Date: March 3026 [See Notes]
Location: Terra
Title: House Marik - The Free Worlds League
Author: Richard K. Meyer, Walter H. Hunt, C.R. Green
Type: Sourcebook
Synopsis: This is ComStar's fourth report on the Successor States, intended as an educational primer for new Acolytes joining the Blessed Order.
History:
The report outlines the rise to power of the founding families of the League. Charles Marik served as the Terran Alliance senator representing the mining world of Marik until it declared independence in 2238, at which point he became the head of state. He used political arm-twisting, threats, and bribes to secure a constitution with a strong executive, made alliances with three neighboring worlds, and then conquered 16 more to found the Marik Commonwealth.
Tomas Allison was also an Alliance Senator, representing Oriente, and also became the leader of Oriente after independence. Unlike Marik, Allison managed to form a 20-world alliance, the Federation of Oriente, without military action.
House Selaj formed the Principality of Regulus by leveraging their five-world trading empire into a larger political unit by appealing to clients' self interest.
George Humphreys of New Delos brokered negotiations between Raju Selaj, Detlev Marik, and Tomas Allison to sign the Treaty of Marik, forming the Free Worlds League in 2271. The League expanded peacefully until 2293, when they annexed the Stewart Commonality (also referenced as the Stewart Confederacy) by force. When the Terran Hegemony emerged, the League signed a non-aggression agreement with James McKenna, enabling the Hegemony to focus on "liberating" the worlds of the Dieron Federation without worrying about a flank attack.
The League seized Andurien and four other systems from the Capellan Confederation between 2366 and 2369, and warred with the Capellans over control. The fighting was used to justify the appointment of a Captain-General - Peter Marik - to deal with the crisis. His leadership brought victory, but also massive destruction, leading the League to join with the Confederation and other states to sign the Ares Conventions. The Lyrans attempted to seize Dieudonne in 2416, and fighting continued on both fronts for the duration of the Age of War. An attempt to appoint a House Selaj representative as Captain-General coincided with disastrous setbacks, so League citizens came to only trust House Marik in that role.
An internal coup overthrew Carlos Marik when he, in the depths of paranoia, prepared to invade the Terran Hegemony and seize Terra. The Director General of the Hegemony chose not to retaliate for the attempted invasion, but instead signed a peace treaty - creating the foundation of trust that would result, nearly a century later, in the FWL and the Hegemony jointly founding the Star League.
The FWL joined the Lyrans to subdue the Rim Worlds Republic, and orchestrated the battle to defeat the Magistracy of Canopus entirely according to the Ares Conventions.
While other states had fairly peaceful Star League experiences, the League was wracked with terrorist attacks (House Selaj fled into exile after it was revealed they'd tried to wipe out the Marik line with their Scourge of Death organization) and civil war, as the paranoid Elise Marik battled her brother Oliver for control of the League.
Elise's son Bertram proved a great leader, but his offspring, Ewan and Kenyon were ill suited for diplomacy. Ewan alienated the other Star League council members, and Kenyon worked to hinder Kerensky's efforts during the Star League Civil War and practically leapt at the chance to get into the First Succession War, during which he prioritized the Terran Hegemony, then the Capellan Confederation, with the Lyran front receiving the fewest resources after a massive fleet engagement in the Hesperus system cost the League most of its WarShip fleet.
Charles Marik rebuilt as well as possible, but apparent ComStar manipulation led him into war against the Lyran Commonwealth. He grew to suspect that ComStar was manipulating the Successor States by leaking communiques, and destroyed the Oriente HPG station, where his sister (a ComStar Adept) was stationed. Primus Toyama placed the League under interdiction for two years, as a result, allowing the other four Successor States to attack and plunder at will.
The League lurched through the 3rd Succession War from one major operation to the next - Operation RED ROVER, Operation KILLING STROKE, etc. The provincial governments grew tired of the constant aggression, however, and pushed through the Home Defense Act, allowing them to withhold a percentage of their levies from the League for defense of their own worlds.
Janos Marik came to power in 2991, calling for unity, then commanded an offensive against the Lyrans, while placing his brother, Anton, in charge of a similar thrust at the Capellans. Both offensives bogged down, and Janos became increasingly isolated and morose. Instead of unity, he found himself under attack by Anton, with the backing of Wolf's Dragoons. He defeated his brother, whose rebellion collapsed after his death at the hands of the vengeful Wolf's Dragoons (whom he'd betrayed), but was emotionally spent thereafter.
In 3022, Janos joined the Capellans and the Combine in the Concord of Kapteyn to counterbalance the threat of the Federated Commonwealth.
