Marcus Kotare

Star Colonel Marcus Kotare was a high-ranking Smoke Jaguar officer, appearing in a cameo role for Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries and as the main antagonist of the MechCommander: Desperate Measures expansion campaign.

Records on Kotare's life and character are scarce. Davion intelligence cites he became of note when he was captured by Star League Defense Force authorities, awaiting court-martial for war atrocities while under house arrest. He was considered by Davion command mentally unstable and willing to use extreme measures against his enemies that were found dishonorable by the Clans themselves; extreme even to the standards of the Smoke Jaguar warrior caste. He escaped house arrest midway through Operation Bulldog and acquired a dropship, escaping into the Periphery with a small contingent of Jaguar warriors.

Kotare landed on the world of Cermak in the Periphery, notable for having been a major Star League base in the past... yet over time becoming a junk heap. His interest was exclusively in the technology maintained in vaults on-planet containing Star League era technology such as the Long Tom and Rail Gun(Apocryphal weapon). When Kotare arrived, the planet was the site of an Elemental training facility and one Cluster under the command of Star Colonel Burnell Wirth, as well as many old bases and structures. Kotare assumed command and reorganized defenses under his control.

Kotare organized two provisional combined arms Clusters, equipped with a mix of BattleMechs and OmniMechs and vehicles supported by Elementals and aerospace fighters, as well as setting up planetary guns to ward off invasions. The clusters were reinforced with technology acquired from Star League vaults. The defenses were a rag-tag group consisting of forces from multiple clusters and in some cases even other clans, with a possible heavy influence from Clan Nova Cat.

Kotare's primary goal on the planet acquire Star League era technologies, some of which he outfitted his commanders with and placed on his own mech. He strove to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons from deeply buried and sealed star-league vaults, said to have been enough ordinance to wipe out entire planets. He set up a makeshift operation using dropship engines to power drills for the purpose of breaking into the vaults.

His plans were complicated by discovery at the hands of the Explorer Corps, which had been searching the Periphery for remaining Smoke Jaguar units. Yankee and Zulu companies of the 1st Batatalion of the 1st Davion Guards were deployed with mechs, vehicles and artillary with command managed by a Mech Commander, immediately who immediately began a guerrila war against Kotare's forces. Kotare was spread out and fiercely protective of his operation, missing opportunities to strike at the attackers while favoring a defensive strategy and retaliating with undermanned strike forces. Kotare suffered many losses, including his few bloodnamed warriors, Katherine Furey and Marcus Osis, leaving him with only two - Wirth and himself.

Having suffered brutal losses in manpower, mech numbers, command and equipment, Kotare opted for a defensive strategy (or "camping"). The Davions destroyed his supply lines, training facilities and orbital defense guns one by one as his troops were proven again and again far too spread out, eventually leaving him with only Wirth's forces and his own command trinary. He split his remaining forces up over four drilling sites, personally defending one and placing Wirth in command of another, and placed a few mechs in defense of the primary entryway into the region. The Davion's Zulu company destroyed the outer defenses and and the drill sites. Kotare was defeated and presumably killed in action while piloting his Turkina OmniMech and supported by a minefield.

Kotare, while competent enough to build a seemingly strong defense and being one of the most successful rogue Jaguar commanders short of Galaxy Commander Brendon Corbett, was defeated at every turn by Davion guerrillas, being the rear end of irony: while massive forces of Inner Sphere hunters chased after stars of clanners, individuals or in many cases simply phantoms, he commanded one of the largest surviving bands of Smoke Jaguar warriors and was destroyed by a comparatively small and insignificant force, with his strategies falling flat and his operation resulting in total defeat. The nuclear ordinance was eliminated, and the clan suffered one of its worst defeats in the effort to regroup, possibly excluding the defeat of Corbett. While Kotare has the smallest sliver of possibility for survival, it is extremely unlikely this was the case.

Notes

• Kotare piloted a customized Turkina OmniMech wielding Star League technology.

Bibliography

• MechCommander: Desperate Measures