Marian Hegemony
Years of Reformation: 3035, 3095, 3100
Reformed into Corvid Principate in 3035
Reformed into Scipian Dominate in 3095
Reformed into Flavian Principate in 3100
Capital: Alphard
The Marian Hegemony has long been a blight by the reckoning of many. A part of me still feels visceral disgust at the idea of Lyran worlds like Cavanaugh and Timbiqui and Buena being ruled from Alphard. But whatever my offended pride may feel, it would be dishonest to deny just how greater a state the Cisglass O'Reillys have founded over their kin on our side of the Glass, just as it would be dishonest not to acknowledge they have come a long way from their cruel beginnings.
Founded by Johann Sebastian O’Reilly in 2920, the Marian Hegemony became the terror of the old Free Worlds' peripheral regions with their repeated descents for tribute and slaves. Others moved to the worlds voluntarily in response to generous offers of arable land or economic opportunities in conjunction with the relative safety of the Periphery compared to the continued chaos of the early-30th Century Inner Sphere. The Hegemony overran neighboring states like the Illyrian Palatinate and the Lothian League (the former through conquest, the latter through subterfuge and manipulation) and used their expanded resource base to, in 3030, become one of the most aggressive of the early Second Age of War expansionists. Securing their flank in former League space with alliances, they plunged for former Lyran space, seizing Timbiqui and beginning manipulations between the oft-warring states of Bolan and Tamarind. They were only briefly checked by the reformation of the Circinian Federation before compelling that state's submission while winning the Niops Collective's admission through adroit diplomacy. Not until they reached Bolan in 3033 did they finally face any major resistance from one of the stronger Successor States, with Arcadian intervention in the famous (or infamous for Alphardians) "Rettungsaktion" of 3034. They would nevertheless continue to expand the following years, taking over a portion of their fallen Kashamarkan allies and conquering Tamarind in 3036.
The surprising thing, to some, is that this was done under no less than four Imperators in the span of as many years. Ultimately the last left standing was the sickly but intelligent Corvus O'Reilly-Logan, who used the conquest of Tamarind to consolidate his power to ram through a controversial abolition bill that ended slavery (as well as the technocratic castes on Niops) by one vote in the Senate. With other reforms he proclaimed the state reorganized into the Corvid Principate, assuming the title of Princeps while maintaining the Imperator position as one he controlled but could delegate to military advisors as needed. Seeking to end the cycle of familial bloodletting he formally adopted his niece Lucia O'Reilly-Logan and his cousin Livia O'Reilly, taking advantage of his own childlessness to elevate them to his heirs and ensuring there were no other viable candidates to the throne that enemies could use against him. The abolition likewise made possible a rapprochement with the fiercely abolitionist Arcadians that benefited the Hegemony, which through territorial exchanges ensured the Arcadians brought the Lyran Alliance into the unfolding Second Andurien War as allies of the Principate, thus restoring the balance of power in the former Free Worlds League to the Principate's favor.
A challenge to Corvus' rule materialized among the patricians in 3040, seeking to restore the institution of slavery and the rights of the former masters over their freed slaves, but it was utterly crushed in a day's fighting (and was most likely provoked by Corvus' own agents to ensure the outcome). Secure in his throne Corvus oversaw the final expansion of the Principate for the next half-century, joining the War of Donegalian Succession as an ally of Queen Johanna and her Arcadian supporters and counter-attacking the Oriento-Capellan Empire's assault on Arcadian territory. When peace was restored over two years later, the Principate had gained a portion of the broken New Commonwealth and Kashamarkan worlds initially lost to the Empire. Rebuilding the legions in the face of the Terran Export Ban of 3040 occupied Corvus' energies for the rest of the decade, as did his new role as doting grandfather to Livia's children and the future heirs of the Principate.
