Clan Ghost Bear Versus Hells Horses, Mortal Enemies or Brothers-in-Arms?

[chaosticket]

Both clans have a personal appealing sense of camaraderie between their warriors. Clan Ghost Bear was a crusader clan during Clan Invasion but shifted to Warden. Ghost Bear was founded by a married couple of Officers. They have a sense of family alien to the Clans as while almost everyone in a particular clan are related the Caste System keeps everyone separated.

Clan Hell's Horses on the other hand isnt a family, but rather soldiers. They operate by using combined arms so that Mechwarriors, Aerospace Pilots, Elementals, and even vehicle crews are respected.

Theyre not the same, but they do share respect between their warriors rather than be a strict system of tiers between the warriors.

All I ever see about the Hell's Horses is that they attacked the Ghost Bears again and again. I think that makes the Hell's Horses a "SatelliteCharacter" as all they do is orbit around the Ghost Bears.

[AlphaMirage]

If I remember correctly they have bad blood between each other from the Kerensky Cluster since the Bears seized their Mech Factory forcing them to rely more heavily on conventional forces.  The Horse's also killed a Ghost Bear Khan and pre-Invasion the Ghost Bears killed the Horse's Khan. 

Additionally Ghost Bears eclipsed the Horses as the best Elemental Clan. 

Clans can hold grudges like no other because it you (as a clanner) are fed from Creche propaganda that your Clan is the best.

Note - I hate both Clans cause the Horses killed Vlad Ward (they had to work at it though because he was just that bad-ass) and saved the Combine during the First Combine-Ghost Bear War.  At the same time the Ghost Bears stopped being Crusaders and then didn't do anything for like 30 years until Stone and the Blakists showed up. 

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

After the Jihad, things seem to have thawed a bit between the two Clans.  They're not exactly friends, IIRC, but they're not sworn enemies the way they used to be.

[chaosticket]

That last bit got me. I like how Ghost Bear is basically the only solid clan left. Every other clan has been on decline since the Clan Invasion. The Wars of Reaving were written as an excuse as to why the homeworld clans didnt start a new invasion during and after the Jihad, but basically killed them off as a threat permanently.

Ghost Bear actually achieved peace between Inner Sphere and Clanners and they have never been the aggressors in a fight since the Clan Invasion.  They have both advanced clan technology and the Inner Spheres more resource-rich worlds. They arent horrible to either lower castes or Inner Sphere citizens.

Okay i just realized Clan Ghost Bear is a Mary Sue faction.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Mary Sue is an overused term.

[Jellico]

Neighbors in the Homeworlds tended to eventually work up grudges.

The Bear/Horse grudge comes back to Tokasha.

The Horses scrimped and saved and managed to build themselves an OmniMech factory at a time when OmniMechs were shiny and new. For about 20 years it pumped out Mechs and began changing the Horses into genuine contenders (And started screwing over the tankers).

Then the Bears turned up and said "we'd like that thanks". The Horses said no and deployed a bigger than expected defensive force.
So the Horses smacked the Bears all around the place until they killed the Khan Kilbourne Jorgenson. Kilbourne was the best thing since sliced bread so the Bears got a little crazy and swept the Horses away and too the factory.

So from the Bears point of view the Horses set up an unfair Trial and killed the second coming of Christ.
From the Horses point of view the Bears stole their future greatness. Conveniently being forced back to being a tank force allowed them to play up their man over machine mythology.


So grudge grudge grudge.

Jump to the 3040s. The Bears tried to do it again. This time on Niles. They were defeated by future Khan Malavai Fletcher. This pretty much put Malavai onto a rip roaring crusade of pay back. Unfortunately for him the Bears had been beefing up in the Inner Sphere for a decade and the Horses didn't have the logistics to play the invasion game.
The result was a farce.

At this point bith sides reevaluated. No longer being neighbors and with the much more fun Draconis Combine next door the Bears sort of forgot about the Horses. At the same time the Horses' leadership realised they were no longer big enough to play with the Inner Sphere Bears. So the whole thing petered out.

