Fall of the Aurigan Coalition

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Is it comfirmed that Aurigan Coalition did not last longer? I hate to see the same fate of protagonists of the video games again. They always makes their protagonists' fate miserable.

[Colt Ward]

It has not been revealed . . . only ones I know that get protagonists in canon are MW4's Ian Dresari where they chose the 'bad' choice, and a few hints at MCG/MC2 pilots being canon.  MW3's Damocles team got mentioned but I am not sure we really hear of them again.

Also, we do not know what happened to the mercs- the SB is about Kamea Arano & her minion the Emir.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Well, then we shal see. It seems what we can do is nothing but guess. Although, it is quite possible that it didn't last longer.

[glitterboy2098]

Note that a "failed state" just means one where the political and/or economic system is so weak the government can't maintain control within its borders.
The Aurigans could be a failed state without ever ceasing to exist as a government. which would help explain that gap in the borders. The coalition exists, making Peaceful absorption of the region difficult politically, but the coalition can't fully ride herd on its own people, resulting in it being full of corruption, organized crime, and non state actors like smugglers, bandits, terrorists, etc. A situation which would make conquest even more difficult since conquest and absorption would require you to clean up the region.

[Colt Ward]

And being a 'political fiction' could also explain why they are not recognized or placed on maps.  Didn't someone buy one of those island fortresses in the N Sea and declare it a new country?  No one takes that seriously afaik, and this would be the same deal.

If you look at what happened with the Royal forces- especially if any jump in with the MoC as auxillaries- then the AC is going to have problems exerting control.  And if you do not have control, how can you collect taxes?  If you lack tax income, how can you pay for more troops or train them?  If you do not have enough troops, how can you exert control?

See?

[glitterboy2098]

Honestly I like that as a storyline.. The Arano government struggling against the inertia of the damage the Civil war did to an already fragile state. Losing control of outlying areas (both in terms of being unable to enforce laws, and in terms of the TC absorbing half a dozen worlds on the antispinward(?) border), insurgencies and factionalism breaking out all over, always on the brink of the whole thing Balkanizing. Coalition armed forces rushing around to put out fires as new ones ignite

[Stormlion1]

From the Sourcebook there hunting down units that took there mechs with them after the Civil War. It's entirely believable that Rampart Company went after one unit and lost taking one of the better units the Aurigan Coalition had. For many in the Coalition that unit bring lost could have been a sign Arano was weak and another Coup attempted.

[Elmoth]

I stand that they are not around anymore in the 3060 since the Fronc Reaches do not reference them at all. They can be retconned for sure, but so far the story of the Fronc ignoring them is important since they start smaller than the (supposed) Aurigans in their front door.

Yes, I am aware that the Fronc Reaches' entries are older than the new Aurigan book. But as the Arano book is more an internal joke related to an apocryphal video game than an actual product with continuity, I assume they are out 30 years after you play the campaign.

It plays well in the setting.

[Kovax]

Whether that's "out" as in non-existent, or merely down to one or two worlds and basically irrelevant is the question.  They clearly aren't a significant factor in the region by then.  There's no info on
a bunch of other local independent worlds in the Fronc Reaches writeup, so if the remains of an Auriga Coalition that only consist of one or two planets isn't specifically mentioned, that doesn't mean anything.

It's about as vague as you can possibly get, and I suspect that if it could have been made even more vague, they'd have done so.

[Colt Ward]

Found the bit someone said was in the RecGuide . . . #8, the Rifleman's SW notable pilots has Subaltern Thorgil Wolf who lost his RFL during the Restoration.  Afterwards he is awarded a new mech and lance command in Second Company- Marcell's Marauders- where he was frequently tasked with protecting the weakened borders from pirates.  Even the Marauders reference is IMO a link to the game, since they were something similar until you get leadership and can change the name.

[glitterboy2098]

i have to ask.. for people who are claiming to be fans.. why do some of you seem to want Kamea killed and the Aurigans collapse entirely?