The Principate's peace ended in 3050 with the HPG blackout. With black boxes the Principate maintained the necessary communications to avoid panic, and after deliberation Corvus ordered the legions to mobilize. He was proven right when Terran naval and ground troop forces jumped into Alphard. The new Star League was proclaimed and Corvus was offered the honor of a seat on the new Council, so long as he acknowledged the permanency of the Terrans' positions as First Lord and agreed to naval disarmament and a reduction in his standing forces; if not, he would be treated an enemy of the new League and made war upon by the Terrans and those states that adhered to the League. While some advisors wondered if acceptance might be preferable, especially of the Oriento-Capellans or even Arcadians agreed to join said League, Corvus was certain few if any Successor States would do so, and replied in his typical way, transmitting his refusal with Horatius' monologue from Macauley's 19th Century poem.
The fight on Alphard led to the loss or severe damage to numerous factories, though the Terrans suffered grievously at the hands of the Principate Navy in their escape, and a follow-up attempt on New Venice saw all but a few of the Terran raiding ships and troops destroyed or compelled to surrender. The Legions rallied as best as they could and rushed to the aid of their allies. Through the Terran War they remained firm and joined the Robinson Accords, their role culminating with participation in the battles for Regulus, New Delos, and New Dallas (alongside allied and former enemy units) and, under Consul Lucia O'Reilly and Imperatrix Lydia Humphries, command of the capture of Mars in Operation: SERPENT. The Terrans had just submitted when Lucia was summoned home: Corvus had fallen deathly ill, and he would pass away before the makeshift command circuit returned her to Alphard.
Under Princeps Lucia the Legions continued to protect their allies, fighting alongside the Rim Commonality and the Arcadians in numerous campaigns through the decades. Lucia passed on herself in 3090, leaving the Principate to her nephew-by-adoption Julius O'Reilly, the eldest son of Livia. Unfortunately, Julius' reign did not last long. His attempt to force through more reforms to curtail the remaining privileges of many patricians infuriated that class. Meanwhile his nephew Scipio, young and a skilled, energetic commander, yearned to return to the days of glorious conquest and tired of the indecisive defensive fighting and lack of proper spoils. In 3095 Scipio joined the resisting patricians and launched a coup that killed Julius and other loyalists. Becoming Princeps and Imperator, Scipio declared the state to now be the Scipian Dominate, a military dictatorship backed by the conservative patricians. After securing his power base and failing to secure the return of loyalist forces that fled to Canopian territory, Scipio embarked on his planned war to secure the throne of the Royal Federation through his blood ties to House Proctor. The resulting invasion pitted the legions against their former allies, reclaimed Tamarind and Bolan and captured multiple Arcadian worlds, but met its end in the 3099 invasion of Arcadia itself where the forces of House Proctor and House Davion met Scipio's victorious legions and smashed them in a few months of fighting. Retreating to Tamarind to regroup, Scipio's disappointed legates assassinated him in a bid to secure power themselves and rushed to return to Alphard before any others could claim it, abandoning their damaged legions to lose all that they'd gained in the following Arcadian counter-attack.
And all for nothing. After the new year, the loyalist troops of VI and IX Legio arrived at Alphard and seized the capital, crushing the patricians' remaining forces and retainers in the name of Julius' son Flavius. Flavius O'Reilly freed Scipio's various prisoners and declared himself Imperator. With the support of the regrouped reformists and a widening circle of remaining legions, Flavius quickly subdued or intimidated into submission the remaining patricians and expansionist vassals. He then forced through a captive Senate the reforms that his father had sought. With his act, the final transformation came, and the Scipian Dominate once more became the Principate: the Flavian Principate.
Rim Commonality
Year of Union: 3128
United with Flavian Principate
Capital: Tematagi
The Commonality undoubtedly made many mistakes over the centuries, but they deserved better than to be one of the worst losers at Dieron. Though they lost little territory, they walked away from that war a broken state, and now find themselves part of a larger empire. That it was by their choice does not take the sting out of it, I imagine.
