of House Liao breathed a sigh of relief as Sun-Tzu Liao took over the Chancellorship and repealed some of his mother's more repressive laws.
 
  
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This, then, is the situation at present. The Clans have captured a large wedge of worlds from the Draconis Combine, the Free Rasalhague Republic, and the Steiner side of the Federated Commonwealth. Under the terms of the Trial of Possession for Terra, the Clans have vowed not to advance any further into the Inner Sphere for 15 years. That vow does not, however, prevent them from raiding into the Combine or the old Lyran Commonwealth. With the death of Hanse Davion, Victor Davion became ruler of the Federated Suns, and will soon be invested as Archon Prince of the united Federated Commonwealth. The Combine has been bloodied but not bowed. Under the leadership of Coordinator Takashi Kurita and his Warlord Theodore Kurita, the Combine is girding itself for more wars with the Clans. Meanwhile, ComStar faces what can only be described as a schism, with many of its Adepts and Acolytes streaming into the Free Worlds League of Thomas Marik, himself once a member of ComStar. Thomas, fearing that the Federated Commonwealth will now turn its might against his state, has agreed to a marriage between his daughter and designated heir Isis to Sun-Tzu Liao. He hopes thus to meld the fanaticism of the Confederation with the growing industrial might of the League. Because Thomas does not entirely trust his future son-in-law, he welcomes the presence of the disenchanted members of ComStar, whose fanatic loyalty to him could counterbalance the greed and ambition of Sun-Tzu.
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[[Category:History]]
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After 300 years, the Inner Sphere is still at war.
 

Latest revision as of 00:40, 4 January 2024

The fictional events of the BattleTech universe constitute a "future history" that describes the course of humanity from modern times until the mid thirty-second century. It can also be considered an alternate history distinct from our own, since its point of divergence from the real world occurs in the past; this is not the focus of the series, though, and is more the result of real-world history overtaking the early years of the BattleTech timeline.

Given its central theme of military conflict, the events of the BattleTech universe can be classed as a military history, albeit a fictional one. Incessant wars are the backdrop of most BattleTech stories and historical happenings, the majority of which concern individuals in the military rather than civilian sectors. Equally important to BattleTech history are politics and technology.

Some sections of this article contain real-world annotations. These are noted by indented italics.

Early History[edit]

The earliest events distinct to the BattleTech universe occur after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States, Europe and Japan announced in 1994 their intention to jointly construct an orbiting industrial facility named Crippen Station, which was successfully launched eleven years later. A 1997 coup d'état by hardline communists restored a militant, Soviet-style government in Russia and sparked a "Second Cold War" with NATO that lasted until the start of peaceful reforms under premier Oleg Tikonov in 2005. The republic crumbled in 2011, igniting a civil war that drew in NATO and saw the successful use of the Western Orbital Defense Network (WODeN), successor to the earlier Strategic Defense Initiative, to intercept a preemptive Russian missile attack against western targets. The war ended with a Western Alliance victory in 2014.

Beginning with the establishment of the Alliance Space Command in 2016, humanity began moving out into the solar system. The first lunar settlement was established in December 2016, and the first manned mission to Mars launched the following year. The advent of fusion power in 2020 led to the first fusion-powered interplanetary spacecraft, the AS Columbia, which launched from Crippen Station on October 12, 2027. Colonies were soon established on Mars and the Moon, and automated probes launched to neighboring star systems which returned evidence by 2050 of nearby habitable worlds.

By the beginning of the twenty-second century the Western Alliance had grown to become the Terran Alliance, and despite discontent from some of its poorer constituents pursued an agenda of rapid technological development. Faster-than-light travel, the theories of which were first postulated by Thomas Kearny and Takayoshi Fuchida in the early twenty-first century, were realized on September 3, 2107 with the successful voyage of the first FTL spacecraft, the TAS Pathfinder, which made a 12-light year jump to the Tau Ceti star system.

Era of Colonization[edit]

Beginning with the establishment of the first extra-solar colony on New Earth (Tau Ceti IV) in 2116, a wave of colonization began that continued for centuries. By 2235, some 600 colonies had been established within 120 light years of Earth, but the difficulties maintaining authority over such far-flung worlds sparked the first rebellion against the Terran Alliance. Known as the "Outer Reaches Rebellion" and led by the colony world of Denebola, it precipitated the downfall of the Alliance Parliament's Expansionist Party and swept the Liberal Party into power. The Liberals announced that the Alliance would withdraw to a thirty light-year radius (or two-jump) sphere surrounding Earth, thus granting the outer colonies independence. Numerous small kingdoms rapidly formed, most of which quickly conquered or merged with their neighbors leaving a handful of larger nations.

Political corruption and instability, and the economic strain of supporting its colonies, eroded support for the Terran Alliance, and in 2314 it descended into civil war. The Alliance Global Militia under the direction of Navy Admiral James McKenna imposed an end to the conflict in 2315, dissolved the Parliament, and established in its place the Terran Hegemony, with McKenna elected as its first Director-General the following year. During McKenna's 23-year tenure the Hegemony sought to reassert its authority over the outer colonies, but though achieving some early successes the effort was ultimately a failure and galvanized resistance to the Hegemony; McKenna's successor, cousin Michael Cameron, concentrated on establishing more peaceful international relations.

One of Cameron's most lasting legacies was a system of aristocratic rule, originally based on individual achievement but later conferred by heredity, which he introduced in 2351. The ranks of nobility created by his Peer List led to the formation of numerous feudal ruling families and was the foundation of many of the Great Houses of later centuries.

Age of War[edit]

Main article: Age of War

The fledgling nations that earlier had fought to resist Hegemony aggression began in the mid-twenty-fourth century to turn against each other. A territorial dispute between the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League in 2398 escalated into open hostilities (the First Andurien War), which in turn prompted "land grabs" and efforts at territorial expansion by the surrounding states. By the end of the century the "Age of War" had begun in earnest and violent combat raged between the forces of nearly all the major nations, including the Hegemony and states in the Periphery. The near-annihilation of the population of the Capellan world of Tintavel in 2412 exemplified the vicious excesses of the age, and led later that year to the adoption by all the major nations of the Ares Conventions. The conventions imposed strict prohibitions on how and where war could be waged and what constituted legitimate targets, discouraged orbital bombardment, and also outlawed the use of most nuclear and biological weapons. However, though intended to limit civilian casualties and prevent atrocities like those on Tintavel, the conventions also inadvertently institutionalized war as a means of settling disputes and ushered in an era of near-constant warfare.

