Special Era Report: 3142 - Beyond the Looking Glass (Concertverse AU Sourcebook)

[Steve]

The Reformed


Principality of Rasalhague
Year of Merger: 3040
Merged with Rasalhague Commune into Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague
Former Capital: Rasalhague

The fate of Rasalhague is kinder in this history, that much is obvious.  It is said the Bears on my side of the Glass have yielded many rights to the Rasalhaguans they rule, but the Rasalhague Dominion is still a state of heavy Clan influence imposed upon those people.  This Rasalhague kept their independence and enjoy it to this day.

The failure of Zabu Kurita's reforms and the civil war caused by Rowena Kurita's efforts to stabilize the Combine enabled the long-suppressed Rasalhague Military District to finally halt half a millennium of Kuritan rule in 2852, though it would not be until 2880 that the last Kuritan rulers and troops were driven out of the entire district.  Unfortunately the newborn Principality was too damaged by the civil war with the Kuritans and the economic disruptions that crippled most of the Inner Sphere during the Collapse.  It could not control the vast territory the District once held, and over the next thirty years world after world broke away until a mere dozen remained.

Over the 30th and early 31st Centuries the Principality recovered enough to reach twenty worlds, and it would expand further after 3030 in alliance with the Tamar Pact.  Facing a surprise attack by the McAllister Shogunate and Hartshill Federal Alliance, Rasalhague itself came under invasion, and the Principality rallied as best it could to fight back.  The other Rasalhaguan state, the Rasalhague Commune based around Nox, came to their aid on the condition of eventual unification and along the constitutional lines of the Commune, which Elected Prince Haakon Magnusson agreed to despite his personal dislike for Gothi Karl Sleipson.  Though this would have effectively seen the annexation of the Principality by the Commune, the War of Rasalhaguan Unification gained its name as both halves were inspired by the prospect of forming the state that the Collapse had denied them.  In the end, the resulting constitutional merger was a blending of the two states into one: the Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague.


Rasalhague Commune
Year of Merger: 3040
Merged with Principality of Rasalhague into Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague
Former Capital: Nox

The Commune's history is indispensable to understanding the Rasalhague of the Cisglass Inner Sphere.  I cannot help but marvel at the similarities between the current Communal Republic with the Rasalhague Dominion even if the two states are still so very different.  One thing is for certain: this state owes its relevance to One-Eye Sleipson, who often seems to step out of the history account vids and works as a Viking straight from Old Terra given his bloody-mindedness, passion, and practical-minded savagery.

At the start of the Renaissance period most of the worlds around Nox were still independent, if economically linked.  As the 30th Century drew towards its end, Nox, Altenmarkt, Utrecht, Skandia, and Tukayyid came together to form the Rasalhague Commune, which drew in other worlds over time.  Though they were many jumps from Rasalhague itself, the Rasalhaguan identity was fully present in these worlds as well, and they formed a communal democracy based around the Allthing on Nox, with an elected ruler known as the Gothi.

The Commune began its rise to prominence in 3029 with the election of Karl "One-Eye" Sleipson, a veteran mercenary who assembled a following based around a devotion to Pan-Nordic identity applied to all residents of "Rasalhague's many worlds".  Sleipson led the Commune on an aggressive campaign of expansion that swiftly turned his state, not Haakon Magnusson's Principality, into the economically stronger of the two, while securing his flank with the COMINTERSTEL alliance formed with the Communal League of Sudeten.  When the McAllister Shogunate and its allies attacked Rasalhague, Sleipson joined the war immediately, and ultimately his forces — despite setbacks and severe losses — destroyed the Shogunate and compelled Hartshill back to its own systems (with some assistance from the Galedon Directorate).

This War of Rasalhaguan Unification provided the common cause necessary to truly fuse the two states, which formed the Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague in an official ceremony in 3040 after two years of quasi-union and consolidation.  The position of Gothi was made a popularly-elected military leader for the state, to treat with the monarchs and autocrats among the Inner Sphere where necessary and oversee the new FolksArme in the name of the peoples of Rasalhague, while the old Elected Prince became the Lawspeaker of the Peoples' Assembly, creating a two-man political leadership of the new Republic; one military, one civil.  So it has remained to this day.


Sidebar 15: The Wolf's Last Laugh

Many stories of Karl "One-Eye" Sleipson survive to the modern day. They are the subject of everything from power metal ballads to raucous mercenary banter in bivouacs across known space.  But one stands above others for the sheer otherworldliness of it.

October 3060 saw Nox entering its sixth year of painstaking rebuilding after the  brutal battles fought over the world in 3050 and 3055.  Rebuilding efforts had long restored the ShieldHall of Bolsun, which the FolksArme used as a planetary administration center and garrison for the Fifty-Third Landsgruppe.  But aside from the occasional squabble between soldiers, nothing seemed to disturb the halls of One-Eye's former headquarters.

On the sixteenth of October, many personnel reported the sound of laughter coming through the halls of the ShieldHall. Unsurprisingly most of the reports seem centered around the mess hall, but no source of the laugh was identified.  Many chalked it up to someone playing with the PA system, though no use was logged and a number of those present insisted the roaring, repeated laugh did not come through the speaker.

But the true mystery would not be clear for several days, when word came from Terra of the fall of Geneva and the death of Director-General Natasha Kerensky in the broken rubble of her capital, all on the sixteenth.  Word soon spread that the reported time, when adjusted to local Bolsun time, was right before the laughter was overheard.

The rumor mill began with a MechTech, Gunnar Andersen.  Gunnar was an old veteran who'd been wounded and taken prisoner in 3050, then freed in 3055.  Now back in service and working at the ShieldHall, Gunnar would start insisting that he knew the laugh well.  "Only one voice ever laughed so richly.  That was the Gothi, during his meals and a tale from his battles," Gunnar would tell people repeatedly.  "It's the only explanation.  That was old One-Eye's laugh, from the halls of Valhalla itself!  He was celebrating the death of that bitch Kerensky!"

Though many mocked this, the story of the Wolf of Rasalhague's Last Laugh would spread beyond the ShieldHall and then Bolsun itself, to Nox, to Rasalhague, and to the Inner Sphere.

-Entry from "Ghost Stories of the Sphere", published 14 September 3138 by Professor Andrej Skobelov, Princess Abigail College of Social Sciences, Royal University of Roslyn


Tamar Pact
Year of Union: 3045
United with Free Communal Republic of Rasalhague
Former Capital: Tamar

Tamar remains the burning shame of the Lyran people.  One of our founding worlds, lost to the Clan Invasion and never restored.  Across the Glass Tamar found a different fate.  It is strangely fitting it is in brotherhood with Rasalhague, another world that the Clans have held since their conquests on our side.

The Tamar Pact was left to its own devices when the Lyran Commonwealth officially broke up in 2850, though by then it was already a gutted state economically due to the savage fighting in the 1st Succession War and the aborted start of the 2nd.  The rebellion in the Rasalhague Military District gave the Pact a chance to recover to a degree, but it was only a hundred years later that Tamar and the handful of worlds around it started to reintegrate enough to be a true interstellar government again.  While they did retake worlds in the early years of the Second Age of War, they were quickly boxed in by Rasalhague and Sudeten.  They allied with Rasalhague for mutual protection and fought for their ally in the War of Rasalhaguan Unification, at great economic cost, contributing as well to the campaign against Oberon.  During that campaign the Pact came to the decision it could no longer be sustained as a politically independent state, but were unwilling to adopt the structure of the Communal League.  They instead chose to join the Free Communal Republic, which accepted Tamar as a semi-autonomous district in 3045 after some time spent integrating the state into the wider Rasalhague Republic.  Tamar remains a vital world to the Communal Republic to this day.


Hartshill Federal Alliance
Year of Union: 3106
United with Galedon Co-Prosperity Sphere (Draconis Combine)
Former Capital: Hartshill

Hartshill's history was a bloody one, and the state maintained a ruthless practicality that was clearest when they committed the Schuyler Massacre on the very army that had come to protect them.  Their position allowed them little leeway on this, I grant.  In the end, their choice in 3036 was a mere stay of execution.  Kori Honda's ambition would not be denied, and though they retained some of their autonomy, it was at the expense of giving Director Kori the means to embark on her dream of restoring the Draconis Combine to its full glory, and all the suffering and death that dream required.

With the collapse of the Draconis Combine in the mid-29th Century, chaos reigned in the Draconis Periphery.  Local DCMS commanders either carved out their own fiefdoms to see if any of the would-be restorers of Kuritan rule would succeed or proceeded towards Luthien and Pesht to curry favor with the major players in the efforts to rebuild the Combine.  Left to their own devices, Hartshill, Qandahar, and other worlds struggled their way through the Collapse.

By the mid-30th Century, a new player united many of these worlds: Aleksandr Takeda-Suvorov, who was proclaimed King and formed a new state built upon non-Kuritan lines, including parliamentary rule.  Unfortunately his son was still only a child upon his death in combat and the struggle for the state's throne led to a multi-decade civil war that ravaged the region in the late 30th Century.  Said civil conflict was finally settled and the state reformed into the Hartshill Federal Alliance.

