The Clans; Changing Culture and Conditions from 3060, a work of the Der Tag AU

[beachhead1985]

***Before reading; my intent is not to offend or upset. This is just *MY* uneducated take on how I think the Clans might develop, set in my Der Tag AU.

This work deals with mature themes, but aims to do so respectfully of a reader's real lived experiences, at arm's length and without detail. The following subjects are mentioned, but not described:

-Various forms of abuse, particularly of children and subordinates
-Incest
-Sexuality

These themes are not the focus of the work, but are touched on briefly. This work was written with the rules of the forum and the standards of the setting in mind.

While the Clans are far from the focus of the events of Der Tag and what come after, they are important to the setting and the overall picture I'm painting.

With that in mind, I hope you enjoy. I've re-written this about four times so far and I hope that the effort shows through, if nothing else.


Contemporary Anthropology 301
Excerpts from Main Study Text by Professor Francesca Utewoman and Doctors H.J. Kern & K.K. Mutsu
This edition first published 3263, New Avalon Press

Chapter 4: The Clans; Later Development 3060 to the mid 3090s

   In previous chapters, we have covered the unique conditions that created and shaped Clan culture, initially (Ch 2) and how that culture evolved up to the time of the invasion and beyond (Ch 3).

   Here, we shall now discuss the development of the Clans from the later invasion-period up to the finalization of their balkanization, which was complete by the mid 3090s.

From the early 3060s, onwards, the previously well-insulated Clan society and culture were forced to begin to adapt to the influences of the Spheroid and to a much lesser extent; Periphery peoples they encountered or face increasing mal-adaptation to the realities of the wider human environment they now found themselves inextricably mired in. Though many would try; no Clan possessed the wherewithal to entirely realize an adaptation of their occupation zones to their own culture.

Expansion of Clan holdings relieved the real restrictions on resources which had done so much to shape Clan society to this point; although in many cases, these remained apparent for some time after they had been relieved, simply as a cultural milieu.
Increased contact by Warriors and lower castes with disparate cultures forced them to question many of the aspects of the Clan society which they had been born into.

In addition; it was during the 3060s that the results of internal pressures, left simmering for some time, came to the forefront with the inauguration of the Clan Civil War; consummate as it was with the revelation of the secret, multi-Clan "Society" controlled by a not insignificant faction of the combined Scientist Castes.

While the Invading Clans, the expatriate diaspora and the new class of "Petitioners" would react differently to these influences; members of the various Castes were faced with a similar set of pressures, even in the Home Worlds where second-hand contact through the Invaders had spread knowledge of human civilization beyond the Clans through the castes, despite the best efforts of their leaders to prevent this.
Proliferation of resources and the quite apparent need for expansion all but eliminated the artificial cultural taboos associated with expansion of the Touman and the general population which supported it. Far removed from the Pentagon Wars and faced with a hostile Inner Sphere, there remained little to argue against for expansion past the traditional limits enforced by the Grand Council to avoid arms races and wasted resources. Even those Clans without Occupation Zones to worry over, still had to contend with the greater assets the Invading Clans could potentially bring to bear in the homeworlds.

While the threat of destabilization remained, it was subject to open debate whether or not the state of the known galaxy in fact mandated a different approach to the founding ideals of competition and social Darwinism baked into the Clans by Nicholas Kerensky.
This left many to ask if the issue of an IlClan might not be decided as much by the simple metric of "last Clan standing", or even the less extreme recognition by the other Clans of an unquestioned leader amongst their people to direct them forward as an alternative to ultimate conquest. Certainly, the whole seemed to suffer from the lack a single pre-eminence to lead them.

This, in turn led to serious questions regarding the practicality of the Invasion itself and speculation amongst Warriors, Merchants and Labourers as to just what it might take to at least conquer Terra, if not the entire Inner Sphere, given the experiences of the invasion so-far and first-hand observations of Spheroid capabilities.

Warriors and the leaders amongst them were forced to ask questions far outside their expertise and purview; to ask these questions of other castes, even. For the first time in a century; it was becoming common for Clan Warriors to actively engage in *study* in order to understand principles of war, leadership, organization and empire long forgotten or discarded as "Un-clan-like" and not just hone their personal warrior's skills. Some argued there might even be a paradelle to the “Samurai-Bureaucrat” of ancient Japanese history on the horizon for the Warriors if they were to remain the true leaders of Clan society.

Critics rightly point out, however that in light of the stated goals of the Clans, pre-Operation: REVIVAL, this was almost certainly much too little and far too late.

In dark corners, some even dared ask if any kind of final victory could be considered un-Clan-like? Or put another way; would a final victory and state of stability in and of itself be against or even a threat to the Way of The Clans?

An interconnected issue was that of agism.

As resources had become more available and the needs of the Touman greater, the pressures to clear the way for the Ristars and conserve resources by relegating older warriors to lesser and lesser responsibilities seemed, in direct contrast to earlier measures and mores; wasteful.

Increasingly during the fighting in the Inner Sphere, it had been coolly observed by all parties that the Clans discarded their many of their surviving warriors just as their skills and experience were reaching their apogee in order to clear the way for new, but less-accomplished generations. While the Trueborn, particularly started off their careers more capable than their Spheroid opponents; these gaps narrowed and then reversed when age and experience were counted. A Trueborn's advantage was when they faced a spheroid of comparable age and with as much prior experience prior to meeting their first spheroid combatant as possible to maximise the skill-advantage of the Clan breeding program.

Facing warriors of greater age and experience placed Clansmen at first a reduced advantage and then a deficit. As those same Clan Warriors grew older and accumulated additional combat experience, they would be discarded or relegated to less-active roles in the fighting. This while Spheroid combat experience created a feedback-loop that didn't begin to fall-off until the late 40s or early 50s in age.

The natural dichotomy in the Clan Warrior's ultimate goal of a glorious death in battle with the Spheroid goal of survival had its own part to play as well and only those Clan warriors with the greatest self-control could expect to live long enough to accumulate extensive combat experience.
A willingness to learn from the older and more experienced among them ensured an ongoing tutelage for the seasoning of the inferior Spheroid Warrior. This culminated in the survivors progressing as a battle-hardened, experienced and well-honed force which grew and improved over time if not destroyed to the last warrior or at least severely crippled.

In place of these factors; the Clans held true only to the principle of youth in command; prizing raw daring, aggression and bloody-mindedness over more-tempered virtues.

Over time, it had increasingly proven an uneven contest, especially when faced with equipment of peer or near-peer quality. As the invasion had worn on, particularly through the Coventry Offensive and then later in the Ghost Bear-Combine war, it was found that a Spheroid force that ought to have been easily overcome proved a more difficult opponent or even a fair match to a Clan force which ought to have been their masters in battle. Once the bidding process was factored in, the Clans typically fought at a self-imposed handicap and a measure aimed at conserving resources, instead came to waste them.

One noted exception to all this were Elementals, who have consistently remained the pound-for-pound masters of their opponents for the entirety of Clan warfare against non-Clan enemies. Note here, however; the vast comparative sink of resources of the entire Elemental program, their often-short active careers and typically rapid decline in health due to compounding medical issues later in life.

While many chose to cleave to the old ways, there were enough open and unconventional minds around at the time that the Chatterweb and even the Grand Councils of the 60s became a frequent host to debates on the status of Solahma troops and the necessity or wastefulness of the Clan's bedrock agist policies and culture.

By the early 60s there was already evident pressure and broad-based interest in change, with the strict traditionalists in the minority in the senior ranks of the Clans at that time.

This was then a very vulnerable time for Clan culture as a whole and while there can never said to be a "Good Time" to discover that your entire grand socio-political structure has been undermined and manipulated by a subservient underclass, the 3060s might arguably have been said to be the worst time for such to happen.

To attempt to summarize such a ground-shaking event as the Clan Civil War, let alone the Purity Wars that followed immediately after would be folly and is a subject best left to military historians and political scientists. As we in the study of anthropology are only distantly interested in these things as they relate to our own study, I shall touch on the subject only briefly.*

*Note, however that as we are treating as true a “Warrior” culture as has ever existed in human history, extensive digressions into military subjects may be unavoidable. Prospective scholars are advised to retain your dedication to higher pursuits and salve your minds with the promise of a speedy return to more important and interesting subject matter at the completion of this unit. Academic advisors best serve their charges by heeding faculty suggestions of a “padded” term wherever The Clans are concerned; a healthy add-mixture of such topics as Exituri Art appreciation and Neo-Mennonite cultural practices will be of aid to healthy, eager minds.

In short; a vast conspiracy had been discovered amongst the Scientist Castes of many Clans. Their goal was to over-throw the warriors and institute a technocratic rulership of the wise over the bombastic warriors who had been installed over them. They were in the process of building their own private army, including the use of proscribed techniques to do so and it was initially unclear to what extent the conspiracy involved the entire scientist caste of all the Clans.

It was ultimately by only the narrowest of possible margins that the Clans did not choose to collectively purge their scientist castes, but they did inaugurate a massive internecine conflict with the goal of rooting this "Society" out by whatever means necessary.

The Clan Civil War saw flags, loyalties and factions shifting almost daily and extended it's reach from the farthest-flung of the homeworld-colonies to the most distant extant enclaves of the Occupation Zones and indeed; well beyond.

The demarcation between the Clan Civil Wars and the Purity Wars that followed is fiercely debated in its exact position on the timeline of humanities countless conflicts. But it is generally agreed as being the point when the Society had ceased to function, both as an effective military force through attrition and a coherent cultural entity through ruinous pogroms. After this point; the war was reduced to an ever-tightening spiral of ideologically-driven xenophobic and Hobbesian war of all, against all.

This point is generally accepted today as having occurred sometime in early 3071. But Society holdouts were still being encountered twenty years later as well. And with the earliest clashes between non-Society-controlled or 'manipulated forces over issues of ideological purity having occurred the same day as the issue was first formally brought to the Grand Council by the Khans of the Steel Vipers, this marks any such distinction between the two conflicts as specious at best. This goes a long way to explaining why the two major internecine Clan conflicts of the era are often mentioned together or dealt with as a single topic.

Once one additionally factors in the upheaval of the Word of Blake Jihad, occurring concurrently for most of the conflicts mentioned, then one is tempted to simply throw up one's hands; proclaim that nothing is made, human conflict is a watch without a watchmaker and any such attempts at making sense of it are the errands of fools. Such moments of intellectual abandon however, are why we study the more logical, scientific discipline of Anthropology.

The above period of questioning and introspection led directly into the upheaval of the following wars, concurrent with other conflicts unfolding in the Inner Sphere and elsewhere at the same time. Returning to the subject at hand brings us to the controversial and oft over-romanticised, so-called "Household"-movement.

Many latter-day sources give unwarranted weight to the matter of the phenomena of the complex and oft-misunderstood "Household" movement. While it must be acknowledged that during the 70s and 80s certain Clans experienced a notable counter-cultural upsurge in antisocial rebellion, the form this took was rarely exemplified in the much-romanticized Warrior's Household or it's more common Scientist derivative.

This took the form of senior members of the Clan Caste/Social strata (Warriors most-famously, but the practice was even more common among scientists and Merchants) increasingly attracted to a "self-absorbed, un-Clan-like fantasy" whereby they maintained a more traditional family or household setting in the Spheroid or pre-Clan sense; complete with spouses and even freeborn or "Kindled" trueborn children. The argument being that a Warrior's true path should be theirs and theirs alone to forge and that as sole architects of their destiny; so long as the needs of the Clan were served, then a degree of latitude ought to be permissible.

For quite some time before Khan Vlad Ward of the Wolves appeared to whisk Katrina Steiner-Davion away from her vengeful brother Victor, it had been something of an open secret that many Trueborn members of the Scientist and Merchant Castes maintained family relationships and even secret marriages, which; while not expressly against Clan law, were considered distasteful enough that they were not spoken of openly. Marriage was not unknown in the Warrior Caste, but it was looked upon with open contempt and seen as a "Career-Limiting Decision" at best. Certainly; it was not an arrangement which was likely to shown much, if any respect as far as the Touman and postings were concerned.

Two noted exceptions were the Ghost Bears; whose founders had been a married couple and the Cloud Cobras, within whose cloisters, marriages were not only performed regularly for all castes, but honoured and even respected to the greatest degree possible in Touman assignments.

Conditions in other Clans varied from a "Don't ask, Don't Tell" policy, to relegation to lower-readiness units, such as Solahma and Garrison Clusters, to the extreme of the Jade Falcon practice of exiling married warriors to the Dark Caste and forced sterilization of their dwindling pool of “tame” scientists.

What was much more common and a much more nebulous issue were those Warriors who maintained unconventional interpersonal and semi-professional relationships skirting the boundaries of Clan Law. These warriors would in-turn defend their assumed prerogatives in the Circle of Equals as required. These were known as "Warrior Households" long before there was any such movement, per say and dated back to at least the late 2800s.
Warrior Households were a troubling open secret within the Clans and existed as the inseparable flaw in the Founder’s teachings; inherently, the way of the Clans permitted a warrior the right to do as they pleased, provided they possessed the skill and savvy to triumph in combat over those who would gainsay them. Once one accepted the fundamentals of Kerensky’s vision, it became difficult to argue conclusively that a warrior could *not* simply fight for what they saw as their right. And if you tried; you might earn yourself a circle of equals in the bargain.

Within a "Household", a given Warrior sat at the top of a self-proclaimed hierarchy which could include a romantic partner or partner(s), as well as one or more preferred Technicians, Warrior subordinates, Labourer-Caste servants and retainers and sometimes more esoteric attachments like pets or more significant items of property, all things normally considered unusual or even un-clan-like.

All of this could be expected to be maintained through a varied mixture of mutual respect, open denial (extended to self-delusion that the household did not exist), icy détente with fellow Warriors, networks of understanding with superiors and peers, willful ignorance and of course; adequate fighting skill to claim and maintain such arrangements as demonstrated through the circle of equals.

Romantic partners, married or not might be peers in the Warrior Caste or from subordinate Castes. This was a position (no pun intended), within the Household, which often overlapped with others, particularly Techs and Subordinates within a given Toumanic organization. While often considered decadent, overly sentimental or even un-clan-like, this was the aspect of the Household which was hardest to openly oppose. In Clan society; a Warrior could couple with whom they chose. If they preferred one partner over all others, who else's business was that? If there were quarrels between romantically-involved Warriors, it could be worked out in the Circle of Equals. Such disagreements between Warriors and lower castemen were ignored, deliberately overlooked or settled informally, but in most cases boiled down to the Warrior getting their way and the lower casteman be damned.

Part of the impetus for the Household-Movement was also a grudging acknowledgement that it could and often did serve as a counterweight to various socio-sexual issues, which had been growing in severity within Clan Society for the last 200 years and which were increasingly leading to discipline issues with Warriors and insubordination between the Castes. While Households did not eliminate sexual practices considered "deviant" by Clan society and Law, they did serve to codify them when they were present and provided an attractive alternative outlet for human urges not yet fully tamed by the Scientists or Clan Culture.

While this aspect of the Household could make the sexual power disparity between castes that much worse by putting it behind closed doors, it also offered a seemingly healthier alternative which made more violent and predatory practices, simply unnecessary.

Pregnancy is always possible in any sexual relationship, but is more likely to result from a situation with regular sexual contact between common partners. Thus, within a household, children were more likely to result, but also a "situation" easier to "take care of" one way or the other than in the very public light of normal Clan society. This even extended to the children of Trueborn parents. The structure of a Household, so long as it lasted also made it less difficult for Clansmen who wished to keep their children close, or at least to maintain contact with them to do this as well, if they so chose.

For a Warrior to have a proprietary attitude towards those individuals who serviced their equipment and upon whose efforts, their lives and legacies depended was such a common cultural artefact as to be almost not worth mentioning within the Clans by the turn of the millennium. A redacted Star Adder unit record of Trials of Grievance fought during the year 3055, records a stunning 123 such trials over lower castemen for a Galaxy of four Clusters. It must be noted this was considered a remarkably amiable and cooperative record for a unit of this size. Of those; 76 were over allocation and assignment of Technician-Caste staff. This example is but one of many.

Although lower castemen were officially looked at as a lower form of life; a tool to be used and discarded, Warriors often realized that not all of them were created equal, nor were they endlessly available on issue from the Touman's stores. Over-time, no-matter their relationship, working and otherwise; a Warrior with two braincells to rub together and a Tech good enough to avoid demotion to the Labour Caste would learn to communicate, learn how the other thought and functioned, or failed to function. To a credible Warrior; a skilled and effective Technician, with whom they could communicate; who *knew what they wanted and what they meant*, who could, as they say; “read their mind”, was not something to be casually discarded or allowed to slip away. Particularly when considering OmniPod-swaps between battles.

