Geography of the BattleTech universe
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The World of BattleTech spans many worlds, cities, and locations.
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[edit] Political entities
[edit] Capellan March
In the fictional setting of the BattleTech universe, the Capellan March is an administrative subdivision of the Federated Suns. Originally one of five Marches, the Capellan March grew with the disbandment of the Terran March. Also, the Sarna March was disbanded following Operation Guerrero and the subsequent Lyran secession from the Federated Commonwealth. Though most of the Sarna March was either consumed by the Capellan Confederation or became part of the Chaos March, the Achernar PDZ remained in Federated Suns' hands and was added to the Capellan March. The Capellan March has traditionally been the landhold of the Hasek family, whose leader also holds the title of Duke of New Syrtis, the capital world of the Capellan March. The Duke or Duchess of New Syrtis also holds hereditary title to the dual position of director of the Capellan March command (which carries the rank of Field Marshal) and Minister of the Capellan March. This effectively concentrates civilian and military authority for the border march in the hands of one individual, who can then use all the resources at his or her disposal to deal with any military threats. The people of the March have traditionally nutured a deep hatred of the neighboring Capellan Confederation. Due to the proximity of the Capellan March to the Capellan Confederation, the vast majority of the winners of the Limp Sword decoration are based out of the Capellan March.
For military purposes, the march is divided into two Operations Areas or Combat Theaters, Edgeward and Coreward. Despite the fact that New Syrtis is located in the Edgeward Combat Theater, command is headquarted on Taygeta (giving it the alternate name of the Taygeta OA). The Coreward Combat Theater's HQ has traditionally been on Kathil, however Duke George Hasek moved it to Novaya Zemlya during the FedCom Civil War and seems content to leave it there (but it is still known as the Kathil OA). From there, the Theaters are broken down into over a dozen Polymorphous Defense Zones (PDZs).
[edit] Castle Brian Fortresses
Castle Brian Fortresses are fictional structures in the Battletech universe. There was once more than 120 Castle Brians. Most known of a single planet is six on the world of Lambrecht with the average firepower and unit strength of a Castle Brian each one has a minimum of 20 heavily armed turrets carrying an assortment of weapons and missiles. In addition to these fortifications is the passive strength of the fortress itself, which is usually built deep inside a mountain and is virtually impregnable to anything but a full-scale nuclear blast. A Castle Brian is meant to be a permanent hindrance against an enemy taking the planet. Castles Brians, with their stockpile of weapons, food, and men, represent a threat to any enemy attempting to seize control of the planet. Because more than one Castle Brian is on most worlds, they represent a major inhinderence than can attack the enemy almost at will. If any enemy really wanted to take a planet protected by Castles Brian, it would have to do so with a huge force of men and equipment and would have to remain on that planet for a very long time a price most enemies are not willing to pay.
[edit] Crucis March
In the fictional BattleTech gaming universe, the Crucis March is the central portion of the state known as the Federated Suns. The Crucis March has historically been ruled directly by the Davion family. Its capital, like that of the Federated Suns as a whole, is New Avalon. Unlike the other Marches of the Federated Suns the Crucis March is divided into Combat Regions which line up completely with the Administrative Regions of the Realm, as opposed to the Draconis and Capellan Marches which are divided into PDZs.
[edit] Draconis March
In the fictional world of BattleTech, the Draconis March is the region of the Federated Suns which borders the Draconis Combine. The hostility between the people of the Draconis March and their enemies in the Combine is a large part of the culture of the Draconis March. The Draconis March's capital is the world of Robinson. It has historically been ruled by the Sandoval Family. The military honor guard of the Draconis March is the Robinson Rangers (the New Ivaarsen Chaussers are also historically associated with the region). During Simon Davion's Five Princes era, part of the Draconis March was included into the Terran March, including the capital of Robinson.
In the fictional BattleTech universe, the Sarna March was an administrative district of the Federated Commonwealth. The Sarna March was created after the Fourth Succession War out of the worlds the Federated Suns had conquered from the Capellan Confederation in the early 3030s and the worlds of the Tikonov Free Republic. Since Prince Hanse Davion had given the conquered worlds to his wife, Melissa Steiner, as his wedding present to her, the Sarna March was technically a part of the Lyran State Command. As such, the march was named after its capital world, Sarna, in the Lyran fashion.
[edit] Sarna March
The Sarna March was divided into two Operations Areas, Sarna and Terra Firma.
Joshua Marik, son of Captain-General Thomas Marik and heir to the Free Worlds League, was being treated at the New Avalon Institute of Science for leukemia in exchange for the Federated Commonwealth's ability to benefit from the League's large industrial base. When Joshua died, Archon-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion did not want to lose that support, so he executed a plan to replace Joshua with a body-double. This plan succeeded initially, but a Capellan spy was able to detect the fraud. This information passed up the chain until Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao learned of it. Sun-Tzu decided to use this information to convince Thomas Marik to coordinate an assault on the Federated Commonwealth to regain territory they had lost in the Fourth Succession War.