I stand that they are not around anymore in the 3060 since the Fronc Reaches do not reference them at all. They can be retconned for sure, but so far the story of the Fronc ignoring them is important since they start smaller than the (supposed) Aurigans in their front door.
Yes, I am aware that the Fronc Reaches' entries are older than the new Aurigan book. But as the Arano book is more an internal joke related to an apocryphal video game than an actual product with continuity, I assume they are out 30 years after you play the campaign.

that's like saying that Wolf Dragoons shouldn't be considered to have had any connection to the clans, because it was never mentioned prior to the warrior trilogy, which retconned in a connection where all the materials "do not reference them at all" in regards to such a connection.

yes it was added retroactively, but it was done such that it would not blatantly contradict anything that already existed. it is in a location no one claims for basically the entire history of battletech. they set the start of the polity to a century after a major conflict (the MOC-TC war) which would require the combatants to pass through the region, so that the existence of the polity doesn't disrupt the one bit of history for the region we had. and they set the polity up as a weak state that the wider IS can quite easily ignore, explaining why it wasn't on any of the (comstar made) maps.

arguing that the lack of info on a group from material dating to before said polity was invented for the game as prooving they ceased to exist is an example of a "false cause" fallacy, and a really illogical way of approaching history.

[Liam's Ghost]

i have to ask.. for people who are claiming to be fans.. why do some of you seem to want Kamea killed and the Aurigans collapse entirely?

That wording feels a bit confrontational, but I'll bite.

This is a war game, happy endings are inherently boring. Chaos is endless fun. The Aurigans aren't interesting to me unless they're doing something where people shoot at other people.

A failed state gives us more to do than a peaceful, stable one.

Also, saying the Aurigan Coalition didn't survive in a stable enough state to stay on the maps as a unified entity is the simplest way to reconcile it not being on the maps without more extensive retcons. We're talking about maps that recognize bandit kingdoms as coherent interstellar powers here.

The simplest solution is that most of the Aurigan worlds remain individually strong enough to resist incorporation into their neighbors but disunited enough to not qualify as a single state.

Not only is it a neat potential region for further stories with the Aurigan ties to bind it together (just imagine young idealists arising every so often dreaming of putting things back together), but it also sidesteps the "oh, hey, we thought the Lothian League was important enough to mention, but forgot all about the Aurigan Coalition these last twelve decades." 

[truetanker]

I say their still there, just quietly existing.

TT

[glitterboy2098]

except as i've pointed out.. what keeps being talked about here isn't a failed state. a failed state is where the Aurigan coalition continues on, retains its territory (mosty), but it becomes mostly toothless and subject to internal unrest. unrest which makes an ideal subject for battletech games, because we're basically talking bandits, pirates, local warlords building up private armies and fighting each other, governmental forces dropping on worlds to blow up local warlords and show the flag, etc.

what people keep bringing up.. Kamea being assassinated. "down to one or two worlds" "must have fallen" "disintegrates" "not a polity anymore"
these are not a failed state. these are a dead state. a state that is not alive. ceased to be. shuffled off the mortal coil. an ex-state.

coming from people who for all accounts appear to like the Aurigans as they appear in the 3020's, it is a very very odd juxtaposition.

[Liam's Ghost]

these are not a failed state. these are a dead state. a state that is not alive. ceased to be. shuffled off the mortal coil. an ex-state.

coming from people who for all accounts appear to like the Aurigans as they appear in the 3020's, it is a very very odd juxtaposition.

Dead state works just as well as failed.

Honestly, I'm getting a "no true fan" feel from your objection so I'm bowing out.

[Colt Ward]

Nah, I get his point . . . folks rooting for her to get killed rather than just not be capable enough to rule.  She gets quite a bit of power after winning- 1 house is gone, she appointed a governor to another house who follows instructions of her primary follower, her follower the Emir- a prime minister in all but name, and her own vote.

Without the popular councilor vote, Kamea has a powerbloc that will be tough to crack . . . the way people are, if there is not some crack in it the 3 on the outside might decide to take their toys and go home.

[Elmoth]

The thing is that you need to retcon the Aurigans into the setting if they do not fail or are dead as a state. The fronc reaches does not recognize them at all. And they are big (at least 9 systems in star charts). That is bigger than the fronc reaches themselves.