Certainly; it was the Star Colonel's prerogative to reassign their personnel as they saw fit, especially lower-castemen and this was especially common when part of a unit had suffered extensive battle damage and was in unusual need of Technician work-hours to get back into operation. But that didn't mean that a Warrior had to simply lamely accept a permanent reassignment. It certainly did not suggest that such a warrior tolerated abuse or "poaching" of "Their" Tech(s) by another Warrior or unit without reply. And it did not prevent trials of grievance even so.

Households did not officially regularize or codify these feelings and arrangements, but they did add an additional level of emotional attachment to the issue, which in turn added another layer of resistance to over-come for what was officially seen as matters of little consequence. While an individual Warrior who expected to live long enough to pass on their genes had to see the difference between one Tech and the next; by administrative practice and cultural demand; a senior officer could recognize no such significance to what were in effect "assets" under their control. Any such officer would need to carefully balance which figurative and literal battles they chose to fight and chose to overlook in order to remain alive, fit and in command. Thus, these understandings were strengthened and acquired customary legitimacy over-time.

Household relationships often formed based on or strengthened by the bonds of shared hardship and camaraderie found in the peculiarly sexualized Clan military structure. Thus, it was not uncommon at all for a Household to include one's subordinates, whether they shared a sexual relationship or not. This began to produce alternative bonds of loyalty in a pseudo-feudal fashion and was regularly remarked on in reports by the mid 3050s.
If the presence of customarily preferred individuals to maintain and repair the tools of war had been too subtle an indication, here the Household began to take on a martial imposition which was increasingly difficult to ignore.
 
While rarely regularized before the 3080s, it was not uncommon at all in the Clans for a pair of Warriors to demand to serve together, or for a mentor and mentee to wish to continue such a relationship. A Clan Warrior being promoted might often wish to bring along a trusted comrade or two to their new position. In some cases, whole Stars might come along as ready-made cronies through such demands, arrangements or petty trials. That these relationships might also contain romantic overtones would hardly be remarked on in Clan Society and it was only with the beginning of the movement as a force for change that it even came to be seen as a cachet of the Household concept.

At this point, it was only natural, especially for Senior Officers so inclined to retain various others in their household as servants, flunkies or functional staff. For example; Elementals in such positions usually sought out trusted and well-regarded MedTechs and Scientists in order to maintain themselves in effective physical condition for as long as possible.

Even before the 3060s, it was not unknown for "Householding" customs to be observed in the form of a Warrior's Last Will and Testament. Such documents would commonly see various personal items; particularly military equipment passed on from one Warrior to the next, but it was not unknown for a Will to include a disposition for certain members of a household; particularly Techs and servants. On rare occasion, it might even include instructions for a trusted and like-minded comrade to see to the children or former spouse of the departed.

Occasionally; one Warrior might even "Inherit" or have Willed to them a subordinate Caste romantic partner of the deceased and their accustomed sexual rights to them, as either a final gift to one or the other, a passing along of a person deemed treasured property or as a means to see a valued companion's welfare was looked after once they were gone.

Once the practice became normalized in the mid 3070s, it was even possible for one Warrior to declare, fight and win a Trial of Possession for the Household, entire of another Warrior. In this sense; the "Household" might also include particular items of major military equipment; typically, 'Mechs, Fighters or Battle Armour. This particular practice would be much-less common with crewed-equipment such as a combat vehicle (except, see below), though it might well include a crewed-dropship in some select cases.

Freeborn Warriors looked at Trueborn households with incredulity and an often-righteous anger; knowing that here was a closed structure, existing in contravention of the letter of Clan Law and it was being regularly overlooked in many cases. Often, they thought correctly; because the perpetuators were Trueborn Clan Warriors.

It was hard to argue the point: while Freebirths were openly viewed as second-class citizens, even in more liberal Clans, it was impossible to deny an allegation that this was a transgression which would *never* be tolerated among their kind. Rather, the Trueborn and even pragmatic Freeborn senior officers looking to retain their positions and the loyalty of the mass of their subordinates would close-ranks and deny the practice even existed.

A freeborn pursuing anything like a "Household" had no legitimate or lawful recourse to defend their actions. Since the separation of Clan Society into Trueborn and Freeborn, it had been forbidden for Freebirths to engage in what amounted to a barbaric parallel to the Clan eugenics program, one that would undermine it, devoid of the inherent virtue of the system of the Bloodhouses. A de-facto family-structure, especially one ostensibly formed along the lines of merit and mutual esteem would do just that.

For a Freeborn to become a Warrior meant forsaking the practices of romantic love, marriage and family. Even in the aforementioned Ghost Bears and Cloud Cobras, recognized marriages were not performed by any body or authority which the Clan as a whole or the Clans Society felt legally bound to respect.

Thus, it was maddening to know their Trueborn social superiors were engaging in practices which were specifically denied to themselves. It was further infuriating to observe the cases where Trueborn-led Households incorporated Freeborn romantic/sexual partners. Particularly when these relationships proved fruitful.

As difficult as it was to argue against, it was even more difficult to defend the “Householding” practice from a philosophical stand-point. To those denied access to such taboo practices, it was thus also a case of corruption of the way of life, they had sacrificed so much to uphold and take part in.
During this time, almost no Freebirth would have or even could have engaged in the concept of the "Platonic" or "Pure" household with any degree of credulity, either.

[beachhead1985]

Platonic Households, also referred to as "Pure Households", or brotherhoods, orders, ect. Were another kind of aberration in the eyes of many. These were strictly non-sexual/non-romantic kindreds, specifically of Warriors, with a "Household" staff of proprietary lower-castemen to provide specific support. These structures could support a dozen or more individuals, united through bonds of unusual loyalty, often of a quasi-spiritual nature. They could mix freeborn and trueborn, although this was uncommon. Some members were even reported to decline or to fight trials of refusal against promotions, transfers or changes in equipment that might separate them from their fellows.

While both strictly-celibate and sexually-aberrant yet-still "Pure" households were not unknown, most freely allowed for normal Clan sexual practices of free love and open sexuality. But this was almost always outside the Household itself. And in such cases, any individual Warriors practicing anything like the more-common Romantic-Household would be quickly abjured by their fellows once discovered, as they saw their own practices as quite different; a “Purer” expression of the Founder’s Vision, even than that found in normal Warrior society.

As an interesting aside; these "Platonic" households were also often fonts of study or proselytizing for given philosophical, spiritual, religious or political theories. They almost always served as a common forum for shared interests in more general studies, sports, art or hobbies.
The increasing openness of Households could not have come at a worse time in terms of the challenge it posed to traditional Clan Society. In many ways, it was no-less subversive for the ways in which it seemed like a natural fit or progression of Kerensky's vision.

On the one hand; it was against the strict letter of Clan Law, as well as the formal and informal practices prevalent in Clan Society. On the other hand; this was a period in which even the strictest of traditionalists within the Clans were wondering if it were not time for a re-interpretation of the original tenets and laws laid down by Kerensky. More moderates wondered if the answers to the challenges they faced might not be found in additional measures, laws and practices laid down by the Grand Council. While the radicals felt that the time of the Great Father's Word had passed and that it was time for them to find their own way unbound by the strictures of the past.

None of these, together or apart wished to review or re-structure *all* of Clan society; the Toumanic system alone held the interest of most with an eye to more successful future military engagements in the Inner Sphere, as well as being the tool for long-term survival. But the questioning of one aspect of the Law, led to open, critical examination of all of it from various parties.

As it was; the strict word of Nicholas Kerensky forbade exclusive romantic relationships among the higher castes and enforced sanctions to control the populations of the lower castes. Instead; a practice of "free love", even to the point of the quasi-incestuous within the Sibkos was the cultural norm and preference. These policies and practices served to undermine or supplant the traditional marriage and family in most cases, in favour of the Platonic mass-communal education programs, housing and healthcare systems Kerensky preferred.

Likewise; the assertion of proprietary rights over a person, even a lower-casteman went counter to both the limited ideals of freedom the Clan system permitted and also the communal approach to the society as a whole.

For Warriors of any stripe to deliberately cultivate a pregnancy, bring it to term and then maintain a proprietary relationship with any offspring went against, frankly most of what the Clan way of life stood for. Indeed; it was bad enough from the outsider's perspective, *without* children.

Once the concept was extended to fellow Warriors under the guise of brotherhood, it became an entirely different problem. As it was; it was not untoward for Warriors to request the transfer of a comrade or comrades with them when they were promoted or moved. It could be a rather large request to grant, but it was far from unheard of and often wise for a Commanding Officer to grant. Indeed; within the Clan system, it was not uncommon to declare trials to demand such treatment or to refuse an unfavourable decision on the subject.

The Household, however and particularly the so-called "Pure" or "Platonic" variety inaugurated what amounted to a secret society and this was strictly forbidden within the Clans, even before the eponymous “Society” cast such things into stark relief. It was acknowledged that such things existed and openly held varieties were often tolerated; a Cluster Fencing Club, for instance. But membership in any clandestine organization, particularly if they were found to be pursuing un-Clan-like ideals or interests could lead to severe censure, or even exile to the Dark Caste.

Finally; such structures presented an impediment to the free operation of a given military organization in which they were found. This was more than an annoying impingement on the Commander's authority, but was indeed seen as directly insubordinate and subversive.

Of course, it's difficult to say for certain just how wide-spread the practice of "Householding" was. As the practice has been studied, it has proven impossible to put a firm number to the prevalence of Households, particularly those which were short-lived or minimalistic in nature. Certainly, clandestine marriage existed from the very beginning of the Clans; the history of the Ghost Bears tells us as much. But it is thought likely that the Warrior Household as described here only came into being once the Caste System itself had firmly solidified and Trueborns were in the firm majority in the Toumans of the individual Clans.

To expand upon what was mentioned above; records first describe the practice near the end of the 2800s, with it being generally known of, but not openly discussed in all extant Clans by the mid 2900s, at least; almost certainly through a process of parallel, spontaneous evolution. But even when first officially discussed, the practice was described as a longstanding and known issue.

 Householding seems to have held steady at this level, with an average of around 0.5-2% of Trueborn warriors involved at some point in their lives with a more regularized romantic structure comparable to the accepted description of a Household. These numbers are only estimates based on conclusions drawn from records such as disciplinary files, criminal investigations and personal diaries and correspondence. In all such cases; much more relevant information might have once existed, but the impetus of Clan culture would have leaned heavily towards its destruction.

This is also only an average. At any given time, a more restrictive Clan like the Smoke Jaguars might have had less than a dozen Warriors of all stripes engaged in Householding practices across their entire Touman (although less reliable evidence suggests the opposite in this particular case).

Meanwhile; a more liberal Clan, particularly one with the right history, like the Ghost Bears might have had as much as 5-6% of their Touman engaged in such practices at the time of the Invasion, alongside somewhat more tolerant cultural mores.

Part of the implicit and to an extent; open argument in favour of, at least a "live and let-live" approach to Householding was that it offered a counter-balancing alternative to another, much more noticeable social issue, within not just the Warrior Castes, but the Scientists and Merchants as well.

This was the increasingly pervasive issue of sexual practices deemed aberrant or deviant by Clan Society. Intimate details of such practices are beyond the scope of our discipline, but interested parties should seek out of the work of sexologists, Doctors Benjamin Hereford and Jules Petersen.

These practices often took place across caste boundaries, as well as in off-limits areas. By their very nature, they bore many of the hallmarks of secret societies and seditious activities and they tended to undermine the discipline of both the individuals taking part in them and whole units, once word of such practices got out. Such activities proved often to be a stain that no simple trial could erase and indeed, could lead to the deliberate murder of the individuals involved in many cases.

While Householding could lead to this as well in many instances, it was in a manner and of a nature which was not at all different or indeed; easily separable from the kind of lamentable behaviour which could arise from the more preferable-kind of sexual liaisons Clansmen engaged in. These could go awry as easily as any personal relationship; simply because even Clansmen remained human, with human emotions and human weaknesses, no matter how-hard the Scientists and Sibko instructors strove to eliminate them.

By contrast the root causes of both issues were different reactions to the same stimuli inherent to the Clan Way of life, particularly as found within the Warrior Caste. The Clan eugenics program and the Sibko system effectively eliminated the family structure for Trueborns and to a lesser extend; Freeborn Warriors as well. Both were vulnerable to the sexual predations of their instructors from a young age and would be regularly forced to interact with the individuals who victimized them regularly throughout their development. Less-so the case for Freebirths, but Trueborn Clansmen were also normally subject to a closed social circle of genetically-related individuals. This, in-turn led to a set of circumstances where even those who had avoided any predations of their instructors and pseudo-parents to this point, were essentially locked into an environment that all-but guaranteed their first and many later sexual partners would be their close genetic relatives. No matter their background, the Way of the Clans seemed to consign it’s ruling caste to the kind of sexual awakening that bred predatory individuals in normal human society. While there is no consensus on whether or not Kerensky forsaw or even planned this outcome, it cannot be denied as a contributing factor to many of the issues that would later arise and eventually become endemic to Clan enclaves.

***
Further reading on the subject of Sibko attrition due to abuse, sexualization and suicide can be found in the works of Dr. Ramsey Horz.
***

Those who failed out of the Sibko were rudely confronted with a societal structure that ranked them in value and importance directly through an arbitrary system related to what they could provide for the Clan, as an individual. This Caste system was not freely navigable and these washouts had to know they could never again be more than second-class citizens in their society.

Clan Cadets who matriculated from the Sibko to the Warrior Caste would be introduced to a world where they sat at the top of the food chain, but could still be subject through peer pressure, coercion, emotional manipulation and old-fashioned corruption to sexual relationships to which they were unwilling parties. While this could in theory be answered in the Circle of Equals, in practice the newest Warriors would always be at a disadvantage against their older, more developed and experienced "comrades".

This inauguration into the brutal realities of a literal "Might Makes Right" social hierarchy could never have been adequately prepared for, even with exposure to a prototypical form of it in the Sibko. The realities of life inherent to a Clan, a Society; indeed a world of people who were literally beneath you and had little to no capacity to refuse your advances as a practical matter ensured these victims would have every opportunity to become abusers themselves.

All of these factors could and did have a corrupting influence on the sexual and emotional development of Clan Warriors and this has been remarked on widely elsewhere and in other disciplines.

Those who rose to the top needed to not only be excellent warriors, but generally the more stable and incorruptible among their peers. Here a spark of Nicholas Kerensky’s great vision seemed to burn true. The alternatives were the degradation of the Toumanic system into a seething blood-pit of debauchery and chaos. As has been demonstrated repeatedly throughout human history and well-illustrated in the related texts of other disciplines; the true limits of human depravity are not in commission, but in reliability. Simply; the perverse and the wicked make poor managers. They may have some capacity to drive others forward, especially their own kind, if not to truly lead them. But they make for distant and unstable administrators, logisticians, tacticians and strategists. The Clans too had need of these more sedate disciplines in their leadership and their officer corps, even if they often neglected them or left them to talent, rather than training.

Therefor; the basic tenants of military discipline---if no other---had to be maintained.

These practices alluded to above and the under-culture they created had a corrosive effect on that discipline.

Householding provided a more stable alternative. While it had its issues, it provided a different outlet for the energies and traumas Clan Warriors had to cope with. Not that the Clans generally thought of the issue that way, but the fact remains that while there are various ways to react to a vacuum; it's going to be filled. But by what, where and why will vary. As we see in contemporary cases of abuse and predation closer to home; while the abused can often become abusers in turn (and indeed the ratios of abusers who have been themselves abused approaches very near to unity) or at least display other antisocial behaviours, it is also possible for them to choose to become something or rather; *someone* else.

Here, in absence of the traditional human family unit; when faced with a vacuum, some Clansmen chose to build their own from scratch.
But why make that choice in the face of such opposition?

The perspectives revealed in surviving diary entries often reveal a struggle within the writers between the narratives of Clan Culture, the letter of it's Laws and the fundamental spirit of the Warrior inside them. To these Warriors; it felt as though they should be able to maintain what rights and privileges for themselves that they could defend. These are, of course; the literal ruling class of a warrior people. How is it that anything they are strong enough to claim is denied to them?

While the writings and recordings which survive also delve into more radical takes on other issues political, professional and personal, there is another common perspective; that of the spiritual/philosophical position of what is often described as an "inherent" or "natural rightness" to the practices of Householding. To these Warriors; what they are doing, particularly romantically, sexually and parentally, simply *feels* right to them in the very marrow of their being. This theme is repeated often in surviving records.

That such men and women from such a culture should be willing to fight and die for these beliefs should shock no-one and the seeming allowance within the Way of The Clans for this expression of might literally making right served to reinforce these arrangements for many as a fiat accompli.
While some Households were betrayed or discovered and their members dispersed, exiled to the Dark Caste or otherwise punished harshly, it seems that many were knowingly allowed or rather; tolerated to run their natural course. Few entirely maintained their clandestine nature to the end of most Households; their dissolution with the culturally-acceptable early demise in battle of one or more members.