Emerging from the new military restrictions set by the Ares Conventions, huge robotic war machines known as BattleMechs were developed by the Terran Hegemony in 2439 and first used in combat against the Draconis Combine in 2443. Both powerful and intimidating, BattleMechs drew attention away from space combat and onto the ground, and remained the most high-profile military units throughout all subsequent BattleTech history. The design secrets of the BattleMech were stolen during a raid by Lyran Commonwealth commandos on a Terran 'Mech factory and subsequently spread by trade and conquest to all the other Great Houses.

With the major combatants exhausted, the Age of War wound down in the mid-twenty-sixth century.

Formation of the Star League[edit]

Near the ending of the Age of War, Ian Cameron led the formation of the Star League with help of the Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation. Then after the two supporting states, the future Star League gained the willing support of the Houses, Ian Cameron formed the Star League. The formation of the Star League in 2571 led almost immediately into The Reunification War. The attempt to force the periphery states into the League lasted for twenty long years. This fighting would impact the history of those realms for the next several hundred years.

The Amaris Coup[edit]

Main article: Amaris Civil War

In the mid twenty-eighth century the current First Lord of the Star League died suddenly and tragically in an accident; Richard Cameron, then still a boy and unready to rule, was thrust onto the throne. Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky was appointed as regent of the Star League. The Star League Council, composed of the five Great House Lords, saw themselves as the true rulers of the Star League. Upon reaching maturity, the son of the deceased First Lord sent out edicts limiting the house armies, while also placing higher taxes on the Periphery states. This started the Border War, occupying much of the League forces with quelling civil unrest. Taking advantage of this unrest, Stefan Amaris (the leader of the Rim Worlds Republic) first became a personal friend of the First Lord, then Stefan Amaris killed all of the Cameron family—even the First Lord himself—and claimed the title. This was truly the beginning of the end for the Star League. The Amaris Coup touched off thirteen years of fighting as the Star League Defense Force fought its way from the Periphery to Terra. General Alexander Kerensky's effort to remove the Usurper claimed nearly three quarters of the SLDF. Still suffering from recent battles and unable to hold back the Houses and the coming darkness, Kerensky began an exodus of all willing troops to leave known space, thus leaving the way open for the Succession Wars.

The Exodus[edit]

Main article: Operation EXODUS

Following the defeat of the Amaris Coup, General Kerensky attempted to reestablish the Star League, but the council lords stripped him of his title of Protector of the Realm, both because they feared his power and they coveted the position as First Lord for themselves. The only thing the bickering council could agree upon was to charge Jerome Blake with restoring the HPG network that allowed the planets to communicate with their interstellar neighbors. Soon enough, each of the lords returned to their capitals and declared him or herself First Lord. They then began to wage war to see who was worthy of the position. Kerensky, seeing the battles between the Houses as only the beginning, left with approximately 80% of the Star League forces.

Succession Wars[edit]

Main article: History of the Succession Wars

The Terran Hegemony, ruled by House Cameron, was at the center of the Inner Sphere, ruling a rough sphere centered on Terra. Clockwise around that, there was House Kurita's Draconis Combine, House Davion's Federated Suns, House Liao's Capellan Confederation, House Marik's Free Worlds League, and House Steiner's Lyran Commonwealth. These nations may have remained fairly stable, but they were incessantly at each other's throats, seeking every advantage they could find on the fields of battle. The five of the great houses, excluding the Terran Hegemony, almost immediately embarked upon the greatest war in human history. Snatching up the rulerless planets formerly of the Terran Hegemony, and fighting each other for supremacy, the Inner Sphere devolved into the First Succession War. The fires of this war wreaked havoc on human civilization, and lowered the technology level of the Inner Sphere drastically with actions such as orbital bombardments, nuclear attacks, the destruction of JumpShips & factories, and the killing of scientists.

First Succession War[edit]

Being the most brutal of the Succession Wars, the First War did the most to send humanity hurtling backwards technologically. Eventually, the First Succession War ended in an exhausted stalemate after 35 years of war, only to resume in the Second Succession War less than a decade later. The most notable event of this war was the Kentares Massacre, in which Combine forces killed almost all of the denizens of the Federated Suns' planet Kentares IV. This genocidal action demoralized the Combine's bushido-minded warriors and galvanized the Federated Suns' war effort that enabled them to push the invading Combine back to the border.

Second Succession War[edit]

The Second Succession War lasted another 34 years, further destroying the now-irreplaceable base of Star League technology, and resumed in the Third War a mere two years later. The Second Succession War had no distinct events beyond being of such a long period of destruction, almost making it unremarkable.

Third Succession War[edit]

The Third War lasted for over 150 more years, on and off. Because the Successor States no longer had the knowledge to produce or repair high-tech equipment that allowed them to communicate with and travel amongst the stars, the total war of the first two Succession Wars ended in an unspoken agreement that approximated a return to the Ares Conventions. No longer were JumpShips, automated factories, or water-purification plants destroyed. Instead, they were fought over in set-piece engagements and the losers simply consoled themselves with the hope that they would retake the planet later. Moreover, large offensives were no longer the order of the day. The Successor States' militaries were depleted in every sense, so they switched to a pattern that was closer to raids than assaults. With whole generations being raised, fighting, and dying during this era, constant warfare became the norm and true peace seemed a dream.

By the end of the Third War in 3025, any remaining vestiges of the Star League in the Inner Sphere were dust on the winds of history. By the end of the war, most nations were essentially being ruled by a modern version of the feudal system of government, with thrones inherited and passed down generation to generation.

The latter days of the Third Succession War was the first setting in which players played BattleTech.