A former part of the Principality of Regulus detached during the era of the Star League, the Rim Commonality remained intact as an independent state through the end of the Free Worlds League and the worst of the Collapse. To face the challenges of frequent raids by the warlords and pirates that surrounded them they reformed internally and built up a military apparatus to defend themselves, stabilizing the state as the Renaissance Era began in the mid-30th Century. The rise of Nalan Ciftci in the 2960s to First Minister was the start of an era of effective one-family rule, as the Ciftci family repeatedly held on to power through maintaining a solid bloc of allies and shifting independent voters in the Rim Parliament.
Her grandson Evren assumed power in 3029 and was quick to mobilize for offensive operations, though the enlarged state was soon bordered by other strong Successor States and forced to turn to diplomacy. An alliance with the Marian Hegemony and the Kashamarka Antisuyu provided for the Commonality to focus its defenses towards Oriente and Andurien, and they joined the Kashamarkans in supporting Andurien in the First Andurien War against Oriente, Harsefeld, and the Brethren. When the Kashamarkan government collapsed the Commonality took a third of its worlds in by diplomacy and force to ensure a stable border.
The extra resources proved necessary the following year when the Second Andurien War broke out with the Canopian invasion of Andurien. This time Harsefeld and Oriente came to that state's defense and, in light of Canopus' alignment with the now-reformed Corvid Principate, launched an attack on the Commonality as part of a general war with the entire alliance. The naval strike at Tematagi devastated the Commonality's shipyards and smashed most of their impending naval force, including an incomplete cruiser, and the entire front was soon bogged down in fighting thanks to the naval superiority of Oriente and their allies over the Principate and Commonality. The Commonality army was nearly destroyed at Nullarbor in their efforts to meet the invasion, but the naval blockade pinning them down dispersed thanks to the impending arrival of Principate and Lyran Alliance naval assets. When the war ended in First Prince Ian's Truce in October 3037 the Commonality was left battered but had gained a few extra worlds to staunch the economic pain.
They had but a few years to rebuild, as the moment the truce expired on January 1st 3041, the now-merged state of the Oriento-Capellan Empire immediately launched spoiling attacks upon their worlds to cover for an overwhelming Compact-bloc invasion of the Lyran states. The Commonality was better prepared and managed to avoid the same terrible opening losses as they'd suffered previously, allowing their forces to eventually deflect the attacks and rush to the defense of their allies. When the war ended they'd gained nothing but had made good the rescue of their army at Nullarbor.
The Terran export bans in 3040 ensured the war did not wax as hot as it might have, and through the rest of the decade the Commonality had to build up its supply chains to rebuild their damaged armies. A desire among the populace for peace and a relief of their tax burdens left to a change in leadership; Evren Cifti's daughter Alice became First Minister in 3048 and pursued a peace dividend policy, including forestalling the expected renewal of hostilities with the Empire when the new truce expired in 3053. She made some headway with both High King Thomas Proctor and Emperor Jonah Allison-Liao, but the matter took a new turn when the HPG blackout hit in July 3050. The arrival of a Terran strike force at Tematagi six weeks later led to fierce debate in Parliament over whether to accept the Terran offer or refuse it, and refusal narrowly won. The Terrans invaded and attempted to back the anti-Cifti bloc, but this backfired when they refused to accept the aid and unified with their political rivals to defend the Commonality. A six month siege of Tematagi followed, and afterward, the Terran War began in earnest. Former enemies and allies worked together, under the 3054 Robinson Accords, to smash the Terrans and ensure they never again threatened the rest of the Inner Sphere.
Alice Laar-Cifti pledged to uphold the peace of the Robinson Accords and initially refused to be involved when the Oriento-Capellans and Lyrans resumed hostilities over Sirius and Procyon. This cost her with both the Arcadians and her closest allies, the Corvid Principate, and after a tense summit with Imperatrix Lucia O'Reilly Alice sent troops into the Duchy of Oriente to support wider efforts to divert Compact forces. When fighting ended and a tenuous peace was restored, Alice redoubled her efforts to keep peace. She did not participate in the Concord-Compact War as the Canopians did and offered mediation that was rebuffed. The brief alliance of convenience that war brought with the Empire and its Compact allies did not last and by 3080 fighting was again raging along the Commonality/Duchy of Oriente borders. When Alice refused to commit to offensive actions to seize Regulus from the Empire, her enemies struck at her family's traditional bloc and, for the first time in 120 years, a non-Cifti was made First Minister.