The Federal Alliance participated in the expansion campaigns of the early Second Age of War, including an armed intervention into the First Outback War and joining their neighbors, the McAllister Shogunate, in a bid to dismember the Principality of Rasalhague. Unfortunately for their ambitions, Sudeten and the Rasalhague Commune intervened against them, and the war quickly turned into a defensive match.  When their allies infuriated the growing hegemon of the ex-Kuritan region, the Galedon Co-Prosperity Sphere, it seemed hopeless.  An offer of leniency from Director Masako Honda changed all this, and without the Queen's consent, Prime Minister Soshu sent orders for their naval forces to annihilate their own allies' army in space.  The Schuyler Massacre slaughtered the best troops of the Outworlds Republic and permanently stained the Federal Alliance's reputation among the Successor States, but it did preserve the state from foreign conquest.  For the following seventy years, the Federal Alliance continued to exist as an independent nation under the protection of Masako Honda and her son Hoff, including fighting at the side of their former foes against the Terrans.

It was after the turn of the century things changed: with Hartshill isolated, it was in no shape to resist Kori Hondas's demand for union into the Co-Prosperity Sphere, though Katarina Takeda-Suvorovna extracted a number of concessions that included leaving her in political control locally.  With the addition of Hartshills' strong navy and army to Galedon's already superior forces, Kori Honda had the means to embark on her wildly-ambitious war plans once the Fourth Succession War broke out.  It was thanks to Hartshill's military industries that Galedon's forces fought all of their neighbors at once and conquered more worlds than they lost when the dust settled in the Peace of Dieron.  Now House Takeda-Suvorov serve as the hereditary Warlords of the Hartshill Military District of the reborn Draconis Combine, and it remains to be seen if they will be completely subsumed into the Dragon's body, or retain the independent spirit they'd gained over their two centuries of independence.


Galedon Directorate
Year of Redesignation: 3036 (into Galedon Co-Prosperity Sphere)
Year of Reformation: 3121 (into Draconis Combine)
Capital: Galedon

I feel chills on my spine at seeing the end of this state.  Perhaps House Honda would still rule had they reformed further from the old Kuritan model.  Instead Kori Honda tore down her grandmother's alliances and reforged the Combine in blood.


Formed in the original core of the old Combine, the Galedon Directorate took its final form in the 30th Century under Tai-sho Mitsuhiro Honda, founder of what came to be called House Honda.  His Directorate was a true successor state of the Combine, maintaining the ISF and several of the social structures, but unlike other leaders he was not predisposed to struggling to reform the old Combine.  The Directorate exploded in size under his great-granddaughter, Masako Honda, who led them into the Second Age of War.  Within but a few years, the conquest of the Lancaster Authority alongside the Lexington Concord and expansion along the old Anti-Spinward Periphery and the Draconis Rift swelled the Directorate until it was the strongest of the ex-Kuritan states.  Masako allied them to the Concord, considering General Penelope Reynolds a kindred spirit and "blood sister" that made their alliance unbreakable.

The conquest of the Rengo Directorate in 3035 cemented Galedon's status as the strongest state in the old Combine and prompted Masako to declare the Directorate reformed into the "Galedon Mutual Co-Prosperity Sphere", though aside from a change in name and expansion of the existing state system, nothing else of note changed significantly.  It was in this form that Galedon had its shining moment of glory, enduring one of the longest of the Terran sieges of the Successor State capitals in 3050-52 that ended with the orbital bombardment of the dug-in Terran invaders until they were utterly annihilated.  Galedon took a key role in the counter-attack, including the pivotal battle for Benjamin in 3053-54 and the liberation of Nox in 3055, before providing support for the invasion of Terra and the Sol System in Operation: SERPENT.

The peace after the fall of Terra didn't last, though Galedon had nearly a decade to recover and prepare before the prospect of the Canaan Accord peacefully rejoining the Federated Suns drove them to action.  In the resulting Concord-Compact War, Galedon and their allies came very close to breaking the rival alliance, actively invading three of their enemies' capitals and mostly overrunning the Azami Confederation.  But to their shock and fury, the Lyran Alliance states intervened against them instead of against the Compact, drawing the war out and blunting the invasions of the Compact nations.  With the forces flagging all along the front, Masako took personal command of the invasion of Robinson, and she would fall in battle ensuring the death of Lord Protector Aaron Sandoval, denying the Accord its adult ruler and a figure for resistance to rally around.  Ultimately the war ground to an exhausted halt in 3073, with the following year seeing an arbitrated peace signed on Nox after tense negotiations brokered by Gothi Ragnar Magnusson of Rasalhague.

Now the Director of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, Hoff followed his mother's policies and Galedon focused inward; their alliance with what was now the Kilbourne Suns' Concord made them the strongest bloc in the Inner Sphere, and so long as the Compact and the Spinward states warred with one another, nothing would change that.

In time, though, that calculation changed, and Hoff's surprising death in 3092 saw to that.  Yumiko Honda, Hoff's elder daughter, was soon overthrown by Kori Honda, the younger, who became Director.  A secret supporter of the Black Dragon Society, Kori embarked on open Kuritanization, even marrying a surviving member of House Kurita and bearing an heir with him.  After years of preparation Kori broke her grandmother's vow to House Takeda-Suvorov and compelled their submission.  Their fleet, armies, and military resources made Kori the strongest of the Successor Lords by far, and she applied that strength with gusto in 3110 when she joined the unfolding Fourth Succession War, invading all of her neighbors in sequence, even her old allies in the Concord.  This betrayal shook the entire Inner Sphere and left her state friendless, but she continued to press onward against all challengers regardless of ever-increasing losses.  Against Kori's desires, but at the advice of her generals, she signed the Peace of Dieron in 3120.  This mandated accepting the loss of worlds her troops couldn't hold while still walking away with Pesht, Avon, Vega, and a number of other captured worlds.  Kori Honda had fought all of her neighbors and, by every objective measure, had won territorially for it.

In celebration, Kori took the final step.  In 3121 she relocated her capital to Luthien where she proclaimed herself Coordinator of the Draconis Combine.  House Honda were relegated to subordinates within the Galedon Military District; House Kurita once more reigned supreme.


Sidebar 16: The True Masako Honda?

Few figures loom so large or so controversially over the history of the Second Age of War as Director Masako Honda of Galedon.  She was the most powerful Successor Lord of the era and co-leader of the most powerful of the alliances.  Under her firm hand warlords were crushed, pirates slaughtered, and dozens of worlds secured from the chaos of the post-Collapse Combine.  Starving worlds were fed, medical supplies were distributed, and populations saved and uplifted after two centuries of chaos and hardship.  At the same time, multiple Successor States fell in whole or in part to her mighty army and the rebuilt Swords of Light, and her ISF remained vigilant for threats to the new order she built in the former Combine.  Today, her great-grandson Coordinator Yorinaga Kurita has hailed her as the spiritual foundation of the reborn Draconis Combine, and her name is widely celebrated and commemorated under House Kurita.

Yet much of what is remembered of her in the Combine is legend.  Outside of the Combine historians have a more mixed appraisal of Masako.  The most obvious of these diversions from House Kurita's new history is the historical record on her views of the Combine.  Far from dreaming of restoring it, Masako spoke critically, even contemptuously, of the idea she would restore the Combine.  "They are the Old Order.  I am the New," she famously told an interviewer from the Fort Ballycastle Gazette during a 3040 state visit to Lexington.  Under her law the Black Dragon Society was listed as a subversive organization hostile to state security and ruthlessly purged whenever they found their way into even the lowest government structure.  She mused upon having the Kuritas exiled on Terra executed as Terran collaborators after the fall of Terra, though she did not have the means or even interest to follow up on that.  It is rather apparent to many scholars outside the Combine that Masako would not be happy at all with her granddaughter Kori's handiwork, much less Kori's betrayal of Masako's agreements with her neighbors.  An exiled official from Galedon, Toshihiro Somoza, famously told a ComStar reporter in 3121"If the Director knew what Kori would become, she would have strangled the treacherous bitch as a babe in the crib!"

Masako is also remembered as having a great capacity for cruelty.  Many scholars cite sources from exiles that she personally saw to the torture and execution of the Lancaster Authority's ambassador to Galedon for plotting with her brother, who was likewise executed.  Threats to her rule were purged from civil society by the ISF, with attendant brutality if there was widespread resistance.  She publicly shot and killed one of her admirals for not wiping out the McCallister Shogunate's navy at the Battle of Avon in 3036.  Later on Masako would be ruthless during the siege of Galedon, and even as doctors struggled to keep her alive and rebuild her burned and ruined body, she issued directives for the leveling of whole towns if it meant eradicating Terran positions that her forces could not dislodge.  Once her navy succeeded in securing orbital supremacy, she personally gave the order for the orbital bombardment that ruined hundreds of square kilometers of Galedon's best land and destroyed the Terran invaders.  In 3056, brutal ISF reprisals on Rengoists in recaptured worlds became such an embarrassment to her both politically and personally that Masako publicly, on a live feed, beheaded the responsible ISF official with a single stroke of her sword.  Not for nothing has she gone down in history as the "Dragon Lady of Galedon," a mocking moniker conceived by Eris Halas that Masako unflappably adopted as a compliment.