Fourth Succession War[edit]

In 3022, the Lyran Archon, Katrina Steiner, sent out a proposal for peace and alliance to the other Houses, who until then had been fighting on all fronts for essentially the entirety of their post–Star League history. Three of the Houses (Kurita, Liao, Marik) reacted suspiciously, but the First Prince of the Federated Suns, Hanse Davion, responded favorably and the two sides eventually agreed to an alliance. Within a few years, the terms had been set - Hanse would marry Katrina's daughter Melissa, and their two nations would merge into the Federated Commonwealth when one of Hanse and Melissa's children took the throne - until then, they would merely be allies. After this alliance was announced, ComStar brokered the Concord of Kapteyn, a shaky alliance between the three other Successor States.

In 3028, all five Successor Lords met on Terra, for the first time since the fall of the Star League, at the marriage of Hanse and Melissa. However, they were in for a surprise. At the reception, while the bride and groom were exchanging gifts, Hanse gave his immortal line "My dear... I give you the Capellan Confederation!", stupefying the head of the Confederation, Maximilian Liao, who was one of the Successor Lords present. Thus began the Fourth Succession War. FedSuns units began to systematically dismantle the Capellan Confederation, as Lyran forces and a few elite mercenary regiments held off the other two prongs of the Marik-Kurita-Liao alliance that had been formed in the wake of the announced Steiner-Davion marriage. However, ComStar, alarmed at the course of events, faked a FedSuns attack on one of its HPGs, and placed the FedSuns under Interdiction, cutting off all communications services. At this point, the attack began to falter, as long-range communications and attack coordination became nearly impossible, although the Capellans were still unable to force back the FedSuns. After a few more months of war, the two sides agreed to an uneasy truce, and the Interdiction was lifted.

With the end of the Fourth Succession War a long stream of short but violent wars sprang up across the Inner Sphere due to public outcry, opportunistic leaders, and even the want of freedom from oppression. There would be no major fighting until the later invasion by the Clans.

During this time period a momentous discovery had been made. The mercenary unit Gray Death Legion discovered a functional Star League-era memory core on the planet Helm in the Free Worlds League in 3028. The Gray Death Legion made the unheard of gesture of freely and openly giving a copy of the memory core to all the great houses instead of keeping it to themselves. This triggered a technological renaissance. After a few decades, Star League weaponry and systems started to become available again, and 'Mech technology eventually advanced back to near the point it had been three hundred years earlier. And it was just in time. The rediscovered technology gave the FedSuns-Lyran alliance, with their technological and numerical advantage, supremacy over the other Successor States.

In the real world, FASA decided to essentially skip ahead in the plot from 3030 to 3050 (only briefly touching upon the Andurien Secession, Ronin Wars and War of 3039), in order to allow for the technological renaissance to take hold. This allowed them to fulfill their goal of sparking an in-universe arms race that allowed them to introduce new equipment into the tabletop war game.

Andurien War of Secession[edit]

Following the FWL Civil War, the Duchy of Andurien, in alliance with the Magistracy of Canopus, seceded from the Free Worlds League and proceeded to attack the "weakened" Capellan Confederation. Following several massive defeats, the war was reversed by a remarkable display of the will to survive, and the Capellans retook most of their fallen worlds. After this reversal, the Canopians pulled out and with the war the Duchy was fighting against the Free Worlds League taxing Duchy forces to their limit, the Confederation used their Warrior Houses to return the border to prewar lines.

The Free Worlds League underwent many changes as Captain-General Janos Marik and his heir Duggan were assassinated by their cousin Duncan Marik. Duncan prosecuted the war to reclaim Andurien somewhat successfully, but he alienated many members of Parliament in doing so. The dissatisfaction was manifested when Janos' son Thomas (who was presumed dead in the same blast that killed his father) reappeared and many MPs wanted to replace Duncan with him. Duncan died in an assault on a fortified Andurien position, which cleared the way for Thomas to take over. He used the shock of his reappearance and his relative popularity to get many laws passed that centralized power in the Captain-General in a way that it never had been before. Thomas was soon able to return the rebellious Duchy to League authority, though it would be decades before he allowed them to regain any autonomous authority.[1]

Ronin War[edit]

Main article: Ronin War

The Rasalhague Military District became home to a secession movement from the moment that the Rasalhague Principality was conquered by the Draconis Combine. The Lyran Commonwealth used this Mimir organization to its advantage during the Fourth Succession War, but failed in granting the Rasalhagians their independence. The Combine, under the leadership of Gunji-no-Kanrei (Deputy for Military Affairs) Theodore Kurita, granted the Rasalhagians their independence. This had three advantages for the Combine. First this would force the Lyrans into granting the Rasalhague worlds their independence that they had conquered, since it was that same promise that the Lyrans used to get the Rasalhagians on their side. Thus, they must give away all of their territorial gains of the Fourth Succession War. Secondly creating a peaceful buffer state with the nascent Federated Commonwealth that covered approximately three-quarters of the Combine border. Finally, because ComStar preferred weak and divided nations as they can be easily manipulated, ComStar provided aid. With the aid being given to the Combine in rebuilding their military from the Fourth Succession War, ComStar provided them with advanced technology, in the form of Star League Technology to aid them in future wars.

Despite the myriad advantages, this move was seen as an unsatisfactory decision to many of the warriors of the Combine, including the warlord of the Combine's Rasalhague military district and a disaffected scion of the Kurita family. These warriors disobeyed orders and stayed in the newly created Free Rasalhague Republic to wage war against the former Combine planets almost immediately. The war got its name by the fact that the warriors disobeying the Coordinator were branded as ronin. The fighting was not just between the Combine, Rasalhague, and the ronin. Even the commonwealth had problems with a rogue baron wishing not to give planets of the Commonwealth to another nation. In the end this short but fierce fight was the birth of the FRR, just as the invasion of the Clans would be its death.