Sun-Tzu had already been busy building up underground terrorist cells in many of the worlds of the Sarna March. In 3057, the Marik-Liao offensive began. The offensive was primarily spearheaded by Capellan terrorists and League mercenaries. Sensing her opportunity to seize power, Katherine Steiner-Davion, Victor's regent in the Lyran State Command, announced that she was enacting a little-known clause in the Federated-Commonwealth Alliance to secede the Lyran half of the realm from the Federated Commonwealth. She sent out a call to all traditionally Lyran units to return to within the nation's pre-Fourth Succession War borders and signed an independent truce with Thomas Marik. She called her "new" nation the Lyran Alliance.
The Sarna March ceased to exist around 3058, after the Lyran secession. Since the Sarna March was a part of the Lyran State, Archon Melissa Steiner had insisted on garrisoning it primarily with Lyran units. The Lyrans had used many JumpShips to return to Lyran space, leaving the remaining Federated Commonwealth units stranded and unable to help. Simultaneously, Capellan guerillas destabilized the planetary governments, but lacked the ability to fully conquer them without Free Worlds League support. This created a no-man's land that was dubbed the Chaos March.
[edit] St. Ives Compact
In the fictional BattleTech universe, the St. Ives Compact was a minor Inner Sphere nation.
[edit] Genesis
The Compact began life as the St. Ives Mercantile League. That nation merged with four others to form the Capellan Confederation. Owing to its status as one of the five original founding nations, St. Ives became the St. Ives Commonality, one of five such districts within the Confederation.[1]
The Compact was formed in 3029[2], as a direct result of the Fourth Succession War. Duchess Candace Liao, firstborn of Chancellor Maximillian Liao and his heir, fell in love with Justin Xiang Allard, a Federated Suns spy who had infiltrated the Capellan Confederation's spy agency. Rather than stay in the Capellan Confederation with a double-agent who helped conquer a third of it, she fled her home nation and took the St. Ives Commonality with her.[3]
Given the destruction the Capellan military suffered at the hand of the Federated Suns, they were unable to do anything about the St. Ives secession. To further protect her fledgling nation, Prime Minister Candace allied with the Federated Suns, who provided military protection.
[edit] Clan invasion
The 3030s and '40s were an era of peace for St. Ives. Candace and Justin married and had four children, Kai, Cassandra, Kuan-Yin, and Quintus Allard-Liao.
When news of the Clan Invasion reached St. Ives, it was unknown exactly who was attacking. At the time, Kai was a member of the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth and the unit he was in was rotated to the Clan front.[4] The leaders of the Inner Sphere were called to a conference on Outreach to coordinate strategy with the others. There, Jaime Wolf revealed that the Clans were in fact the descendants of the Star League Defense Force that was led into exile by Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky in 2784.[5] In order to aid their Federated Commonwealth allies, Duchess Candace authorized the 1st St. Ives Lancers to help against the invasion.
After they had returned from Outreach, a Capellan assassin attempted to kill Candace and Justin. The assassin only succeeded in wounding Candance, but he/she was killed before Justin succumbed to his wounds. Candace traveled home to Sian and killed her sister Romano and the father of Romano's children. Rather than assume the throne herself, she allowed Romano's eldest, Sun-Tzu, to become Chancellor.
The Clan Invasion was halted in 3052 by the Truce of Tukayyid, well before Clan troops neared the St. Ives Compact.
[edit] Capellan-St. Ives war
In 3060[6], Chancellor Sun-Tzu determined that the time was right to reclaim St. Ives. Due to poisonous family politicking in the Federated Commonwealth, a new regime under Katherine Steiner-Davion had come to power that was much less sympathetic to St. Ives. Also, Sun-Tzu had been elected First Lord of the Star League and he used that power to its greatest effect.
