Draconis Combine

Draconis Combine
Capital	Luthien
Official Languages	Japanese, Swedish
Size	Around 350 controlled worlds
Head of State	Coordinator of Worlds
Governmental Structure	Militarized Feudal Fascist Empire
Military Force	Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery Draconis Combine Admiralty

"Always preserve the dragon and its magic will keep you strong."

– Shiro Kurita

In the Battletech setting, the Draconis Combine is one of the five successor states of the Inner Sphere who are led by The Rightful Rulers of the Galaxy House Kurita. They are modeled to a large degree after Japan, with bits taken from the Sengoku Jidai, the Tokugawa Shogunate and Imperial Japan 1930-1945.

Origins

The Combine was formed from the work of the legendary Shiro Kurita, a nobleman who was raised in an exceptionally traditional household, which held to even 17th century Japanese thinking and manners. Shiro, as well as his brother Urizen, were power hungry and destined to hold control; with Shiro using all the political games in the book to gain power on the planet of New Samarkand, and his brother quickly becoming his top military advisor. Eventually, he was able to create an alliance with a neighboring planet in Galedon V to help strong-arm a Mercantile alliance into helping them build a merchant fleet. By 2319, they'd built a burgeoning empire that had swiftly proven itself against most of it's neighboring foes, and Shiro crowned the alliance by it's new name, the Draconis Combine, after a region of space it once bordered and then completely subsumed, which it has been ever since.

House Kurita

Since the Combine's founding, the Combine's Coordinators have largely come from House Kurita, aside from a two hundred year period where only tangentially related bloodlines got their turn, only to give up the Chrysanthemum Throne willingly as the Kuritas married themselves back onto the throne, to the delight of everybody.

Their general character is a bit hard to pin down aside from their imperious, expansionist rhetoric. While most have been perfectly competent and generally dull characters on the galactic stage, those Kurita Coordinators who have distinguished themselves to the larger Inner Sphere community did so in huge ways. This is largely because of the Combine's insistence on keeping the mystique of the position as the autocrat and more or less god figure and the raising of a nobility; meaning that if the Combine suffered any sort of setback, that all fell at their feet, and repeated failure often ended in assassination from the overeager military or aggrieved nobles, or seppuku from the shame of some especially great failure. As a result, much of the Coordinator's job is managing not just the armed forces, but the expectations and fall guys so that they can cover their own ass; often by ensuring that their actual spoken orders are exceptionally vague, to the point of being Haiku in certain circumstances.

Chances are if you're seeing a Kurita's name more than once, it's because they're either exceptionally adept leaders and conquerors, or exceptionally insane dictators.