This war also saw the new Rasalhagians nation forced to hire mercenaries to defend itself, since it had no armed forces of its own yet. The fledgling nation was unversed in contracting mercenaries, so many of the hired soldiers were able to use loopholes in their contracts to escape actual combat. This led to a negative sentiment toward mercenaries from Rasalhagians that ranged from mild contempt to undying hatred.[2]

War of 3039[edit]

Main article: War of 3039

The War of 3039 was the second war in which the LCAF and AFFS would ally. Delayed by bureaucracy and logistical problems, as well as the Skye Crisis, which allowed the Combine to prepare for the war. Many other factors also affected the war effort, such as the fact that the two nations had only a decade to work together and were not able to fully integrate yet. In addition, a cache of Star League-era 'Mechs was given to the DCMS by ComStar, and several elite regiments helped formed and trained by Wolf's Dragoons fought for the Combine forces. In the end, it was a feint by Theodore Kurita that led Hanse Davion to believe his military was stronger than it was that convinced Davion to cease his offensive.

Unlike in the Fourth Succession War, the two nations had some time to integrate their commands, but since only having a decade and a single war where both sides had fought and won together with little interaction would not help the allies in the upcoming war. Though the war, originally planned to happen in less than a few years, turned into a decade as military planners realized that attacking the Draconis Combine would require deception on such an unmanageable scale to conceal troop movements. Unlike the Capellans the Combine leader was not as paranoid of who was planning their certain demise and realized that the recently formed Federated Commonwealth could be the only true threat in the Combine's future. Unbeknownst to ComStar and the Draconis Combine, during the Fourth Succession War a series of devices called Black Boxes, essential in defeating the communication interdiction against the Federated Commonwealth imposed by ComStar during the fourth war, were to be used by FedCom troops to coordinate troop movements. This would have provided a tactical advantage to FedCom troops but was not utilized to their fullest potential as military strategists essentially ignored their usefulness and used the faster hyperpulse generators owned by ComStar. This allowed ComStar to warn the DC military to the threat. Unfortunately during the war several of these devices were captured by DC forces and used against FedCom troops.[3]

Clan Invasion[edit]

Main article: Clan Invasion

In August of 3049, the Inner Sphere began to hear of mysterious invaders using advanced technology, beyond that of even the Star League, in the reaches coreward of the Free Rasalhague Republic. Small periphery realms disappeared from contact and mercenary units were annihilated (including a detachment from the elite Kell Hounds). In March of 3050, the invaders struck at the Inner Sphere proper. The invaders, known as the Clans, cut a swath through the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine and absolutely devastated the Free Rasalhague Republic. Using their technological superiority and impressive combat prowess, over a hundred planets fell in the first year. Four Clans rolled into the Inner Sphere that year: Clans Wolf, Jade Falcon, Smoke Jaguar, and Ghost Bear. While some counterattacks succeeded, they failed to stop their advance.

It took the suicide attack of Kapten Tyra Miraborg, a pilot in the Free Rasalhague Republic's KungsArmé, to do what entire regiments had failed to do: stop the Clan advance. Her suicide attack with her Shilone aerospace fighter hit the bridge of the Clan flagship, killing ilKhan Leo Showers instantly. Under Clan law, a new ilKhan could only be selected on the Clan homeworld of Strana Mechty, which was almost a year's travel time from the location of the Clan forces in the Inner Sphere. So, for more than a year, the Clans halted their invasion as their individual leaders returned to their home planets, regrouped, selected a new ilKhan, and then returned to continue with the invasion. This allowed the nations of the Inner Sphere some much-needed time to recuperate and plan for the expected resumption of the invasion. This was time that they used to great effect. Aside from ending their conflicts and uniting against the threat, they also gained valuable insights into the nature of the Clans. The leader of Wolf's Dragoons revealed that his mercenary unit was, in fact, a reconnaissance mission sent by the Clan leaders, and explained the history of the Clans to the leaders of the Inner Sphere.

On the Dragoons' homeworld of Outreach, the leaders of the Inner Sphere (and their heirs) trained to work together against the Clan threat. When the invasion finally resumed under former Wolf Khan Ulric Kerensky, the forces of the Inner Sphere were much better prepared to combat them. Ulric activated two reserve Clans, the Steel Vipers and Nova Cats, though this was as much to cause strife within the Clan Occupation Zones as it was to aid the invasion by pairing them up with hated rivals, the Jade Falcons and the Smoke Jaguars.

The spirit of cooperation that had been forged on Outreach bore fruit when Prince Hanse Davion sent Wolf's Dragoons and the Kell Hounds to the Combine's capital, Luthien, upon hearing of an imminent Clan assault upon the system. With the help of the FedCom mercenaries, the Combine was able to repulse the joint Jaguar-Nova Cat assault. However, despite the limited victories the Inner Sphere forces were able to win, the true turning point in the war came when ComStar learned of the Clans' ultimate goal -- Terra.

Terra -- the cradle of civilization, which ComStar alone held -- was the terminal goal of each of the Clans. Whichever Clan captured Terra would become the ilClan, the supreme Clan. Until then, ComStar had been covertly aiding the Clans through their Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht. It was only when Primus Myndo Waterly met with the ilKhan that she discovered their intentions. Since neither side wanted to damage the birthplace of humanity, they agreed to fight a proxy battle on the Rasalhagian world of Tukayyid. If the Clans won, then ComStar would grant them Terra and become the Clans' administrative arm in the Inner Sphere. If ComStar won, then no Clan could advance beyond Tukayyid for fifteen years.

For the battle, Ulric activated the third reserve, Clan Diamond Shark. Focht threw almost the entirety of the Com Guards at the Clans on Tukayyid. ComStar acted as the defender in the battle, and each Clan had to conquer two cities from the Com Guard forces to be successful. The battle started on May 1, 3052. Focht exploited a weakness in Clan strategy. The Clans favored quick battles between small forces, so the Com Guards dug in for a protracted campaign. At the same time, Primus Waterly initiated Operation Scorpion, which depended upon a complete, Sphere-wide communications blackout to force all the Inner Sphere leaders to bow to ComStar. Ultimately, Clan Wolf was the only Clan to complete their objectives, though the Ghost Bears and Jade Falcons managed to take one of their objectives, forcing a draw. The Falcons reached a draw because their destruction of many Com Guard units by the Falcon Guards, the Ghost Bears by their taking of one of their objectives. Which meant that the Com Guards was victorious, though at a stupendous cost. Once the battle ended five days later and Focht learned of Waterly's duplicity, Focht assassinated her and placed a known (to him) Combine spy in her place. Thus, the Clan Invasion ended.