The First Ministership of Rodrigo Alba lasted for fifteen years in which the Commonality nearly became a military republic as it strained every sinew to seize Regulus and push back the Empire. Though some worlds did fall it did not last, and the indecisive warfare sapped at the Alba Government. When Scipio O'Reilly toppled the Principate and formed the Dominate, Alba found himself in the hot seat; he could not anger Scipio for fear of being attacked, but to overtly support him would outrage a Parliament that did not trust or like the new and ambitious Imperator. In response the Commonality turned passive, allowing Scipio to stage troops to strike at his cousin Flavius sheltering in Canopus, but refusing his request for troops to fight for his claim to the Arcadian throne. Scipio's effort to seize the Royal Federation failed in 3099 and Flavius came to power the following year after Scipio's assassination on Tamarind. Alba was toppled in disgrace and Alice Cifti's daughter Semiha became First Minister.
It would be Semiha's fate to endure the greatest pain and indignity. The Fourth Succession War of 3110-3120, sparked by a fresh effort by the Oriento-Capellans to conquer Andurien, quickly spread, and the Commonality was stuck in grinding warfare. Their greatest success came in 3116 when, after decades of trying, they finally gained Regulus. But disaster soon followed: an attempted conquest of Kearny was utterly smashed by a surprise strike by the gathered Oriento-Capellan fleet, devastating the Commonality and Principate navies and destroying the cream of the Commonality army. Defying expectations of focusing defensively on Arcadian strikes into their Sirian holdings, the Empire plunged into the heart of the Rim state. In August 3118, Semiha Cifti was forced to flee by DropShip as Tematagi itself fell to the Empire's invasion. Reinforcements from rebuilt regiments and the Flavian legions enabled a counter-attack that eventually regained the world in October 3119, but a number of key worlds were still under Imperial control when peace talks convened at Dieron a month later. To regain all they'd lost and keep Regulus, the Commonality had to support the Empire's claim to its conquests from the Federated Suns and reclaiming most of the worlds it'd lost to the Arcadians. Despite fierce protest from House Proctor, Semiha agreed, and threatened a separate peace if High Queen Jacqueline refused. In the end, the Arcadians relented, and the Congress of Dieron ratified a peace to end the savage fighting.
The Rim Commonality had regained its lost worlds, but most were in various stages of ruin. The Empire had torn the heart and guts of their economy out. Despite the peace an economic depression gripped the state. Semiha's grasp on power faltered, though she won every vote of no confidence she faced. While addressing a crowd after a recovery bill passed Parliament, Semiha Cifti was gunned down by a lone assassin. Though the assassin appeared to be an out-of-work veteran angry at the failure to rebuild his world, rumors persist that his success was due to collusion by internal or external agencies who wanted the Ciftis finally gone.
Semiha's violent death nearly plunged the Commonality into political chaos as well as economic. Desperate to avoid this fate, many leaders turned towards their oldest ally, and a proposal from Flavius O'Reilly (though most likely pushed by his ambitious daughter and heiress Julia) to provide a shot in the arm to the Commonality by bringing it entirely into the Principate. Parliament would be folded into the Senate on Alphard and all the traditional rights and privileges of Commonality worlds would be upheld as a matter of Principate law. While some domestic opposition was fierce, the economic uncertainty and political chaos swayed many frightened voters and nobility alike, and in 3128 the Treaty of Karachi was signed. The Rim Commonality was once more the component of a larger state.
