(AU Concept) Trunk Routes, Zones of Settlement, and "Mongol" Clans

[Nerroth]

Over in this thread, a number of people have been posting their ideas regarding what, if any, point in the BT timeline they would wish to reset to, and how they might wish to take things from that point onwards.

For my part, I was thinking of how things might look if one were to go all the way back to the dawn of human star travel.

To repeat myself from the other thread: as newly-inhabited star systems were to be added to the map, a series of minor, major, and "trunk" routes would be outlined on the map linking them firstly to and from Terra, and (over time) to and from each other. Once one goes beyond 1 or 2 jumps from the Sol system, one might see a limited number of "trunk" routes stretching out to key node points (such as New Avalon), from where varying degrees of "branch" routes would in turn spread out from. So if one were to think of a "Terran Corridor", this would literally refer to a corridor of worlds running all the way back to Terra, along which the bulk of interstellar traffic to a given zone might travel.

As we get to the Outer Reaches Rebellion, those nodes large enough to develop into capital worlds in their own right would emerge, but the ability of them to exert their influence in their respective zones might be limited by the amount of infrastructure the Alliance had established at the world beforehand, and/or how capable its population is at transitioning to a "post-colonial" establishment.

By the time the first "successor states" of the Alliance - to include the Terran Hegemony - would emerge, each zone would look more or less like how the Free Worlds League zone is marked in, say, 3145. The major and minor states in each zone would spread over a number of worlds; worlds which are at least nominally under the way of a given House yet which are not part of a larger "sub-state" would be included in a lighter colour of that used for the larger states; and worlds which, for one reason or another, retain their independence would be marked as such.

How each zone turns out would in part be based on stellar geography, and in part based on whatever technological, cultural, or political influences are at play.

The "Terran zone" would, in effect, be the Terran Hegemony, with an in-built advantage in terms of controlling those systems within easy reach of Terra. But it would be ringed by a combination of independent worlds and disputed systems running along the "trunk routes" to and from the other zones - leaving an open question as to who is able to enforce their claims of ownership along certain stretches of these corridors.

The League zone would, as noted above, look the most familiar, but would perhaps have a larger number of independent worlds not part of the Free Worlds League proper.

In the "Crucis Zone", there would be a powerful core domain centred around New Avalon, and similar domains anchored around Robinson and New Syrtis; but while there may be lone worlds along the routes connecting these domains to each other (and/or to other zones) under the sway of House Davion, there would still be a number of worlds which would either remain independent, or perhaps slide in and out of Federated Suns membership.

In the Capellan Zone, the densely-packed colonies would allow for more intense interactions between worlds, and between the proto-states that form there. But, rather than have them permanently coalesce into the Confederation, perhaps one would use the cycles of imperial Chinese history as more explicit a template than even the Xin Sheng movement does in the "standard" BT timeline - by alternating between "warring states" periods in which various proto-states struggle for dominance, and "unified" eras in which one house or another succeeds in welding the zone (or most of it) into a single realm... for a few generations, at least. So House Liao would by no means have exclusive claim over the Chancellorship, even in those eras in which such a title would have any real meaning.

In the "Draconis zone", one could perhaps look to Edo-period Japan, in terms of dividing the zone into a central bakufu (under direct Kurita control) ruled from Luthien, fudai ("inside") domains ruled by hereditary allies of (or relatives to) the Coordinator, and tozama ("outside") domains ruled by vassals with less direct connections to the Black Pearl. One could distinguish this from the Capellan zone in two ways: first, by making House Kurita itself alternate between "reigning" and "ruling" eras (in the sense that they would in some cases rule directly, and in others be used as figureheads by "regent" clans); and second, by enforcing an "alternate attendance" system by which both fudai and tozama domain lords are obliged to travel to and from Luthien, both as a means of keeping them under control and of spreading a common culture across the Draconis Combine.

In the "Lyran zone", the most direct parallels to the Holy Roman Empire could be established. Domains such as Skye and Tamar would stand alongside "free worlds" (not to be confused with House Marik's Free Worlds) such as Hesperus II, while perhaps sharing an "elector" system in which certain nobles would have the right to vote on who gets to be Archon. Whether House Steiner succeeds in gaming the system in order to build up a quasi-hereditary hold on the Archonship, as the Habsburgs eventually succeeded in doing in the HRE, would be an open question.

As a side note, medium-sized realms such as the Principality of Rasalhague could find themselves caught in between these zones, if one were to have it that only a handful of viable routes would exist from one zone to another (not counting the central hub around Terra itself). In eras where Rasalhague falls more deeply under Combine influence, perhaps the Prince would be obliged to act as a tozama lord (to include expensive "alternate attendances" to and from Luthien) - or be treated as a vassal of a vassal, as was done to the Ryukyu Kingdom following the Satsuma invasion of 1609. But in eras where the Lyrans are more dominant, the Prince might find himself similarly obliged to sacrifice his independence - yet perhaps be partially compensated for this though gaining an Electoral vote within the Commonwealth itself.