A Capellan spy had worked her way up in the ranks of the St. Ives military, and, under her authority as a battalion commander, she launched an "unprovoked" assault against the Capellan Confederation. This was actually a plot by Sun-Tzu to make St. Ives appear the aggressor. Sun-Tzu called in SLDF peacekeepers, but some members of the St. Ives military attacked them, believing it to be the next step in a Sun-Tzu plot. This played perfectly into his hands, as it continued to portray St. Ives as the aggressor.[7]
In 3061, at the Second Whitting Conference, the Star League member nations voted to withdraw peacekeepers from St. Ives because they saw that Sun-Tzu was simply using them to supplement his own forces, who were attempting to retake St. Ives. By that point most of the damage had been done, and Sun-Tzu simply replaced the SLDF troops with Capellan forces. Candace decided that defending the entire Compact was impossible, so she decided to defend the "lower," larger half of the crescent-shaped nation and abandoned the capital of St. Ives.[8]
Soon enough, Candace and Sun-Tzu agreed upon a peace that was largely negotiated by Kuan-Yin Allard-Liao and former ComStar Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht. This agreement called for the Allard-Liao family to hold the St. Ives Commonality as their landhold and for St. Ives to have a greater say in military matters than any of the other Commonalities. With those compromises in place, the St. Ives Compact was officially reintegrated into the Capellan Confederation[9] in 3063.[10]
[edit] St. Ives Military Command
The SIMC was never large. It consisted of the prestigious St. Ives Lancers, the workhorse St. Ives Armored Cavalry, and St. Ives Janissaries (a unit modeled on the Ceti Hussars). SIMC doctrine was an amalgamation of strategy and tactics from the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth. The SIMC also maintained the St. Ives Academy of Martial Sciences on St. Ives. The only military academy in the Compact, SIAMS was designed to train officers for the SIMC.[11]
[edit] Tharkad
In the fictional BattleTech universe, Tharkad is the capital world of both the Lyran Alliance and at a later period in BattleTech's history, the Federated Commonwealth. Traditionally, the ruling Steiner family lives here.
Thakard was discovered in 2310 by an explorer group from nearby Donegal. Though the rugged mountains and windy, Arctic climate extending over most of its surface made it seem a dreary place for humans, the world also contained major radioactive and gem deposits. When Seth Marsden visited Tharkad in 2311, he found the cold, peaceful solitude to be breathtaking. So taken was he with the long nights and their spectacular aurora borealis that Marsden managed eventually to control and claim it as his own. He then began a program of massive importation of cold weather plants and animals from Terra and other worlds to spread across his new home.
He had soon created a world with large pine forests populated with deer, caribou, wolves, Skye boars, and Tharkan gazelle. In many ways, Tharkad is like the Arctic wilderness of Terra, except that its Arctic regions extend all the way down to the 30th latitude of the planet. There are five major continents and three major island chains on Tharkad. Tharkad City, the capital, is located on Bremen, the largest continent.
When Tharkad became the capital of the Lyran Commonwealth in 2407, space was cleared in the middle of a large forest ten kilometers to the north of Olympia for construction of the Capital city. The large and somberly elegant Royal Palace, Government House, and Royal Court form the three cusps of the Triad, a triangular complex of buildings all devoted to the administration of the Commonwealth. Today, the Triad includes over 300 buildings of all types and styles, whose purposes range from hospitals and houses of worship to apartments for nobles and Representatives from distant worlds and a botanical garden. It is a common saying that there is a building for every populated world in the Commonwealth somewhere in the Triad.
Even the fusion reactor operating deep beneath this modern city to generate power and heat cannot hold back the Tharkan cold. At the first sign of winter snowfall, the people, both rich and poor, begin unpacking clothing designed for the coming Tharkan blizzards and bone-chilling cold. Attending the Royal Court during a Tharkan winter is an unusual experience for those used to visiting courts in warmer climes. The Commonwealth nobility likes to dress in furs during the winter months, more out of necessity than vanity. Women wear long, fur-trimmed gowns, while the men wear fur hats and fur coats crisscrossed with chains of jewelry and precious metals. As people speak in the large and high-ceilinged Throne Room, their breaths sometimes rise in wisps of condensation to create a thin layer of shiny ice on the armor of the two Griffin BattleMechs guarding the Archon.
Set on the crest of nearby Mount Wotan is Asgard, the military headquarters of the Steiner armed forces. It is a fortress with one major tower flanked by four smaller ones. All five towers are heavily armed; below them are hangers for a regiment of 'Mechs, two infantry and tanks, and a Wing of AeroSpace Fighters. Built some 200 feet beneath the base of the mountain, is the headquarters of the Lyran Intelligence Corps. The LIC directs all operations from this hardened bunker, assigning agents to missions and monitoring the current political and military situation throughout the Inner Sphere. The walls of the bunker are two meters thick and reinforced by a charged-steel mesh. In addition to protecting the occupants and equipment against bombardment, the walls also absorb EMP should an attacker resort to nuclear weapons.
There are no roads leading to the Triad, and so all traffic must enter by VTOL craft or by one of the three separate subway systems that link the Triad with Olympia to the south, Asgard to the west, and the rest of Tharkad City five miles to the north.
During the Good Years, the planet underwent a boom in mining and steel manufacture. The Star League also established a military base with major storage facilities on the tropical Tatyana Islands during this era. With the fall of Star League, Tharkad's industries were plunged for a time into deep economic depression. With the need to produce weapons and other military equipment for the Succession Wars, Tharkad's industries revived.