3052 saw other upheavals as Chancellor Romano Liao assassinated Justin Allard and then was in turn assassinated by his wife, her own sister, Candace, and Prince Hanse Davion died of a heart attack upon learning of the betrothal of Romano's heir Sun-Tzu to Thomas Marik's illegitimate daughter, Isis. Within ComStar, Focht and Primus Sharilar Mori's efforts to reform ComStar of its quasi-religious trappings led to a backlash from Precentor Atreus Demona Aziz. Aziz led a splinter faction to the Free Worlds League known as the Word of Blake and received protection for Thomas Marik, who had been a member of the Order.

In 3055, Archon Melissa Steiner was assassinated by her daughter, though the blame was laid at the feet of her son Victor, who succeeded her and officially inaugurated the Federated Commonwealth as its first Archon-Prince.

Joshua Reprisals[edit]

On Outreach in 3052, Prince Hanse Davion had convinced Thomas Marik to retool his factories to provide refit kits with Star League-era technology for sale to the Federated Commonwealth and Draconis Combine. Marik initially refused, but had to relent when Davion offered Marik's son Joshua, who suffered from leukemia, a chance to recover with the help of treatment at the New Avalon Institute of Science. Hanse had also prepared a plan to institute a double for the boy and, thus, place a pawn in the succession of the Free Worlds League. Hanse died, but the plan lived on.

When Joshua died of his leukemia in 3057, Archon-Prince Victor instituted the plan, though he simply wanted the refit packages to continue coming, and he apparently had no intention of having the double become Captain-General. A Capellan spy learned of the deception, and Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao told Thomas Marik. The duo then launched Operation Guerrero, whose objective was to reclaim the worlds lost to the Federated Commonwealth in the Fourth Succession War. The invasion succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Because of the poor handling of an abortive succession by the Isle of Skye from the Commonwealth, Victor's popularity was extremely low in the Lyran half of the nation. In fact, it was so bad Victor retreated to the former Suns capital of New Avalon and left his sister Katherine as his regent on the Lyran capital of Tharkad. The power-hungry Katherine used her brother's duplicity and the invasion as a pretext to enact Emergency War Powers and secede the Lyran half of the realm from the Federated Commonwealth. She was soon thereafter ratified as Archon by the Estates General. She gave Thomas Marik all the worlds the Free Worlds League had lost during the Fourth Succession War and called for all traditionally Lyran units to retreat to the pre–Fourth War border. Thus, most of the units defending the Sarna March returned to the newly christened Lyran Alliance. This action used many of the JumpShips allotted to the region, so Archon-Prince Victor was unable to reinforce the worlds the Lyrans vacated.

Because the Free Worlds League thus achieved its objective, Thomas Marik pulled his forces out of the invasion, though he did allow the Capellan Confederation to purchase the contracts of many mercenary units. Sun-Tzu had activated guerrillas on many of the worlds the Commonwealth had conquered from his realm, but he lacked the military force to pacify those worlds because of the League's pullout. The Lyrans had retreated and the FedCom was unable to move troops to the region because it lacked the transport capacity, so the Sarna March became a no man's land that was dubbed the Chaos March. In this vacuum, many local leaders formed minor states, though just as many worlds were plagued by internecine fighting between groups that supported various factions. In some places, Draconis Combine troops were inserted under the auspices of peacekeepers, even further confusing the situation. To add insult to injury, Word of Blake conquered Terra from ComStar in 3058, and the two factions fought running battles between each other for control of the HPGs on various Chaos March worlds.

Refusal War[edit]

Main article: Refusal War

In 3057, the Crusader faction of the Clans gained enough clout to bring trumped-up charges of genocide against ilKhan Ulric Kerensky. The Grand Council stripped Ulric of his title, but, as was his right, Ulric declared a Trial of Refusal. While most expected him to defend his actions personally, he instead instigated a war between Clan Jade Falcon and Clan Wolf. Ulric knew that the other Clans wanted to renew the invasion, so he planned to severely weaken the strongest Crusader Clan to the point that it would not be able to break the Truce of Tukayyid. His plan was successful, although he died in the last fight through the duplicity of Falcon saKhan Vandervahn Chistu, who violated Clan honor by using himself as bait for an ambush. Hence Ulric was found guilty (though the point was moot). Vandervahn Chistu's actions, however, were to have later implications on his attempt to absorb Clan Wolf and the leadership of Clan Jade Falcon. Upon the defeat of Clan Wolf, Elias Crichell, Khan of Jade Falcon was elected ilKhan of the Grand Council. The Falcons attempted to absorb the remaining Wolves, who were guilty by association along with Ulric.

A core of Clan Wolf still retained its independence however, in the form of Clan Wolf-in-Exile. At the very beginning of the Trial of Refusal, Ulric had sent the strongest contingent of Wolves under the command of then-saKhan Phelan Ward to the Lyran Alliance to help defend against the Falcons in case his plan did fail. Following Ulric's death, these Wolves became Clan Wolf-in-Exile. An effort to destroy the exiles was immediately attempted by the Falcons, but Phelan and his Wolves defeated them with the help of the Kell Hounds mercenary regiment, weakening Jade Falcon to the point that any further military action on their part might neuter their forces entirely.

Although the Wolves had technically lost the Trial, Ulric's plan was a success, despite his death. The war between the two Clans was so brutal and damaging that it came close to crippling the Falcons' military, so they absorbed the remnants of Clan Wolf. Initially, nobody opposed this until Vlad was rescued from his downed 'Mech. He was present at the fight between Ulric and Vandervahn, had witnessed the death of Ulric as well as other 'Mechs carrying long-range missiles, so he knew the truth of the matter. Vlad declared a Trial of Refusal against the absorption. He won this fight and killed Chistu in single combat. Since all of Clan Wolf, by virtue of having defended Ulric, was guilty of genocide, Falcon Khan Elias Crichell split off the Wolves as Clan Jade Wolf. Vlad was incensed by this name, but bided his time. He quickly thereafter earned his Bloodname and was elected Khan Vladimir Ward.