The strictures of Clan Society which may have in some cases tolerated Householding did not extend beyond the lives of those who founded the Household and it was nearly impossible until much later for a Household to live to see a second generation of Warriors.

   Khan Vlad Ward's unprecedented actions immediately following the FedCom Civil War marked a sea change among the Clans, though it seemed to be quickly overshadowed by other events at the time.

   To the Caste-bound Clans; consumed as they were and are by issues of law, tradition and precedence, even a deluge of conflict could not erase the implications of the Khan's actions and these shook the halls of power and the petty politics of the Warrior's Mess, both; to their very foundations.

   Here was a member of the very pinnacle of Clan society, whom only an Ilkhan could have over-ridden; a master of combat and politics, both. And he is rushing to the rescue of his secret, freeborn…what?---not like a Wolf, but a lovesick, angry puppy. No Clansman could help but wonder what could justify the threat of imminent, all-out war with a victorious Victor Steiner-Davion so near his final triumph?

No Trial.

No Batchall.

Just a quiet, certain and absolute ultimatum; give her to me, or else.

   How could the Khan of the supposed "True" Wolves justify these actions? Katrina was no great warrior. She may have been an alpha predator in her own right, but she was a political animal: one of plots and assassinations; of Civil War, in point of fact. What did any Clan need with that? She might have held certain secrets, even information on Vlad and his Wolves; but to behave in such a manner for the currency of spies, or for blackmail was unworthy, even of the lowest of legitimate castes.

   And nothing could erase that she was Freeborn.

   For his part; Vlad did the best thing that he, personally could have done: he said nothing, did nothing. Offered no explanations to any-one or any body of persons. *He* was Vlad Ward of the Wolves; *He* and he alone was Khan. And not even his SaKhan could gainsay him. Simply put; he acted like what he did was his right and so it was accepted as right. Those who questioned him, similarly died to him.

   When even his equals in rank demanded explanation; he offered words to the same effect he had given to Victor: This is mine and it is worth war to me.

   Going forward Vlad continued to do and chose as he wished. He could be questioned; but not without reply and that reply was always in the circle of equals when it came from inside the Clan, silence or ultimatum when it was from without. He cared not an eyelash for what anyone else thought.

   What we have now on the relationship shared between Vlad and Katrina is practically voluminous compared to what would have been available at the time, which was sheer inference in place of fact; rumour and imagination in place of reality.

   Victor was left to explain to an interconnected and concerned humanity at large that in place of a trial, in place of exile or execution; he had surrendered his sister; usurper and war criminal to a foreign power in place of another all-out war. Thankfully; there was actual evidence for this and some of it was even incontrovertible. There might even have been precedent for it, if one looked at it side-ways and squinted. Not that any of this stopped tongues from wagging of course.

   Eventually filtering out from the Wolf Occupation Zone through the wars that followed, and even deep into the Homeworlds were rumours, reports and even tri-vid footage of Vlad making appearances in the company of an apparently humbled and subservient Katrina; now known as Katrina *Wolf*. She always occupied a position behind and to Vlad's left, but never out of frame, so it seemed. And she never appeared with him publicly in anything but a shapeless Clan Wolf-Grey jumpsuit; her famous golden tresses tamed with simple bands and no sign of cosmetics on her face. She often wore glasses of a basic design and plain black, plastic frames.

   This is what Clansmen saw; Vlad Ward and his SaKhan when both would be seen together and then, vexingly; that Freeborn woman, behind and to the left. Why was she present? What was her role? Vlad Ward offered no explanations at the time, nor allowed others to speak of what they knew. Only so many years later can we say with confidence anything about their relationship and this, only through much careful research.

   Vlad and Katrina shared a household. In public, she appeared as a lower-caste servant---but one who never did anything but be present *observing and listening*. This was incongruent enough; soft words from Katrina Wolf sending lesser Clansmen of all castes scurrying to obey the will of their Khan; a will Katrina was uniquely attuned to.

   Pieced together from the diary entries of three SaKhans and a host of Star Colonels, Galaxy Commanders, Admirals and others, we know their private life was very different. The bounds of *their* quarters marked the threshold of a House of their own making. In Katrina Vlad found something worth any price; an equal. Katrina was someone who could meet him on a level intellectual playing field and play the games of interpersonal politics, body language and intrigue without either having to stoop.

   While she would never be a warrior, Katrina was everything else to Vlad; an advisor, confidant, lover, collaborator and even a friend.

   Theirs was compact Household; small and discreet with just the two of them and in time; their children, yet it’s existence; hardly ever spoken of directly, was nonetheless widely known.

   All those questions, afterall, could have but one answer if Vlad of the Wolves was to be true to himself and his people and as he proved time and again; he could be little else.

   But what else we could be was an example to his people and this in all things. So it was that others in the Wolf Clan and beyond increasingly came to emulate him.

   While this was almost certainly not the first time a member of the Grand Council had maintained a Household. It was the first time one had been maintained with such command and presence. Where others would have seen it as their own weakness, a “dirty little secret”; for Vlad Ward, it simply was. Like all else in his life, even his Khanship, his Household was an extension and an expression of the self.

   Vlad’s actions had the effect of a sort of shadow of legitimacy, which was cast over the practice of Householding and acceptance of the phenomena grew within the Wolves and their few Clan allies.

   It could not have come at a worse time, however as the Clan Civil War was ongoing at the time and the Purity Wars were about to begin. The Jade Falcons and others would, in turn use the practice of Householding against Vlad and his Wolves as a means to lever them out of the homeworlds in the face of opposition from Clans who would once have been considered more radical than the conservative Wolves.

   Vlad met this challenge like all others; in battle. He offered no excuses, did not try to dissemble before the diminishing Grand Council as others did; he simply led his people into battle after battle, savaging their opponents and falling back only reluctantly.

   But reluctantly or not, the Wolves were forced to relinquish the last of their holdings beyond the Periphery in early 3092. This seeming defeat was handled differently than it would have been previously. Both Vlad and his mate had grown in their time and had, it seemed a positive and moderating effect on eachother. Where each might have been given to rages and lashing out over lost face decades prior, the aberrant couple who faced the end of Vlad’s reign as Khan in the later 90s were a changed pair and changed for the better.

   Among the more experimental “New Clans”; the practice of Householding became more common and accepted near the end of the century. While still a minority even today, Householding has served as a useful moderating factor on the more depraved aspects of Clan culture and over the last century and a half, these peoples have come into their own as distinct, but also stable and rational cultures that the Inner Sphere and Periphery can live with.

In the years to come, the practice would expand along with the breeding programs of many clans to include Freeborn Warriors, it was that or face another kind of internecine conflict altogether. As the Trueborn Household advanced in acceptance, the Freeborn variant followed a step or two behind, but by the end of the 3120s, both practices were tolerated to a degree in even the most conservative Clans.

The advantages were simply too great to ignore.

Besides the aforementioned counter-weight to depravity and the ill-discipline it bred, the Households produced, literally; high-quality Warrior stock.
The children produced from these unions were refered to as “Kindled” and benefitted fully from the precedences cemented in the 50s and 60s and while they couldn’t call themselves “Trueborn”, they did benefit from all the same privileges and nearly-equal status. This included access to Bloodnames they could make genetic claim to and eventually, even participation in the traditional Iron-Womb breeding program.

As the Householding movement had progressed through the early 80s, some households even acquired black-market iron wombs for the intentional "Kindling" of their own Trueborn offspring outside of the Clan's deliberately overseen eugenics program. These children could claim full Trueborn status.

Even the children of Freeborn Households enjoyed increasing access to levels of training and education reminiscent of the petty MechWarrior Houses of the Succession Wars and were noted as consistently arriving to training Sibkos with skills already in evidence far in advance of their less-fortunate peers.

This in turn led to an up-swing in eligible Warrior “bayonet-strength” notably above what a given Clan might have been able to expect as the Purity Wars raged on, meaning these warriors came of age just when they were needed the most. That these individuals also possessed greater mental and emotional stability than their peers also proved impossible to overlook and this later proved a pivotal factor in the professionalization of Clan military culture in the early to mid-3100s.

This last anomaly was but one facet of the growing debate over the eugenics program, and a raucous debate it was; with the practice of Kindling being one of the more moderate topics and positions being discussed.

[beachhead1985]

It is worth noting as well that prior to the Clan Civil War and the Purity Wars that followed, none of this discussion of the eugenics program would have been tolerated and certainly not in the company it found itself; with even Technicians and Merchants regularly weighing in on a topic traditionally barred to them.

And yet by the mid-70s; every aspect of what was to have been the Scientist Caste's exclusive purview was on the table for general discussion in nearly all Clans and in most venues; where before this would have been seen as a great insult to the higher Castes. However, viewed in context of the events unfolding at this time; it must be recognized that there was nothing the Scientists were involved in which was not a subject of great interest to all aspects of Clan society and culture.

The rate of production and through-put of the Sibkos was an issue of concern to the Warriors and the diminishing Grand Council as well. This subject was also of particular interest to the Khans of those Clans who were finding themselves cut off from their Home Worlds holdings by this time.

Questions were being asked about the contrasting capabilities of Freeborn and Trueborn bloodstock in light of reverses in the Inner Sphere, with some factions interested in expanding the gene pool with fresh blood from various sources and others musing on the validity of more thorough training and better selection of Freeborn troops. This last, in turn spun off into discussions of inter-Caste mobility and truly taboo speculation on the value of the Eugenics Program as a whole.

The validity and application of some Phenotypes and even the scope of the over-arching program itself were frequently discussed. This debate mainly centred on the elimination of the Aerospace Phenotype or it's full folding into the ProtoMech Pilot-strain which was already notably divergent.

Questions were raised about the potential of phasing out some or all of the labour caste in favour of a wider application of the Elemental template, as was originally intended. As well, the potential for various new and improved phenotypes edged into discussion about the limits of the program itself vis-à-vis genetic engineering verses eugenics and when it ceased to be about improving the human race and edged into the creation of a new species, or even a Clan "Master Race".

The practice of "Kindling" within or without discussion of the validity of the so-called "Household Prerogative" became of great interest as faith and trust in the Scientist Caste cratered through the middle of the Clan Civil War and into the Purity Wars. This democratization of the Eugenics program, some suggested; might even make the Scientist Caste obsolete, with their remaining duties and responsibilities transferred to the Technicians. At the same time; it seemed to offset burdens on the over-taxed and much-maligned minders of the Sibkos in their earliest years, while hopefully contributing to the supply of fresh blood through an up-bringing ideally not dissimilar to that enjoyed by hereditary warrior-families in the Inner Sphere and Periphery (a practice many in the Clans found notably *less* deplorable than more common Spheroid life).

The backdrop for these cultural shake-ups was of course the Clan Civil War and the interconnected Purity Wars, which followed. These will be discussed in greater detail in following chapters, but while the Clan Civil War has been adequately summarized above, it will pay dividends for the student of Contemporary Anthropology to also possess a minimal understanding of the Purity Wars as they relate to this phase of Clan development.

Essentially; the Purity Wars were a reactionary xenophobic backlash to the revelations of the Civil War and the increasing divisions between the Home Worlds and the Invading Clans. They began as a spin-off to the inter-caste conflicts of the Civil War as these rapidly expanded to include first the Jade Falcon Clan as a whole and then gradually the other Invading Clans as well.

However, it must be noted that these conflicts were not exclusively hostile to the questions of this period, or their authors.
This period also saw the Expatriate culture coalesce.

Expatriates were former Clansmen who had either been rejected as Bondsmen by ignorant Inner Sphere powers or had left the service of their erstwhile masters due to dissatisfaction with the new culture they found themselves in. A few were “strangers in a strange land” existing within Spheroid communities and military units and lived double lives with an Expatriate private life.

Abhorring the alternative of the Bandit Caste and unable to return to life with the Clans, these men and women gradually came to congregate in underground communities and sought to recreate a version of the culture they had lost. By 3080, these communities could be found on the Inner Sphere-side of all borders shared with Clan powers, as well as in many of the larger population centres within those powers who had encountered the Clans and a few odd enclaves beyond, in areas Kerensky’s children had never trod before.

Due to the nature of many of these individuals as captured former Warrior Castemen, comparatively large Expatriate communities could be found on Solaris VII, as well as Galatea and all other major Mercenary-hiring worlds by 3090.

Although Warriors led almost-all Expatriate communities, all castes were present, to a degree.

The warring back and forth over the OZs had brought many lower-castemen under the auspices of Sphereoid governments, particularly in the Draconis Combine and Lyran Alliance (later the Commonwealth once more) and these tragically rarely made good fits within Spheroid-communities, either individually or in job-lots. These were people literally born into the Clan system and they found it difficult to adapt to the alien customs of their new masters. However, even a few years under Clan occupation could leave it’s mark on a person and place them forever apart from their once-and-again countrymen.

As individuals and communities, desperately clinging to each other, these often turned to crime or lives as much apart as possible from their new fellows. When former Warriors or more-rarely; Scientists came upon these enclaves, they often found themselves thrust into leadership roles they did not expect and were often unprepared for. This meant that most new Expatriate communities were unstable and disfavoured locally.

Communities which formed around cores of higher-castemen from the start tended to fare better and were more organized, but many were not so lucky and developed as leaderless anarchic abominations of mixed Clan and Spheroid customs.

Different Expatriate communities reacted differently to members of the Dark or Bandit-castes, running the gamut from total Abjurement and aggressive pogroms to reluctant acceptance and everything in between. As most Expatriates had more than a whiff of the Dark about them, this is to be expected; people in such situations had to do what they needed if they were going to survive in an often-hostile and always-unfriendly environment. Expatriates just as easily might be motivated aby deep self-loathing for their own actions and turn this outwards upon any Dark Caste they became aware of. Attitudes towards local criminals were similar, but trended towards nodding acceptance and mutual respect from more organized crime syndicates.

When Expatriates turned entirely to crime, their culture of obedience and inner-discipline made them implacable foes for competitors and law-enforcement-alike.

Unfortunately, this caused Expatriate communities to develop something of a reputation for the exotic due to their cultural mores and supposed connections for obtaining Clan-Tech. Barring careful research and reconnaissance, this could easily lead to a very dead end for would-be customers, traffickers or even Petitioners (see below).

No two Expatriate communities were or are alike. While all maintain some degree of the earmarks of Clan culture, almost all have been forced to compromise over time to some degree.

For instance; strict observance of the caste system varied widely, with much-greater inter-caste mobility tolerated as a necessity in most cases. Likewise; freeborns and free-births were much more welcome and accepted, along with Solahma in almost all Expat enclaves, with the later often taking on leadership roles as semi-official “Khan” or Loremaster.

Again, by necessity; a greater degree of freedom of movement, expression and right to property were observed than was common within the real Clans, though still less than would be common elsewhere in the Inner Sphere or Periphery. The lower-castemen typically possessed some degree of weaponry and all were expected to join in defence of the community and it’s members.

Most aspects of living and culture were maintained in as communal a state as possible, in order to better-enable the function of the Caste-System, but in so-doing, this also brought the castes into much closer contact that any were used to.

Outsiders could be adopted with varying degrees of acceptance as “Abtathka”, usually through personal relationships, but sometimes through failed or “settled” Petitioners.

Warriors typically sought to acquire and maintain personal arms comparable to their previous positions and Expatriate communities led by Warriors as most were, tended to function as a sort of altruistic support mechanism for their Warrior leaders in semi-traditional ways.

As another example of a pragmatic compromise of Clan culture, each enclave maintained a kind of militia, no-matter how un-clan-like it’s appearance or caste-composition. This proved necessary in order to survive in the environments they found themselves in. Some of these could even include ‘Mechs or combat vehicles and a few even functioned as Mercenaries or Pirates. Larger enclaves typically maintained their own police force and law-enforcement system, complete with courts and punishments for breaking Enclave laws. These were almost never recognized by their host worlds as legitimate in any official capacity, but rather served as a fiat accompli to the formation of neighbourhood no-go zones which local officials were unwilling or afraid to police themselves.

All Enclaves shared a goal of “establishment”; to acquire something they could call their own; be it turf, land or even a world in whole or in part. This was held with the eventual goal of becoming a sort of “Mini-Clan” in their own right. Enclaves which could lay claim to starcraft; particularly dropships and jumpships (all-but unknown before the 3090s), would often take their as their holdings, acting as wandering nomads, eking out a living as they were able for a time, before either failing or “grounding” and “Establishing” a more permanent, static base from which to grow. By the mid 3100s, there were several known Expat-space-stations and many more rumoured to exist, scattered through known space and beyond, held together by a network which one could know entirely.