Grand Duchy of Oriente
Year of Merger: 3038
Merged with Royal Protectorate of Harsefeld into Oriento-Capellan Empire
Capital: Oriente
On neither side of the Glass can House Halas be accused of a lack of ambition. But I cannot fathom the Halas family of our side agreeing to merge with any Liao, even more reasonable ones. Yet that is what they did, and they have seemingly benefited for it.
When the Free Worlds League was dissolved by the Final Parliament of 2864, Oriente was not in any shape to vote one way or the other. The extinction of the Allison line, save for the branch growing its own state at Harsefeld, provoked a civil war that tore the Duchy asunder for most of the next century. House Halas finally consolidated a measure of control, if not always a strong one, through a combination of democratization and concentration of the surviving BattleMechs in the Duchy within the nobility. It was not a peaceful time for them, however, with a number of the new rulers dying by assassination or violence instead of old age. By 3030 the ruler was a teenage heiress, Eris Halas, who brought her strife-ridden state into the Second Age of War by expanding into the rest of the former League and over into the former Capellan Confederation. While making a failed bid to persuade the other ex-League states to reform the Free Worlds League to resist outside pressure (particularly the growing power of the Marian Hegemony), Eris left her greatest mark by her alliance with House Allison on Harsefeld. After a negotiated peace to end the failed bid to take Andurien in the First Andurien War, she nearly died at the hands of assassins sent by political rivals, spending the better part of three years in a coma. During this time her regent and closest supporters guarded her body and her authority, wielding it to further their alliance with Harsefeld, including joining the 3034-35 partitioning of the Marik Commonwealth that gained half of that large realm for the Grand Duchy. Later in 3035 Eris rose from her coma and consolidated her grip ever more tightly. To guarantee the future, she sought and gained a marriage alliance with Harsefeld, in the person of young heir Jonah Allison-Liao.
Their wedding came during the Second Andurien War, when the two states worked to protect their former would-be conquest from the Canopians and their alliance with the former Marians, now the Corvid Principate. Early victories led to a desperate struggle when the Lyran Alliance states intervened on the side of the Principate, an act that infuriated Eris as she had just attended the second coronation of Sara-Marie Proctor, whose reformed realm spear-headed the invasion. Oriente suffered the worst of its allies, with many worlds being temporarily overrun by the Lyrans or the legions of the Corvids, but with the aid of Harsefeld and the rest of the St. Ives Compact Oriente emerged mostly intact but for a handful of ceded worlds to the Rim Commonality.
While intact, the realm had suffered severely by the invasions, and the prospect of future hostilities with the Arcadians and Hesperans prompted Eris and her husband to move up their timetable. At the stroke of New Year's, 3038, King Alexander of Harsefeld abdicated in favor of his half-brother Jonah, and the Grand Duchy of Oriente and Royal Protectorate of Harsefeld unified into the Oriento-Capellan Empire, with Eris as Empress and co-sovereign of the Empire.
Royal Protectorate of Harsefeld
Year of Merger: 3038
Merged with Grand Duchy of Oriente into Oriento-Capellan Empire
Capital: Harsefeld
In a strange way, Harsefeld can be compared to the Rasalhague Dominion as well; foreign conquerors who, to secure their rule, adopted and yet changed the ways of the conquered to best suit their own power. And they won the greatest prize of all, in the end, by becoming the recognized successors of the old Capellan Confederation.
Sent by his father and House Marik to see to one of the invasion fronts of the Capellan Confederation, Roland Allison spent the 1st Succession War weighing plans and considering the growing scope of the conflict. In a flash of inspiration, or perhaps just lucky avarice, he realized the collapse that was coming and looked to profit by it by securing his own power base with the resources his family and the League provided him. Choosing the relatively minor, but agriculturally-self-sufficient, Capellan world of Harsefeld for his capital, Roland and his progeny carved out a small realm while waiting for their overlords to weaken sufficiently to break away. This process started with the loss of his older brothers' heirs and the end of House Allison on Oriente, and the resulting civil war, and on to the Final Parliament of 2864 that dissolved the League. Tristan Allison, Roland's heir, paid lip service to Count Halas on Oriente and, with his own son Roland II, the forming state continued to siphon resources from Oriente while occasionally participating in the Oriente Civil War still raging, often as an excuse to purloin yet more resources and machines from the broken nation. They likewise made repeated indications of accepting some of the Terran Union's half-hearted, quixotic proposals to reform the League, gaining largesse and financial support from the rebuilt state in the process.