Sociopolitical Structure:
This section describes the role of parliament, the League Council (nine governmental ministers), the Captain-General, and the impact of Resolution 288 (the "continuing crisis" decree granting the Captain-General special "emergency" powers). It also gives thumbnail sketches of the 3025-state of the Marik Commonwealth, Protectorate, Principality of Regulus, Duchy of Orloff, Duchy of Andurien, Duchy of Oriente, Stewart Commonaltiy, Silver Hawks, Sirian Concordance, Border Protectorate, Abbey District, Rim Commonality, Principality of Gibson, Regulan Free States, Duchy of Graham-Marik, Duchy of Tamarind, and the Ohren and Zion Provinces.
The report describes government departments - Defense, Foreign Affairs, Trade, Taxation, Intelligence, Energy, Communications, and Justice, and concludes with an analysis of the various forms of planetary government.
Religion and Philosophy
This section covers the major trends in League public thought - entrepreneurship = good; bionics = bad. There are also sections on the Way of Arme (a self abnegation cult), and the major religions - Judiasm, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
The Free Worlds Military
This section of the report itemizes the current assets of the FWLM - 60 'Mech regiments, 700 conventional regiments, 50 JumpShips, and 150 DropShips. It also details the command structure for these forces (divided between the Captain-General/LCCC and the provinces). Key regiments get write ups, as do training academies (all the way down to the Hero Training Institute) and weapons manufacturers. Output is the most detailed as well, manufacturing 500 'Mechs per year (with a full breakdown of production by type and location).
Culture and Arts
This section of the report describes the League's attempts to recover LosTech, its major universities, art forms, legal system, and leisure activities. It also gives a description of SAFE and it's predecessor organization, the National Intelligence Agency.
Socio-Economics
This section of the report describes the FWL's lightly regulated economy as second only to the Lyrans', but notes the problems caused by the disruptions of the Succession Wars. Major corporations are profiled - including a fair number of non-military firms. Trade is also addressed, noting what is traded, with whom, and which worlds serve as official ports of entry on each border.
Personalities:
This section of the report profiles Janos Marik, his mistress Bronwen Rafsani, his sons Duggan, Duncan, Paul, and Thomas, his daughters Therese and Kristen, head of the Marik Commonwealth parliamentary caucus Shane "Lefty" Eastwick, Parliamentary Speaker Hector Stewart, Minister of Taxation Olwine Greenwald, Duke of Oriente Christopher Halas, freshman MP Li Weaver, Earl Vicente Orloff, Dame Catherine Humphreys, IrTech President Sigmund Hughes, High Point Trader President Corey Chang, and successful LosTech prospector Pedro Ellingsen.
A Brief Atlas
This section of the report profiles key worlds from many of the League's provinces:
Marik Commonwealth: Atreus, Angell II, Marik, New Olympia
Abbey District: Maxwell
Duchy of Andurien: Andurien, Lopez
Border Protectorate: Alula Australis
Principality of Gibson: Gibson
Mosiro Archipelago: Mosiro
Duchy of Oriente: Calloway VI, Oriente
The Protectorate: New Delos, Nova Roma
Principality of Regulus: Regulus
Rim Commonality: Lesnovo
Silver Hawks: Amity, Shiloh
Sirian Concordat (written as Concordance elsewhere in the report): Procyon
Duchy of Tamarind: Simpson Desert, Tamarind
Unaffiliated: Camlann, Claybrooke, Dalton, Eleusis, Irian, Kendall, Oliver, Tellman's Mistake, Trellisane
Notes: Authors Richard Meyer and Walter Hunt, who'd also collaborated on the scenario packs "Tales of the Black Widow" and "The Fox's Teeth," and the MechWarrior (1st Edition) Role Playing Game, join with C.R. Green, who also worked on the Federated Suns sourcebook, to bring us the definitive ComStar Archives report on House Marik's holdings.
Interestingly, Meyer and Hunt are listed separately from Green in the credits, under the heading "Adventure Architects." Doing a bit of digging, it appears that the "Architects" were a writing collective that worked on a number of game industry projects. Their members included Walter Hunt and Richard Meyer, as well as Mark Bloom, Lisa Hunt, Christine Ivey, Evan Jamieson, and Bill Scammell. Walter Hunt's website doesn't list his "Adventure Architects" credits, but he does note that he started writing in 1985, so the FASA projects would have been some of his first work.