Larger enclaves always boasted a degree of communal schooling and medical care, no matter how primitive; their culture simply demanded it. They might not have a ready source of food; but the young would be taught their roles as castemen and the Warriors at least would be patched-up.
Where a enclave had Warriors of any number, it soon acquired a “Sibko”, even if this only held a single potential Warrior-Candidate and often a freeborn one at that. Larger Enclaves had more regularized training and education for Warriors and future-warriors. But this could be primitive indeed and was often incomplete. The most established Expatriate Communities boasted improvised Iron Wombs and carried on a parody of the Clan Eugenics program and those with the time and luck to see these efforts come to fruition could boast of a kind a Trueborn continuation. But this required scientists and these were always in short supply.

Expatriate Communities within the 3rd League often did and likely still do carry on a more regularized version of the eugenics program and trade treasured genes back and forth like Merchants. But this level of cooperation was only possible within a society that tolerated such things as an expression of what they saw as a homogenous “Clan Culture”. Woe betide the Expatriate Community discovered operating Iron Wombs by the likes of the Jade Falcons or Coyotes.

The Clan Civil War saw a huge growth in the numbers of Clan Scientist-refugees fleeing the conflict any way they could. Few of these desired to work with any Spheroid government and rather sought to hide in Expat communities or else found their own, similar Enclaves, with or without Warrior-leadership, a few becoming, in-effect; remnants of the hated Society in microcosm.

The reaction of a real Clan to such tiny imitators could vary widely in-practice when they came into contact. Often, Expatriate Communities would be so small in comparison to the Clan force or body they encountered that their treatment and defacto fate would be decided wholly by whomever was senior on-scene. By the early-3100s, however all of the Spheroid Clans, but the Diamond Sharks and the Peripheral Blood Spirits had settled on a general distaste.

The consensus was that ultimately; Expatriatres were failures and rejects and the free-born descendants of same. Their culture was a debasement of Kerensky’s dream and an insult to their own expression of that dream. However…Expatriatre enclaves proved fertile training grounds and watering holes for Clan Watch members and Merchants were often willing to work with them to a degree to provide security on dubious endevours, acquire contraband and for access to more mundane resources delved by the former’s Labourer-Caste.

Individual experiences varied in practice, but by the mid 3130s; these stances were official policy. The growth of surviving Expat communities didn’t help matters and would come to a head early in this century, but this subject is treated in later chapters.

The self-styled “True Clans” annihilated Expatriates whenever they encountered them, with the exception of the Cloud Cobras who would sterilize them and assimilate them into their labourer caste, following a period of reeducation.

Exiles can be seen as similar to Expatriates, but were and remain individuals whose separation from the Clan is a matter of personal choice and no small degree of guile.

Exiles have usually gravitated towards the Periphery and more primitive worlds, but can be found in the least likely places as well. They usually try to fit in and assimilate with the culture they find themselves in and successful Exiles will have spent a great deal of time; often years surreptitiously studying the culture and languages of the people among which they plan to live.

Not all Exiles make it, however and there are no hard numbers on proportion of failures verses successes. Complicating this is that many Exiles hide their origins to the greatest extent possible.

The Clans view these persons as deserters to the Dark Caste and while Expatriatre communities sometimes accept them, these are exceptions, as they generally find them to be un-clan-like and thus find their company distasteful, if they learn of their past.

Only in the 3rd League’s Canton Worlds is any alternative presented to these people, where Clansmen are still permitted to serve the SLDF if they so chose and some assistance is provided voluntarily by communities to Exiles who have chosen to leave the Star League Clans. However, the attitudes of these Clans toward this later, traditional form of exile remains adverse.

The opposite of an Exile is a Petitioner.

These are much-less common today, but beginning in the mid-3060s, the practice became widespread.

Much sensationalized, Petitioners came from humble beginnings; stripped of a sense of home or culture by war, like many young people before and since, they sought something to give their life meaning and order. In the Way of The Clans, they seemed to find this.

As we see in earlier studies, young people will rebel against anything, including freedom and the generations following the Clan Invasion were no different. Finding themselves in a world absent any structure or enforced discipline, many sought a way of life which promised offered conformity within a strict culture and promised hardship and eventual supremacy over all others.

Distressingly; many Petitioners would travel to a world on which Clansmen were to be found in number and simply ask the first one they saw to adopt them into the Clan in effect. While the first part of this process could be easier on worlds with freer travel; such as in the Arc Royale Defence Cordon, it usually required a degree of illegal activity, which itself saw many Petitioners made unwilling parties to another strict culture of disciple; a prison system.

Contemporary accounts are shockingly detailed in describing the general awkwardness and embarrassment of the second part of the process and we have many holovids of such activities taking place to serve as primary sources. If you haven’t already seen them; save yourself the trouble and picture your own most awkward memory, because you’ll just be seeing someone else make theirs.

At this point, many Petitioners would be disabused of their idealistic notions, often violently and thence find themselves far from home among a culture which was both more alien and much less friendly than they expected.

Those who somehow made it past this point, or by chance happened to approach the right person, could typically be “Absorbed” into the Clan and at the lowest level of labourer. While higher-caste Petitioners are known, most of these found their new home by more professional and respectable means.

Most, however were destined for the Labourer-Caste and many of these found their new life much to their dissatisfaction. These, if they survived, often found themselves cast out or running away to join their failed comrades among the lowest of the low in the Dark Caste. Here their lives were often Hobbesian in the extreme and few accounts have happy endings from this point.

Those that do, for certain values of “Happy” are the ones which see their protagonists return to a semblance of their former lives as prodigal sons and daughters. However, these persons rarely lives truly “happily ever-after” most spend the rest of their lives drifting and fall into crime and substance abuse. Most enjoy a few days or weeks are home before being swept up by the local police or state intelligence service as a dangerous radical with potentially valuable intelligence on a threatening neighbour.

Some Petitioners, however have always fallen short of their goals; they fail to reach their destinations, wash out of some test or other, desert as above or simply; “Settle”. Settled Petitioners are those who petition to join Expatriate communities as spheroid reverse bondsmen, in place of trying to join a real Clan.

When they are accepted, this can benefit both parties. The Petitioner brings much-needed outsider’s perspective, skills and knowledge and can even act as an “in” for members of the community or even the community itself in some instances. The Expatriates are “real enough” for all-but the most devoted Petitioners and those are unlikely to settle anyways.

But Expatriates are notably insular and closed to outsiders. Arguably, “Settling” might prove more difficult for a Petitioner than getting adopted into a real Clan.

[beachhead1985]

Hope people enjoy this, I'm still editing the rest, but I hope to have it up soon!

[DOC_Agren]

Interesting

And something honestly beside Vlad that we never really saw..

[mighty midget]

Hope people enjoy this, I'm still editing the rest, but I hope to have it up soon!

This was a very enjoyable read, looking at the clans from a more realistic cultural side is something that we don't run into anywhere else.  Your writeups are very well thought out and reasoned.  Thanks for sharing your brain with us.

[J-H]

Thanks.
Looking back at the Way of the Clans trilogy by Robert Thurston I read as a teenager, and putting that together with what I now know as an adult about predatory behavior and how to create damaged child soldiers with few attachments, it fits - along with a healthy dose of "What were they thinking writing this?!?"

Not the Falconers were ever presented as "good" or "not abusive and manipulative" in any other sense.

[AlphaMirage]

Good stuff beachhead, I thought many similar things in my own Katherine-verse AU. It is actually a pity that we still have them acting so similarly to 'the old ways' in the canon universe when they should have changed meaningfully over the past almost century of interaction with the Inner Sphere.

[namar13766]

Hope people enjoy this, I'm still editing the rest, but I hope to have it up soon!

Very nice.

When you're done, could you also put up the whole piece as an attachment?

[beachhead1985]

This was a very enjoyable read, looking at the clans from a more realistic cultural side is something that we don't run into anywhere else.  Your writeups are very well thought out and reasoned.  Thanks for sharing your brain with us.

Thank you! I am really happy people are enjoying this!

Thanks.
Looking back at the Way of the Clans trilogy by Robert Thurston I read as a teenager, and putting that together with what I now know as an adult about predatory behavior and how to create damaged child soldiers with few attachments, it fits - along with a healthy dose of "What were they thinking writing this?!?"

Not the Falconers were ever presented as "good" or "not abusive and manipulative" in any other sense.

In retrospect, it's a bit of a perfect storm in how it collides with BT's overall young-adult writing style.

Good stuff beachhead, I thought many similar things in my own Katherine-verse AU. It is actually a pity that we still have them acting so similarly to 'the old ways' in the canon universe when they should have changed meaningfully over the past almost century of interaction with the Inner Sphere.

I consider it worrisome, given the current state of the cultural zeitgeist, that it has not be addressed yet.

Very nice.

When you're done, could you also put up the whole piece as an attachment?

Wilco!

[beachhead1985]

How all the Clans faced these challenges.

Unsurprisingly; reaction within the self-styled "True Clans" was, in the main to suppress any and all bottom-up attempts at change of any kind.

However, it was still clear to those at the higher levels that for the Way of The Clans to survive, there needed to be some changes. It was hoped that by acquiescing in certain areas; agitation for more radical change could be suppressed. This sliver of pragmatism, possibly borne of sheer exhaustion is likely what saved these most fanatically conservative of the Clans.

Chief among these “adaptations” as the Grand Council called them, was a relaxation in the negotiated posture towards Touman growth. Now in possession of nearly all the holdings of the abjured, as well as what remained of the Society's secret enclaves, resources were more plentiful, with much more to go around. This dovetailed well with the need to rebuild following the carnage of the Clan Civil War and the Purity wars and fed into other debates ongoing in regards to the true forces necessary to fulfill the destiny of The Clans as the Great Father intended.

Clan Stone Lion, in particular benefitted from this, as it shielded them from the disapproving attitudes of stronger Clans as they sought to level the playing field. For their own part; the Star Adders, Steel Vipers and Coyotes were most concerned with creating a force which would make any successful suppression of their way of life an impossibly difficult task for any outside force to accomplish if and when the Inner Sphere came looking for them where they lived.

While most other measures were deemed "un-Clan-like", each of the True Clans found it impossible to carry on with the traditional policy of degrading their older warriors for reasons of custom and culture. The need to expand the Touman simply did not allow it. Nor could they afford to reject as many freeborns, as they would have liked and all were forced to employ these forces in order to meet their troop-strength goals.

While eager to discard these measures in years to come, The True Clans would find themselves restrained by the very system of customs and procedures they sought to preserve. Warriors permitted access to the correct measures of medical attention and adequate equipment were more difficult to put down in Trials of Grievance and so even direct orders from the Grand Council were stymied in later attempts to purge Clan forces of older warriors and freeborns. As it was, these remained a disfavoured, but necessary part of the Touman of the True Clans into the 3200s, before more recently being accepted as having been part of the Great Founder's Plan all along. In the long-term, these measured proved a benefit, with older Warriors fitting well into to this day-informal secondary command roles and Freeborns permitting a wider expansion of the Touman.

The structure of the Touman, however had to change drastically.

Simply posing as a credible defensive force over dozens of worlds located so far from the Inner Sphere demanded more diverse and nuanced forces than ever before. While these more conventional troops would remain a denigrated and often off-the-books part of the Touman for many decades; they earned their rations in many conflicts.

However; building a force capable of fulfilling their perceived destiny as the rulers of humanity would prove a goal which was beyond the horizon visible to the Khans of the turn of the century.

An important part of that goal would be advanced in military technology and the eugenics program which would take many decades yet to perfect. Far from their supposed foes, the True Clans decided this was time they had.

One unquestioned advantage that the True Clans held over all others was the undeniable truth that they sat on and held the quintessential brain and resource trust when it came to eugenic science anywhere in known space. One would literally need to discover alien or at least, *inhuman* life in order to pose a reasonable challenger. They possessed the greatest number and finest quality of gene samples, as well as near-total lock on the greatest surviving geneticists the Scientist Castes of the Clans had ever produced.

All the Clans held the basis of their genetics programs on Strana Mechty. While the individual Clans and the Society possessed their own genetics repositories, by Clan Law and custom, the foundation of each Clan’s Trueborn population remained there. During the wars, the Clan Capital weathered several assaults and attacks of various kinds, to include nuclear assaults launched by The Society. All failed. While each of the extant Clans did manage to salvage something of their own programs and win more from the Society and the wreckage of the great city, itself, primacy rested firmly with those calling themselves “True Clansmen” and this formed not a small fraction of their basis of their claims.

As such, the True Clans became aware earlier than the others of the degradation and need for recovery of the base samples. They proved better able to weather this crisis than their erstwhile cousins and were able to push their strengthened programs harder and farther.

Rumours that this might be explained partly through the coopting of legacies rightfully the proprietary domain of others began to leak out through the Cloud Cobras, by way of the Diamond Sharks in 3122. But this was confirmed through Imperio sources from 3165, later declassified.

The True Clans were canny in how they applied the time and physical resources at their command to transform their society into what they needed it to be. But the key was that physical space; that between them and most threats, as well as that which they occupied gave them the time and resources they needed.

The Continuation Clans were not to be so fortunate and had to make do with what they had.

Pressed into difficult ground; neither the Jade Falcons, nor the Wolves could afford to look askance at very much and they reserved their greatest admonitions for those ideas which they were least able to actualize.

The question of arms limitations was never even on the table for two Clans ejected militarily from the Home Worlds; surrounded by hostile neighbours (including each other) and seized by a desperate need to rebuild, yet driven by cultural imperatives to aggress against their neighbours.

What form this rebuilding would take would vary widely between the two, with the Falcon's doubling down on the traditional strengths (and weaknesses) of the Clan way of war in general and their own approach to it in particular and the Wolves seeking to change with the times in order to develop a Touman most likely able to contribute towards their destiny as the Clan above all others.

The Falcons refused to countenance any “further” special treatment for freeborns, Solahma or bondsmen, believing that recent exigencies had already forced too many unworthy compromises on them in years since the invasion. But; the Falcon way remained one of strength, aggression and survival of the fittest. And a warrior who could successfully defend his or her claims could have whatever they wanted, consummate with the ability of other warriors to take it away in the circle of equals.

Instead; the Falcons would run their gene-banks dry founding new Sibkos and push them harder than ever before, right alongside their Scientists. Thought to boast a surfeit of scientists greater in both number and proportion than any other Clan by the end of the Purity Wars; the Falcon Warrior Caste could hardly be said to have been remiss in demanding more from them in terms of obedience and success than ever before, given what they were perceived as having already cost their people.

While frequent bloody purges saw their superiority in raw brainpower diminish rapidly into the 3100s, the Falcons benefitted markedly from advances in military technology, as well as their more radical eugenics program.

This included the further development of the "Elstar" Phenotype, data for which was salvaged from Society remnants seeking sanctuary beneath the Falcon's wings. This program was aimed at producing an all-aspect advanced phenotype suitable for most battlefield roles. While in its infancy at the end of the 3090s; this program would bear great fruit later on, with the first experimental Sibkos graduating in 3110.

Within the Falcon's somewhat more grounded Warrior Caste, however; the focus became a drive to become "more Clan than Clan". Their Warriors would push themselves harder, farther and faster than any before them and they were not afraid to explore methods which would otherwise have been deemed un-Clan-like in less arduous circumstances.

This included explorations into any and all spin-off skills and pursuits which might pay their dividends on the battlefield. The Falcons embraced the martial arts, hand-to-hand combat and practice with dueling weapons as never before. Even the civilian castes were forced to undertake new fitness and public hygiene campaigns---including even Tai'chi---all aimed at purifying and strengthening the Spirit of the Falcon to its very core.

   No stone was left unturned for Warriors obsessed with burning brightly and briefly; chemical stimulants, Enhanced Imaging and other cybernetic implants, experimental fitness, diet and mental conditioning programs. Absolutely nothing was off the table if it might make the Falcons better warriors, or even just workers. Falcon senior castemen even took notice of such efforts of their underlings beyond the Warrior Caste, rewarding superior performance and encouraging even the most eccentric of efforts.

   Some Jade Falcons even embraced esoteric martial, philosophical, spiritual and quasi-religious practices in pursuit of greatness, culminating in the notorious "Falcon-Chi-Power Martial Arts Tournaments” which began in 3092 and began regular Tri-Vid syndication in 3119.

   But, for the Jade Falcons; everything had to be sooner, stronger or better yet; *now*.

   This led to a number of border confrontations with neighbours from the early 3090s through the outset of the 3130s as a result of various outbursts, incidents, raids, misunderstandings and attempts at "venting" Falcon aggression before it turned inward. All this in addition to the simple blooding of new Warriors. The greatest of these conflicts and the one which might have served as a reality check was the Falcon-3rd League War, which took place from July 8th, 3095 to September 22nd 3097.

   This was in some ways a repeat of the Falcon's earlier campaign against the SLDFiE's canton worlds during the Jihad. Where the former had been aimed at convincing potential enemies that the Jade Falcons remained a force to be reckoned with; the Falcon-3rd League War, or simply; the "Falcon War" seemed to lack an over-arching direction or strategic objectives. Instead, the Falcons seemed to simply come to fight.