Tharkad is also home to the Nagelring, the oldest and most prestigious military academy in the Commonwealth. Named after a sword used by an ancient German folk-hero, the academy was originally an official Star League academy. When the Steiner house forces took over after the Star League personnel left the Inner Sphere, they were surprised to find that many of the professors and instructors had decided to stay on.
The Nagelring soon began producing trained officers in all fields for the Commonwealth military. a sprawling university on Tharkad's Bremen continent, the academy has an extensive variety of training aids such as Chameleon training 'Mechs and two-seat Jenny Aerospace fighters. The academy also trains DropShip and JumpShip crews.
Located in Olympia, Tharkad University specializes in history. Though history may not seem of the same importance as scientific research, its study is crucial because 90% of the scientific knowledge now being 'discovered' was originally known for hundreds of years before the Succession Wars erased it from human memory. Katherine Steiner, the first Steiner Archon, was an alumna of Tharkad University and her government continues the policy of heavily funding it.
Most widely known of all the various arts colleges throughout the Commonwealth, is the Rewland college of Fine Arts on Tharkad. It was at Rewland that Jamison Henry, the famed-MechWarrior poet, first realized his talent.
[edit] Planets and regions of space
[edit] Chaos March
In the fictional BattleTech gaming universe, the Chaos March was a clustering of planetary systems near Terra.
After the fall of the Star League, the planets of the Terran Hegemony were divided up between the Great Houses with the exception of Terra, which became a neutral ground controlled by ComStar. The worlds of what would someday become the Chaos March were mostly claimed by the Capellan Confederation, but a few fell under the sway of the Free Worlds League. Over the years, however, four violent wars wracked the Inner Sphere, which became known as the Succession Wars. The Fourth Succession War resulted in the transfer of many worlds formerly belonging to the Capellan Confederation and Free Worlds League to the control of the nascent Federated Commonwealth. These worlds were organized within the Federated Commonwealth as the Sarna March.
In 3057, Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao and Captain-General Thomas Marik launched a strike at the Federated Commonwealth in retribution for Victor Steiner-Davion's Operation Doppelganger, which was a plot to replace Marik's son with a body-double. This so-called Operation Guerrero was stalled when Katherine Steiner-Davion seceded the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth and negotiated a separate settlement with Marik that allowed him to achieve his objective. Katherine ordered home all traditional Lyran units to within the Lyran state's pre-Fourth War borders, leaving many worlds bereft of defenses. Because of the secession, the rump Commonwealth lacked the JumpShips necessary to reinforce the Sarna March. With the League's pull-out, however, the Capellans lacked the military force to secure the worlds that the Commonwealth had all but abandoned.
Prior to the offensive, Capellan terrorists had stirred up old Capellan loyalties amongst the populace, as well as masterminding many terrorist attacks targeting the infrastructure of these systems. In the absence of national militaries, many local governors (and other concerned interests) seized the initiative to restore order. On the worlds were this restoration was successful, most governments were resentful of the apparent lack of interest by the Great Houses, and set up their own nations. Some of these minor powers became influential enough to become multi-world nation-states. The constantly shifting web of alliances, as well as the rapid rise and fall of planetary-level governments led observers to dub this area of instability the
Over time, both the Capellan Confederation and the Federated Commonwealth were able to exert more influence and military pressure on the worlds of the Chaos March, leading to its shrinkage. Though both would become distracted (the Capellans by the war with St. Ives and the Commonwealth by the Clans), many worlds of the Chaos March had been reclaimed by one of the Great Houses.
In the early 3060s, the Draconis Combine annexed the Lyons Thumb, a few worlds that were a part of the Chaos March, but were to the "north" of Terra.
When the FedCom Civil War broke out in 3063, some Chaos March worlds were caught in the middle. Indeed, Duke George Hasek was tired of the Capellans constantly bullying the small nations, so he undertook a campaign to "liberate" some of them.
The face of the Chaos March changed forever when the owners of Terra, the Word of Blake announced the formation of the Blake Protectorate in 3066. The Protecterate was composed of several former Chaos March worlds who were bribed or otherwise coerced into joining the Blakist state. The Word of Blake Jihad that started in 3068 forced several other worlds into the Protectorate, including some that had rejoined the recently-renamed Federated Suns.
The Jihad engulfed the Inner Sphere until Devlin Stone was able to organize an effective military force to defeat them. Stone then claimed many planets near Terra as part of his new nation, the Republic of the Sphere. All of the worlds of the former Chaos March became a part of the Republic. In 3130, the Chaos March is but a memory.