Yet there are those outside of the Combine who remember her fondly.  In the Kilbourne Suns' Concord, many remember her for her warm friendship with Penny Reynolds, her closest ally.  Masako's genuine affection for Penny is a matter of historical fact, and for a people who honor Penny as the greatest figure since Aleksandr Kerensky (and some of them rate her even higher than Kerensky), even the long-standing dislike of "Dracs" is diminished by that fact.  Moreso, the fury over Kori Honda's betrayal of the alliance Masako and Penny forged gives a romantic, nostalgic tinge to memories of Masako.  She is a figure of a better time, when the peoples of her Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Concord stood as the mightiest of the Inner Sphere, the rocks on which the might of Terra itself was smashed to bits. 

Brutal, ruthless, cold, but with a quiet passionate core, one thing is certain of Masako: she will be remembered for centuries as one of the greatest victors of the Second Age of War, and so long as that memory remains, so will her legacy.

—"Historical Profiles", University of Melbourne (Terra) Public History Site, written by Vincent Stevens, professional author and commentator, published 19 July 3138

[Steve]

Lexington Concord
Year of Union: 3066
Merged with Solar Union and Kilbourne Commonwealth into Kilbourne Suns' Concord
Capital: Lexington

The Lexington Combat Group is remembered on our side of the Glass for their long connection to House Davion until their eventual absorption into the AFFS as the 4th Ceti Hussars.  Across the Glass, they created one of the key states of the Second Age of War.  Seeing the holovids and accounts of General Penelope Reynolds as both stateswoman and war leader reminds me of Devlin Stone or my Uncle Victor.  She certainly earned her place and deserves the comparison to the heroes of the Jihad.

The Concord was formed by the skill and power of the Lexington Combat Group, former SLDF regiments-turned-mercenaries, and the remnant of SLDF forces from the 3rd Army.  Making their base on the former Draconis March world of the same name, the Concord formed a democratically-empowered military republic, sponsoring major units from across the Inner Sphere while dismantling most of the feudalism that had cropped up among the worlds of the former Draconis March.  Like other powers they started expanding when the Second Age of War commenced, led by the legendary Red Queen, General Penelope Reynolds

Reynolds forged a close personal friendship with Director Masako Honda of the Galedon Directorate and together the two started an alliance that dominated much of the Anti-Spinward Inner Sphere for the next seventy years.  Beginning with the conquest of the Lancaster Authority in 3032, the Concord and Galedon expanded rapidly and widely through the decade, the Concord even embarking on a wide Periphery campaign to secure multiple settled worlds for wide-scale colonization efforts among abandoned systems Rimward of the Federated Suns. Bringing the Solar Union into the alliance, the Concord and Union overran the United Outworlds Republic, then turned their armies and that of Kilbourne's on the isolated and demoralized Filtvelt Coalition to take that state as well. With their Periphery flank secure and their territorial situation stable, the Concord turned its energies into preparing for large-scale colonization and its military development towards the greatest threat Reynolds foresaw: the Terran Union.

Reynolds and the LCG were among the most prepared when the HPG network went down in 3050 and the Terrans arrived six weeks later.  The Terran Union military forces that struck at Lexington were second only to those dispatched to Galedon, and their transmission of Natasha Kerensky's offer of a seat at the new Star League Council of Lords in exchange for subservience was solely perfunctory, though not as laconic as General Reynolds' reply: "Nuts!"  The resulting battle saw the Terran invasion force initially successful in seizing key points with the sheer quantity of superior weaponry they enjoyed and the combat power of their all-armored infantry forces, but Reynolds successfully held Fort Ballycastle and other key fortified installations.  She held out against repeated attacks until the Concord Navy intervened in January 3051 and, in a vicious slugfest, drove off the blockading Terran naval contingents.  At that point the Terran survivors withdrew rather than fight a hopeless battle, accepting some losses from aerospace and naval interception to get clear.

Over the early years of the war Reynolds and the LCG moved from system to system, driving off Terran invasion waves in the Canaan Accord, Federated Suns, and her own state, before joining her devoted blood sister Masako in crushing the Terran forces at Benjamin in 3054.  That same year the leaders of the Inner Sphere assembled in Protector-General Jessica Sandoval's headquarters on Robinson, where Reynolds took the lead in pressing forward with what become the Robinson Accords, alternatively bullying, encouraging, and supporting her peers until they were in accordance with her one unwavering goal: the permanent destruction of the Terran Union and the end of Terran power in the Inner Sphere.  With the Accords signed and the Terran invasions ended from exhaustion, the Successor States went on the attack, Reynolds' troops supporting each axis as it was needed, liberating captured worlds like Nox, Skye, and Tikonov and pushing on into the heart of the Union itself.  In 3059, the exhausted Successor States met once more at Northwind to consider a Terran offer of conditions that would have preserved the Terran Union but relinquished half its territories, but Reynolds rallied them to refuse and countered with the plan for Operation: SERPENT: "After nine hundred years of misrule, oppression, and neglect, it is time that Terra finally be brought low so that it will never threaten us again."  Reynolds got her away again and received command of the resulting invasion with her best remaining troops.  Terra was subdued before the end of 3060 and General Reynolds made the hero of the hour.

The long war, and the loss of so many of her soldiers and close comrades, had yet taken their toll, including in unforeseen ways.  In early 3062 Reynolds collapsed suddenly one morning while in a state conference on rebuilding.  Doctors soon determined the cause as a hemorrhagic stroke traced to neurological and cardiovascular trauma from her war-time injures and wounds.  Left comatose, she passed two weeks later.  Her successors were left to deal with the growing collapse of the Robinson Accords' general peace among the Successor States and the renewal of the Second Age of War.  Ultimately, after initiatives in all three states, the Concord negotiated a common political union with their allies.  Much of the Concord's social democracy and military focus was carried over into the new union with the Solar Union and Kilbourne Commonwealth: the Kilbourne Suns' Concord.


Sidebar 17: The Legacy of the Red Queen

Many names loom large in the turbulent history of the 31st Century, but none match the reputation and legend of Penelope Reynolds, the Red Queen of the Lexington Combat Group.  During the Second Age of War she made the Lexington Concord one of the strongest Successor States, often leading her forces from the front.  Many worlds fell to the falling fists of the LCG's famed assault drops.  Penny would become a close friend to her neighboring ruler, Director Masako Honda of Galedon, with their connection being so widely known as to see them referred to as "blood sisters" by many admiring commentators.

But all of that was mere precursor to the drama that would unfold in Penny's final decade.  For all history can be driven by vast systemic forces, humanity instinctively appreciates those moments when individual figures loom large over the wider forces in conflict.  From Hannibal versus Scipio to Kerensky versus Amaris, history is full of points where personal conflict is the dominant memory of a wider clash.  The Terran War can be seen in a similar light, with Penny Reynolds cast as the bold leader of the Successor States and their cause against the tyrannical ambitions of Natasha Kerensky.

Indeed, the Terran War was the pinnacle of Penny's celebrated life.  By clever argument, passionate rhetoric, and sheer force of personality, she kept the Successor States under the common cause of smashing the Terrans once and for all.  Once more she often fought on the front, coming under direct fire on numerous campaigns across the breadth of the war.  At the defense of Fort Ballycastle she defied Terran tactical nukes in rallying the LCG to hold their capital base from the invaders.  Later, at Robinson, Benjamin, Albalii, and Northwind, she personally led the LCG's patented assault drops onto Terran positions.  She would make her final drops at the end of the war, in the December 3059 capture of Luna and the Rhone Valley landings of February 3060 on Terra itself.  Penny led her peers in the Wave One Command Council of Operation: SERPENT through the following eight months of bloody, hellish fighting straight to the heart of Geneva, and in fitting fashion, she is widely recorded landing the finishing blow on Director-General Kerensky's Atlas II.  The resulting iconic image of struggling Atlas BattleMechs has remained a cultural touchstone of the Inner Sphere for the last eighty years.  With the surrender of Terra and the Treaty of Geneva, the fame and legend of the Red Queen was cemented into the hearts of trillions.

All legends leave legacies.  It is how those legacies are interpreted that determine the memories associated with them.  For Penny Reynolds, her particular role in the Terran War lifted her above her contemporaries, even her blood sister Masako; not merely a Successor Lord leading one of the Successor States but a leader for all the peoples and worlds and states of the Inner Sphere and Near Periphery. Penny came to embody the drive, determination, and independence of the millennia-old diaspora of Humanity from their motherworld, now determined to put down the latest effort to suborn them to that same long-departed world.  No longer just the Red Queen of the Lexington Combat Group, Penelope Reynolds became the Champion of the Inner Sphere, and will be remembered so long as Human civilization records history.


-"Historical Profile Essay: Penelope Reynolds", posted on the University of Tikograd's College of Social Sciences Open Discussion Board by graduate student Gennady Taras, 19 July 3140

What sensationalist pap!  You might as well come from the Concord to write such a thing of the enabler of Masako Honda and all the evil her cursed line has caused us!