   While it did succeed in bloodying many SLDF formations and briefly occupied or at least held ground on several worlds, including Central; the only meaningful contribution the campaign made to the Jade Falcon Clan was the disposal of a large number of highly volatile warriors and in finally convincing the Khans that they no longer possessed a firm control of their own Touman. This in turn led directly to a massive shake-up of the Falcon command structure and the institution of a kind of Clan "NCO-Corps" of increasingly official watchdogs, enforcers and sub-commanders as part of the militarizing reforms of the mid 3100s.

   If the Jade Falcons were willing to go to any lengths to avoid the questions posed to and by Clan Society as a whole in the later years of the 31st Century, then the Wolves were willing to do nearly anything themselves to simply survive and recover from their egregious losses over the past two decades, while still retaining a straight-faced claim to pre-eminence as the Clan of Kerensky. No small order, this.

   Increasingly, this meant not only embracing and seriously treating many of those questions which were being posed, but also examining diplomatic options they otherwise would not have considered.

   While an aging, but still popular and capable Khan Vlad Ward might have contributed to the easing of agist prejudices within the Clan, it was the example of the late and literally legendary Natasha Kerensky which was used as the argument to silence traditionalist opposition. Khan Ward likely benefitted greatly from his use of Natasha’s legacy as a canard to deflate accusations of hypocrisy during this time. Although the Wolves were not benefitting as greatly as others, or even as much as they may have done by the bountiful resources of the Inner Sphere; openness to new ideas ensured that tested and reliable manpower was not an area in which they lacked.

   The dawning of the 3090s saw expanded recruitment and acceptance of freeborns into the Wolf Touman in all arms, even as it saw the final graduating Sibkos of Aerospace phenotype warriors. The 32nd century to come would see the founding of the first Sibkos of specialist ProtoMech Pilots to reinforce those units already formed of failed pilots and freakishly small freeborns.

   The Wolf Scientist Caste had escaped the purges of the Clan Civil War and Purity Wars mostly intact, but had always been under-sized compared to others. In the years following, they were eager to prove themselves as both loyal Wolves and valuable assets worth the resources expended in recovering them from the Home Worlds and maintaining them in the former Wolf Occupation Zone. As such; vast reserves of man-hours were allocated to the re-establishment of the Wolf Eugenics program in the Inner Sphere. Controversially and after much acrimonious debate on both sides, it was determined that this could include an expanded sampling from new sources.

   The sources of these samples would include certain of the Wolf Clan's better performing and more renowned freeborn warriors, but also, when possible, the giftakes of respected and admired figures and opponents of the Clan from within the inner sphere. Those who became subject of these efforts while still living had to succeed in unwilling trials of “Bloodright” in order to found their own blood houses. And also to continue to live (although the two outcomes were not exclusive, either). This effort culminated in several covert missions directed and run through the Wolves' Watch, including to the ruins of Outreach, where an intact sample of the Wolf's Dragoons genetic repository was located, recovered and assimilated into the Wolves’ own eugenics program.

This operation in particular remained unknown well into our own 33rd Century when a warrior from the namesake Wolf bloodhouse was captured, in turn attracting the Dragoons to famously trial for a copy of the data in 3211 and the original samples. This series of trials was eventually successful and proved instrumental in a reproachment between the Wolves and the 3rd League.

Somewhat controversial when proposed and first enacted; these measures eventually provided great dividends to the Wolves as many Clans began to suffer from increasing instances of reaved and failed Sibkos in their eugenics programs beginning in the 3110s and crossing the 70% threshold in the final years of the 32nd century. This was the result of cascading failures in multiply cloned samples, setting many Clans back decades and even centuries as their scientists were forced to return to original stored samples (when available and viable) to re-create their breeding programs from scratch. Many Bloodhouses were reaved and hundreds of trials fought over irreplaceable original giftake samples.

Those Clans whose programs were most diversified (Horses, Wolves, True Clans, ect) were much better able to weather this storm while others were reduced to a trickle of new recruits from the few Sibkos they could found and were forced to make due with warriors who were considered disgracefully ancient or flawed by their own people. This burden naturally fell hardest upon the most traditional Clans, such as the Jade Falcons (having squandered so many of their own warriors in fruitless campaigns) who chose to fight through these hard times when they felt the need for warriors the most.

These pressures all-but forced the Falcons to embrace the El-Star program as soon as it appeared likely to prove viable. In the meantime; their forces were brutally run-down by the effects of accelerated Falcon Darwinism.

[beachhead1985]

***
   The period; 3080-3100 saw the fading of a generation which had been of age when the occupation first occurred. As their native spheroid influence waned, the attitudes of the Wolf lower-castes were increasingly affected by the perspectives and values of those who had known nothing but life under the auspices of The Clan. This was made possible by the remarkable stability of the Wolf occupation zone in the main.

   The opening of Wolf society thus arose at an opportune moment to take advantage of this thawing of popular opinion and perspective. With Clan life appearing increasingly palatable, more and more of the lower castes in the occupation zones became willing participants. "Going along to get along" proved much easier with greater freedom to pick one's partners in love, life and parenting at all levels.

   For their own part; Wolf Clan Scientists were right there, notepads in hand to monitor developments and assess the viability and virtues of children produced through Householding and other, more-conventional relationships from the later 3080s-onward.

   Through the 3090s, the Wolf Clan also became more open diplomatically. This effort was directed by Bondswoman Katrina behind the scenes with the aim of securing time for the Wolves to rebuild and re-orient their Touman into a more practical warfighting force.

True alliances were thought to be beyond the reach of these efforts, but by the close of the century, Katrina's handpicked envoys had built on the 3060s détente with the erstwhile Wolves-in-Exile, establishing cultural exchanges and trade partnerships through the new Khans there.

Much lesser-known were the successful missions to nearby periphery realms and an improved standing with the Diamond Sharks, whom the Wolves would remain dependant on for particular parts and equipment for the foreseeable future.
Through these and other efforts, the Wolves were able to bring countless petitioners into the fold and gain footholds in Expatriate enclaves they were often able to later exploit. Following the great reunification of the two disparate packs, some high-profile figures, including mercenaries even willingly sought-out and gained permanent membership among the Wolves.

   The New Clans were and remain a diverse lot and so while the Wolf-Falcon binary of the Continuation permits an individual treatment, even under the burden of a textbook word-count; the New Clans demand such a treatment in order for this text to provide an effective baseline for further research.

   ***

   Beginning with a growing resentment and suspicion in the 3070s, by the 3110s, the Ravens of the Raven Alliance had come to see that they were essentially being used by the culturally-dominant pacifists of the Alliance as a means to an end.

In a manner comparable to the symbiotic relationship of the Tibetan Buddhist ruling class of millennia-past; the civilians of the Alliance looked upon the Ravens, increasingly as a lost and dangerous society of barbarians they could direct in their enlightened morality to do their dirty work for them alongside the other unworthy elements of their society.

   Things were coming to a head as the 20s rounded, with the Raven Alliance on the verge of falling out due to mutual resentment between the Clan and Periphery-cleaving segments of the population. The appointment of the at-first controversial Khan Thomas Adkins proved to be a much-needed pressure-valve, which Adkins would vent frequently through his 19-year career as Khan.

   Khan Adkins, “Tommy” to his supporters from both sides of the aisle, is almost certainly the least-likely figure to rise to leadership among the Clans to-date and his eventual removal proved as essential to the survival of the Alliance as his ascension.

   Adkins’ derived his genetics from the original Adkins and Cooper bloodlines, but was born from the most common of Outworlds peasant-farmer stock descended from those storied families. Adkins, himself was totally unaware of this pedigree when an act of teenage rebellion against his pacifist Mennonite family saw him approach the Alpheratz garrison as a farm-hardened 15-year-old petitioner. He passed his trials and was initially accepted into the Raven’s Warrior Caste as the most-humble of infantryman.

   On his side at this point in his life Adkins possessed an inherent mental and physical toughness, coupled with a high level of endurance, an indifference to hardship and natural shooting talents. Against him was everything else. As a rangy, red-haired, freckle-faced farmboy from a chronically underfed and over-worked background, he lacked the physique to ever hope to ascend to power-armour operations and so his eventual rise through merit was exclusively within the Alliance’s benighted conventional infantry garrisons, or the “Legs” as the more lofty-minded of Snow Raven’s referred to them.

   By 3102, Adkins was already a seasoned StarCommander in charge of what was effectively an infantry company of 125 soldiers, if it was at full strength (which is rarely would have been). It is likely by this point that he had learned the truth of his genetic heritage, because he certainly seemed to know of it when he appeared unannounced to fight for the Adkins Bloodname in the grand melee in 3104, as his command of Raven protocol would have demanded nothing less from a person in his position.

   He lost. Badly. And required major surgery, some cybernetic augmentations and a lengthy recovery period, which he abbreviated recklessly.

   But he was back again in 3106, this time as a NovaCaptain with several prosthetic internal organs in sole, if contested command of over 300 Clan Warriors manning Omnimechs, Fighters, VTOLs as well as 250 jump infantrymen.

   This time, he managed to win out through nerves, guile and a restored SLDF jump-pack/SRM-launcher.

   As NovaCaptain Thomas Adkins, he showed no interest in the increasingly-open Householding movement, though he certainly knew of it, according to his own official writings. Instead, he was driven to leverage Clan traditions and culture for his own ends.

Adkins was an “Aged” 30-years-old when he succeeded in a trail of grievance to be trained as a fighter pilot, surrendering all rank and privileges, save his Bloodname in the outcome of a raucous scandal that reached the Khans of the Alliance; Khan Cole and saKhan McKenna.

   Adkins was trained by Solahma Point Commander Dante McKenna; one of the Raven’s dwindling number of pure-strain Trueborn Pilots and herself an old woman at half again his age at 46. His success as a pilot is difficult to judge, as normally the Ravens take more than a decade to train a pilot of any discipline, so this places Adkin’s own approximately 2-year tutelage as an anomaly in and of itself.

   He apparently made a workable pilot in practice, serving on not only ancient second-line fighters, but also the latest Omnis. Adkins survived several trials of grievance and position by the skin of his teeth, but it is widely acknowledged that his success derived more from personal virtues of diplomacy, common-sense and leadership than his skill as a fighter pilot.

   Adkins had risen to StarCaptain and was favoured for promotion to command of the reformed 3rd Raven Alliance Air Wing when he declared a trial of position against one-time patron and now-Khan Alowishious McKenna.

   McKenna was a MechWarrior by training, with a great deal of deep-space experience and had been doggedly driving the Alliance into chaos in a cultural and political shoving match pitting the Clan’s Warriors against its other castes for his entire political career on the basis that; being lesser castemen, they must inevitably heel to their betters. His support of Adkins had been a gambit designed to demonstrate the superiority of the way of the Warrior over the lesser castes, but Adkins resolutely refused to heel to McKenna’s own autocratic and superior style and had eventually become a thorn in the latter’s side when it became clear he would bend to nothing he could not challenge openly.

McKenna was younger than Adkins by almost a decade and a veteran of conflicts of all of kinds, but had recently soured the opinion of many of his supporters through the order to employ a nuclear device against a pirate asteroid base with the aim of sending a message to other bands hiding within the Raven’s expansive reach. It thus was recent events as much as any present personal failings that led him to accede to Adkin’s demand for a trial and an ill-calculated error to agree to meet him in hand-hand combat.

Adkins’ apparent disadvantages were many as he stepped into the ring at 1.7 meters to his Khan’s 1.83 and a mere 75 kilos against the latter’s 109. But the fight itself proved to be a brutal, if drawn-out contest that established the folly of McKenna’s hubris and, by the standards of Clan Culture; his policies as well. Adkins took everything McKenna had and fired back with round after round of brutal farm-boy fisticuffs. He refrained from “cheap shots” and had won over the crowd of over two thousand Warriors by the end of the 3rd round. Finally; unable to see, speak or stand unaided, Alowishious McKenna effectively forced Thomas Adkins to deliver one blow too many, from which he died several hours later of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Only as Khan did “Tommy” reveal himself as a devout Alliance patriot of long-standing, but those close to him had long known of the power of his simple soldier’s words and the common wisdom of his farmer’s aphorisms. Khan Adkins proved able to repair and strengthen the bonds between the two peoples of the Alliance and established them where none existed.

From his ascension, he never again engaged personally in combat, either in war or trial, just as he had never again spoken to his erstwhile family from the time of his petitioning, though he certainly made frequent reference to them in all circles, to the sometimes-detriment of he and his Clan. Throughout his career, Adkins refused to hide who he was or where he came from. To pretend to be something he was not was anathema to his being.

Khan Adkins instead fought his battles in drill halls and sports arenas. Adkins saw clearly the disgraceful way in which the peoples of the Alliance treated each other; he saw gentle, harmless citizens accosted and humiliated and proud warriors rejected by the same people they gave their lives to protect. Tommy saw all of it, as he had experienced it all personally. He successfully argued and when necessary; harangued for the position that not only were the strengths of the two peoples of the Alliance mutually beneficial; they were in fact virtually a match made in heaven. They simply had to “get their heads out of their tail-pipes to see it.”

By 3147, Adkins had ensured two things: The name of the Raven Alliance had become a truth shining in the stars as the Citizens of the Alliance enjoyed the protection of a culture of steadfast defenders and the Raven Clansmen benefited from the enthusiastic support of a liberal coterie of lower castes who were nearly completely loyal and content in their version of a well-alloyed Clan Society. The other thing was the complete and total distrust of every neighbour and former ally they had known five decades earlier.

Beyond the Alliance, Khan Thomas Adkins had become the subversive bogeyman behind the largest, most powerful and effectual warfleet since the original SLDF; a threat to security both physical and political. With the Raven Fleet able to match multiple lesser-powers simultaneously, only the 3rd League posed a credible threat to them and only then if one disregarded the distance at which any conflict would need to be waged from it’s supply base. At the same time, the Raven Alliance enjoyed a steady flow of successful petitioners from all over known space, the knowledge of which was incredibly disturbing to all observers. Even notoriously independent Expatriate Enclaves in other nearby realms came to see the Raven Alliance as their protector and would occasionally petition their consulates and trade missions to intercede on their behalf.

These factors made replacement of Khan Adkins with a fresh-face a necessity as the 50s approached, but the ease with which StarCommodore Bael McKenna supplanted him in trial proved a disappointing anticlimax to the incredible career of a man who quickly returned to the soil of his birth and lived out the remainder of his life as the humble farmer he had been raised as.

Thomas Adkins kept to two things to his final days; he rebuffed all efforts from his birth-family to reconcile and he never gave up a rugged Pride conventional fighter. The latter he hid from prying eyes under a tarp in his barn, but took into action twice before his death from multiple organ failure in 3193; during an incursion by the Green Ghosts in 3163 and when the Grand Navy of the Draconis Combine came calling in ’74. He claimed atmospheric and ground-kills from the cockpit during both conflicts, as part of the Alpheratz combined Solahma-Militia force.

[beachhead1985]

The Ghost Bears left the Jihad a wounded people. They expended vast resources through the end of the 31st century in attempts to rehabilitate or modify a sacred Blood heritage now totally lost to them.

These efforts left them scarred as a people to the point where the once-proud Ghost Bear eugenics program is now a taboo, never to be spoken of outside highly select circles, lest it kindle reminders of what they have lost.

Only gradually did things begin to improve in the 3100s and for almost 30 years, the non-trueborn population walked on eggshells in the Dominion for fear of waking the sleeping bears. Few petitioners approached the Clan during this time and it is possible none were accepted. Expatriate Bears stayed away in their own dens, contemplating new, separate destinies.
Salvation came to this fractured family, as it so often does, in the form of the dawn of new life.

The Householding subculture spread through the Bears like a calcifying stratum reinforcing a crumbling façade and the people of the Clan took to it like cubs to a fresh snowfall.

It was from this grassroots basis that the new breeding program was born as Ghost Bear Warriors demanded the legitimization, recognition and acceptance, first of their own children within the Clan and then soon, the means to kindle a new future for the Dominion through the old means of their people.

In this, the Bears were the first to fully embrace the Householding phenomenon as a part of their way of life, in the 3130s; with it encoded into their laws officially in 3142. And they were also the first to build a new and expanded genetic foundation using what little remained of the old bloodlines, uncontaminated by the lost Tsengs.

Prior to the 5th and final Succession War; the Bears had freely and enthusiastically mingled their bloodlines, joining in the quest for superior warriors, derived from the stock of their original blood founders. The Word of Blake saw this as a weakness of the Clans from early on and developed gene-phages to eliminate the children of Kerensky, bloodhouse by bloodhouse. Only one of these was deployed in action: against the Ghost Bears; but it was enough, and it nearly destroyed them.

Targeting one of the most high-holy blood houses of the Bears; one of the two founding Khans was bad enough, but the Bears own genetic program had ensured that there were a minority of warriors who did not carry the Tseng legacy in their genes and exposure to the blight compromised the genes and reproductive capacity of the majority of their surviving Warriors.