[edit] Inner Sphere
In the fictional BattleTech universe, the Inner Sphere is the region of interstellar space surrounding Earth to a radius of roughly 500 light years. The five Successor States, each ruled by an ancient Great House, are the Inner Sphere's dominant power in the setting's "modern" era, although other nations, empires, and independent worlds have ruled parts of the Inner Sphere in the past, and continue to exist. After the fall of the Star League, the Inner Sphere fractured as each of the Great Houses attempted to secure rulership during the Succession Wars.
The five Successor States are the most enduring political entities in the Inner Sphere. From c. C.E. 2300 to 2787, the Inner Sphere was divided into five "pie wedges" around a central, roughly circular core: the five Great Houses and the central Terran Hegemony. When the Star League collapsed in 2787, the Great Houses divided the Terran Hegemony piecemeal among themselves, and since that time have waged a series of wars for supremacy, known as the Succession Wars.
The political structure of the Successor States is essentially feudal, with the exception of the Free Worlds League, which has a federal structure, at least at the highest levels of government. Planetary governments in the Inner Sphere span the entire range of political structures, from democracy to dictatorships, although authoritarian forms of government are considerably more common.
At various times, other political entities such as the Free Rasalhague Republic or the independent worlds and small states of the Chaos March have shared power with the Great Houses, often acting as buffer zones between their more powerful neighbors.
The Periphery surrounding the Inner Sphere is home to a few nations of moderate power and independent worlds cut off from civilization by the collapse of the Star League. The Inner Sphere perceives the Periphery as a backwater. The Periphery is also a safe harbor for pirates, criminals, and refugees from the Succession Wars.
See also History of the BattleTech universe
[edit] Early History
The history of the Inner Sphere began on December 5, 2108, when the TAS Pathfinder successfully completed the first FTL round-trip voyage between Terra and the Tau Ceti system. In 2116 the first permanent colony was established on Tau Ceti IV, also known as new Earth. In 2172 the First Grand survey reported that there were more than 100 Human-colonized worlds. In 2234, the number of colonies had expanded to 600.[12]
The earliest colonies were small and dependent on technical support and supplies, particularly of water, from Terra. However, in 2177 the Ryan Cartel began to operate a fleet of iceships, jumpships designed to carry frozen icebergs from water-rich systems to water-poor ones.
As the colonies became materially self-sufficient some of the colonies began to chafe under the authority of the distant Terran Alliance government. The first world to openly declare independence from Terra, Denebola, a colony on the outer rim of human occupied space, did so in 2236. As additional worlds began to follow Denebola's lead, the Terran government sent a force of Colonial Marines to Denebola to make an example of the upstart colonists, but severely underestimated the size and sophistication of the Denoboluan army. Consequently, the small force of Colonial Marines the Terran Alliance sent to Denebola was decisively defeated.
After the defeat of the Colonial Marines on Denebola other colonies began to declare their independence from Terra. Within the Terran Alliance, the defeat of the Colonial Marines caused a power shift within the government. The Expansionists were pushed out of power, and the Liberals gained control of the government. The Liberals immediately began to grant independence to the colonial worlds, whether they wanted it or not.
By 2242, the extent of Terran holdings was no further than 30 light years from Terra, no more than a single jump for a jumpship. It was during this period that humanity first colonized worlds at the farthest reaches of what is known today as the Inner Sphere. Economic depression and political strife caused many of Terra's brightest minds to emigrate to the newly independent colonies during the latter half of the 23rd century, a period which became known as "the Exodus." During this period, humans colonized over 1500 new worlds in a sphere around Terra almost 300 light years across.
Among the outer colonies innumerable small kingdoms and confederations began to form, and slowly larger, more stable states began to emerge from the morass. In 2271 the governments of three small worlds in the outer colonies signed the Treaty of Marik and formed the Free Worlds League, the earliest of the six great star empires which would eventually dominate the Inner Sphere.[13]
[edit] Rise of the Great Houses and the Age of War
In September 2314, the Terran Alliance collapsed amid fighting between the Liberal and Expansionist factions. Moving to avert a general crisis, Fleet Admiral James McKenna intervened between the two sides with loyal Alliance military forces. With the civilian government in shambles and the military behind him, Admiral McKenna dissolved the Terran Alliance and named himself Director-General of a new political entity, the Terran Hegemony. Director-General McKenna was determined to reassert Terra's dominance over the colonies, and used Terra's political, economic, and military might to establish the Terran Hegemony's control over about 100 worlds by the time of his death in 2339. In 2340, Michael Cameron, James McKenna's nephew, took over the office of Director-General, beginning the Cameron dynasty.
By 2389, the six major powers in the Inner Sphere had all been established, and the pattern of dynastic rule which characterizes the Inner Sphere was established. Soon afterwards, these states began to contest with one another for supremacy. In 2398 the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League went to war over the Andurien system. The next century and a half came to be known as the Age of War as the states of the Inner Sphere clashed in a series of border conflicts as their expanding borders began to bump up against each other.
