Clan Ghost Bear
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Clan Ghost Bear is a member of the Clanners in the popular sci-fi universe BattleTech owned by the FASA Corporation.
Powerful Clansmen, the Ghost Bears are known for their conservative nature and their strong sense of family. They joined the original Clan invasion in 3050 and seized some forty worlds from the Free Rasalhague Republic and Draconis Combine. They won a minor victory against the ComGuards at the Battle of Tukayyid and bode their time since. During the Great Refusal on Strana Mechty, the Ghost Bears abandoned their Crusader beliefs and embraced the Warden Faction, leading them out of the Trial of Refusal being waged by the Inner Sphere. They subsequently relocated to the Inner Sphere, abandoning all their Clan holdings save for their enclave on Arcadia and their posting on Strana Mechty. They are a now a permanent feature of the Inner Sphere and have remained tranquil, save for a brief war with the Draconis Combine following the latter's attack on their capital, Alshain. Currently they have merged with the InnerSphere faction Free Rasalhague Republic to form the Ghost Bear Dominion. It was the first true merger between a Clan and an Inner Sphere nation where the citizens treat the Clan Warrior caste as the rulers but the ruling warriors give free reign to their Rasalhague citizens. The Ghost Bear Khan holds the main power and there is a Prince voted by the people to control all matter concerning the population.
In 3103, the Ghost Bear Dominion was renamed the Rasalhague Dominion. It is ruled by the Dominion Council.
Per "Trial By Chaos" by J. Steven York, Book #20 in the MechWarrior: Dark Age Series (Roc 2006):
Clan Ghost Bear founders Hans Ole Jorgensson and Sandra Tseng were elite warriors serving Nicholas Kerensky during the Second Exodus from the Pentagon Worlds to the Kerensky Cluster. They were also husband and wife. When Kerensky created the Clans, he decided Jorgensson and Tseng were too valuable to assign together to a single clan and would have separated the pair. Rather than be separated or directly refuse the orders of the Founder, they chose to die together. They traveled into the antarctic wilderness of the Planet Strana Mechty, wandering until their supplies ran out.
In a mountain cave, waiting for death, they encountered a ghost bear. Despite their circumstance, they would not go quietly, and roared a defiant challenge at the bear. The bear did not attack, but circled and investigated until the pair, succumbing to cold and hunger, collapsed into unconsciousness. For unknown reasons, the bear did not take them as prey while they slept, but warmed them with its body, and upon waking, brought them fresh meat to eat. For three days it tended them this way, until they regained their strength. Upon emerging from their shelter, they found they had not been adopted by a solitary hunter, but by a pack.
Inspired, they returned to the Founder and argued for the clans to embrace the virtues of family and communal strength as a supplement to that of the individual. Hearing their tale, he granted their request to remain together, and honored their wilderness trial by naming their clan 'Ghost Bear'.