In-universe, the work is credited to George Ninetrees. In his introduction, Ninetrees refers to Janos as being 68 years old. Janos was born in 2957, mathematically implying a 3025 publication date. However, as noted earlier in this thread, one of the pictures in the book has a caption indicating it's from 3026. Since some of the mercenary contracts expire as early as May 3026, this would have had to come out before that, or the book would have stale info at the time of publication. March 3026, then, seems like a good compromise date for accommodating the picture without getting too out of date.
History: Like the Steiner sourcebook, the Marik report only spends one page on early history and gets right into the origins of the founding families.
There are some internal inconsistencies - the main text refers to the Stewart Commonality, while the sidebar about David Genovese refers to it as the Stewart Confederacy. References in the Periphery sourcebook call the people who fled Stewart after the defeat "confederates," implying that Confederacy is the official name. However, it could be the case that it was called the Confederacy under David Genovese, and was renamed as a Commonality after his beheading. The Stewart refugees scattered across the Inner Sphere, with some ending up in the Rim Worlds Republic and others settling on New St. Andrews.
Of note, the whole "Fall From Grace" storyline with Rhean Marik was inserted into a large hole in the History section - which skips past the end of Marion Marik's reign in 2598 to Ward Marik's, which began in 2635. I can just imagine Chris Hartford looking over the family tree chart on the back of the foldout map and deciding to craft Rhean's untold story in the model of "Heir to the Dragon," telling the story of the early days of the Star League and internal Marik politics along the way.
Looking over Elise Marik's section of the History, I see a lot of parallels with Romano Liao. She took her father's death poorly, and used it as a justification to unleash SAFE on her military and society in an ever-widening purge that sent tens of thousands of "traitors" either to prison or into exile, and placed government officials under constant surveillance, and enabled the government to expropriate private holdings. Her reign arguably ended better than Romano's did - she was overthrown by Parliament and placed under house arrest, but rescued by her son Bertram, who succeeded her as Captain-General, as she was too far gone into madness to resume her duties.
The authors did a great job on the history section, with plenty of sidebars and throw-away references to elaborate political schemes, dire betrayals, and behind-the-scenes manipulations. The League has always been portrayed as the most internally fractious of the Successor States, and the History section contains a vast amount of material that could be mined to generate rationales for conflict.
Sociopolitical Structure:
This is certainly the most detailed account of a bureaucracy in the Successor State books. Any players wanting to take "bold action" in the FWL in 3025 had best prepare to fill out some forms.
Religion and Philosophy
I never really got the "anti-bionic" bias element. Here, it says that the FWL pioneered the technology, and that Type V (myomer) implants are common for MechWarriors and nearly indistinguishable form the real thing. It also notes that the technology existed for functional organ replacement and even the frontal lobes of the brain. The resentment came out of ethical concerns about having an enhanced pituitary gland and about the fact that the technology was only available to the wealthy.
But, during the Star League, weren't most people fairly wealthy? How would anyone know someone else got a bionic brain?
Don't get me wrong - it works as a societal quirk and can create some extra obstacles for players to surmount - plus it was the reason for the Thomas Marik switch - ComStar was worried people wouldn't accept a heavily bionic Thomas Marik as Captain-General, especially since his ancestor Gerald Marik had faced attempts to claim he was no longer human (and therefore unfit to be Captain-General) because of his cybernetic implants.
It just seems like 1) nobody would notice unless it was pointed out to them and 2) wouldn't impoverished League hillbillies have greater concerns than telling someone with an ocular implant "We don't like yer kind 'round these here parts."
The irony is pretty sweet, though, that the anti-bionic League bigots were awash in Manei Domini before and during the Jihad.
The Free Worlds Military
Far more than any of the other Successor State sourcebooks, the FWL book goes into exhaustive detail on the strength of its military. This may have come from the authors' work on the MechWarrior RPG and the scenarios - where details are welcomed. The League, circa 3025, has 60 'Mech regiments and 700 conventional regiments. 60% of the 'Mechs and 50% of the conventional forces are provincial.
Beyond that, it provides full production statistics for every 'Mech type - how many per year, where, etc.
This sort of information was solid gold for anyone trying to pull together a grand strategic campaign, but was probably a nightmare for fact-checkers in the days before text-search and for authors. The fans' love of these sorts of numbers led to the Objective Raids sourcebook and the follow-up Objectives series, but the fact that there's no way to reconcile the Inner Sphere economy with logic means that hard numbers just raise uncomfortable questions that can't be answered without resorting to "a wizard did it," so official policy has become "we don't publish those numbers - or even track them internally - there are enough produced to meet the needs of the story."