In 2412, after fighting in the Tintavel system resulted thousands of civilian deaths, the representatives of six Inner Sphere and two Periphery governments signed the Ares Conventions, which sought to promote limited warfare by prohibiting attacks on civilian population centers. While the Ares Conventions were successful in limiting warfare, they had the perverse effect of lowering the threshold of provocation needed to start a war by lowering the cost of war. Thus, war became a continuous fact of life in the 25th century.[14]
[edit] New Avalon
In the fictional BattleTech universe, New Avalon is the capital world of both the Federated Suns and, at other periods in BattleTech's history, the Federated Commonwealth. The world is also the hereditary landhold of the ruling House Davion. New Avalon is famous for its high agricultural output.
The planet figures prominently in the early history of BattleTech with the New Avalon Grain Rebellion against the Terran Alliance.[15]
New Avalon is home to the New Avalon Institute of Science, the preeminent scientific research university in known space. NAIS also home of the College of Military Sciences, one of the most prestigious military academies in the Inner Sphere. It is also home to Albion Military College.[16]
While the agricultural products of New Avalon are extremely important, New Avalon is also home to Achernar BattleMechs and Corean Enterprises, two companies that own BattleMech-producing factories.
New Avalon was attacked by the Draconis Combine during the First Succession War, though they were defeated after the assassination of the Coordinator.
War again came to New Avalon during the FedCom Civil War on two separate occasions. The first occurred when members of the 1st Davion Guards, led by Marshal Bishop Sortek, resisted Archon Katherine's rule. Though they were defeated; Duke Tancred Sandoval, Field Marshal Ardan Sortek, and Prince Victor landed within a short time span of each other to ultimately defeat Katherine in early 3067. [17]
War came one more time to New Avalon during the Word of Blake Jihad. Still reeling from the destruction wrought by the FedCom Civil War, the Word of Blake assaulted New Avalon in January 3068 with WarShips and divisions of troops.[18] It was during this Third Battle of New Avalon that Corean Enterprises debuted their new 'Mech, the Legionnaire.[19]
[edit] Solaris VII
In the BattleTech fictional universe, the Lyran world of Solaris VII has become known as the gaming world, due to the gladiatorial battles held in the arenas of this planet, between MechWarriors in their BattleMechs. These fights are broadcast across the Inner Sphere via ComStar's network of HyperPulse Generator transmitters, for the entertainment of billions, in addition to those who pay to view the duels live. Historically, Solaris VII's varied environments made it a prime location to test new 'Mech designs. These were eventually broadcast for profit, and the games were born. Solaris VII combats are the de facto sporting event of the 31st century.
Solaris VII is a planet where Battlemech warfare occurs in gladiator-style matches between single- double- or quadruple-opponent matches. It is split up into six sectors: five are for the current divisions among the Inner Sphere and one is a neutral zone that includes the spaceport. During the Federated Commonwealth / Lyran Alliance civil war, Solaris VII is one of the first planets to be split by loyalist strife.
In 1991 FASA released SOLARIS VII the role playing game box set (H872) including the gamemasters guide, players guide, maps, and punch out cards. Currently in print by FanPro are the "Mechwarriors Guide to Solaris VII" (FASA 1716) and "Classic BattleTech Map Pack: Solaris VII" (FPR 35002). Additionally, WizKids (the current intellectual property holder) released several boxed sets of miniatures for its MechWarrior:Dark Age/MechWarrior: Age of Destruction collectible miniatures game. The rules varied from the standard rules of their game, but captured the essence of Solaris combat in turn-based duels between two or more individual 'Mechs or teams.
[edit] Strana Mechty
Strana Mechty is a fictional planet in the BattleTech universe. Strana Mechty is the capital world of the Clans and also the capital world of Clan Wolf and Clan Diamond Shark.
The planet is neutral; all clans have exactly same amount of land in their possession, and this rule is held very strictly. The capital city of all clans is Katyusha, also an important marketplace.
Strana Mechty is located in the Kerensky Cluster, approximately 500 parsecs (1650 light years) from Earth. Discovered 2792.
The planet was named by Katyusha Kerensky, Alexander Kerensky's wife. The name means "Land of dreams" in Russian language.
[edit] Terra
In the fiction BattleTech universe, Terra is the home planet of humanity. Called the "cradle of civilization" by the inhabitants of the 31st and 32nd centuries, Terra has been the capital of several interstellar nations and is the most industrialized planet in the Inner Sphere.
While Terra is the third planet from the star Sol, "Terra" as a term has come to be understood as encompassing all of the Sol system. The second planet, Venus, and the fourth planet, Mars, are also inhabited. In addition, the Titan shipyards is an orbital factory that can build and repair JumpShips and WarShips.