Under Ward's able leadership, his Clan slowly built its strength again. Before this was done though, Vlad showed that he had learned Clan politics well. Through the use of political manipulation, he initiated a challenge that Elias Crichell simply could not refuse: he called into question Crichell's status as a warrior. The aging Elias Crichell was no match for Vladimir who was in his prime, and Vlad killed him in a one-sided, hand-to-hand battle on the floor of the Grand Council. This gave him the political clout he needed to rename his Clan "Clan Wolf," though he made it clear that this was a new Clan and not the same Clan Wolf that fought next to ilKhan Ulric.

With the revenge against those responsible for the near destruction of Clan Wolf and the treacherous murderer of Ulric Kerensky dead, Vlad turned his attention to rebuilding Clan Wolf. Wolf-in-Exile however, remained in the Inner Sphere, retaining their independence, and following the wishes of their deceased Khan Ulric. The result was that two forms of Clan Wolf now existed independently of each other, the Exiles retaining the original spirit of the Clan and defending the Inner Sphere, and Vlad's Crusader Wolves preparing to invade it.

Star League Reborn[edit]

In 3058, Clan Jade Falcon launched an invasion of the Lyran Alliance that was eventually beaten back by a multinational force under the command of Archon-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion. The cooperation fostered during the Battle of Coventry led the Inner Sphere leaders to complete the Clans' objective for them and resurrect the Star League. The Star League was composed of the Federated Commonwealth, Draconis Combine, Free Rasalhague Republic, Lyran Alliance, Free Worlds League, Capellan Confederation, and St. Ives Compact; with ComStar serving as a nonvoting member.

While the Star League Defense Force would take time to build up, some of the military forces of the member states rotated into service under the Star League banner, and they took part in many conflicts.

Operation BULLDOG[edit]

Main article: Operation BULLDOG

In order to provide legitimacy to the New Star League, the Council decided to launch an invasion against the Clans and to utterly destroy one of them. They chose Clan Smoke Jaguar, partly because a defector gave them the path to the Jaguars' capital world of Huntress but also as retribution for the many atrocities inflicted upon the Inner Sphere by Clan Smoke Jaguar.

Led by Anastasius Focht and Victor Steiner-Davion, Operation Bulldog was the first half of the Star League's invasion. The SLDF forces, which included members of Clan Wolf-in-Exile as well as every member state and many mercenaries, were startlingly successful in their assault. Unbeknownst to them, other Clans were maneuvering against the Smoke Jaguars, so no help was forthcoming. In addition, the Jaguars were gearing up for a new offensive, so they were caught off-guard by a full-scale invasion. In a war that seemed too easy, the Jaguars were forced out of the Inner Sphere, sending shattered units home to Clan space.

Operation SERPENT[edit]

Main article: Operation SERPENT

SLDF units under the command of FedCom Marshal of the Armies Morgan Hasek-Davion moved in secret to the Smoke Jaguar capital of Huntress. Though Hasek-Davion was assassinated before the force reached Huntress, the Eridani Light Horse's General Ariana Winston was able to take Huntress. Then the remnants of the Smoke Jaguars' Inner Sphere force returned home. The Jaguars fought a fierce battle to retake their homeworld, but the Inner Sphere forces were saved by a task force composed of some of the most elite units the Inner Sphere had to offer under the command of Prince Victor.

Victor then led his force to Strana Mechty, the Clan capital. There, he initiated a Trial of Refusal against the Clan Invasion. Despite the questionable legality of such a challenge, the Clans accepted and the Crusader Clans fought against Victor's force. The Star League task force was successful, and the Clan Invasion was over. Despite this, Wolf Khan Vlad Ward abstained in the voting to accept Victor's challenge, so he claimed that the Trial's results did not apply to the Wolves. Victor led his forces against the last remaining remnant of the Smoke Jaguars, including ilKhan Lincoln Osis, and defeated them, thus completing the annihilation of the Clan.

Capellan-St. Ives War[edit]

Main article: Capellan-St. Ives War

The St. Ives Commonality had split from the Capellan Confederation with the aid of the FedSuns after the Fourth Succession War and formed the St. Ives Compact. Following his election as First Lord, Sun-Tzu Liao used his position to order SLDF troops into action to aid his House troops in the reintegration of the wayward state back into his nation by 3061.

FedCom Civil War[edit]

Main article: FedCom Civil War

When Prince Victor returned from Clan space, he found that Archon Katherine (who preferred to be known as Katrina) had usurped the regency of their younger sister, Yvonne Steiner-Davion. Though he was initially against fighting her, Victor was compelled to take control of a rebellion that was going forward with or without him when Arthur Steiner-Davion was apparently assassinated.

The war had three sides: the forces loyal to Katherine (Loyalists), the men and women who followed Victor (Allies), and the neutral citizens that saw neither side as being better or preferred to latch on to regional loyalties. Soon, there were only two sides as Katherine saw all those who did not support her as the enemy.

The war touched every Successor State in some way. The Lyran Alliance and Federated Commonwealth bore the brunt of the devastation as units from both sides attempted to crush the other. Forces from the Federated Commonwealth's Draconis March attacked the Draconis Combine, and then suffered under their counterattack. Thomas Marik's sister Kristen, who was the commander of the mercenary Kristen's Krushers, was killed during the war when overzealous Lyran commanders attacked the neutral unit. When her half-brother Thomas did nothing to save her, her brother-in-law Marshall Jeremy Brett of Tamarind attacked the Lyran world of Arcadia, though it failed to save any Marik who was serving with the unit and Thomas gave it back at the end of the war. The Capellans loaned Victor's best friend Kai Allard-Liao and some of his 1st St. Ives Lancers to the Allied forces during the war, though a Capellan Warrior House conquered the important industrial world of Tikonov from the Federated Suns as the war ground down.