The Arano book was put together as a salute to the HBS game, bit does not seem to feature in any kind of future plans from TPTB. Having them disappear would be fitting to the setting and solve the problem of them not appearing in star maps when the Illyrian Palatinate, Lothians, Valyriate, Niops, Marians and others have appeared consistently through the several supplements. It would be another one of the supposedly plentiful failed states in the periphery, that emerge live and disappear again. Failed/dead periphery qstates that are sorely missing from canon despite their supposed commonality. An example of that is a welcome addition to the setting and has value on its own.

Kamea dying is just one option. I vote for the planets NOT in her voting block starting to see more charges than benefits in their relationship with the Arano power block, and slowly but surely slipping away from control. There will be conflict for sure, but in the end, the Aurigans cease to be a relevant polity and at emo more by the time the Fronc reaches are formed.

[Colt Ward]

Well, one other point is the threshold of reporting 'owned' planets.  If you look at the additional 13 systems they claim some just barely have any sort of population . . . heck, if Panzyr was not the seat of House Decimius it might not be one of those 9 systems listed.  The only reason Decimius has Panzyr is that it was part of a negotiated settlement to keep the world they shared with another House from plunging into war.

So we get the 9 core systems . . . of which 6 are part of that core because they were the seats of the 7 Houses.  Which means that only two other systems in their sphere of influence were significant.  Besides their internal political power those other 6 might not be deemed significant- the political power that outsiders who do not recognize the state will not care about either.

To anyone outside the Coalition, what are their significant worlds/systems?  Coromodir (2 inhabited planets), Itrom (shipping center), Tyrlon (2 worlds, ag) Guldra (said to have megacities), and Mechdur (industrial center) . . . Guldra is interesting b/c the world's HPG was destroyed with ComStar & IS listing it as a destroyed world even with its high population.  Tyrlon's House Paratas was the last to join the Trade Partnership.

Panzyr and Smithon are really minor worlds that are only of interest b/c they are the seats of Houses with Star League artifacts with both seeming to have declining populations.  Heliat is described as a backwater among the AC, itself considered the 'sticks' and based on description seems a world that was strong-armed to join while being 'settled' by a second wave of folks from Guldra & Coromodir.   Weldry is described as marginally habitable and is only notable as a navigational waypoint- IMO the only reason it is a 'major' system is b/c it was in the campaign of the game.

So really take that 9 systems down to 6 as 'core' if you leave off their internal political importance.  IF the houses outside the block leave . . . it would mean the AC would be left with Coromodir, Guldra, and I would imagine Mechdur.  Other worlds that would stay in their sphere of influence would IMO be Weldry (some Arano is governor) and Smithon (Arano appointed Governor for dead House) with perhaps some of the minor systems.

[Liam's Ghost]

The Lothian League, Mica Majority, Illyrian Palantinate, and Elysian Fields would all like to take issue with the notion of too minor to report. Your backwater world of Heliat has a larger population than the rest of those recognized and mapped states combined.

A unified Aurigan Coalition would not be too minor to put on the maps by any reasonable metric. At the very least, it would be comparable to nations like the Marian Hegemony or Circinus Federation. In terms of resources it would probably be on par with the Outworlds Alliance, despite having fewer planets and no indigenous battlemech production.

[glitterboy2098]

plus there has to be *some* reason the capcon, magistracy, Fronc, and taurians haven't expanded into the area despite having a century and half to do so and taking in many worlds even worse off (or completely uninhabited!) around it. the region of the core dozen or so systems of the colaition (seen on the HBS map) basically goes completely untouched by anyone else between 2910 and 3150..

a Coalition that is stuck in governmental deadlock and the state running along on basically autopilot would help explain that.