Terra is home to Skobel MechWorks in Russia and Kressly WarWorks in Germany.
Since the dawn of interplanetary travel, five flags have flown over Terra.
[edit] Terran Alliance
Terra was the seat of the Terran Alliance. The Alliance Parliament oversaw humanity's initial colonization efforts among the stars. The Great Exodus was responsible for the depopulating of many of Terra's cities, vastly improving the overpopulation problem the planet was facing. After the Terran Alliance granted all colony worlds beyond 60 light-years their independence, the Alliance Parliament focused inward on Terra. Amid the destabilization of the Alliance Parliament, civil war between the rival Liberals and Expansionists seemed inevitable.
[edit] Terran Hegemony
Admiral James McKenna used his fleet to impose order on Terra and dissolve the Alliance Parliament. He declared himself the Director-General of the new Terran Hegemony.
[edit] Star League
The Star League was an interstellar empire that united the various states of the Inner Sphere into a single alliance of nations.
In the fictional BattleTech universe, the Terran Hegemony was founded by Admiral James McKenna, the Canadian-born leader of the Terran Alliance Global Militia, out of the ruins of the corrupt Terran Alliance. The Terran Hegemony spent most of its history under the rule of the Cameron dynasty. The Terran Hegemony relied heavily on their technological advantages over their less advanced neighbors to maintain their borders, despite their relative small size and lack of resources. It was the Terran Hegemony which pioneered the Battlemech.
In the mid-2500s, the Terran Hegemony, under the leadership of Ian Cameron, became the nucleus for the star-spanning government known as the Star League. In this Star League, the Terran Hegemony and its ruling House Cameron became the hereditary First Lords in the League High Council.
The Terran Hegemony fell after it was taken over by Stefan Amaris the Usurper of the Rim Worlds Republic. In the following war staged by General Alexandr Kerensky to reclaim the Hegemony worlds, the nation was scoured by war, leaving it a shadow of its former self. Following Kerensky's exodus from the Inner Sphere, the remains of the once mighty Hegemony were conquered by the remaining five Great Houses, leaving only Terra which fell under the control of ComStar.
Its Member States include the five nations known today as the Successor States and the Terran Hegemony, a star empire centered around Terra. Eventually the states of the Periphery are forcibly integrated into the Star League and the number of Member States climbed to ten, the Federated Suns, the Lyran Commonwealth, the Free Worlds League, the Capellan Confederation, the Draconis Combine, the Taurian Concordat, the Magistracy of Canopus, and the Outworlds Alliance. Two nations were destroyed in the Fall of the Star League, the Terran Hegemony and the Rim Worlds Republic. House Cameron, the leaders of the Terran Hegemony, also acted as the leader of the Star League Council; they retained the title of First Lord of the Star League.
The Star League was disbanded when House Cameron was brutually executed by the leader of the Rim Worlds Republic, Stefan Amaris. Amaris executed the bloody coup and declared himself First Lord of the Star League. Commanding General Aleksandr Kerensky of the Star League Defense Force quickly moved to crush the Rim Worlds Republic, then advanced on the Terran Hegemony. The Amaris Civil War was fought with nuclear weapons and left billions dead in its wake. The Territorial States, as the Periphery nations were known, completed their secession bid, and each of the leaders of the five Great Houses returned to their respective capitals. In turn, they each declared themselves First Lord and fought a series of brutal conflicts known as the Succession Wars that were inconclusive.
After the Clan invasion was halted in 3052 and following the Clan Jade Falcon Incursion of 3058, the nations of the Inner Sphere met on Tharkad to hold the Whitting Conference in 3058. At the conference, deciding to reform the Star League with the goal of ejecting the Clans from the Inner Sphere. They also elected Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao of the Capellan Confederation as First Lord for the first three-year term. Succeeding in annihilating Clan Smoke Jaguar entirely in 3060, but the League soon fell prey to factional in-fighting. During his tenure as First Lord, Sun-Tzu used his position to place Star League Defense Force peacekeepers in the St. Ives Compact as a prelude to his invasion.
Coordinator Theodore Kurita of the Draconis Combine was elected in 3061. During his tenure, SLDF peacekeepers annexed the Lyons Thumb for the Draconis Combine after a purported assault by Lyran forces.Elected Prince-Regent Christian Mansdotter of the Free Rasalhague Republic was elected in 3064 and had a quiet term. Despite invasions of Star League member-states by both Clan Jade Falcon and Clan Ghost Bear, neither the Lyran Alliance nor Draconis Combine asked for assistance. The in-fighting and general apathy culminated in 3067 with a vote of no-confidence in the Star League that resulted in its second disbandment. This action would be the supposed reason of the eventual Word of Blake Jihad.