With forces fighting from one end of the sundered Federated Commonwealth to the other, and mercenaries in between, navigating the military and political waters presented several challenges. Eventually, the war ended with the Allies successful and Katherine was sent into exile among Clan Wolf. Victor returned to ComStar as Precentor Martial, and named his brother Peter as Lyran Archon and his sister Yvonne as Prince-Regent for her then-unconceived child.

In the real world, FASA announced that it was shutting down during the FedCom Civil War storyline. They finished the line and WizKids announced that they had purchased the BattleTech intellectual property. They then announced that they would be jumping the timeline 60 years into the future to launch MechWarrior: Dark Age. They believed that this move would give them the opportunity to attract new players without forcing them to read over a dozen novels for them to be able to understand the events that were taking place.
They then licensed part of BattleTech to Fantasy Productions (FanPro), a Germany-based company which has licensed the ability to publish products for the original tabletop wargame and publish sourcebooks (but not novels) set before 3130. They rebranded their products as Classic BattleTech in order to differentiate it from both the original FASA material and from WizKids' products. InMediaRes has since licensed the ability to publish new fiction set in the Classic BattleTech timeline on BattleCorps.com (dead link). In January 2007, they also published their first print anthology.

Word of Blake Jihad[edit]

Main article: Jihad

At the Whitting Conference of 3064, the Free Worlds League nominated Word of Blake for membership in the Star League. A radical sect of Blakists known as the Sixth of June believed that this was their path to power. Their hopes were dashed, however, when the 3067 conference resulted in the collapse of the Star League as the Capellan Confederation, Lyran Alliance, and Federated Suns all removed their support. The angry Blakists' attempt to force the recalcitrant nations back into the League resulted in a war that engulfed every major faction. The Jihad represented a return to total war in a way that even the FedCom Civil War did not match as the Word used orbital bombardments and nuclear and biological weapons, and wantonly attacked civilian targets.

They were able to corral most leaders on their capitals, forcing regional leaders to take a more active role. They also disabled the HPG network, further complicating the attempts of sovereigns to control their countries. In addition, they were able to foster wars between many neighboring states by manipulating these regional leaders. The most stunning success was in the Free Worlds League, where the nation actually broke into its constituent parts.

The Jihad wreaked untold havoc on the Inner Sphere as military units were smashed, factories annihilated, people slaughtered, and whole planets wiped out. This apocalyptic war was finally stopped in 3081 when Devlin Stone led a coalition of forces to victory over the Blakists on Terra.

Formation of the Republic[edit]

Stone used the exhaustion the Jihad caused to convince the war-weary Successor States to allow him to create his own nation around Terra. The Republic of the Sphere was founded in 3081 and Stone took over many of the most hotly contested worlds in an attempt to let peace have a chance. This peace was a mere illusion, however, as the Capellan Crusades against the Republic proved in the 3090s.

A few other small conflicts took place. The Federated Suns played a prominent role in some of these, including seizing the Capellan commonality capital of Victoria and creating a buffer state between the Draconis March and the Draconis Combine.

These events provided the filler for the events between the end of the FASA story and the beginning of WizKids'. As such, information is sketchy on purpose so as not to steal too much of FanPro's thunder.[4]

Dark Age[edit]

Main article: Dark Age

In the early 3130s, attacks perpetrated by an unknown agent or agents disabled the HPG network. Theories as to who did this abound, but there are no confirmations. This event caused long-buried hatred to flare up as accusations were lobbed. The tension reached a fever pitch in the Republic of the Sphere, as old hostilities came back to the fore and many people and leaders began to identify with their previous nationalities. Over half a dozen factions popped up, proclaiming a desire to have a Clan or neighboring nation rule them instead. The Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation, and even Clan Jade Falcon, did try to take advantage of the chaos, while the Federated Suns instead chose to ally with the Republic.

This situation was complicated for the Republic when they were faced with information of a plot led by its senate against the military government. This civil war flared up at an inopportune moment, as many Inner Sphere leaders were on Terra; the FedSuns alliance helped the Exarch defeat the senate loyalists on Terra.

With the Republic being carved up by the Senate Alliance and foreign powers, newly elected Exarch Jonah Levin announced Fortress Republic. He withdrew most Republic forces to within the boundaries of Prefecture X, the interior region. He declared the border was to remain inviolate and that the Republic would use everything at its disposal to keep it as such. In the meantime, other forces remained outside of the Fortress to try and keep Republican worlds and citizens safe for the eventual return of the Republic proper.

The Major Players[edit]

The Star League[edit]

Main article: Star League

Over the course of fifteen years, from 2556 to 2571, Cameron managed to sign deals with the other five Houses to establish an organization known as the Star League. Headed by House Cameron, though with the other five Houses given a place on the ruling Council, the organization promised an end to inter-House war (as well as some massive incentives to sign on to the deal, ranging from military support to technological aid). However, Cameron was as much power-hungry as visionary, and he was therefore not content to be the universally accepted leader of the bulk of humanity. When the Star League had finally been assembled in 2571, among his first actions was attempting to get the lesser nations of the Periphery into the Star League. When requests and negotiation failed, he moved to trade sanctions, and when those failed, the Reunification War began. Thought by the Star League powers to be a war that would cost little, it actually took over twenty years to pacify the last of the Periphery holdouts, as well as unthinkably large losses to the Star League Defense Forces and the various House armies and navies. However, the Star League was by far the more powerful of the sides, and their victory was probably inevitable, despite the heavy losses they suffered to win. When the Taurian Concordat's last bastion of defense (a heavily mined nebula that wreaked havoc on SLDF navies for years) finally fell in 2596, the Reunification War was over and Ian Cameron had achieved his dream of reuniting the whole of humanity under one banner, as it had been united during the early days of the Terran Alliance.

During the nearly two hundred years that the Star League endured and relative peace reigned, technology bloomed. 'Mech and WarShip technology continued to advance at a rapid pace, and the first hyperpulse generator (HPG) went online in 2630, providing humans a way to communicate between planets without the need for moving JumpShips to transmit messages. The golden era of the Star League would, however, come to an end in a way few expected.