-Public reply post by an anonymous graduate student

A bit hagiographical for my tastes, but not explicitly wrong.  Penny Reynolds was a brave and courageous commander and, let's be clear, the woman we needed during the Terran War, whatever we feel about her friendship with Masako or the aggression Masako and her successors subjected us to in 3069 and 3110. She deserves the praise she earned bringing Tasha Kerensky and her tyranny down.

-Another public reply post by another anonymous graduate student


Solar Union
Year of Union: 3066
Merged with Lexington Concord and Kilbourne Commonwealth into Kilbourne Suns' Concord
Capital: Urich

History, in general, is not kind, and it is easy to see the forces that crafted the Solar Union and its practical ruthlessness when it came to survival.  Although the state they crafted is technically gone, it lives on in the presence of the Solar Legions of the Concord, and the structure of the Concord's current government.

The retraction of Davion power and the breakup of the Draconis Combine created a vacuum in what was once the Peripheryward Draconis March.  Former DCMS commanders, rebellious AFFS units, and opportunistic local nobles all took turns carving out petty empires and warring with one another, with merc bands and pirates adding to the chaos.  House Yalos of Urich became a rallying point for those local planets that sought to create a self-defense force against the raids ravaging their worlds, and so the Solar Union was born, a military-dominated state that justified its ruthlessness as a necessary evil against the barbarism descending upon the ex-Davion Outback. With its pride force, the Solar Legions, the Union gradually clawed a functional core of worlds together before joining the expansions of the Second Age of War.  An alliance with the Kilbourne Commonwealth and understandings with the Lexington Concord provided the necessary opening to embark on the conquest of the Duchy of Vicente, which fell in 3034.

Yet even now the Union's power was insufficient should it be attacked by its larger Concord neighbor.  Chancellor Jonisar Yalos soon had an opportunity to win security against this threat when he received a diplomatic offer from the McAllister Shogunate, promising their alliance against the Concord and Galedon if the Union did not interfere in the neighboring Outworld Republic's support for the Shogunate's war against Rasalhague.  Rather than accept the offer, Yalos transmitted it to Galedon and Lexington, and in so doing won his place in their alliance.  The end result of this transaction was the prize of half the Outworlds and a seat at the table of the Inner Sphere's strongest alliance.  The conquest of the Filtvelt Coalition in 3037 completed the Solar Union's expansion, after which they turned to internal digestion of their gains and rebuilding their military supply chains after the Terran export ban of 3040.

Due to the insistence of their allies, the Solar Legions were on standby when the HPG Blackout began in July 3050, and on the arrival of Terran forces at Urich to offer Star League membership, Chancellor Yalos refused to betray his allies.  Urich endured severe damage in the months of the fighting by Terran forces, with massive casualties to the defending legions and the use of tactical atomics by both sides inflicting damage on key cities across the planet, but eventually the Terrans withdrew to reinforce their invasion of Galedon and expand operations elsewhere.  Battered by the fighting, the Union took the time to recover and work with their allies to begin the counterattack.  The Solar Legions participated in the push through the Canaan Accord and occupied Tikonov and Azami worlds into the provinces of the Terran Union itself, most prominently working to crack the Terra defensive perimeter with the conquest of Caph in April-June 3059.

After the fall of Terra in 3060, the Union turned towards economic recovery and rebuilding their battered forces with recovered Terran technology. The factories of Urich, Vicente, and other important worlds held by the Union were overhauled to produce superior Terran weaponry.  With the death of Penelope Reynolds shortly after the war, Chancellor Yalos resolved to pursue a greater project: the unification of the Concord, Union, and Commonwealth into one state.  After years of negotiation — and the example of the merger of the Federated Suns with the Brethren of the Stars — the final agreement was signed on Urich in 3065, and with it, Chancellor Jonisar Yalos retired his position, leaving it to his successor to become the first Chancellor of the Kilbourne Suns' Concord.


Kilbourne Commonwealth
Year of Union: 3066
Merged with Lexington Concord and Solar Union into Kilbourne Suns' Concord
Capital: Kilbourne

It is in the character of the peoples of the Davion Periphery to struggle to make do with whatever circumstances they face.  That seems to be true on both sides of the Glass and is personified by the story of the Kilbourne Commonwealth.  In the end, House Arseid forfeited hereditary power for the good of their homeworld, and Kilbourne has benefited immensely from that choice.

The Federated Suns' Periphery felt the Collapse the earliest and most keenly.  The AFFS' disintegration through the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars left the region a mess of petty rulers and pirates.  House Arseid on Kilbourne took advantage of their remaining facilities to form an independent military and means to protect neighboring systems, growing their Commonwealth through the 30th and 31st Centuries until they joined the great scramble of the Second Age of War.  Allied to their neighbors in the Solar Union, Kilbourne attacked into the Filtvelt Coalition in the First Outback War and made some territorial gain before the peace.  Not fully consulted on the Union's decision to join Galedon and Lexington, Kilbourne sat out the annihilation of the Outworlds.  It had little choice but to join the alliance however and participated in the final destruction of Filtvelt.

Their situation was now one of absolute security, at the cost of any true diplomatic independence.  House Arseid settled into keeping their economy running through the Terran arms export bans and other economic shenanigans of the 3040s.  When the Terrans blacked out the Inner Sphere's HPGs and arrived at Kilbourne, they offered control of the former Outworlds and a chance out of the alliance Kilbourne had been compelled into, with a seat at the Star League Council table, for Kilbourne's support.  But the Commonwealth would not betray its ally nor accept permanent Terran control of the Inner Sphere, and refused. The shocked Terrans promptly invaded the planet, ravaging its industrial factories and destroying most of the military academy before withdrawing.  With word coming of the invasions elsewhere, Kilbourne rallied to its allies' side. Over the course of the Terran War, they fought on every front between the Federated Suns and Rasalhague, leaving their armies utterly exhausted by the time they helped secure Dieron and Northwind in 3059 and provided a token force to the Third Wave of Operation: SERPENT.

After the Fall of Terra Kilbourne began the painful reconstruction of their economy.  When Chancellor Yalos proposed the merger of the three states, House Arseid was initially hesitant, but popular support for the measure and their homeworld being chosen as the new capital eventually prompted acceptance.  In 3066 the last Duke of Kilbourne, Harris Arseid, voluntarily abdicated his political power, and was elected in a tight vote to become the first Chancellor of the Kilbourne Suns' Concord. The old Commonwealth was gone.

[Steve]

Crucis Pact
Year of Reformation: 3033
Year of Merger with Brethren: 3062
Reformed into the Federated Suns
Capital: New Avalon

The story of the decline, fall, and restoration of the Federated Suns of the Cisglass is inspirational and tragic, but it would be unwise to consider it a heroic epic come to life.  It was often a messy, and bloody, reformation.

The Federated Suns lasted, at least on paper, into the 30th Century, although it was reduced to the Crucis March before that point.  In 2916 First Prince Julian Davion put the Federation to its (temporary) rest, working with nearby worlds to reforge the Crucis Pact that had existed centuries before.  Necessary reforms stabilized the collapsing structure of House Davion's realm and enabled the reduced Crucis Pact to survive into the 31st Century.  As the Second Age of War commenced Prince Ian Davion joined the race for worlds, determined to reforge the Federation that had once shone so brightly.  Through diplomacy and force he expanded the Pact, re-entering the old Capellan March and securing his succession, and the yards at Kathil, through his marriage to Grand Duchess Maria VanLees.  By 3033, enough of the old Capellan March had likewise been regained that Ian decided the time had come.  At his wedding, as a wedding gift to his bride and the rest of his realm, Ian Davion declared the Federated Suns restored with a dramatic flourish, revealing the long-disused sword-and-sun emblem.

The Federated Suns, thus reforged, continued onward in its restorationist efforts, reclaiming more worlds and even laying claim to the former Taurian Concordat.  They defied Terra when Operation: REVIVAL came, with New Avalon as the first capital to expel Terran forces, and after years of campaigning against repeated Terran invasion broke the Terran invasion waves with victory at Axton.  After more years of campaigns through the liberation of Tikonov and the battle for Northwind, the Federated Suns joined the invasion of Terra, and with it, the end of the Terran Union.

By that point, the realm was about to undergo its final merger into its current form.  Long Tom Silver, leader of the Brethren of the Stars pirate empire, accepted an agreement with First Prince Ian to marry Ian's heiress Victoria to Long Tom's chosen heir.  In the New Syrtis Accords between the Restorer and the Greatest of the Pirates, the birth of a mutual grandchild through their heirs would produce a merger of the realms, to retain the name of the Federated Suns but to absorb the Brethrens' elected assembly of planets.  In 3062, Victoria Davion gave birth to Princess Grace Silver-Davion, and with Grace's first breath, the union was completed, and the now-enlarged Federated Suns adopted its current form.



United Hindu Collective
Year of Union: 3073
United with Federated Suns
Capital: Islamabad

While no state is blameless, the Hindu Collective accounted for themselves as well as any state in their situation might expect.  Their ultimate decision to join the Federated Suns was one of the key decision points of the history of the Cisglass Inner Sphere; had they chosen otherwise the outcome of the Concord-Compact War, and with it the balance of power of the entire Inner Sphere, would have been very different.