[edit] ComStar
With the death of the Cameron dynasty, the only thing the Star League Council could agree upon was the necessity of reforming the shattered HPG network that allowed interstellar communication. They appointed Jerome Blake to this task. Kerensky bequeathed whole divisions worth of troops to Blake. The onset of the Succession Wars forced Blake to stop short of his goal of reforming the Terran Hegemony, but he was able to ensure total ComStar control over the Terran system.
A shroud of secrecy descended over Terra while the quasi-mystical ComStar ruled the system. On Terra, they hid untold divisions worth of troops and protected Star League-era technology while the Successor States blasted themselves back to the Industrial Revolution. ComStar ran their HPG network from the First Circuit Compound on Hilton Head Island.
In the late 3020s, Terra played host to the marriage of Prince Hanse Davion and Archon-designate Melissa Steiner that touched off the Fourth Succession War.
[edit] Word of Blake
In 3058, the Word of Blake splinter faction of ComStar seized control of the Terran system from ComStar. In 3065, it became the capital of the new Blake Protectorate. It was also host to at least three invasions. The first came from Wolf's Dragoons in 3068. The second came from ComStar shortly thereafter. Both were spectacularly unsuccessful. The third invasion, led by Devlin Stone in 3081, was successful and resulted in the defeat of the Word of Blake and the cessation of their Jihad. At least one tactical nuclear device was used during that invasion to destroy the First Circuit Compound.
[edit] Republic of the Sphere
After the defeat of the Word of Blake, Devlin Stone created the Republic of the Sphere in 3081. Terra is home to the Republic's capital city of Geneva, Switzerland. Republican Terra has also seen its share of warfare. Capellan Confederation had "crusades" into the Republic to regrain its former worlds in 3100s to 3120s.
The Hyper Pulse Generate Blackouts triggered beginning of the end of age of peace in 3132.
Anastasia Kerensky, leader of the Steel Wolves, unsuccessfully attacked the Republic capital in the early 3130s, hoping to fulfill the ancient Clan goal of capturing Terra. Seeing opportunity in the stresses suffered by the Republic of the Sphere, other factions from both without and within the Republic began to take a toll, seizing further territory and strategic resources of the RotS for themselves. Finally, a crushing blow came by way of the assassination of Ancient Paladin Victor Steiner-Davion in October 3134, after discovering a cabal of senators seeking to weaken the government of the Republic, with an eye towards taking final control. The assassination had, predictably, a profound impact upon the collective psyche.
The various leaders of the Inner Sphere arrive on Terra to pay final respects to Victor Steiner-Davion. So great was the influence of the fallen Victor that, combined with his momentous accomplishments and legendary charisma, resulted in largest gathering of leaders since the 30th Century. Despite this, the funeral was not an event noted for its sense of all-encompassing peace.
Shortly after the funeral for Victor Steiner-Davion, infighting erupted between troops loyal to the Republic's Exarch Jonah Levin, and forces organized by Senate loyalists. Aided by Prince's Champion Julian Davion and his Federated Suns contingent, Levin's troops were able to drive the Senate loyalists off of Terra.
In October of 3135, Exarch Levin, seeing before him a profound threat to the Republic, adopted the plan left by Devlin Stone known as "Fortress Republic". This plan was, at its core, a doomsday-esque contingency plan designed to preserve the core of the Republic and to stave off total collapse. Upon implementation, it effectively dissolved the Republic of the Sphere, leaving its central prefecture intact and renaming it the "New Republic Terrorities". As a final warning, an interdiction or edict against contact was put into place, along with a similar such warning against entry to any worlds protected under aegis of Terra, leaving its other nine prefectures to fend for themselves and fight off the hordes of the Inner Sphere.
[edit] References
- ^ House Liao Sourcebook
- ^ Catalyst Game Lab's Official Classic Battletech Website
- ^ Stackpole, Michael A. Warrior: Coupé
- ^ Stackpole, Michael A. Lethal Heritage
- ^ Catalyst Game Lab's Official Classic Battletech Website
- ^ Catalyst Game Lab's Official Classic Battletech Website
- ^ Coleman, Loren L. The Killing Fields
- ^ Coleman, Loren L. Threads of Ambition
- ^ Field Manual: Capellan Confederation
- ^ Catalyst Game Lab's Official Classic Battletech Website
- ^ Field Manual: Capellan Confederation
- ^ Star League Sourcebook. FASA. p. 8
- ^ History of the Inner Sphere
- ^ Star League Sourcebook, p. 28
- ^ House Davion Sourcebook (accessible online at www.classicbattletech.com)
- ^ Field Manual: Federated Suns
- ^ FedCom Civil War
- ^ Dawn of the Jihad
- ^ Stackpole, Michael A. Ghost War
[edit] External links
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