Where thousands died quickly from the opening salvos of the Word’s biological attack, hundreds of thousands would succumb in the years to come, while desperate Bear scientists, abandoning any other loyalties and themselves dying as they worked, struggled with the oldest, most delicate remaining samples of pure genetic material to outrun the bloodline curse thrust upon them.

The Ghost Bear’s genetic stocks had been in similar condition to the other Clans at the time of the Jihad; ancient samples were running out as cloned copies increasingly failed to meet minimum quality standards. That the Bears had not seen fit to preserve as much of their original stocks as some other Clans had---instead putting their faith in future generations as their founders would have wished---made things much worse, setting the Bears as possibly the worst-off of any Clan in terms of the viability of their breeding program.

By 3094, the reaving of Sibkos “Cursed” or “Blighted” was a yearly occurrence and constant fears that the gene-phage might mutate to affect other legacies dogged the Bear’s scientists at every step.

Finally; it was natural breeding, together with a healthy admixture of staunch old-blood Rasalhaguian stock that offered a way out. With the Dominion Touman dwindled to a scant five Clusters of Trueborn Warriors sandwiched between a terrifying façade of a fleet and freeborn units the Bears were too pragmatic to part with and too paranoid to allow to expand, it could not have come at a later time and still found Bears to save. As it was, the citizens of the Dominion were increasingly returning to their old ways as a means to ensure protection from a dangerous Galaxy and such as the Tyr and other underground paramilitary forces were becoming an open secret once more with ancient, hidden caches emptied and old methods re-established.

Still, it wasn’t until 3152 that the first of the “New Litters” of unaccelerated Trueborns were able to graduate from the long-empty creches, into Sibkos. In the interregnum; the Bear Warriors had themselves changed.

While Freeborns came to predominate as much as the Khans and a once-permissive, now-reactionary Bear culture would allow, age increasingly took root within the remaining Trueborns, supported by old Star League science, once thought lost. These “Old Bears” placed great stock in individual hardiness, strength and hard-won knowledge and were honoured for their survival and accumulated wisdom by the few cubs and the Freeborn-alike. The Solahma-stigma was effectively dead among the bears by 3120 and has never returned, as huge white beards and leathery, wind-burned hides have become marks of no-small pride within the Clan.

During this time, the Touman increasingly turned to a preponderance of heavy-weight and high-technology in combination to offset the vulnerability of lacking numbers. This was most-evident in the Great Bear Fleet, but could be observed down to the individual weapons and equipment of Freeborn foot soldiers by the early 3150s. Needing to rely on their warriors to soldier-on as long as possible called for the end of the Clan take on “just-in-time” logistics as well, with new and rediscovered equipment that was expected to serve as long as its users did and to outlive them as necessary. The gradual expansion of the Touman into the 3200s ensured that while Ghost Bear warriors and weapons trended older; they were among the finest and best-maintained anywhere. Today’s Bear Warriors are thus the most highly trained and lavishly-equipped of any Clan. While they retain one of the smallest Toumans to this day, The Clan’s Warriors are the best-protected, most heavily-armed and their equipment is more rugged than any other. They are highly-skilled, have high morale, an unbreakable sense of corps and familial belonging and they waste nothing. They are truly “Bears” in every way that matters.

And If the Warrior Caste shrugged and forgot about caches eventually found looted of older stockpiles of obsolete equipment, who could blame them, when so much was already asked of so few?

Where other Clans found themselves impoverished after the Jihad from having so many mouths to feed and so few resources, the dearth of Warriors (to say nothing of the reforged loyalty of the Scientists) can be seen by us as a blessing within the full passing of time. While the lower castes of other Clans endured decade on decade of privation and poverty, the Bears simply had too few warriors to spend what resources they did have. In typically-pragmatic Ghost Bear-fashion, these once-Wardens turned comparatively vast sums and resources over to their civilian castes for responsible disposition.

For the Bears, it was simply a matter of avoiding waste; there were not enough Warriors to use what their populations could provide. So, it was only logical that the lower castes should work to their own benefit, rather than remain idle as a result of misplaced resentment or worse; pique.

So it was that, even from the end of the Jihad, during the quiet years of the Bear’s “Hibernation,” the people of the Dominion were allowed to rebuild as no other Clansmen were and we see the fruits of this today as the long-suffering peoples of the Dominion enjoy a standard of living in excess of any other Clan and all-but the grandest worlds of the Great Houses. This from a people who once led humanity only in their suicide rate.

[marauder648]

Excellent writing and theorising as always!

[beachhead1985]

Excellent writing and theorising as always!

Thank you! Your support means everything to me!

[beachhead1985]

Hell’s Horses did not become the “Devil’s Cavalry” they are today over-night. They started from a good foundation and got the way they are today; a Nation with an Army-attached, through hard work and endemic pragmatism. They gave up almost everything else to do it, though.

Arguably the most “military” of the Clans, the Hell’s Horses conducted their retreat from the Home Worlds during the Civil War as a professionally-staged fighting withdrawal making maximum use of the assets available to them, assets which, be it noted; were looked upon with open distaste by their fellows at best.

The outbreak of the Clan Civil War hit the Horses at a particularly inopportune time. While on one hand; their scientists were hardly involved at all in the so-called “Society”, they were in the process of losing their Spheroid holdings to their hated Ghost Bear rivals when the Scientist Conspiracy was discovered and were very badly poised to respond effectively to intrusive raids into their territory in the homeworlds under the pretenses of rooting out Society enclaves.

That the Horses were unable to effectively repulse these raids and that a few even discovered evidence of hidden Society assets made the Horses look weak to their fellow Clansmen. Their response made them look heretical.

Acting in direct opposition to Clan Law and the dictates of Kerensky himself, the Horses threw open the gates of the Warrior Caste to their lowliest labourers and may even have turned a blind eye to former Dark Caste bandits. These they hurriedly trained as conventional infantry and vehicles crews. Those who failed were sent to empty the Horses’ caches of equipment and supplies.

They initially thought to make a fight for their holdings, but as the Clan Civil War radicalized into the aptly-named Purity Wars, Clan Hell’s Horses counter-attack became a delaying action.

Other Clans hungry for the Horses’ holdings found themselves bogged down by masses of essentially disposable forces they were not prepared to contest efficiently. In response, the Horses’ expanded Touman warped and broke apart under the strain. A significant minority of their newer forces fled into the wilds of their worlds to ekk out what life they could as bandits, but a larger number disappeared into those same wildernesses with a different goal, only to emerge as guerilla raiders in the months and years to come.

As the True Clans consolidated their territorial gains, they found themselves harried by both increased Dark Caste activity and fast-moving and flexible Hell’s Horses stay-behind troops.

In either case; the response was the same; Annihilation.

Surprisingly, the Horses’ claim that much of this activity was planned and further; that they even managed to recover some of these forces, years and decades later in far-ranging “Recovery Patrols.” Evidence for these operations, however is almost non-existent outside the Horses’ own Remembrance.

The Horses’ troubles neither began, nor ended with the Veil of the Protector, however. While their home worlds contingents had been fighting for their lives in the Deep Periphery, the Word of Blake had launched their Jihad and initiated the 5th Succession War.

Caught between two clades of fanatics, Clan Hell’s Horses chose to fight for lodgement in the Inner Sphere and Periphery and managed to claim a small host of worlds just in front of their own transitioning ships packed with refugees and treasures alike.

The Horses’ Warrior Caste, led by their Khan James Cobb made the willful choice to see the cauldron they found themselves in as a paradise of endless battle. Short of everything but enemies; the Horses buried the hatchet with their long-time Ghost Bear rivals and squared their shoulders to the task of survival. The next thirty-odd years would see the Horses not just survive, but thrive.

However, living to fight another day often meant facing hard facts, embracing ever more of the very tools that had seen them set apart and hardest of all; swallowing a great deal of their hard-won pride.

This in turn led to an increasingly militarized frontier culture as the Horses threw off all brakes on the size and composition of their Touman and armed their lower castes. Instead, The Horses would produce as many warriors as they felt they needed and arm them with whatever they had on hand or could produce. If that meant using weapons considered “Dezgra” by their “stuffier” brethren, then to the Horses, it didn’t matter; it would be them who lived to see the next day even if that meant hauling out things like artillery, conventional fighters and even more of the vehicles they had embraced to a greater extent than any other Clan.

From 3079, every prospective Warrior of Clan Hell’s Horses was trained as an infantryman first, before being allowed to continue in the specialty their phenotype or talents indicated. Starting during the Clan Civil War and continuing in their flight towards the Inner Sphere; all Labourers, Technicians, Merchants and Scientists were trained and expected to take arms and fight to defend themselves and the Clan’s holdings as militia. This increasingly included positional defence from static, armed bunkers, as well as taking turns in far-ranging “Kommando”-duty, mounted or on foot to pursue and identify threats lurking in the back-woods ranges of their new worlds from 3085-onwards.

Those Clansmen and ‘women of the Hell’s Horses who stepped off the dropships coming from the homeworlds barely resembled their brethren from under the other totems. The years of fighting, scrambling and flight had transformed them as a people.

It was this new, transformed culture which would face the challenges of adaptation; one hardly Clan at all, some might argue.

Few Solahma had survived what some called the “Third Exodus”, most had died buying time for the younger generations and lower castes. Those who came of what most Clans would consider “age” during the harsh, radiation-tinged years of the Jihad could not be spared to pad the egos of Ristars and only the heavy demands of the Sibkos and militia-training could temporarily see them withdrawn.

This unhappy situation could not long persist and Khan Jake Kabrinski’s reforms of the late 80s and early 90s saw the Horses’ Touman adopt a formal NCO system under SLDFiE tutelage. This continued to mutate and evolve until it resulted in the modern-day “Troopers” and “Mustangs” that make up the Hell’s Horses Touman today.

The bloody years of fighting in the Home Worlds saw the Horses learn harsh lessons: in practice, the “cavalry” rarely rode to the rescue in time to save far-flung outposts from genocidal Clan hostiles. But at the same time; the Touman could never be strong while it attempted to defend everywhere at once.

These lessons led to the “militia compromise”; the arming and training of the lower castes for self-defence purposes and these practices found fresh impetus in the never-quiet Inner Sphere and periphery. But they also led increasingly to dispersal of the Touman into small, highly mobile and flexible combined-arms formations for local defence and later; more powerful integrated task forces. These three elements meshed to create the Horses post-Jihad Touman and were later joined by SLDFiE-trained “Striker” groups of more mobile militia infantry forces.

This four-point system formed a stable structure of versatile “Legs” able to kick out as and where-needed, as if from a noble steed beset by scavengers.

The non-Warrior-Caste militia trained universally, but organized and deployed in essentially defensive postures of local and area-defence, with some degree of guiding and scout-work.

The younger and keener of these could serve as operational augmentees in the “Strikers” and be used as a force to block or ambush an enemy force in concert with Toumanic troops, duties well beyond the regular Militia, even when on “Kommando.”

These complemented the more traditional Touman, divided into “Homestead Cavalry” formations who lived and trained amongst their lower-caste civilians and the larger, more aggressive “Horde” who were accoutred and trained as a highly-mobile assault force.

Homestead Cavalry Clusters replaced the old Provisional Garrison Clusters and were broken up and distributed among vulnerable or particularly valuable regions were they were barracked in and among the lower castemen they existed to defend. These Warriors worked closely with the Militia and Strikers and came to depend on positive relations with the locals; all the locals, in order to maintain awareness and security. This meant learning to get along with their own Clan-bred lower castemen as comrades and not just subjects, but also learning to be a friendly face for newly occupied Spheroids, integrating any Expatriate Enclaves which were discovered (forcibly, if required) and helping welcome Petitioners once they’d been vetted by the Horses’ Watch.

A degree of fraternization was inevitable between tight-knit expeditionary forces and full-time combat troops embedded with civilian castemen for the first time and this was the manure which nourished the Hell’s Horses Householding culture.
In most cases, Households took shape around either a single Warrior’s ambitions or the mingling of the souls of two social equals, but this was the minority within a minority for Clan Hell’s Horses even before the 32nd Century.

As the Horse’s Touman settled into the “Homesteaders” and the “Horde”, the more common models of Clan Householding took root within the Horde and contributed greatly to the career bifurcation of the Horse’s Warrior Caste, with most spending their lives within one structure or the other. This was a perfect fit for these nomadic, close-knit heavy formations, including as they did their own dropships, jumpships and warships.

But the larger mass of the Touman lay in the Homestead Cavalry and these smaller formations were tied to the land and people they bled and died to protect. Here; a Warrior of Clan Hell’s Horses could spend his or her entire career from leaving the Sibko, to joining the ranks of the honoured dead in the same limited geographical region, riding out again and again to defend the same factories, farms and families. Homestead Cavalry Clusters relied on good relationships with the lower castes in order to gather local intelligence on enemies like off-world pirates, local bandit caste, stay-behind guerillas and anti-Clan insurgents as well as mundane information like terrain conditions and recent trends in weather and wildlife. This was even true in the Horses scattered Deep Space-Ranger units, a space-based variation on the ground-bound Homestead Cavalry charged with border security, interdiction and scouting.

All of this was new to the Horses, who could only adapt as best they could and being human at heart, this included social adaptation into unfamiliar ways of life, that nevertheless the Warriors of the Clan found came naturally to them after some bumpy starts.

This variation on Householding typically paired Warriors, the traditional cultural superiors, with traditional inferiors in lower castes. Often these relationships grew from introductions through physical proximity within a limited geographical area, housing arrangements or encounters through the normal course of one or the other’s duties. The taboo existed in the reality that to work, these relationships between socially-mis-matched partners had to be conducted with a degree of mutual respect and understanding that Clan society typically reserved for those who shared the same caste.

This was in contrast to the more typically power-imbalanced Householding relationships between Warriors and lower-castemen, where some degree of master and servant relationship was maintained and even cultivated. It was another move away from Clan Tradition and another choice that Clan Hell’s Horses found worked for their unique culture and situation.

Today, we can extrapolate the cultural changes these sorts of relationships have had on this Clan and line them up with the Horse’s many diplomatic and political triumphs in the 33rd century. What was once unthinkable to their ancestors has moved the Horses closer to more of what we would generally think of as a more human, even a more *humane* norm. These rediscovered common touch stones have allowed the Hell’s Horses to make inroads with non-Clan nieghbours and political and trading partners that have proven yet-impassable hurdles for their cousins.

The cost for this has been high, as even their closest Clan allies view them as the least Clan-Like of all extant Clans.

[FastConcentrate8]

CHH fan representing, love the ideas here and this is an interesting coincidence when in my own AU project, the Horses go through something similar with them beginning as a standard Clan before Liberalizing and later becoming highly successful but the least Clan Clan.

[DOC_Agren]

Interesting take on the Horses

[beachhead1985]

Glad you folks are enjoying this.

Here's the Scorpions:

***

Imperio del Escorpión.

   The name conjures images of mysterious wanderers and explorers, guardians of secrets and preservers of history. Aloof and unknowable.

   While not inaccurate, this is an image which the Scorpions, once called “Goliath Scorpions” have cultivated deliberately and one which has served them well, granting them the benefits of isolation, without having to pay the penalties of cutting themselves off from the world at large.

   What records we have seem to indicate the Goliath Scorpions as one of the chief parties responsible for the initiation of the Clan Civil War, although it is highly unlikely that they were the authors or any such grand conspiracy theories as are sometimes claimed. Extant transcripts describe evidence brought before the united Grand Council of the Clans in the year 3064 by Goliath Scorpion Seekers and supported by members of the Jade Falcon Watch implicating the Scientist Caste as a whole in a subversive organization calling itself “The Society”.

   From here, history records that the then-dominant Clan Steel Viper effectively began the Clan Civil War by initiating the Abjurement and attempted Annihilation of Clan Jade Falcon and things rapidly fell-out from there.

   But the Goliath Scorpions seem to have seen all this coming, as preparations and preliminary operations were already underway for them to expand their holdings elsewhere in the deep periphery and had been for several years by this time. If anyone can be said to have been “ready” for the Clan Civil War, it was the Goliath Scorpions. They were certainly prepared for the genocidal and literal fallout from the Purity Wars and these preparations enabled their invasion and conquest of the Umayyad Caliphate and Nueva Castile.

   This preparation made the Scorpions comparatively absent-players from the high dramas unfolding in the Clan Home Worlds. Advanced reconnaissance and intelligence from the Scorpion Seekers and Watch assets allowed them to neatly excise Society enclaves from their own territory, while decades of Seeker operations laid out untold numbers of staging areas to rapidly re-position the assets of the Clan to.

   It was during this time that the prototypical elements of the 2nd Star League’s New Model Army made contact with the Scorpions during their Munin Operation.