Historically the last state to join the Federation, the collapse of the 29th Century saw the United Hindu Collective re-assert its old independence and maintain it for the better part of two centuries. Due to their cultural focus and its political expression they did not join the expansions of the Second Age of War as enthusiastically.  Ultimately only a few worlds from the collapsing Colorado Empire and Peripheral Union were taken by the Collective.  Unlike the majority of Successor States the Collective accepted the Terrans' offer of a seat on the new Star League Council, for reasons that remain unclear and have been endlessly speculated upon. This spared them the worst years of the Terran War but did not save them from the savage economic shock as they were subjected to total embargoes by the Successor States, crashing the Collective's economy and creating a massive political fury at the Maharaja-President Choudhuri and his administration.  Multiple units of their armed forces deserted and joined the Federated Suns to resist the Terrans.  Further difficulties came with Terran forces using the Collective as a staging ground for raiding strikes at Concord and Federated Sun targets, resulting ultimately in attacks on Basantapur and Islamabad to strike the Terran bases.

Following elections in 3054 that turned out the pro-Terran clique, the new government under Maharaja-President Ambedkar immediately demanded the Terran Union withdraw all "security" troops from the Collective.  When the Terrans refused the Messengers of Shiva and other Collective forces struck at them and the Collective declared war.  While not entirely sufficient to dispel hostility from the other Successor States, who were already ending the Terran invasions by that time, the move came at the right time to preserve the Collective's integrity and, through ending the Terrans' use of their worlds as peaceful bases, further benefit the Robinson Accord states.  The Collective was allowed to sign the Robinson Accord in 3055 and the Messengers of Shiva were employed in the liberation of Tikonov.

After the war, the Collective returned to trying to balance itself between powers, but the growing strength of their neighbors put the Collective's continued ability to remain independent increasingly in doubt.  Movements to join either the Concord or the Federated Suns became prominent.  The outbreak of war in 3069 over the Sandoval-Davion royal marriage created a crisis point in Collective politics, and as before it was settled democratically with the pro-Davion parties winning a solid majority in the 3072 elections.  The Collective voted to join the war and, the following year, signed the official agreement on New Avalon to join the Federated Suns once more. 


Brethren of the Stars
Year of Union: 3062
Merged with Federated Suns
Capital: St. Ives

The survival of this state, much less its success, testifies both to the chaos of the Cisglass Inner Sphere before and during the Second Age of War and to the immense, if brutal, qualities of "Long Tom" Silver, the self-proclaimed and eminently justified "Greatest of the Pirates".  The Brethren forged the greatest pirate kingdom either Inner Sphere has ever or likely will ever know of.

The collapse of Liao and Davion power brought with it a vacuum in the vicinity of St. Ives.  Local sheng assembled a mercantile empire that they sought to protect through mercenary hires, a method that did them well into the 31st Century.  But in their greed they ignored that their mercenaries were increasingly dominated by pirate groups who preyed upon neighboring and local shipping, even helping rival sheng attack one another.  This left the St. Ives Mercantile Alliance dangerously vulnerable if the wrong person came along to challenge.

That person came in 3020, and his name was Thomas Silver, or "Long Tom Silver" as he preferred and, indeed, demanded to be called.  Using force of will, personality, terrifying brutality, and the kind of charisma that attracts cutthroat pirates, Silver suborned or conquered the mercenary-pirate bands that the sheng relied upon for self-protection and their own petty feuds.  By 3028 he had consolidated enough power that in one week of butchery, his forces wiped out most of the sheng in St. Ives and nearby worlds.  Silver decreed that he would now rule as the Grand Admiral of the Brethren of the Stars, with a council of his most capable lieutenants and any ambitious and bloodthirsty pirate courageous and capable enough to gain his favor to help direct the state.  To the surprise of the Inner Sphere the resulting pirate kingdom, while certainly brutal in many ways, did not fly apart into assassinations and anarchy.  To keep the empire stable and prevent excessive domestic uprisings Silver instituted a series of domestic and civil reforms to governance, democratizing the worlds heavily, while providing state-sponsored (and sometimes bloody) popular entertainment for the populace.  On the diplomatic front, he proved astoundingly flexible and reasonable, forging temporary alliances with neighbors that allowed the Brethren to make gains through conquest of the Unity of Bellatrix and the Capellan Hegemony, including the founding Capellan world of Sarna.  He also formed more permanent alliances with First Prince Ian Davion of the Federated Suns and King Alexander Allison of the Royal Protectorate of Harsefeld, creating territorial arrangements through the former Capellan zone with both and providing the linchpin to what became known as the St. Ives Compact, an alliance of states across the central and Anti-Spinward/Rimward Inner Sphere.

When Operation: REVIVAL came in 3050 the Terrans, with clenched teeth, still made the same offer to him as the other Successor Lords got, but with the added threat that refusal would see him hauled in as a pirate and hung.  Long Tom Silver's response became legendary: "Many have tried and many have failed, lads.  Now come find out why."  The Terrans indeed tried, and learned why: the battle for St. Ives was a viciously bloody affair, only surpassed by the fight for Galedon in its combined length and savagery.  The Brethren fleet proved impossible to pin down and destroy, even after most of the planet and the system's holdings were lost, while planetside the Brethren ground forces and supporting mercenaries used every dirty trick in the book to forestall superior Terran technology and the combat power of their all-armored infantry units.  After nine brutal months of warfare the arrival of relief forces from the Oriento-Capellan Empire and Federated Suns finally levered out what was left of the Terrans, who suffered enormously in their repeated efforts to find and kill the legendary pirate admiral.  The Brethren were badly blooded but intact, and as the years passed threw their fleet and raiding expertise into grinding down the Terran invasions of their allies and, eventually, pushing them back.

Even as the final battles for Terra were waged, Admiral Silver was at work securing his legacy.  He was not a learned man but he was a crafty one.  His death might very well pull the empire apart and cause it to be consumed by neighboring states, even allied ones.  Rather than see the Brethren die outright, he chose reform, though in his own unique style.  A showman, Silver decreed that he would hold a publicly-televised contest for any who could prove themselves his progeny to contest for the succession, and after the negotiation of the New Syrtis Accords, the hand of Princess Victoria Davion in marriage.

While the future bride was reportedly very displeased with this, she was not displeased with the result of the contest.  Brethren Admiral "Roaring John" Silver, every bit his father's son, forsook the petty reality holovid show that was being made of the contest, returned to his ships, and raided the dying Terran Union before joining Operation: SERPENT and the battles for Terra, leading the WarShip fleet of the Successor States in their final battles with the Terran Union Navy.  Upon his return to St. Ives in 3061 John found out, to his surprise, that he'd won the contest.  Long Tom was greatly impressed with his son's "piratical initiative" and endorsed John as successor.  Later that year newly-elected Grand Admiral John Silver married Princess Victoria, and the following year the birth of their daughter Grace — named for the ancient Terran pirate Grace O'Malley, by Long Tom's reckoning — activated the union of the New Syrtis Accords.  The Brethren were folded into the Federated Suns, which adopted many of the local democratic governance concepts the Brethren had introduced in their empire.  John Silver became Arch-Duke of the St. Ives March, and Long Tom retired as the Greatest of the Pirates.

Shortly afterward, Long Tom faded from public view, to such an extent that no details of his death are widely known, which has been the cause of speculation by many as to his ultimate fate.  This speculation is further fueled from the reports in the decades since of highly-effective, well-equipped pirate bands striking in regions of the old Outworlds, the Kuritan Periphery, and all the way over to the Principate and Ghastillian territories, always led by a masked man identifying himself as "Long Tom Silver".  That he might be over a hundred years old and still pirating is highly unlikely, but the legend, it seems, will never die.



Sidebar 18: A Periphery Ghost Story

The following transcript is derived from surviving data fragments found in a cargo DropShip black box sold in 3117 at a wholesalers' aftermarket on Zalt in the Free Traders' Union.  If not for the buyer's curiosity it would have been lost in the traditional data wipe that such parts undergo.


<Bridge Backup Recovery Recorder — SV Cumberland Delight, flagged in Kilbourne Commonwealth>
<Location: Nadir Jump Point, System KC-8812, Along Rasalhaguan-Concord Periphery Trade Route>
<Date/Time: 22.5.3106.1625>
<Cpt. TOWNSEND> …identity of the unknown vessel yet?

<Tech. XIU> No IFF.  Target vessel is at… acceleration, will overtake in approximately thirty minutes.

<TOWNSEND> Damn.  No scheduled JumpShips for another fifty hours.  Okay, let's see what they want.  Comms?

<Tech. GOLDWYN> They're in range for real-time.  I'll send a… incoming radio call, unknown vessel!

<TOWNSEND> Put them on. Do we have tri-vee or video?

<GOLDWYN> Looks like it, sir.

<TOWNSEND> Put them on.

<DATA FRAGMENT IMAGE depicts modestly-lit command center.  Assorted figures in regular spacer jumpsuits are barely visible along periphery of image, but the image focuses on a single figure lounging in a chair.  The figure wears a half-mask of silver with an eye patch stylized upon it, with weathered skin visible and a head of long snow white hair matched by a salt-and-pepper gray beard forming beneath the mask.  One of the hands is clearly a cybernetic prosthetic.>

<TOWNSEND> Unknown vessel, I am Captain Louis Townsend of Cumberland Delight, what can I do for you?