To put a long story short, grouping the territory historically dominated by the Great Houses into inter-related "zones" might be a way both to add more of a medieval flavour to the Inner Sphere as a setting, while also providing groupings which would allow for each zone to share enough technological or cultural links to keep things relatively easily manageable on the tabletop.


I did also mention the idea of having more "Mongol-type" Clans show up later in the timeline: while I plan on addressing that idea in this thread, I might need to add a few more posts building up this timeline concept before I get to that point.

[Nerroth]

Era Concept: the First Stellar Exodus to the Age of War

As noted above, these changes would go back to the first stellar exodus from Terra.

The first ring of extra-solar colonies, those within a jump of Terra, would be settled more or less as they were historically. Once those were established, the Terran Alliance would use them to settle a second ring of colonies (those between one and two jumps of Terra) using the logstical assets set in place in the fist wave. So far, so good.

From that point onward, however, I would suggest having it be more viable to focus on certain jump routes and node systems in order to expand further into the Inner Sphere, which would in turn act as jump-off points for new waves of colonization. As mentioned in the opening post, New Avalon would be a good example of this: one would gradually see a corridor of worlds established along a "trunk line"  leading out from Terra to that system, while a series of local jump routes would run from New Avalon to the various colonies founded in its region of space.

While, historically, this led to the creation of the Crucis March, here one would instead see a "Crucis Zone" emerge in the wake of the Outer Reaches Rebellion. House Davion would still emerge as the rulers of the Federated Suns, but the Davion "royal domain" would only cover an amount of local territory which the JumpShips operating from New Avalon's shiipyards can maintain an ongoing coverage over. (Think of how the kings of medieval France held only the region surrounding the city of Paris as their direct holdings, even if their writ supposedly ran across the kingdom at large.) Other node worlds, such as Robinson and New Syrtis, would build up major jump routes linking them up to New Avalon, though perhaps not quite reaching the kind of prominence as the trunk routes leading back to Terra.

To clarify, the idea is not to say that a JumpShip must only move along these routes to get from one side of the Inner Sphere to another. However, I would suggest making it much more of a hassle to go "off-grid" by oneself; be it in terms of having to navigate uncharted hazards, to forage for supplies, or to work outside of established command circuits. Also, the cost of establishing new routes (or rather, the logistical nodes and additional JumpShips needed to operate them) would put a brake on how far the major states would be able to gobble up all of the worlds in their respective zones, or for that matter to establish invasion routes to and from their neighbouring zones (in cases where the Terran Alliance had not conveniently established such routes prior to the Outer Reaches Rebellion).

Game-wise, each zone would look to the standard timeline's League zone as an example of how to handle its available weapons of war. There would be a single Random Assignment Table for each zone, with appropriate sub-tables in order to represent the sub-realms (or independent worlds) within each zone.

This is how things might look through to the end of the Age of War. As in the standard timeline, the onset of the Star League would set things in a new direction.

[Nerroth]

Era Concept: The Star League

In the standard timeline, the Great Houses had more or less "filled out" the space surrounding the Terran Hegemony, and along each other's borders. Also, the Reunification War was fought using JumpShip couriers and (if I recall correctly) with a handful of prototype Black Boxes; the hyperpulse generator would not emerge until well into the Star League era.

Here, however, I might suggest handling things somewhat differently. As noted above, none of the zones would be fully occupied by a single power; at best, they'd look kind of like the League zone in the standard timeline as of 3145. (Not exactly like that, of course, but invoking a similar dynamic.)

So, I would suggest that the Terran Hegemony be the ones to develop the first HPGs at this time, and then use it as leverage to induce the House Lords to sign up to the Star League. In other words, the first HPGs would be established within the Hegemony proper, and only after a given House Lord agreed to join the Star League would an HPG circuit be run out to their home world (and from it to other planets in their respective domains).

This would have a two-fold effect. For one, it would enable the nascent SLDF to more effectively manage unit transfers along the trunk routes out to the front lines of the Reunification War, which would presumably break out in this timeline much as it did historically. Closer to home, however, a benefit of the HPG network would be a greater degree of control which each House Lord would have within their own domains, as well as into nearby systems which had hitherto escaped their grasp.

So, in effect, you'd see two things happening. The SLDF would be used to keep tabs on the various Territorial States, while the House Lords (and perhaps the First Lord him or herself) would steadily spread their own power and influence across the Inner Sphere itself - though nevar quite getting so far as to form the kind of blocs seen on the standard timelline's star maps.

Of course, the Star League cannot last forever: what the subsequent era looks like, and how the survivors adapt to these new circumstances, would be a different type of challenge to that faced in the standard timeline (or, foor that matter, in the universe of Empires Aflame).

[drakensis]

It's an interesting prospect. I did think about something similar, though looking only at the Third Succession War era, where the five Successor States had core regions, then other worlds along their borders with varying degrees of affiliation to them - notional membership, occupied territory, allies, vassals - even tenuous neutrality.

[marauder648]

Definately an interesting concept!