   Operation: MUNIN was a reconnaissance in-force with the objective of determining if The Clans as a whole looked likely to honour the terms of the Great Refusal and what their military capabilities at the time amounted to. This in order to determine if additional follow-on operations in the vein of Task Force: SERPENT to Annihilate other Clans after the Smoke Jaguars were to prove necessary and what forces they might require.

   Intelligence provided by the Scorpions, particularly in terms of safe pirate points and sensor-shadows throughout Clan Space and beyond proved instrumental to the accomplishment of the SLDF’s mission and in return, these forces proved more than willing to test current Clan Combat capabilities by running interference for Clan Goliath Scorpion as they evacuated personnel and infrastructure to their own bolt-holes hidden in deep space.

   What, if any SLDF involvement there was in the Invasion of Umayyad/Nueva Castile space or indeed, follow-on operations during the Jihad/Purity Wars is not known in detail, but certain items of heavy equipment deployed by both forces in the years that followed, particularly in terms of Warships can only be explained through joint operations aimed at emptying ancient Star League and Brian Caches in both Clan and Inner Sphere space.

   Needless to say; the Scorpions and the later 3rd League benefitted greatly from their mutual partnership and have continued to do so through official Star League Membership granted to the Imperio del Escorpión following the Counter-Republican War.

   But the Scorpions have refused to follow the paths set for them by others since their earliest days and have not embraced the same cultural trends as their fellow Clansmen have.

   Firstly, it is a fact that no true Scorpion-derived Expatriate Enclaves exist, though it is known that their Watch service is among the most widespread of all the extant Clans.

Exiles, however are another matter. All the Clans produce exiles to some degree, or another, but those claiming to be former Scorpions are perhaps the most common and also the most likely to be lying about their origins. By the same token, many are the Seekers who lose their way among the stars and the throngs of humanity and never return to their Clan. Some simply “go walkabout” and never come back, others find new paths they prefer to the old. And some few are on missions that never end, as dictated by fate or design.

It is said that a “true” Scorpion Exile will never see themselves as being separate from The Clan, but rather apart from it for a time which may be determinate or not. Twice in recorded history, when the needs of The Clan were great, the Khans have called all their wayward children home through Clandestine means; once in 3166 and again more recently in 3222. How this is accomplished is unknown and it may never occur again. Indeed, no such call may have been issued in the first place, but rather the word of the great need of the Imperio for her children to come home spread through the stars and they came.

In 3166, this took the form of only those Warrior-Trained, Bloodnamed Warriors who could make their way to an Imperio outpost in time to stave off a Civil War within the Clan through having their voice heard. But, more famously in 3222; this call saw the return of a great Scorpion diaspora consisting of men and women and children of all ages, Warriors and lower-castemen, even several mercenary commands answered the need of the Khans to stave off an attempted invasion by the True Clans.

Many are the hearts who long for acceptance among the Scorpion’s ranks and it is possible that to Petition the Imperio del Escorpión is the most common desire among the lonely, isolated minorities of Petitioners. It is objectively possible that no Clan so embodies the romantic and adventurous ideals outsiders sometimes see in The Clans as does the Imperio. Few can make the journey, however. But of those who do, the Scorpions are keen to test them rigorously to determine their worth for adoption into the Clan. Fewer still can pass the trials, but the Scorpions seem to sense kindred spirits among those who would leave their homes and people behind to seek answers among strangers and they are welcoming, though guarded to those who come to them.

For all the exotic spice and passion the Scorpions seem to embody to so many, it may come as a shock to learn that they have not embraced Householding practices as have so many others. Instead, the Imperio del Escorpión looks ever outward for answers, rather than inward and Households remain a phenomenon among the Scorpions, though one they tend to respect as a different form of exploration. Oddly, true Scorpion Exiles seem to embrace the practice more often than not and many family units of varying configuration returned to the fold, however briefly in 3222.

While the state of the Scorpion’s eugenics program is not known, several facts do stick out:

-Trueborns remain dominant and well-represented.
-A “Social Eugenics” program has been initiated amongst the lower castes using advanced medical care and social pressures to “improve the stock” of the Imperio’s lower castes.
-The Touman itself remains healthy, if much-changed from it’s pre-Civil War guise

Freeborns within the Clan are harshly tested during Warrior training to see if they have the souls of “True Goliath Scorpions”, but for today’s Imperio, it seems to be this soul which is most important and subjective, even esoteric determinants such as curiosity, patience, tenacity, memory, wisdom and secretiveness are weighed seriously in esteeming the value of a member of The Clan, no matter their origin.

While the Scorpions certainly have their dezgra, the title of “Solahma”, far from an epithet, has become a title of much honour within the Imperio, with even irrevocably infirm Warriors treated as sages and fonts of secret knowledge accumulated through their many years. Absent a death in battle, a Trueborn Warrior of the Imperio, benefitting from gene-therapy delivered within the iron womb can expect to live well into their second century.

Before battle, these ancient warriors gather the more youthful to them to share their some of their secrets in the hope that if they fall, nothing of truest value; knowledge, will be lost.

If Clan Hell’s Horses are the most military of the Clans, then the Imperio del Escorpión have to be among the least. Their daily duties resemble rituals more than anything else and their warriors spend hours each day in study, art and meditation. And this is in the Clan’s more static “Heavy” units.

At any given time, 70-80% of the Touman exists in a state of what amounts to wandering near and far within and beyond Imperio territory in small, self-supporting units of mixed arms and varied capability. That these remain in communication with each other and the rest of the Touman is something which defies belief, yet seems to be in evidence. But the result is that the Imperio Touman know all there is to know about their own territory and much besides and this is an advantage they know how to use with deadly effect.

Hostiles and uninvited guests, both find themselves inexplicably surrounded by Scorpion units they never knew were there with very little warning.

Beyond their own borders, among friends and enemies alike and in the great beyond lurk the honoured Seekers and the Scorpion Watch, to the extent those two forces differ by this point. These pursue their own ends to the exclusion of others, ostensibly seeking lost knowledge and artefacts, but also known to cause havoc where it serves their goals.

[beachhead1985]

   They say that a person is never the same once they’ve truly had their mettle tested.

   For well or ill, they come away different; broken in mind, spirit, body or all three, or tempered: a stronger, more-perfect version of themselves.

   The Purity Wars were a test for the Cloud Cobras, for every aspect of their civilization. Where others fell; they stood. Where their kin ran or were forced off their worlds; they held.

   In the face of annihilation, as the poster-children of a Clan said to have lost their way, Clan Cloud Cobra spat into the face of their aggressors time and again and outright refused to give in until the prospect of defeating them was simply not economically viable for the remaining denizens of the homeworlds.

   A detailed historical breakdown of how this occurred is beyond the scope of this text, but a reasonable summation is that, the Cloud Cobras; while their supposed “crimes” against the Way of The Clans were egregious, were simply not an aggressive threat to their former brethren in the Home Worlds. They cooperated against the Society and were instrumental in rooting out their conspiracy on the worlds they shared with other Clans and successfully resisted hostile expeditions against their own territory under this guise from outsiders, but were simply never enough of a priority to warrant the resources to destroy them, until those resources simply no longer existed. Through the Clan Civil War and the Purity Wars, the Cloud Cobras stuck to their own values and refused to aggress against their fellow Clansmen, even when they turned on them first.

   By the same token; they offered little in the way of sanctuary to those they saw as “part of the problem”, but nor did they attempt to profit by the paired conflicts in territory or resources.

   From the perspective of the Cloud Cobras; they had never deviated from the path set for them by the Great Founder, instead; the other Clans had forsaken them.

   Cloud Cobra Khan Din Steiner famously set the tone for his people shortly after the revelation of the Society insurrection when he said; “Our fate was determined for us by our honour. Not by those who would seek to define us.”

   And this is what people find most incredible about the Cloud Cobra’s today; while we as anthropologists are most interested n their uniquely religious and outgoing culture and way of life, most laypeoples are fascinated by the stellar geo-politics of the Cloud Cobras and how they have managed to survive co-located with xenophobic and genocidal arch militants when all others in their shoes sought safe habour elsewhere.

   The answer of course is simple; to this day, Clan Cloud Cobra have remained who they are in the face of all resistance and temptation to the contrary. They have husbanded their strength militarily and politically such that their Touman is a thinking, feeling fortress their neighbours would cripple themselves trying to destroy, but their true strength lies in their spirituality, in beliefs that were ancient long before mankind found the stars and in this, the Cloud Cobras are nearly unique.

   Clan Cloud Cobra are the missionaries of the Clan, spreading shared messages of faith and philosophy across known space, their missions acting as hubs of trade and diplomacy wherever they are welcome and their coverts operating in many areas where they are not. They have refused to close their hearts to their fellow Clans, despite the blood of centuries now between them and this is finally paying off as a relations begin to slowly thaw at the half-way mark of the 33rd century. At the same time, the Cloud Cobras do not try to change those they encounter or question who they are; theirs is a literally exemplary faith etched in how they live their daily lives.

   Many are those who seek the Clan’s favour, as petitioners, fellow travellers, or simply as lost souls in need of help. While many across the Clans forsake religion, it remains within the Missions of the Cloud Cobras where they can find sanctuary and blessing and where particular kind of Householding unions are blessed and sanctified.

   True Exiles from the Clan are rare, but former Cloud Cobra Expat enclaves show up in the oddest places. These are typically made of cult-like religious extremists whose radical views do not fit within the otherwise tolerant Cloisters of their Clansmen.

   The Cloud Cobra eugenics program is in trouble and has been for a very long time. Their base samples are all-but spent or have been totally compromised and their breeding program has been reliant on recent giftakes since the mid 3050s, at least, leading to an increasingly thin-blooded Touman propped-up though other means. This is a severe cultural issue for the Cloud Cobras, who venerate Nicholas Kerensky’s teachings as much as they do those of their faith and the Founder embraces the Eugenics program and laid out how it was to be carried out. That their iteration of the program seems to be failing is deeply troubling and the doubts have long-since become impossible to hide from even outsiders, never mind the lower castes.

   Few Sibkos are founded annually and the Clan no-longer practices accelerated development within the iron wombs, making the low output of Trueborns more expensive to maintain and slower to generate than any other Clan. Thankfully, detailed training ensures that graduation rates remain high. Fortunate as well that the Cloud Cobras have shed all but the last agist and freeborn prejudices in the mid 3100s as well, as Freeborns and those still-called Solahma make up the vast majority of the yet-traditional Touman.

   These traditional outcasts and dezgra are better treated here than they once were, however, with Solahma feeling a strong social pressure to relegate themselves willingly to the Cloisters and Missions when their skills begin to dull.

   In place of vibrancy, the Cloud Cobras have instead sought to extend the useful lives of their Clansmen through the recovery of ancient Star League sciences. These measures have resulted in a notably healthier and longer-lived population than their True-Clan neighbours and it is these factors which have secured the Cloud Cobra legacy, for now.

   What to do about it all in the long-term is a conundrum, however. Welcoming fresh blood into the Eugenics program through merit or other means might prove too radical for the Clan to live with, but currently, the Cloud Cobras are stuck with a program running as a zero-sum game. So, there may be little choice.

   One stopgap the Cloud Cobras have taken to, though with no small degree of self-conscious guilt is Householding in their own peculiar style. And in this, we may see the healthiest and closest iteration to the non-Clan norm to be found anywhere. While stridently against the wishes of the Great Founder, here the Cloisters have spoken in unity for the primacy of older ways and Householding among the Cobras is not just accepted, but considered laudable, with the children of Trueborn parents considered Trueborn in their own right.

   The progress of the movement is such that it is formed a third tier between the Trueborn Sibkos and the lives of the Freeborn within the Clan, with the children of Cloud Cobra Households educated and trained within Cloister-run parochial schools. It comes as no shock then that Cloud Cobra Households trend notably towards the traditional, whatever their makeup, however this is also a stronghold of the platonic variety of household, with Warriors and also lower castemen joining fraternal orders that exist in parallel to what we would recognize as Clan society.

The most notable of these are the Cobra’s fraternal military orders, or “Knightly Houses”. These pattern themselves after the Chivalric orders of ancient Terra, with a modern, Clan-like twist. There have been a number of these orders come and go in the last 200-odd years, but currently, the Templars, Hospitallers, Teutons, Tokugawa, Ethiopian Star and Grail knights all appear here to stay and exist in roughly Cluster-strength as formed military units, as well as platonic households and religious orders in their own right.

But no matter how liked one may be, there are always those who will hate you for who you are, particularly if you are successful and the Cloud Cobras are no different. Cloud Cobra Missions are famous for their involvement in causes they see as worth their time and some of these have always been military adventures. Closer to home, the Clan have been ceaseless in their pursuit of the ever-growing clades of pirates and dark-casters in the deep periphery (to include the infamous "Green Ghosts"). But of course, the most frequent of the Cobra’s enemies have long been their fellow Clans. Since the beginning of the Clan Civil War, this has most often meant those who now call themselves the “True Clans” and while relations look to be improving now, this is solely down to Cloud Cobra values and hard work and not any slackening of True Clan ideals.

Dozens of wars, large and small have been fought against the Cloud Cobras by the True Clans. This is down to two reasons; 1) they are there and their proximity makes them and easy target and 2) they represent everything the True Clans set themselves against. These factors make the Cloud Cobras the perfect enemy for their neighbours and the future may yet have much more bloodshed to unfold in this tumultuous corner of known space.

Finally, and perhaps most strange of all in this matter of what may be the strangest Clan; it is the Cloud Cobras who label themselves the “Protectors of Mankind.” Protecting mankind from who? Or what?

The Word of Blake, or so they claim.

While the Cloud Cobras can produce only a little evidence, and what they can display is disturbing; so far it is insufficient in the eyes of most authorities to prove that major formed Word of Blake forces remain extant in the unknown reaches of the Galaxy. Yet the Cloud Cobras claim to have found and fought them, as well as society remnants, in the black vastness of deep space while searching for new worlds and resources. They further claim that the shadowy Imperio del Escorpión are their allies and superiors in this, having fought many more battles than they against The Word, their Society allies and possibly others. The Scorpions of course, corroborate none of this.

[DOC_Agren]

So the Scorpions have become more Seeker based??

[beachhead1985]

So the Scorpions have become more Seeker based??

Well...in the sense of being wanderers, explorers...yes.  In that sense I dug into things like stealth, security protocols, intelligence gathering, knowing the terrain, accumulation of knowledge, but I deliberately shied away from the necrosia-vision-quest stuff, because that's already pretty much what the Novacats do.

Working with the SLDFiE, they've also pretty much cleaned out the Brian and Star League caches they had access to records of, which was most of them. Seek, but also find and secure for preservation and later use in that sense.

[DOC_Agren]

I like these Scorpions.  :thumbsup:

[marauder648]

really loving the change to the Scorps and Cobras, very intersting takes on them :)

[beachhead1985]

Thanks guys! Glad you like it so far.

Still have the Diamond Sharks, Blood Spirits and Nova Cats to do, plus a wrap-up on the Wolves-in-Exile and a coda on Sibko Instructors

[beachhead1985]

***
   The Diamond Sharks were early casualties of the Purity Wars, but theirs was probably a fate more deserved than any other through the lens of Clan culture. It is ironic then that each of their would-be excoriators have had to come   to an understanding, within themselves and with the ‘Sharks in order to survive, to say nothing of the unwilling opening of Clan culture through their markets that occurred embarrassingly shortly after the Abjurement of the Diamond Sharks.

   But as for the Abjurement; they did it ultimately, to themselves and they did it knowingly.

   From shockingly early in the Invasion (March 3051, Davidson, ibid), Clan Diamond Shark Merchants acted as agents for the Invasion as a whole, trading with anyone who would have them for food, water and other basic non-military supplies and exchanging cutting-edge Clan military technology at rates of exchange they considered insignificant. While kept secret at the time, these exchanges proved critical in evening the odds on the battlefields of Operation: REVIVAL and eventually in narrowing the technology gap between the warring powers. While many Clan Warriors considered trading with an enemy part and parcel of their culture and a matter beneath the notice of Warriors, over-time and looking for someone to blame for battlefield reverses, senior officers and Khans increasingly turned on the ‘Sharks as the authors of their woes. By 3062, it was common practice to refer to ClanTech equipment in Spheroid hands as “Shark-Specials”, implying it more likely it had simply been purchased than fairly won in battle.

   The Diamond Shark’s hubris lay in the belief that they were too vital to their fellow Clansmen to be cast out, but also in an over-abundance of faith in the judgement of their fellows. That their brothers and sisters were as aware of the necessity of this symbiotic relationship as the ‘Sharks themselves were and that pesky realities of survival would outweigh ideological concerns. In these considerations, Clan Diamond Shark was severely mistaken.

   Perhaps this is to be expected from a Clan which was so extensively and so openly co-led by their Warriors alongside the ostensibly lower-caste Merchants. Even then, the ‘Sharks can be seen in retrospect to be thinking too much about what was in their ledgers and not enough about what was going on in the warrior’s-hearts of those around them.