<MASKED FIGURE> Well, Cap'n, if ye be a wise man, ye'll cut your thrust an' not give us a chase.  Spare us both some fuel.  We're comin' for yer cargo, lad, an' the harder ye fight us for it, the worse ye'll get.

<TOWNSEND> So you're pirates.  I've faced your kind before, and I promise you, the Delight is well-prepared to meet you.  I've got a battery of Spencers and Helios PPCs that will make you regret raiding us.

<MASKED FIGURE> *laughter* Lad, ye're not up against a half-runnin' Leopard. This is the Longest Tom, an' we'll cut ye to ribbons.

<TOWNSEND> What, the Longest Tom?  What do you take me for?  I suppose you're going to claim you're bloody Long Tom Silver too, while you're at it?!

<MASKED FIGURE> *laughs uproariously* Aye lad, that'd be my name.  Now, ye gonna be wise, or do ye intend to suffer the fate of a fool?

<TOWNSEND> Long Tom Silver died decades ago.  This isn't a horror holovid and I don't fall for half-baked Periphery ghost stories!  If you make hostile approach we'll open fire.

<"LONG TOM SILVER"> Suit yerself, lad.  Ye're goin' to be a Periphery ghost story soon enough.

<Communication feed ends>

<TOWNSEND> All hands to arms, gunners to stations.  If these charlatans want a taste of our Spencers by God they'll get….

<RECORDING ENDS>

<DATA FRAGMENT IMAGE from Cumberland Delight gunnery cameras depict approaching vessel of WarShip volume and dimension.  Image roughly corresponds to a heavily-modified Flamberge-class frigate. The vessel has clearly seen better days with much of the armor a patchwork and missing weapon emplacements, but several weapons are visibly intact along the hull.  The bow has a humanoid figure affixed like an ornament, and a Long Tom artillery cannon juts from a bow mount in such a way as to suggest it is a particular body part of the bow ornament>


The Cumberland Delight was not found when the JumpShip Torvald arrived two days later on its regular trade run.  A local search by the RRS Thorvald Sashima and KCS Nathan Hale would find destroyed armor and hull plating that could have come from the lost ship, but no definitive markers were found, and the ship was declared lost on the 10th of February 3108 by the Kilbourne Concord Admiralty Court.

The lost ship was one of over two dozen in the fifteen year period of 3106 to 3121, during a surge in Periphery piracy taking advantage of the preliminary tensions and onset of the Fourth Succession War.  It was one of the more notable as the Cumberland Delight was a decommissioned Salish Falls-class Combat Transport of the old Lexington Concord Navy and had mounted batteries of Spencer cannons, a particularly-respected model of high-caliber subcapital cannon.  Combined with its other weapons systems, it was more than a match for the typical DropShip-scale vessels employed by the pirate bands of the Periphery.  Only a WarShip, even a half-functioning one, could have easily overtaken the ship.  A vessel such as Long Tom Silver's beloved model ship, the Longest Tom, a captured Harsefeldian WarShip converted by Long Tom into a trophy prize.  It went missing during the Terran siege of St. Ives in 3050-51 but no capture nor destruction by the TUDF was ever confirmed.

Suffice to say the discovery of this data fragment has sent waves through the Inner Sphere's community of conspiracy theorists, folklorists, and mystery enthusiasts, and has added to the legend of the continued survival of Long Tom Silver, the Greatest of the Pirates.


Aurigan Coalition
Year of Union: 3082
United with Magistracy of Canopus
Capital: Coromodir

I am not very familiar with the Aurigan Reach in our own Inner Sphere.  Just stories about the Aurigan Civil War, and a rather pedestrian holodrama that spawned from them.  In the Cisglass the Aurigans grew more powerful, enough to be noticed, even if they ultimately sacrificed their independence for Canopian support and protection.  Though given House Centrella-Arano rules the Magistracy now, they have still come out better than their counterparts on our side of the Glass.

[I am familiar with our Aurigan Coalition, since the southwestern Periphery was my area of expertise when I was a Knight. The Aurigans in our universe have managed to achieve a degree of stability at a minor state level, even if nobody aside from the Calderon Protectorate and Federated Suns —and us, of course —have ever acknowledged them as a legitimate one. Roughly two dozen worlds, including two fairly well industrialised ones in Mechdur and Coromodir itself, and an army that’s small, but solid quality; in the 3110s they managed to handle a Taurian freebooting expedition thoroughly enough I don’t think any of the freebooters survived to run back to Taurus. I find it hard to disagree with Lady Trillian’s assessment that they’ve done a lot better for themselves beyond the Glass, however. —Paladin Max Ergen]

Initially settled before the Reunification War, the Aurigan Reach was under various jurisdictions until the fall of the Star League brought about the collapse of Taurian and Capellan authority in these worlds.  Local noble houses made gradual efforts to unite until Keona Arano proposed the reformation of a loose trade alliance into the Aurigan Coalition early in the 30th Century.  The state prospered and gathered more worlds to its name over the following century to the start of the Second Age of War.  While it made some activity during that time to expand, political instability brought on by dissent against High Lady Kamea's centralization policies forced the Aurigans to halt and digest their gains.  By the time they were stable enough to proceed, they had no avenues of expansion left save long and costly resettlement efforts.  They negotiated a defense pact with the Magistracy of Canopus in 3040 to retain their independence and, it was hoped, fend off any plans by the Federated Suns, the Brethren of the Stars, or the Lexington Concord to devour them.

By reports High Lady Kamea seriously considered the Terrans' offer of Council Lord status in a new Star League, but her senior advisor, Lord Alexander Madeira, persuaded her that it was a trap that would reduce them to the Terrans' puppets.  Her rejection led to a heavy raid that wrecked most of the military industry on both settled worlds of the Coromodir system and much of the civilian infrastructure too, as the Terrans showed no mercy and deliberately sought to annihilate Coromodir's capacity for independent industry.  The efforts of Oliveira's Marauders and the Royal Guard saved the Palace from destruction, though High Lady Kamea herself was almost killed in the fighting.  The arrival of the Federated Suns' naval forces from New Vandenberg turned the tables on the detached Terran unit, forcing them to flee, and the Reach joined its neighbors in the fight against the Terrans.  Too small to do much even without counting the near annihilation of what military industry the small state had by Terran attacks, the Reach provided support forces and the services of Oliveira's Marauders as an experienced raiding and strike unit to the fight towards Terra.

During the war, Kamea's son and heir Prince Alexander led a contingent of the best Aurigan MechWarriors to fight as an attached company to the Canopian 1st Royal Guards, where he met and soon began a romance with Nicoletta Centrella, heiress to Canopus.  While the match was politically volatile for his mother, the smooth diplomacy of Magestrix Emma Centrella and Lord Alexander Madeira in concert made the eventual marriage of the children politically acceptable.  The birth of a daughter, Keona Centrella-Arano, did not alone make unification possible, as the Aurigan Council could refuse to vote for the future Magestrix, but decades of Canopian diplomacy and economic incentives wore down their concerns until the 3082 Coromodir Agreement sealed the matter: the Aurigan Coalition became a self-governing constituent state within the Magistracy, to be governed by an appointed regent approved of by the Council (and unofficially to always be of Arano descent), while the Council would agree that the Magestrix would automatically be High Lady of the Reach so long as she was descended from Alexander or Keona. The Aurigan Coalition peaceably joined the Magistracy of Canopus in a process that culminated with the deaths of Alexander and Nicoletta and Keona's rise to both the Crimson and Cormorant Thrones.

[Steve]

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.

[Steve]

Niops Association
Year of Union: 3032
United with Marian Hegemony (now Flavian Principate)
Capital: Niops

Undoubtedly many of the people of this Association are today happier than their cousins on our side. They are certainly more secure.

A Star League-era research colony, the Association persisted in surviving through the Coup, the Succession Wars, and the Collapse.  It eventually formed a stratified society with the academics and administration as a higher caste over the regular laborers that supported them.  While they had some defenses, the Association was ill-equipped to resist interstellar states, and so were amenable to an offer from Imperator Sertorius O'Reilly to be peaceably joined to the Marian Hegemony with the scientists and academics recognized as patricians and given Senate seats.  In a treaty negotiated by future Princeps Corvus O'Reilly, a noted scholar himself, the Association agreed to the peaceful absorption of their state by the far stronger Marians.  This ultimately proved to the benefit of the lower classes especially when Corvus pushed through abolition, which Niops' Senators tried to stop on the grounds it would also dismantle part of their own system.  The Association would tie up the courts for decades, fighting on every point, until the rise of Flavius O'Reilly in 3100 finally led to the reforms that ended the Association's social system for good.