especially since they were already bordering on being a failed state before the directorate's coup. since each major planet was run by one of the houses, it suggests that there wasn't much of a central government. the houses likely took care of that. between the dismantling of the directorate's efforts at a central government (in the process of dismantling the directorate), and the ruling council reduced in size and deadlocked by a dominating triumvirate of the Arano, Madeira, and Karosas houses, any real effort to reform the Coalition with a more central government would fail to get through the council, and the non-dominant houses would likely follow through with only the minimal support for the coalition wide state as they can get away with. forcing the the dominate houses to have to expend their own resources to help the worlds not under the direct sway of the ruling six houses.. and likely facing competition in that area as the non-dominate houses flex their muscles and sway those worlds to their side.. which would increase their economic and military power and possibly their stature in the ruling council.. possibly enough to lure one of the dominant three to switch sides or abstain on crucial votes that favor the non-dominant houses. meanwhile on the worlds without representation in the ruling council, institutions and control breaks down because there is no reliable source of centralized power, and the possible souces are busy playing political tug of war with said institutions.

[Stormlion1]

Honestly I think the worlds populations just dropped to a level that Comstar withdrew HPG services and jumpships just stopped going there. The little goverment that would have existed would quickly fail. The other option is by the 3060's and 3070's those worlds are WoB recruiting worlds as well as manufacturing planets and there non-existentance in the timeline is first a Comstar and later a WoB cover up.

[Colt Ward]

The Lothian League, Mica Majority, Illyrian Palantinate, and Elysian Fields would all like to take issue with the notion of too minor to report. Your backwater world of Heliat has a larger population than the rest of those recognized and mapped states combined.

A unified Aurigan Coalition would not be too minor to put on the maps by any reasonable metric. At the very least, it would be comparable to nations like the Marian Hegemony or Circinus Federation. In terms of resources it would probably be on par with the Outworlds Alliance, despite having fewer planets and no indigenous battlemech production.

And ComStar and the IS think Guldra is a dead world yet has a larger population.  It is like relying on encyclopedias from 1970 for population numbers to write your report in 1990.  All the earlier sources on the region were from ComStar- this is from Canopus who is their neighbor and actually cares about representing accurate numbers.  My point was not about population but about worlds that matter enough to be reported on- so while the MoC report claims 9 major systems and 13 minor ones, the only reason some were considered 'major' was b/c of their local political importance.  I said the only reason Weldry, Panzyr and Smithon were included as major was the game, by their description they are minor.

[Maingunnery]

The Lothian League, Mica Majority, Illyrian Palantinate, and Elysian Fields would all like to take issue with the notion of too minor to report. Your backwater world of Heliat has a larger population than the rest of those recognized and mapped states combined.

A unified Aurigan Coalition would not be too minor to put on the maps by any reasonable metric. At the very least, it would be comparable to nations like the Marian Hegemony or Circinus Federation. In terms of resources it would probably be on par with the Outworlds Alliance, despite having fewer planets and no indigenous battlemech production.

Sounds more like the Aurigan Coalition is the overpopulated slum area of the Periphery.

[Liam's Ghost]

And ComStar and the IS think Guldra is a dead world yet has a larger population.

There's no indication that the same applies to the entire coalition, particularly when three of their systems still have operating HPGs. And "lol comstar screwed up" is a tired meme that I hope we've finally moved past.

  It is like relying on encyclopedias from 1970 for population numbers to write your report in 1990.  All the earlier sources on the region were from ComStar- this is from Canopus who is their neighbor and actually cares about representing accurate numbers.  My point was not about population but about worlds that matter enough to be reported on- so while the MoC report claims 9 major systems and 13 minor ones, the only reason some were considered 'major' was b/c of their local political importance.  I said the only reason Weldry, Panzyr and Smithon were included as major was the game, by their description they are minor.

None of this answers the problem of a nation with populations in the millions and occasionally billions on the border of three other states somehow being less noteworthy than struggling microstates with populations in the thousands. It would literally be a state with billions of people under its banner on the border of three other states being less noteworthy than the Mica Majority.

The Mica Majority. Show of hands, be honest, when's the last time any of you even remembered the Mica Majority existed? It's the friggin Mica Majority. Did you know they can also be called Micanos? I didn't, because nobody cares about the Mica Majority. What do they even do there? Pop quiz, off the top of your head. Don't cheat by looking it up. What do Micans do?