I understand where they're coming from, but having this trove of data in the FWL book and not in the others made me gnash my teeth in despair when trying to set up that campaign.
Culture and Arts
Granted, SAFE is a civilian agency, rather than a military one, but it still felt jarring to have its profile in "Culture and Arts" rather than, say, the Sociopolitical Structure.
SAFE's acronym is described as "based on an old saying in an ancient Terran language, but its meaning has now been lost." I'm guessing the authors had something (probably something rude) in mind, but it's remained a mystery to this day. (Though, if push comes to shove, an argument can be made for it standing for Semper Aquilae Fidelis Est - rough Latin for "Always Faithful to the Eagle." Since the NIA was disbanded for plotting against House Marik, having that as the motto would pretty clearly set forth the new spy agency's mandate.)
NIA was portrayed as being highly effective and dangerous in "Fall From Grace," "The Spider Dances," and "A Dish Served Cold," whereas SAFE - due in part to the restrictions placed on it after NIA got too powerful to control - has been portrayed as inept and clueless.
Socio-Economics
Again, the authors' background in creating the MechWarrior RPG is evident. They give specifics on locales and practices that make this sourcebook very useful to game masters wanting to insert the players into an established setting. They even provide a price list of the type you'd find in the RPG supplementary material. This is the bread and butter of this sort of campaign source material, and it was good to see all the Handbooks adopting such elements as a model when the series was updated.
Personalities:
The personalities section is far more diverse than in many other House sourcebooks - in addition to Janos and his often fratricidal brood, there are power brokers of various stature in parliament, government ministers, provincial nobles (great and small), titans of industry, and Pedro - a LosTech prospector whose ship came in.
These guys provide so many hooks for pulling players into compromising or deadly (or both) situations. The only really sad thing is that no authors really took the bait and did anything with these hooks outside of sourcebooks. If you know where to look, you can find all sorts of events involving these characters, especially once the survivors (sorry Duncan and Duggan) start taking sides for or against Thomas during the Jihad.
A Brief Atlas
This is pretty standard - but the authors clearly had a lot of fun building these worlds. Kendall, where people live in abandoned giant beehives. A world named after dessert. A desert wasteland full of religious aescetics, etc.
Sometimes, through, the focus on quirky bits came at the cost of hard data. If you look at the Regulus writeup, you see that it tells nothing about the climate or terrain - but spends a paragraph on the theatrical stylings of John "Icepick" Mellon. It's clear that this was aimed at the RPG crowd, not the crew that wants to know what sort of terrain mapsheets to use when besieging the capital city (the name of which is also absent from the writeup.) Fortunately, subsequent writeups have addressed these shortcomings.
We also get into a similar situation with that of Tayless Gromminger. On Atreus, Precentor Pedragor Aliz is the ComStar ambassador, but we never hear him speak in any of Stackpole's Warrior or Blood of Kerensky novels. In fact, no FWL representative ever makes an appearance at those scenes - it's just the Ambassadors to Tharkad, New Avalon, Dieron, and (on occasion) Sian arguing with the Primus. Precentor Atreus, if there, never joins the conversation. And yet, he's the guy who personally recruited Thomas Marik into ComStar. Some of the later authors picked up on this conspicuous absence as well, and there's a "corrupted message fragment" in Historical: Brush Wars that indicates he was part of the Blakist cabal even before the schism, and up to his neck plotting and scheming.
Overall Assessment
House Marik - The Free Worlds League - is one of the standout gems of the early FASA sourcebooks. It was written by some fairly ingenious guys with a background in developing RPG material, so they gave numbers where they knew the fans wanted numbers, they seeded adventure hooks throughout every page, and they really got down into the nitty gritty of the League's internal political struggles.
There's a very heavy focus on the Mariks (understandable in a document called "House Marik"), but that means that the unique character of the provinces is given short shrift. You could fill pages and pages about these provinces, but most get a slim paragraph, leaving out a lot of the details about Oriente, Regulus, Mosiro, etc. and not giving us more than a bare bones sense that they exist and may or may not oppose the Captain-General.
Later sourcebooks have done a lot to flesh out these provinces, but I wish there had been more done in this book so that the portrait of the League as an internally divided state with the Captain-General desperately working to keep provincial powers from rising up, breaking away, or running roughshod over their neighbors would be more complete.
I'm very glad that we got a stream of stories from BattleCorps where a stable of creative authors worked to flesh out these blank slates, making the League's canvas more vibrant (before, of course, it gets torn to shreds and thrown out the window into traffic during the Jihad).