Arcadian Free March
Year of Constitutional Reorganization: 3037
Year of Merger: 3044
Transformed into Royal Federation of Arcadia in 3037, Merged with Kingdom of Donegal in 3044 into Royal Federation of Arcadia and Donegal
Capital: Arcadia

The Arcadians have a painful history that embodies the suffering brought about by the collapse of the Great Houses.  It is no wonder that even their most venerable noble families acclaimed Sara Proctor when she prevailed and that her commoner ideals have become stamped upon the souls of the Arcadian people.  I can't help but wonder how many other worlds lacked a Sara Proctor to bring them out of the darkness, and what they might have become had it been otherwise.

When the Lyran Commonwealth broke up in the 2840s it brought chaos to large stretches of its former domains.  The border regions and the frontiers all suffered the worst, quickly becoming inundated by former LCAF units, mercenaries, and foreign troops that were becoming pirates to survive the economic catastrophe of the Collapse.  Many worlds fell to these forces, among them Arcadia. There a number of warlords and rogue nobles turned forced labor conscription into outright chattel slavery.  They persisted in this until 2928 when the last of these "Slaver Lords" was overthrown by an army formed and led by an Arcadian commoner, Sara Proctor.  The remaining nobility and populace of Arcadia proclaimed Sara the Duchess of Arcadia, making her the founder of House Proctor, and in popular culture she would become known as "the Liberator".

The Liberation slowly aided in improving the stability of the region though pirate attacks and raids would remain a threat for almost another century.  After twenty-eight years of rebuilding Arcadia and making it a regional industrial and economic powerhouse, Sara Proctor was acclaimed sovereign by three neighboring worlds that joined with Arcadia to form the Arcadian Free March, with Sara as the ruling March-Princess.  Under her reign and that of her son William and granddaughter Sara-Marie, the Arcadians grew to become the main organized state in that region, encompassing twenty worlds by 3020.

The Free March, with a numerous but defensively-orientated military and preferring voluntary admission, did not immediately join the Second Age of War's massive expansion, maintaining an armed neutrality towards the First Skye War.  Faced with the choice of "Expand or Die", Sara-Marie finally relented and, starting in 3033, the Arcadians jumped into the race for systems with an energy that rivaled even the Marians.  Nineteen worlds were taken by force in the first year, three more by diplomacy.  The following year the Arcadians became the heroes of the Lyran states by openly striking at the victorious Marian legions, commencing the legendary "Rettungsaktion" that pulled the captive rulers of Bolan and tens of thousands of their subjects from Marian slave pens, and by diplomacy were founders of the Lyran Alliance.  Another campaign against the collapsing Kashamarkan state and the faltering Marik Commonwealth brought another twenty worlds into their orbit by the end of 3035, culminating with the capture of Atreus City by year's end and the entire planet early the following year.

The rapid expansion of the Free March had given it tremendous resources for self-defense, but had also strained its constitutional system beyond reasonable limit.  With the state's rapid rise in prominence and size, a constitutional reform was negotiated through the year and passed.  In January 3037, Sara-Marie Proctor had a second coronation, becoming High Queen of the Arcadian Royal Federation.

The old Free March was gone, but the Royal Federation had little time to rest.  The Lyran Alliance embarked on the famous (or infamous) Operation INGRATITUDE, a full-scale invasion of the Harsefeld and Oriente worlds by the Lyran states as an intervention into the Second Andurien War.  The Lyran entry soon escalated the conflict, with the Compact counter-invading Skye late that summer, and the situation was still uncertain enough that after nine months of battle First Prince Ian Davion was able to secure a truce for three years.  That truce didn't bring peace for the reformed realm, however.  Sara-Marie's heir Thomas sought and gained the hand of Lady Johanna Steiner in marriage, and with that act, started off the chain of events that split the Lyran Alliance asunder and prompted the War of Donegalian Succession over the now-disputed throne.  The end of Ian's truce expanded the war with Harsefeld and Oriente, now unified as the Oriento-Capellan Empire, launching their own intervention with a full-scale invasion of Lyran territory.  By 3043, the conflict ended in a truce. Some worlds were lost and others gained, but most importantly, Johanna had triumphed and kept her throne.  Sara-Marie, a heart-broken woman from the deaths of her husband and two of her children in the conflict, abdicated at the end of the year.  Her son and daughter-in-law were crowned together as High King and High Queen of the Royal Federation of Arcadia and Donegal, commencing the merger of the two states into one whole.


Kingdom of Donegal
Year of Merger: 3044
Merged with Royal Federation of Arcadia
Capital: Donegal

The painful history of the fall of the Lyran Commonwealth is compounded by the ways our cousins across the Glass behaved on what worlds they did manage to hold.  Our own House Steiner has had its share of similar squabbles over power, unfortunately.  Ultimately their fusion with House Proctor may have been necessary to stabilize the heart of the old Commonwealth, but having experienced politics here, I do wonder if there are still Steiners in the modern Royal Federation willing to turn to the murderous ways of the 30th Century Steiners to achieve their ends.

With Skye and Tamar seceding and a Kuritan plague ravaging Tharkad, House Steiner was forced to withdraw to Donegal.  The loss of Tharkad, made permanent by revolt and ComStar's assumption of authority on the planet, finished off the legitimacy of House Steiner for a number of worlds, and it was all that the Steiners could do to hold a mere dozen worlds, typically by placing their own cousins and nephews and nieces on archducal thrones for Cameron, Gibbs, Gallery, and Pherkad.  The decline was slightly arrested under Morgan Steiner in the late 30th Century but her civil war with her cousin Robert brought the state to the brink of disintegration with assassination after assassination reaving both sides and the Estates-General logjammed by their supporters.  This standoff only ended when Robert's youngest daughter, Raquel, used a combination of mercenary hires and diplomacy to gather the army she needed to suppress her relatives on all sides.  When the dust settled she was Queen of Donegal and every other Steiner who might have succeeded her had signed away their claim to the throne to preserve their fortunes, lives, and titles.

Entering into the Second Age of War, Raquel used diplomacy and force to take as much of the heart of the old Commonwealth as she could.  But like many states she was drawn to intervene in the First Skye War, siding with the Federal Skye Republic over House Brewer and Defiance-Hesperus, a decision that rocked the kingdom when Hesperan mercenaries, led by Grayson Carlisle, struck Donegal itself, supported by the Communal League of Sudeten.  After months of indecisive and terrible warfare, Raquel signed out of the war, losing some worlds but securing her borders on most respects.  With the conquest of Skye by House Brewer an accomplished fact, Raquel turned to diplomacy.  Expanded ties with the Arcadians helped with border security, and relations with the Brewers benefited from Arcadian diplomacy for both sides, as well as the intervention of Raquel's distant cousin Katrina, now Archon of the New Commonwealth based on Coventry.  In late 3034 these two branches of House Steiner joined with the Brewers, Proctors, and the elected rulers of the Ghastillian Kingdom in the old Rim Worlds to forge the Lyran Alliance, a protection against the growing power of the Marian Hegemony and the Marik and Azami invasion of the Isle of Skye and the Consolidant.  Donegalian troops and ships supported the Consolidant in blunting Azami strikes, and with the intervention of First Prince Ian Davion and King Alexander Allison, the Azami signed out of the war.  The Marik Commonwealth, in turn, was crushed, and Donegal and Hesperus likewise invaded and compelled the submission of the Duchy of Buckminster.

By this point, Raquel Steiner was dying.  The cancer she'd beaten earlier in the decade returned with a vengeance and her doctors were sour on her prognosis.  She had no heirs and her state might well collapse in a struggle for the throne, one that might take the Lyran Alliance —which she considered her greatest achievement —with it.  While she appointed her cousin Klaus, of the Cameron Steiners, to be regent and guide Donegal through the Second Andurien War, Raquel turned to her succession and weighed the choices.  It came down to two candidates; Arthur Luvon, husband of Archon Katrina and a rightful claimant to Donegal's ducal throne, and Johanna Steiner, younger sister of Archduke Ethan Steiner of Halfway, and in negotiations to be wed to Prince Thomas Proctor, heir to the Arcadian throne.  Either candidate meant a personal union of Donegal with another realm, but the other choices lacked the potential power bases to secure the throne without civil war.  She had to choose.  Arthur's claim was a valid one, but even in her final months, she remained bitter about the New Commonwealth's open preference for the Brewers of Hesperus and their support of the mercs who sacked her capital during the First Skye War.  Motivated as well by fears of how Arthur would leverage his new throne and the murderous capability of Loki agents to warp the Lyran Alliance, Raquel chose Johanna, preferring her honest but blunt demeanor, and record as a MechWarrior and military officer.

Either choice would have caused controversy, but Raquel's death before she made her official statement to the Estates-General sealed it.  Her orders to restore Johanna's inheritance were declared forged by the New Commonwealth, who demanded Arthur be given his rightful title. Negotiations to compromise fell through and in early 3039 a Loki bomb and NCAF invasion of Donegal ignited the War of Donegalian Succession, pitting Arcadians against New Commonwealthers and Donegalian against Donegalian, Johanna's Loyalists against Arthur and Katrina's Legitimists.

