THE AURIGAN REACH: BALKANS OF THE RIMWARD PERIPHERY?
In reading snippets from House Arano: The Aurigan Coalition, things started turning over for me as I went over the regional history. After the Magistracy/Concordat War of 2814 (AKA ‘the Shoving Match War’), both nations basically abandoned the region to its own devices and focused their efforts and forces elsewhere, trying to hold onto systems with greater economic and military value. The Capellan Confederation did much the same, pulling its formal borders back to Ward. And that started the wheels turning in my own head.
Now, obviously for me this suggested itself having implications for my own AU/series of fics, which is set in the 2820s, but it could apply just as easily for the 3025 period, or for that matter to just about any post-Amaris/pre-Dark Age era one cares to apply it to. So, for my purposes, we advance the plot of the HBS game into the 2820s and take a slightly AU twist: the Taurian Concordat declares the Ali’i Nui of Coromodir VI, Tamati Arano II, the acting High Lord of the Aurigan Reach. On paper the Reach remains part of the Concordat, and he has the verbal support of the TC government, but for all practical purposes the Reach’s ‘autonomous region’ status means it’s a whole new nation and Tamati II has full authority to take whatever actions he deems necessary to protect the people and prosperity of his worlds. (That part is non-canon; in the sourcebook, the local power-structure sort of evolves on its own to fill the vacuum, without official sanction from any outside party.) Being a nation-builder but not an empire-builder, he starts courting the leaders of other local worlds, well-founded principles of cooperation and mutual support bringing mutual benefit and prosperity to all those who join him.
Meanwhile, Santiago Espinosa is butt-hurt that he doesn’t have the top job (especially since the Aranos are far too touchy-feely to do what really needs to be done to unite the Reach as a nation!) and starts Making Plans to Do Something About That.
(AU/Speculative material begins.)
Also meanwhile, the Capellan Confederation — which used to own several of the planets Arano is courting and harbours diehard irredentist dreams of one day taking them back — hears about his approaches to ‘their’ worlds and is Not Impressed. The Maskirovka quietly checks out the local political scene and finds Espinosa, supposedly Arano’s chief supporter and loyalest of counsellors, is actually planning to execute a coup. This being their best chance to reclaim their ‘rightful demesnes’, or at least get a pro-Capellan puppet in control of the Reach, they start funneling him support, including the services of numerous ‘deniable’ merc units to carry out ‘pirate raids’ against truly-loyal supporters of the Arano family and possibly even directly supplying him with ’Mechs and other arms (depending on their degree of enthusiasm and available resources, since their main attention has to remain on the Succession War(s)).
The FWL and Federated Suns get wind of the Capellans focusing an unusual amount of interest on a strategic backwater and turn their own eyes that way. Not wanting to see the Capellans securing a puppet-state that expands their territory and economic power — not to mention the Reach’s potential to ‘out-flank’ established border-defences if it expands far enough — the Mariks and Davions also start channeling support into the Reach, either backing the Arano family or third-parties that might favour the League/Suns. (If the Feds did back the Aranos, can you just imagine the sheer cognitive dissonance when the Taurians realise circumstances have put them on the same side as the perfidious Davions? Heads would explode, I swear.)
And now we get to the outside chances. Does the Magistracy of Canopus take cards in this little poker-game, or do they wait and see? Do they back Arano as the Taurian-backed claimant and ‘the devil they know’? Espinosa, in the hopes of moderating his reign/counter-balancing Liao influence on him? A FWL/FS third party, to buy an ‘in’ with their sponsor? Or do they go for a candidate who’ll help them outright subvert the entire Reach and turn it into a Canopean client?
All this is happening on the far side of the Inner Sphere from the Draconis Combine and Lyran Commonwealth, but it’s not impossible that their intelligence services and agents might get involved as well, if only to gore the ox(en) of the FedSuns/FWL, respectively.
Result? Though Tamati Arano II may not realise it, the Aurigan Reach becomes a snake-pit, yet another proxy battlefield between most of the major and minor states in inhabited space, a place where espionage, sabotage, double-dealings and ‘deniable’/‘false-flag’/‘pirate’ raids are not exceptions but the new normal. Even before Espinosa sees to Arano’s death in a ‘JumpShip accident’, tries to subvert the man’s ‘impressionable’ daughter Kamea, then realises the girl won’t be a good figurehead and simply launches an coup against the Cormorant Throne, trying to establish central authority over the region that actually has some real bite.
And thus, all manner of ’Mechs and other war-machines might be found in the Reach, while any number of small mercenary commands (read: PC units) have the ‘opportunity’ to get involved in all manner of shenanigans, serving all manner of sponsors, in pursuit of all manner of agendas.