Currently the Bears and Horses are basically friendly. The Horses are too small to risk really annoying the Bears and both have far more exciting neighbors. It is convenient to work together to keep their sliver of the Sphere peaceful so they can survive the nutjobs all around.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Said Mad Khan Fletcher was defeated by Jake Kabrinski a Ghost Bear Elemental. Jake was eventually captured by the Horses and eventually became one of their Khans (becoming a little crazy himself). However he did stabilize and improve relations between both Clans in the time of Stone.

Course with Malvina starting trouble and basically kidnapping the Horse Touman and hitting Copy/Paste theirs a bit of tension on the border.


Rivals would be an apt description. I tend to dislike the Horses but as time has gone on I have a grudging respect for them. I wish we would work together more often along with the Ravens. I kinda hope they don't lose more marbles and go full-Malvina crazy.

[Jellico]

I rate James Cobb as more important than Mary Sue Kabrinski.

Malavai Fletcher may have been unstable but he achieved things with a Clan that had struggled for a long time.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

James Cobb was the Horse Khan who made all that with Fletcher's demise and Kabrinski's ascension happen. One could indeed argue that...

[Nav_Alpha]

I’ve come into a new grudging like for the Hells Horses purely via the Jihad. My non-canon (Aways just slightly in the background of canon units and events so there’s no continuity issues, and it all stays believable) will be contracted to act on the Marik front of Operation Scour soon, which includes a cluster of Hels horses.
This got me reading on a Clan i had previously overlooked.

And I like what I see. That sense of unity and togetherness is very Ghost Bear, but with a more martial twist.

[chaosticket]

Aside from clan enmity would both clans works well together? Similar themes of cooperation would work well.

[jklantern]

If I remember right from the Golden Century pdf, there's a section from the point of view of an important Horse Leader, that boils down to:

"We don't hate the Ghost Bears.  We'd love to be their friend.  Mostly, so they'd stop PUNCHING US IN THE FACE REPEATEDLY OH GOD WHY!"

Relations have warmed up since, which I dig, because I really like both Clans.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Of all the Clans with rivalries, the Bears and Horses were by far the two that were otherwise closest in personality and behavior.

[marauder648]

Well familiarity does breed contempt.  Back when they were in the Homeworlds, as folks said, grudges were born and carried on over the years and because both sides are darn proud with any refusal to back down, it was an ugly wound that festered between them.

Now days they are more like friendly rivals, but the Horses are also basically smart enough to not poke the Bears, considering the Bears tend to massively over react to poking. 

The Bears enemy focus switched to the Nova Cats after they emigrated to the Inner Sphere. Mainly because the Cats held the idiot ball and kept poking and deliberately irritating their much larger and more powerful neighbour who then finally had enough and crossed the border. At which point the Cats acted like the injured party.
It got so bad that the next time it happened, it was a totally undeclared Trial of Annihilation.  If the Combine and Republic hadn't stepped in the Bears would have wiped the Cats out. 

And Bears are not sues, they are dirty campers :p And I say this as a Ghost bear lover myself.  Basically they are the faction who turtles up and just builds and builds and builds and builds whilst everyone else sends out their troops and spends resources on fights etc.  And then when someone pokes the Bears, they suddenly find they've poked the largest Tourman the Clans have left.  Which is then happily married to a temper that could be absolutely hair trigger at times.

Plus, the Bears have in essence been conquered, by the Rasalhague Republic.  They are not a Clan really any more, but an amalgam, and hold enough space and have a large enough military to be called a House by any reckoning. But the other Clans need them, so keep calling them Clan and invite them to meetings etc to hang out and the like. All the while the Bears are happy to sit in their den and build up and build up and....

To quote Ambassador Mollari "If you do not bother them, they will not bother you."

[Foxx Ital]

It ultimately boils down to the one thing i absolutely love about the bears, they don't play well with others. From operation klondike forward, its a run with the bear or from it situation.

[Kojak]

I don't know if it was necessarily intentional, but I think in a lot of ways the story of the Bears, at least from Revival onward, heavily mirrors that of the Yuan dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries.

[Jellico]

Or the Ching. Or the Normans  (multiple times). It happens lots.