The war raged for nearly two years before the NCAF gained an upper hand through the Oriento-Capellan and Azami invasions of Arcadian and Hesperus systems in 3041. The sudden deaths of the Coventry Steiners by an assassination bombing in March 3042, and Ghastillia openly declaring for Johanna, turned the tide against the Legitimists.  Johanna's throne was secured by the start of 3043.  Later that year the war officially ended with a fresh truce negotiated by First Prince Ian.  The abdication of High Queen Sara-Marie followed at the end of the year, and in a joint formal ceremony, Johanna and her husband were crowned the High Queen and High King of the now-unified Royal Federation of Arcadia and Donegal.


Defiance-Hesperus Consolidant
Year of Union: 3116
United with Royal Federation
Former Capital: Hesperus

Regrettably I am no stranger to the capacity of House Brewer for self-aggrandizement.  These Brewers were at least trying to preserve what little could be saved from the Collapse.  Today they portray themselves as ultimately liberated by their union with Arcadia and Donegal, but sometimes I wonder if a spark of ambition to reclaim their old power may still burn in the hearts of the Brewers.

Hesperus is the epitome of the factory world.  An inhospitable world of teeming jungles and wastes, most of which has still never seen Human habitation or even exploration, it has long been second only to Terra in sheer output of war material and other industrial goods.  BattleMechs march off its assembly lines in droves to waiting DropShips for transport and sale, enriching the owners of Defiance Industries, House Brewer.  With their wealth, access to weaponry, and the dire necessity of keeping agricultural supply lines open to Hesperus, the Brewers reacted to the fall of the Lyran Commonwealth in the mid-29th Century by carving their own state in the vicinity of their factory world.  The economic collapse was still keenly felt, with Hesperus sometimes teetering on the edge of abandonment as a lack of resources, or lack of orders, brought the factories to a screeching halt.  As the Renaissance Era began the situation changed.  Hesperus once more began to prosper, and House Brewer expanded to control several key worlds around them, most prominently Furillo and the branch of House Steiner that ruled there.

In 3030, at the start of the Second Age of War, House Brewer turned to expansion, allying with the oligarchs of the Interstellar Governments Council to settle territorial issues and plan for the fulfillment of an ambition decades in the making. Towards the end of the year, the two states launched a war on the Federal Republic of Skye, including striking Skye itself, setting off the First Skye War that escalated to involve most of Lyran space.  This calamitous conflict lasted two years, saw the capitals of almost every belligerent struck at or outright ruined, and brought the Brewers to the brink of defeat when House Marik plunged towards Hesperus.  When the Terrans imposed a peace at the end of 3032, both Skye and the IGC had collapsed.  Several key worlds had fallen to the Mariks who would not relinquish them.  Peace talks fostered by March-Princess Sara-Marie Proctor faltered by the end of 3033 over the territorial dispute.  The Consolidant, while securing the worlds of Skye and the IGC as quickly as able, prepared for a resumption of warfare. They received it in April 3034 when the Mariks and the Azami Confederation launched a two-front war on them.  Despite severe losses the Consolidant persisted, buoyed by arriving allied forces from the New Commonwealth and, towards the end of the year, Arcadia as well as the Brewers' former enemies in Donegal and Ghastillia.  Facing the prospect of a war with the combined strength of all five Lyran states, the Azami bowed out of the war in a negotiated peace. The Mariks were crushed between the Lyrans and the Oriente-Harsefeld alliance. Everything the Consolidant had lost was regained.  To add to it, the Consolidant joined with Donegal to partition the Duchy of Buckminster.

In 3037 the Consolidant, eying the factories of Irian and Marik, joined the Arcadians in Operation INGRATITUDE.  This became a fiasco when Harsefeld's forces reacted more quickly than predicted, shunting the bulk of their army from the Oriente front to the new Lyran front.  At Marik the bulk of Harsefeld's available carrier fleet and armies spent four months systemically smashing the Consolidant's Black Watch regiment and a score of supporting regiments and ships.  While the Marik debacle by itself was not a major loss in troops, the loss of the Black Watch and General Frederick Steiner, a popular and respected commander, caused grievous political backlash.  The charge that the Consolidant abandoned Frederick and his troops out of strategic miscalculation or simply to seize more worlds elsewhere undermined morale across the state.  This damage was furthered by the offensive of the other Compact states into the Isle of Skye.  The Consolidant was thus eager to accept First Prince Ian Davion's truce offer when it came in September. They were also eager to locate Frederick, dead or alive, but Harsefeld bounty hunters spirited him off Marik before they or Arcadian occupation units could find him.  The Terrans would free him in turn as reprisal for the Empire's recent provocations, preventing him from being used by the newly-formed Oriento-Capellan Empire to further stoke discontent and rebellion in the Consolidant.

When the War of Donegalian Succession broke out, the Consolidant initially declared neutrality; Arcadia was a neighbor, the New Commonwealth its most loyal ally, and both valued customers.  They leveraged the war to reclaim ceded systems from both Arcadia and Johanna.  The Terran Export Ban of 3040 gave Defiance an opportunity to cash in by ramping up production, but before they could the truce with the Compact expired, and Oriento-Capellan, Azami, and Tikonovite troops swept into the Isle of Skye and up into the Consolidant proper.  Multiple worlds fell and the their richest industrial worlds were set upon by skilled Azami and Brethren raiding forces.  Only in 3043 and the fall of the New Commonwealth could they, with their Lyran allies, push back and eventually regain a large portion of what they lost, though all the gains from the Second Andurien War as well as Vega were lost to the Empire and the Azami.

The following years of peace allowed for a recovery, at least, and under Jacqueline Brewer and her husband Duke Cesar Steiner of Furillo the Consolidant's coffers swelled from sales to the starved arms markets of the Inner Sphere.  This burst of prosperity ended with the July 3050 HPG Blackout and the arrival of Terran forces at Hesperus and Skye six weeks later.  The Brewers were given a generous offer to be Council Lords of a new Star League and to receive the League's support in regaining Vega and Irian.  But the disarmament terms were very harsh, and the limits on their production and use of Terran-level technology too far.  The Brewers moreover calculated, after some consideration, that the Terrans would be rejected by their neighboring states.  Jacqueline Brewer pushed back a determined effort in the Defiance Board of Directors to accept the deal, ultimately informing the Terrans "make me a better offer or get the hell out of my system."  The Terrans did not leave, promptly invading both capital systems of the Consolidant. Skye fell within five weeks and Hesperus would be besieged the longest of any capital, with only Galedon and St. Ives exceeding it in bloodiness for the Terrans, and the elder children of Jacqueline and Cesar lost in the bitter fighting on Hesperus and across the Consolidant.  The Isle of Skye fell in its entirety to the Terrans, to be regained through 3056 by Lyran state and Principate counterattacks under the Robinson Accord signatories' general efforts.  By 3059 the Consolidant had regained all it had lost and even helped overrun several Terran Union worlds.  The exhaustion and desperate need to rebuild kept their contributions to SERPENT down to naval support and a symbolic 'Mech regiment and attached brigade.

The Consolidant's triumph in the Terran War was complete, but the years of occupation and the furious Terran defenses of their captured worlds had badly ravaged the economy.  The necessary peace to rebuild did not materialize. Conflict with the Compact renewed over the settlement of spoils.  Defiance's profit margins plunged under the costs of fighting and the necessary rebuilding, enough that some of the stockholders were growing tired of the costs of statehood.  When by chance the surviving heir of Jacqueline and Cesar, Mathilde Brewer-Steiner, made the acquaintance of Prince Ethan Proctor-Steiner during campaigning with their units, offers from Arcadia and pressure in this direction pressed down on the board until they relented. Ethan and Mathilde would be married and their children inherit both states, bringing the Consolidant into the Royal Federation, with House Brewer retaining political authority over a Principality of Hesperus within the greater realm and full control over Defiance.

Shortly after the wedding the Arcadians and Hesperans intervened together into the Concord-Compact War, fighting to aid their Compact enemies against the perceived greater threat of permanent Galedon-Concord domination of the Inner Sphere.  The bloody conflict was a stalemate but a strategic victory of sorts as it maintained the balance of power even if it did not settle the long-standing disputes.  The Royal Federation's conflict with the COMINTERSTEL states in the Vanguard War prompted a fresh new wave of campaigns, invasions, and counter-invasions between the Compact and Lyran Alliance.  The Consolidant was especially pushed when the Arcadians had to turn and face Scipio O'Reilly's conquering legions in the final years of the century, losing Vega once more as a result.

The fighting culminated in the great conflagration of the Fourth Succession War, where the Isle of Skye was one of many frontlines.  Consolidant forces were now in constant combat with the Compact and the expanding Galedonian forces.  During the decade of war Ethan and Mathilde passed away. A battle-scarred, frustrated Jacqueline was left to unify her parents' realms and finish what was started before her birth.  In the 3116 Act of Consolidation, the union was completed.  The Defiance-Hesperus Consolidant was gone; the Principality of Hesperus and Royal March of Skye were now the humming industrial might of the Royal Federation.

[Steve]

Your almost done now Steve. Thanks for the entertainment.

You're welcome, enjoy the final writeups.  Had to split them into four different posts.

I suppose I should profile all the unique technologies I was thinking up for the Concertverse, and maybe a post about which state has which newer type of gear (I have the list somewhere), but this effectively finishes the social-government side of fluff about the Concertverse AU.