(The answer, nothing useful, because they're Micans. Nobody cares.)

There's no reason a functioning Aurigan Coalition wouldn't be important enough to appear on the map. The least blatant retcon way to incorporate it without doing something like Brinton Plaguing it into extinction is to say that it's no longer a functioning, unified state.

Sounds more like the Aurigan Coalition is the overpopulated slum area of the Periphery.

It's like the outback, but in the periphery.

[glitterboy2098]

and there could be many reasons for comstar to leave it off their maps.
perhaps comstar has little to no presence as a communication service in the region, and thus doesn't include the state on their maps, only the handful of worlds they service.
perhaps comstar has interests in that region and leaves it off the maps so other states don;t get too interested in the area.

or perhaps comstar just never recognized the Coalition as a legitimate state, and thus leaves the area blank on maps because they only include comstar recognized entities. wouldn't be the first time in history something like that has happened.

personally i'd be inclined to take that last view. especially since the Coalition is only barely a "nation" even before the coup attempt.. it was an alliance of semi-independent sovereign entities (the 7 houses) under what amounted to a high-kingship by the Arano's, who were effectively "first among equals" within the Ruling council of the houses. since the high kingship appears to have been largely ceremonial, the result would have been what amounted to 7+ separate polities with close economic ties and strong mutual defense pacts. polities which would have been basically non-continious, as two of them share the same system for their homeworlds (coromodir V and IV for House Espinosa and Arano) and all of the houses control in whole or in part other lesser worlds in the region based on economic ties rather than geographic ones. thus a worlds allegiance might be split and is unlikely to fully border other worlds held by the same house. (ironically the Directorate was an attempt to build a proper centralized state in the region.. it just was being perpetrated by people who did not have high morals to go with their lofty political goals)

in short, the coalition isn't really a "state" in the same sense that Comstar usually deals with, so it probably didn't recognize the formation of the Coalition.. and trying to depict the 7 some houses and their non-continious holdings would be a nightmare for map makers so they don't bother. since the area is a relative backwater with few worlds of interest to the wider IS and very few ties to any other states, leaving it off made the maps easier to make and didn't really effect the wider political situation of the inner sphere.

[Frabby]

There is one key difference between the Aurigan Coalition and all those other micro-states (even the Micans iirc, but they're in only one system so it's moot):

The Aurigans have no JumpShips of their own. They completely rely on the Gwendor-Dorwinion Cartel. Their corner of the universe is explicitly called "JumpShip starved".

Planetary populations aren't that relevant for an interstellar nation, but without JumpShips you can't have an interstellar nation. All the nice stuff on Mechdur is worth diddly squat on Coromodir without JumpShips.

(There's a reason the Coalition only came into its own when Gwendor-Dorwinion showed up. And maybe the war ravaged the Coalition so much that the cartel's JumpShips moved to greener pastures elsewhere.)

[glitterboy2098]

that also help explain the lack of map appearance. with no comstar registered jumpships travelling around in that little cluster of stars, maybe comstar just literally has no stellar coordinates for the worlds there, and thus leaves it off the map.

[Frabby]

that also help explain the lack of map appearance. with no comstar registered jumpships travelling around in that little cluster of stars, maybe comstar just literally has no stellar coordinates for the worlds there, and thus leaves it off the map.

On the contrary. ComStar may be the most active user of JumpShips there, but apparently is unable to double as a JumpShip service (like they seem to do in the Inner Sphere, the "ComStar bus lines" theory) out here.

As Periphery goes, the Aurigan Reach has an unusually high concentration of HPGs, all still serviced by ComStar. There's one Explorer Corps HQ out there, too. One planet is considered inhabited solely because the Star League built a HPG there for some arcane reason which ComStar still mans. I believe there are even gaps in the net out here that would cut some HPGs off unless ComStar brings in mobile HPGs or courier JumpShips.

ComStar is definitely aware of the Coalition, but apparently don't consider them noteworthy, or maybe simply kept out of politics and didn't recognize them as a state for neutrality reasons. (Remember, most of the time ComStar actually is just what it says on the cover.)