In 2767, following a series of rebellions in the Periphery that drew the bulk of the SLDF forces away from the central areas of the Star League, Stefan Amaris of the Rim Worlds Republic, supposed friend of First Lord Richard Cameron, assassinated the entire Cameron family and proclaimed himself new First Lord. The SLDF, under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky, regrouped quickly, drove inwards, and liberated the entire Inner Sphere from Amaris' clutches in a long and bloody 13-year war, culminating in the conquest of Terra. However, the SLDF, having been massively depleted in this war, no longer had the strength to hold the fractious Houses together, and eventually abandoned the Inner Sphere entirely in the great Exodus of the entire SLDF to the deep Periphery, not to be heard from again for three hundred years.

ComStar/Word of Blake[edit]

Main article: ComStar
Main article: Word of Blake

ComStar is the successor to the Star League's Ministry of Communications, and runs all of the Inner Sphere's HPGs, maintaining essential communications between every pair of star systems. Formed by Jerome Blake, the last Minister of Communications, after the fall of the Star League, ComStar has slowly morphed into an organization as much religious as practical, believing in everything from the need to pray to the machines they run to an eventual apocalypse that would engulf the Inner Sphere even more thoroughly than the fall of the Star League and the ensuing Succession Wars. Early in the First War, ComStar occupied Terra and has preserved it as both neutral ground and headquarters since. As well as their obvious communications duties, ComStar is also the Inner Sphere's most important bank and money-mover, runs the Explorer Corps to catalog the deep periphery, runs the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission, and keeps a massive force of over seventy regiments of Star League-era 'Mechs, the Com Guards, and the only fleet of spacegoing WarShips hidden in case of a future crisis.

The Successor States[edit]

Main article: Successor States

After the fall of the Star League and the Exodus of the SLDF, the five great houses' respective leaders claimed to lead the Star League, with no formal directive of succession as the Cameron family was unable to produce an heir. This caused the houses to wage war to see who would be the heir to the throne. With most of the Star League forces gone what was left was forces loyal to the houses that they were either formed at, stationed, or even the case in a rare circumstances still believed in the ways of the Star League, still flying the banner of the Star League, only dealing with the houses as a nicety to survive.

The Periphery States[edit]

Main article: Periphery

The outcast, the unwanted, the rebellious; the Periphery consists of the most ragtag group of people ever to exist. Most Periphery States have a low level of technology, with only the largest approaching the early-thirtieth-century tech base.

The Clans[edit]

Main article: Clans

While Kerensky's warriors may not have been heard from in the Inner Sphere, they certainly continued to exist. Though the year-long Exodus and a number of internal rebellions took their toll, remnants of the SLDF survived, and began to thrive seven hundred light-years from the Inner Sphere. After Aleksandr Kerensky died in 2801, leadership fell to his son Nicholas, who began to forge the SLDF into the Clans. Nicholas split his last loyal cadre of warriors into twenty Clans, each named after an animal thought to embody an important trait to a warrior. Leading the Clans to victory over another rebellion, Kerensky established the rule of the Clans. After Annihilating one of the Clans for daring to rebel against him and claim freedom from Clan structure, the new order established itself effectively. Warriors were valued over civilians, genetically engineered warriors were valued over their naturally born counterparts (truebirths and freebirths, respectively), and honor and military prowess were valued above all else. The system may not have been ideal, but it allowed survival in the face of hostile environments, and gave rise to an astonishing amount of military potential.

For two hundred years, the Clans were content to develop and fight on their own, independent from any other humans. During this time they developed everything from powered battle armor to genetics programs and artificial wombs for their trueborn warriors, to incredibly advanced military technology, far beyond that possessed by humans even in the heyday of the Star League. However, one issue began to bubble to the surface by the end of the thirtieth century, and that issue changed the history of the Clans and the Inner Sphere forever thereafter. It all started with a message Aleksandr Kerensky had sent out to the Exodus fleet after the first rebellion, telling the SLDF remnants that it was their duty to endure and to one day return to the Inner Sphere. The Clans split two ways on the issue - there were the Crusaders, who believed it was their duty to reconquer the Inner Sphere and reestablish the Star League that had fallen centuries ago, and there were the Wardens, who believed that it had been more of an inspirational ideal than a literal order, and that if they were to return one day it would be to protect humans from an outside threat, not to conquer them all. At the beginning of the debate, the Wardens were dominant, but by about 3000, the Crusader faction began to dominate. Desperate to stave off invading, the Warden-minded Clan Wolf pushed for a compromise - they would send an old group of Star League 'Mechs to scout the Inner Sphere by disguising themselves as a mercenary group. The so-called Dragoon Compromise (the group's name was Wolf's Dragoons) worked well for a time, though eventually reports from the Dragoons started to dry up mysteriously. Though no one knew it at the time, the leader of Clan Wolf had ordered the Dragoons to prepare the Inner Sphere for the coming invasion, and prepare they did.

References[edit]

Unless otherwise cited, information is drawn from the following primary sources:

  • Bills, Randall N.; et al. (2007). "A Brief History of the Inner Sphere", Inner Sphere at a Glance, Classic BattleTech. Lake Stevens, WA: Catalyst Game Labs (inMediaRes Productions). ISBN 978-0-9792047-3-9.
  • Hartford, Chris; et al. (1993). "History of Naval Warfare", in Donna Ippolito: BattleSpace Sourcebook. Chicago: FASA Corporation. ISBN 1-55560-208-8.
  • Nystul, Mike; Lester W. Smith (1991) "Historical: Overview", in Donna Ippolito: MechWarrior, Second Edition, Chicago: FASA Corporation. ISBN 1-55560-129-4.

Other references:

  1. ↑ Historical: Brush Wars, pp. 40–89
  2. ↑ Historical: Brush Wars, pp. 90–121
  3. ↑ Historical: War of 3039, p. ??[citation needed]
  4. ↑ Dawn of the Jihad, p. ??, and Jihad Hot Spots: 3070, p. ??[citation needed]

See Also[edit]

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