   Thankfully, as much as the ‘Sharks were unprepared mentally for their Abjurement; they were well-situated logistically and materially for the ordeal. Besides their massive shipping fleet and excellent relations with their fellow-travellers in the Free Guilds, they already possessed limited holdings in the Inner Sphere and Periphery, which offered basing and support as they evacuated their Clans from the Homeworlds.

   In years to come, however; the Diamond Sharks embraced the very factors that had seen them deprived of their Homeworlds territory. Besides maintaining relationships and lines of communication between the Clans and the Inner Sphere, they took pains in effort and dignity to keep up relations between the disparate Clans they still had access to. At the time, it seemed they might develop into an entirely new form of Clan. But they had to survive the Word of Blake first, and they’d just had to beach their whole society within easy nuking distance of the well-armed fanatics in the middle of the greatest calamity to befall the Inner Sphere since the 2nd Succession War.

   The ‘Shark’s geo-political position made them natural allies for the SLDFiE, whom they’d had to deal with in proto-form as part of Operation: MUNIN on the Exodus Road and even into the Homeworlds. Once it was clear the Diamond Sharks were a threat only to trade monopolies, the embryonic New Model Army made certain to establish and strengthen ties they found to be in their mutual interests. Once the 5th Succession War began in the fires of the Word of Blake’s Jihad, the ‘Sharks and what remained of the 2nd Star League made natural allies and they worked together through the war to safeguard eachother’s holdings, maintain lines of supply and communications and prosecute the war to a mutually-acceptable outcome.

   Back home, however; things in “the old markets” were looking dire. The Free Guilds were destroyed in the Purity Wars: those assets which avoided the fate of collateral damage in the fighting were seized, or more-commonly; destroyed by the vengeful True Clans. Some escaped to take shelter with the exiled Clans, or the Dark Caste and a few even joined various deep-space trading companies or founded their own. But the Steel Vipers alone destroyed hundreds of jumpships and thousands of dropships and the Council vowed never again to tolerate such a structure existing outside the strictures of the Way of the Clans, no matter how vital the parallel entity might seem.

   While this did irreparable damage to communications and logistics in the Homeworlds, resulting in millions of unnecessary deaths among the lower castes due to starvation and key infrastructure failures, the True Clans did have their reasons.

   The Society had moved freely within the Free Guilds, the evidence of that was plain to even the most skeptical and could not be denied. Through bribery and outright subornation, the Free Guilds had moved Society personnel and materiel with utmost discretion and even helped hide their worlds and enclaves from the Clans by altering their jump-routes and even maps.

   When this treachery was exposed, the Guild’s Masters had begged forgiveness and claimed they had no choice, but only stoney silence greeted them. In desperation, they threw themselves at the feet of every tempestuous Clan, offering unheard of services at starvation rates or none at all, even begging for absorption in exchange for protection.

   All the Clans used them like the proverbial cheap tramp-steamers they offered themselves as, but come the end of the war, they found no safe harbour with any of their once-benefactors and their way of life ceased to be.

   The Free Guilds had been formed at the end of the Pentagon Civil War as a means of ensuring neutral trade and passage for all the Clans and one day; a practical means to return to the Inner Sphere. They kept their own vast fleet of jumpships and dropships and maintained the Clan’s mothball fleets. The IlClan prophesy promised control of the Free Guilds forevermore to the first of Kerensky’s children to seize Terra. That much, at least can never be now.

   But the death of the Free Guilds was a wound that the True Clans could not heal entirely, or without help and this act of righteous vengeance would provide a vector for the Diamond Sharks’ eventual return to the Home Worlds and the unwilling graces of the True Clans, but not for many years to come.

   Separated from their erstwhile peers, the Diamond Sharks found themselves treated as outsiders, a necessary evil by the Spheroid Clans. Many blamed their eager lower-caste contact with the Inner Sphere for the meltdown of the Clan Civil War into the Purity Wars and few could now argue they hadn’t courted disaster through their actions. While they could still trade freely, the Sharks found themselves outside the circle of trust among those from whom they expected brotherhood, and all the while their non-Clan customers eagerly sought their favour and technology.

   This set of circumstances led to a period of introspection following the Jihad and lasted well into the 32nd Century. It was a period of factionalism within the Clan accompanied by equally-fractious debate. What was clear to a rapid succession of Khans was that the Diamond Sharks wished to remain connected to their roots, to remain *Clan*, but without giving up who they were. This paradox led to the enactment of a series of “Gene-Laws” through 3098 aimed at restoring a sense of being “Of the Clans” to the ‘Sharks, even as they continued to chart their own course through the cold, unwelcome stars.

   The first of these, mandated expansion of the breeding program; while it also expanded and reinforced the ‘Shark’s lower-caste eugenics program. The first measure saw additional Sibkos of Elementals founded at more than four times the previous rate and without previous warrior-centric quality-controls, but allowed admixtures of promising labourer-caste DNA. The goal of this ambitious program was to expand the Clan’s lower castes as their forebearers had originally intended, while still allowing the products of these programs to test into the Warrior Caste, if they could make the cut. The second measure mandated participation in the Diamond Shark’s breeding program for the lower castes. Under these protocols, all lower castemen and women were required to submit genetic samples for testing, while the previous forced mating and sterilization programs were suspended for the time being. But the program was not applied evenly.

   Within the Diamond Shark Labourer and Technician Castes, forced sterilization of undesirable individuals was withheld for the most extreme cases, to be replaced by mandated birth control. Forced co-habitation and raising of children was also suspended. Instead, the creation of new life was to be managed by the scientist caste entirely and on a schedule designed to benefit the Clan on the basis of genetic pairings determined in the lab and carried to term by these lowercaste females to be raised in voluntary households. So-called “True Freebirths” would be evaluated, but going forward were to be regarded as aberrant and considered for termination on a case-by-case basis, their parents sanctioned harshly. Members of these lowest castes who refused to cooperate with these measures would, by necessity be sterilized and/or assigned to punitive duties.

   By contrast; the Scientist and Merchant Castes were considered capable of choosing their own pairings, to include the creation of new life, subject to impartial 3rd-party review. Scientists, due to their education and Merchants on the basis of their skill at negotiation and appraisal.

   While reproduction was controlled and mandated for the lowest Castes as a population, it was controlled in the Merchants and Scientists by measure of merit, with successful members required to produce offspring and more successful members required to produce more, if they proved able to do so through natural or lab-assisted means, with a particular shame attached if they could not.

   This left the ‘Sharks Warrior Caste reliant on a narrow pipeline of Trueborn Sibkos and outlier Freeborn test-ups from the lower Castes. This was fine as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. The Diamond Shark’s Trueborn breeding program was not-quite keeping pace with Solahma test-downs in 3095 when studies began at last and trends looked discouraging through 3140 at least by the end of 3099 when additional Gene-Laws were passed with the aim of steadying the helm on the program and improving the situation.

   For the time being, the Diamond Sharks would continue to found Aerospace Pilot Sibkos, but required an expansion of the ProtoMech Pilot program into a formalized phenotype-pattern and expanded foundings of the formerly probational program in order to maintain strength in the Touman. Additionally, authorization was given to trial for samples of genetic material from other exiled Clans when and where it would not sour tenuous relations.

   Socially and culturally, these “Gene-Laws” were successful, while there was considerable disquiet from the lower castes, overall; feeling was that the ‘Sharks were maintaining Kerensky’s vision, not just “In their own way” as a detractor might grudgingly allow, but in such a manner as could be argued to be progress along the path of the Great Father. While the Sharks accepted they would never be IlClan, and publicly doubted that any ever would or could have claimed such a title, they felt that they were contributing to not just their own common good, but that of the Clans as a wider community.

   After another two decades, however, it was clear that materially, these measures were insufficient. The Clan’s genetic stocks continued to degrade and fail.

   The ‘Sharks reacted to fewer viable embryos and trueborn fetuses by founding smaller Sibkos, with higher cadet-instructor ratios and more detailed hands-on training and one-on-one mentorship. This was intended to produce more successful Warrior candidates and more trial successes and it did, but it also served to weed out more and more failed candidates earlier. By the 30s, the Touman was actually shrinking, even as the Clan’s holdings were expanding around the Sphere following decades of consolidation.

   These circumstances, forced the Sharks into more-aggressive trials for scarce and priceless genetic materials, but also hedged them into exploring other avenues as well and explore them they did, with a new series of Gene-Laws in the 3140s.

   The first of these in 3142 and 3144 reorganized the Clan’s native Bloodhouses, reaving many Bloodname positions from those lines which increasingly proved unable to put forth worthy candidates and expanding the few others whose trials remained sporting and promised crowded fields of challenge.

The 3145 Gene-Laws were very different.

These granted Bloodrights to a number of highly successful Freeborn Warriors who had also excelled in mercantile affairs. Behind closed-doors, the Khans of the Diamond Sharks also authorized trading missions and covert actions to secure samples of worthy genetic materials from *outside* the Clan. This controversial decision would have wide-ranging repercussions within the Clan, quite apart from the fact that other Clans had been performing similar actions for decades in some cases.

Firstly, because the necessary secretiveness of the applications of these activities came to light far sooner than anyone expected in 3156, when “Whistle-Blowers” in the Clan’s Sibko program leaked information on their charges to the wider community of Warriors. Their concerns were echoed by many in the Clan who saw the parallels to the Society and refused to continence such activities under their auspices. Matters quickly came to a head in 3158, with an outright revolt against the ruling Khans, taking the form of a mass-mutiny against their authority. The Sibkos were raided and several were even liquidated before the Surkai-Rede of the Khans and a rapid series of Trials could bring matters under control of a hastily convened council of warriors in May of that year.

It was actually the secretive nature of the program which rankled most and it was eventually determined that the practical measures of the so-called “Secret Law” could continue and indeed---they must be continued---but openly and under status all were assured was probational. The products of the experimental Sibkos would have to pass additional trails to be accepted as full Trueborn Warriors of the Diamond Sharks and their legacies would be quarantined from the remainder of the breeding program until the end of the century in a bid to allow additional testing for the taint of “defective contamination”. In 3160, the program resumed and the first Sibkos graduated in 3162. Although they produced fewer successful Warriors than was considered normal, their testing was also harder. But they would eventually gain acceptance, first as individuals and then as a cohort in 3207.

However, the Diamond Shark’s “Gene-Harvests” had consequences of their own.

   While such practices were not unheard of by this time, the ‘Shark’s Piscean tenacity in pursuit of their quarry was. Most individuals or families were somewhat flattered to even be approached, whether or not they deigned to accept the generous offers made to them (particularly by Clan Diamond Shark). Some took the opportunity to engage in the ultimate extra-cultural experience of taking part in a Clan Trial and these were often more or less “friendly” affairs.

   Although, when a given party, or more commonly; their next of kin said ‘no’, it was almost always accepted, albeit with great regret. But when the Diamond Sharks approached a particular party from beyond the Clans seeking the honour of a Giftake; it was intended as an offer that could not be refused. As such, failure to even entertain a Trial could be and often was, met with hostility; the ‘Sharks saw their Gene-Harvests as literally a matter of existential importance to their people and they were more than willing to make amends later, often in the form of “blood-money” given to families and governments, if it meant they could get their hands on dearly-prized genetics now.

   As a result, the latter decades of the 32nd Century saw Clan Diamond Shark, once welcome throughout human space, increasingly marginalized, restricted in their movements and actions. In the Federated Suns and Draconis Combine, the ‘Sharks were forced to deal only at arms length through 3rd parties. That they managed to stay out of a number of shooting wars is entirely down to their Star League membership and even so, they found themselves officially censured and even sanctioned on more then a dozen occasions during this troublesome period through the 3rd League Council.

   To this day, Clan Diamond Shark has yet to recover the full extent of the good will (a priceless mercantile asset) which they traded away so recklessly by such actions.

   But the results speak for themselves and as of this writing, Clan Diamond Shark can boast of the healthiest of all the Clan Breeding programs, with a failure rate (to produce a viable embryo) less than half that of their next closest cousins; the Wolves.

   The Diamond Sharks did not move to normalize or recognize householding until 3159, another outcome of the Warrior’s revolt against the Khans and Scientists. But these relationships had long since been a fact of life within the trading Clan, since as early as the mid-3070s. Within the ‘Sharks, however, these took on a decidedly mercantile bent, with Trueborns deliberately siring children as a perceived value-added contribution to the Clan genepool and these then being passed along through the Scientist caste for approval as Warrior-Candidates with hardly a raised eyebrow. Kindling with black or grey-market iron wombs, some made as black-projects by spheroid medical concerns, was documented for the first time in the early 3090s, but similar efforts with dark-caste assistance were rumoured as early as the late 2900s.

   These often grew from or grew to include diverse business ventures, with co-genetic mingling and parenting often seen as one of these. However, beyond breeding and romance, Shark households frequently incorporated mercantile, technical and manufacturing factors in pursuit of semi-private business ventures in addition to household servants, Techs and MedTechs. Diamond Shark Warriors and Scientists thus came to establish households within and through the guise of “concerns” devised to enrich the Clan as a whole, bringing new products or materials to market through trade, innovation or manufacturing initiatives which would not otherwise have been possible, were it not for these informal *arrangements*.

   Closely related to these practices is the peculiar Diamond Shark-take on the expatriate enclave. Once ‘in’, ‘Shark Clansmen are never “out”, unless they flee to live among other peoples. Shorn of their past connections, these must make whatever mean existences they can from the ruins of their lives. For those who, for whatever reason must live on the edge or just beyond the bounds of respectable Diamond Shark Society, without falling into the Dark Caste, there are the innumerable ‘Shark “Trading Missions”, scattered throughout known space, possibly the most numerous of Clan Expat Enclaves.

   These deal in various goods from the mundane to the foulest of contraband and are typically found near spaceports, terrestrial trading centres or even the odd space-station. A few are nomadic; living on semi-permanently grounded dropships, or even drifting through space on wandering semi-functional hulks leftover from the 5th Succession War or older conflicts.

As the Diamond Sharks abhor the Dark Caste---as do all extant Clans---their Trade Missions will never dare lower themselves to deal openly with them, but they are known to “go along to get along” with local spheroid and periphery criminal concerns as a pragmatic means of survival. Life within these communities is fractious and surprisingly hierarchical, with informal pecking orders and ranks rigidly maintained and enforced. In such instances, those on the lower rungs owe “taxes” on their productivity to those above. The degree to which any given Trade Mission in turn owes or receives any degree of largesse to the Clan is fluid from season to season, with some ‘missions treated practically as full Clansmen and others as deniable flotsam staining the interstellar Tradewinds.

As one might expect with such a wide-ranging entity as Clan Diamond Shark, they receive many petitioners and have since the early 3060s, when they recorded the first such instance. But few of these have the talent to make them attractive assets to the ‘Sharks and most have found the strictures of the lower ‘castes and the expectations of the higher to be incompatible with their own personalities and drives. For the few who offer enough to the Clan to make them a worthwhile candidate for abtathka, and who are willing and able to live under the laws of the Diamond Sharks, life in the “Merchant-Clan” offers unparalleled opportunity for access and travel, which are denied to all but the rarest of those in other Clans. Those who stay find a polyglot people more cosmopolitan than any other Clan, but one which still binds themselves firmly within their own laws and way of life.

[marauder648]

Once again, superb stuff! Really like the way you've taken the Diamond Sharks as well as you hinting at things in the future that might happen!

[beachhead1985]

Once again, superb stuff! Really like the way you've taken the Diamond Sharks as well as you hinting at things in the future that might happen!

Thank you! Glad people are enjoying it. I know my work isn't all that accessible, but I hope it's worth it for those with the fortitude to dig in.

The whole idea here is making it less like I'm just side-lining the Clans in Der Tag, because I don't care about them or they don't matter.

The truth is that it's not their story to a great extent and this is why; they're busy with their own drama and will be for a while.

The real trick is that I've said before how much I hated the "PeaceTech" origins of the Dark Age and it's tricky to storyboard conflicts that are outside the primary thrust of the work I'm most interested in doing right now, which is a brutal non-YA Fiction-friendly conflict in the post-Jihad timeline that just doesn't have room or good arguments for getting everyone's dog into the fight like you need to in a financially viable multi-faction SF wargame whenever there is a big event. So I'm trying to allude to those things happening here, without making it sound like the post Der Tag-era is some golden age of peace and harmony, because it's not.

You guys can all see how I write; It's not bottom-line-friendly, but I try to leave a good treatment with what I do.

Work is hectic right now, so don't expect major movement on this file, possibly until late September-October time-frame.

[DOC_Agren]

trust me when I say we will be here when you are ready to post more

[beachhead1985]

trust me when I say we will be here when you are ready to post more

Thank you. You have no idea how much it means to me that people actually get something out of my writing.