[Liam's Ghost]

There is one key difference between the Aurigan Coalition and all those other micro-states (even the Micans iirc, but they're in only one system so it's moot):

The Aurigans have no JumpShips of their own. They completely rely on the Gwendor-Dorwinion Cartel. Their corner of the universe is explicitly called "JumpShip starved".

Planetary populations aren't that relevant for an interstellar nation, but without JumpShips you can't have an interstellar nation. All the nice stuff on Mechdur is worth diddly squat on Coromodir without JumpShips.

(There's a reason the Coalition only came into its own when Gwendor-Dorwinion showed up. And maybe the war ravaged the Coalition so much that the cartel's JumpShips moved to greener pastures elsewhere.)

Citation needed. Every corner of the universe is jumpship starved. The Aurigans were still able to conduct an interstellar conflict with themselves involving significant numbers of troops (for a periphery state). Show me in the lore how the Aurigans depending on the goodwill of privately owned jumpships is definitively different from every other small state that's on the map.

If those jumpships then left, and the Aurigan Coalition collapsed as a result, then... the Coalition collapsed. The state's dead, what's your point? It solves the problem of them not being on recent maps by destroying them as a state.

that also help explain the lack of map appearance. with no comstar registered jumpships travelling around in that little cluster of stars, maybe comstar just literally has no stellar coordinates for the worlds there, and thus leaves it off the map.

If that were true, (which it isn't because comstar is actively involved on Aurigan worlds running their HPGs) it still wouldn't solve the problem of other lesser states that Comstar also doesn't have any interest in appearing on the map. You think Comstar was going out of its way to monitor the life and times of the Illyrian Palatinate? Only bandit states like the Marians or Ciricinans care what the Illyrians are doing. And that's just so they can steal their stuff.

(yes, I do keep switching which minor state I use as an example, because there's more than one really good example)

On the contrary. ComStar may be the most active user of JumpShips there, but apparently is unable to double as a JumpShip service (like they seem to do in the Inner Sphere, the "ComStar bus lines" theory) out here.

As Periphery goes, the Aurigan Reach has an unusually high concentration of HPGs, all still serviced by ComStar. There's one Explorer Corps HQ out there, too. One planet is considered inhabited solely because the Star League built a HPG there for some arcane reason which ComStar still mans. I believe there are even gaps in the net out here that would cut some HPGs off unless ComStar brings in mobile HPGs or courier JumpShips.

ComStar is definitely aware of the Coalition, but apparently don't consider them noteworthy, or maybe simply kept out of politics and didn't recognize them as a state for neutrality reasons. (Remember, most of the time ComStar actually is just what it says on the cover.)

They didn't appear on the maps because they hadn't been retconned into the universe yet. The question isn't why they didn't; it's whether or not they will in the future (including the future of the past), and if they don't, why they don't.

The reason I'm pushing the fallen state idea isn't because of any grudge against the Aurigans, it's because I think it's the most likely solution for the writers to give us. It's simple, it's not an unreasonable result from a lore standpoint, it takes another extraneous piece off of a very cluttered board, and it doesn't require the positively herculean mental gymnastics we're seeing here with people trying to convince themselves that the Aurigans remained in a viable state but were still somehow so unimportant that they got beat out by the Elysian Fields when it came time to make maps.

But hey, the writers gave us forever faithful, so who knows, maybe they'll just jam it in there and call it good.

[Colt Ward]

They actually do have a recent appearance in 'future past' with RecGuide 8- Rifleman's notable pilots has a Restoration pilot who lost his RFL towards the end, given lance command, and hunts pirates using a lot of pluralistic language.

Nothing you presented is mutually exclusive-

Being a failed state
Smaller in 3050 than we saw in 3026ish set SB
Unimportant to the universe at large
Having better population records via MoC than ComStar provided for other periphery (or IS) worlds
Having more industry but at a lower tech level
ComStar/Word of Blake keeping them off maps for nefarious reasons- WoB was working at least '57 onward to get a Periphery alliance