Finally, in 2900, Roland II put an end to the farce and openly declared himself King of Harsefeld, ruler of the Royal Protectorate of Harsefeld. He turned the "temporary" state of his forebearers into a proper kingdom, including appealing to his majority Capellan subjects by formalizing the directorship caste as a neo-Confucian state bureaucracy and accepting the fealty of local sheng as his vassals in a feudal sense. The imagery of the fallen Star League was played up as the end-goal for House Allison; to take over worlds and restore such prosperity for the sake of everyone. For the next century, House Allison consolidated its small state in the ruins, quietly taking worlds here and there, sometimes losing them or others, but always progressing forward.
At the end of the century Uther III formulated a plan to consolidate Allison completely and legitimize them in Capellan eyes. With the same ruthless practicality of his forebearers, he sent his armies to Sian in 3001 and ransacked the Forbidden City of the terminally-ill, runt Capellan Confederation. Among the Star League-era treasures and machines his raiders captured was the true target: the firstborn daughter of Chancellor Maximillian Liao, Candace, whom Uther turned into a concubine (much to the fury of his suffering wife) to father heirs with Liao blood. Upon his wife's death ten years later Uther frustrated many among the non-Capellan elite by openly marrying Candace and legitimizing their son Jonah as co-heir with Uther's first son, Alexander. Alexander helped in raised his half-brother and, not being the marrying kind, named Jonah his heir as well.
At the outbreak of the Second Age of War Harsefeld stood out for its martial and diplomatic success, allying with Oriente, defeating the Capellan Hegemony and Interstellar Governments Council in war, and coming away from the First Andurien War with gains despite the near-disaster of the Kashamarkan/Rim Commonality intervention. A brief uprising by the Free Capella movement was ruthlessly crushed and Harsefeld quickly moved to take advantage of the Second Skye War by attacking the small Duchy of Zion and their Marik Commonwealth overlords, overrunning the first and partitioning the second with the Lyran states and Oriente. Alexander joined the new St. Ives Compact to secure his border with Tikonov and ensure peace with the expanding Federated Suns, allowing him to join Long Tom Silver in finally deciding the fate of the Capellan nation with the conquest of the Capellan Hegemony in 3035 and 3036, which ensured the Liaoist cause emerged triumphant regarding the fate of the former Confederation. Alexander and Jonah implemented further reforms here, reinstituting most of the former Capellan caste system and restoring the pride of place the Korvin Doctrine and Sarna Mandate held in the schooling of these worlds. Meanwhile Jonah, to consolidate the family's rise and most important alliance, married Grand Duchess Eris Halas of Oriente, ensuring the unity of their realms would come.
By this time, they were likewise embroiled in the Second Andurien War, this time trying to protect their former victim from Canopian conquest backed by the O'Reillys. Initially on the offensive, their armies were diverted coreward by the sudden intervention of the Lyran Alliance against them, forcing a diversion of resources that kept Harsefeld and their allies from focusing on one foe. After nine months of this warfare, with Lyran forces holding their valuable shipyards at New Delos and occupied Canopus once more contested, First Prince Ian's Truce was accepted and the war ended. Harsefeld ceded Marik, Irian, and a handful of worlds to the Lyran states, but gained temporary security on the border and ended the war.
Given the situation in battered Oriente, Alexander decided it was time to move to their final phase. He abdicated to his half-brother, and with that abdication, Jonah and Eris merged their realms together and became Emperor and Empress of the Oriento-Capellan Empire.