Notable Kurita Coordinators

• Shiro Kurita - Founder and creator of the Combine along with his brother Urizen. Usually considered one of the top 3 Coordinators if not the best one. Flew a dope custom Sabre AeroSpace Fighter as a hobby.
• The Von Rohrs Bloodline - An illegitimate child of one of the earlier Kuritas by the name of Nihongi came to hate his Kurita bloodline after the Coordinator at the time killed his dad, and hatched a plot to take over the Combine from within. Of course, thanks to the politics of the time, his dad got axed before he ever got a chance, and he decided to just execute Parker Kurita, the last mainline member of Shiro's line, and ended up the sole remaining heir. Naturally quite stunned and terrified by having accidentally painted the largest target on his back possible, Nihongi secluded himself and several of his successors, while never once trying to actually better the Combine in any way, causing much of it's major issues from the Rasalhague league at the time. The House was fully wiped out once McAllister took over.
• Martin McAllister - A Rasalhague noble directly descended from Shiro Kurita, who married into the Sorenson family. Previously distinguished as a DCMS strategist and warrior, he inevitably was the man responsible for the deposement and annihilation of the Van Rohrs, and once again put the bloodline of the Kuritas back on the throne. Died young, however.
• Siriwan Kurita, the Dragon Lady - Martin's daughter, who lost her mother at a young age. While the Kurita's especially conservative ideas on whether or not women got to be on the throne was a bit of an obstacle, Martin suggested she find a distant cousin and marry up that way, and marry she did until her spouse died of "mysterious causes", and she became Regent while guiding her infant child who would inevitably become Coordinator when he became a man. She ended up being a fantastic and exceptionally smart Coordinator who kept the warfare to a minimum while reigning absolute for almost four decades, only giving up power to her kid who died under a similar set of "Mysterious causes" as well as his heir, causing her to end up Coordinator again. While she enjoyed the gig, the nobility was starting to get wise to the fact that she almost certainly had a hand in her spouse/child's deaths, and she at long last abdicated to her granddaughter after two years. She is the only person in the family to have been Coordinator three separate times thanks to the quirks in the line of succession.
• Urizen Kurita II - The Star League's ailing health needed to be nudged along by somebody, and that somebody was this guy, at least within the confines of the Combine.
• Takiro Kurita - Previously sort of a monk-like figure when he took the job, he dissuaded any doubt that he would be a capable leader of the Combine's armed forces by surviving an assassination attempt by the ISF, torturing the men to find out who paid them, then killing the two men who performed the act and their male heirs. Ruled through the twilight of the Star League, and begged his son, Minoru, to treat the situation carefully on his deathbed.
• Minoru Kurita - Minoru, Takiro's son, ignored his dying father's wishes and basically began the Succession Wars on his own, and as a result more or less created the first bad backslide of humanity into LosTech. Got boom-headshot'd by a Federated Suns Sniper during the First Succession War.
• Jinjiro Kurita - The son of Minoru. While starting off his childhood as a decent kid, the death of his mother who was a concubine caught up in political infighting traumatized him and made him… off despite his tactical savviness. After hearing his dad had been killed, he made the very normal and obvious decision in that situation, and ordered a planet-wide scouring of Kentares IV, the planet he had died on, ending up killing 52 Million people to the point that he was fed up with guns involvement, and just began hacking people down with Katanas himself. Surprisingly, he didn't turn out to be the most stable individual; as he started the Second Succession War based on terrible information, and was constantly plagued by psychotic episodes regarding the Minnesota Tribe once they appeared, finally going straight over the edge when somebody sent him a doll of a Star League Officer past his security detail. This made him permanently lose his mind and he hung himself in solitary confinement. He's the main reason the Fedrats despise the Kuritas.
• Takashi Kurita - Coordinator during the Third Succession War. Unlike the previous two Coordinators, Takashi was not a complete raving lunatic and/or glory-hound...at first. While he had some diplomatic traits, he was still an expansionist and a brutal driver of his armies through his kid, and had a fierce rivalry with Wolf's Dragoons that continued up to his dying day. To his anger, his kid ended up being pretty non-traditional when it came to warfare but also wildly successful; and ultimately made Combine tactics look hilariously out of date. THEN he begins his spiral into being a complete raving lunatic and glory hound until he basically gets locked in place by his son who wanted to protect his grandmother, gets a medical treatment that cures him of being nuts, but it only came too late as he found out that he'd been played into weakening either the Combine or strengthening the legend of the Dragoons, and chose to commit seppuku with his son at his side.
• Theodore Kurita - The greatest Coordinator-General of the Combine, bar none. His mother's only child, she lavished him with love and care and his family made good and goddamn sure he was set up for success in life, and he hit the ground running as the commander of a Penal legion that he turned into an incredible fighting force, making enormous changes to the way the Combine fought, and distinguished himself as able to defend and attack during both the War of 3039 and also the Clan Invasion, using tactics almost counter to what Bushido demanded. His father hated that, but he was inevitably humbled by Teddy's genius and his own familial love. When he was crowned Coordinator, he immediately made getting rid of the Clans a #1 priority, and began recruiting from the ranks of Women and Criminals to bolster the Combine's ranks, and successfully convinced the Inner Sphere to help him go fuck up Clan Smoke Jaguar, then was named First Lord of the rebuilt Star League. Had plenty of enemies from the Kokuryu-Kai, or Black Dragon Collective, who were hardliners who thought his reforms were detrimental to the Combine, and spent a lot of his downtime fighting them off, especially during the Jihad.
• Yori Kurita - The second woman to be Coordinator. She only ever got to the position in 32nd century because of a series of unrelated mishaps that got her promoted from "unimportant minor noble" to "Queen of the Dragon" in very short order. While there were some initial grumblings, what with her initial bringing to the court having been done by a Warlord who openly wasn't a fan of the last few guys to take the throne, she pretty quickly made herself a competent and ruthless Coordinator, including finally...finally getting one over on the Federated Suns, to the point that the Combine took their capital under her watch. Granted, her ascension to the throne involved overthrowing the mainline Kurita's in a coup and crippling the Combine in a civil war that Flanderized them back to their pre-Theodore-era lunatic selves which pissed a lot of people the fuck off out of universe.

Society

The Combine's society is, as stated above, influenced greatly by Feudal and Imperial Japan, and is separated largely into what is called the "Five Pillars" of Draconis society, each with it's own symbolic meaning, which largely helps people within those pillars define themselves and define their worldview. They are:

1. The Pillar of Gold: The head of government, known as the Coordinator of Worlds (or more commonly just "Coordinator"), and all their myriad ministries and bureaus that help govern the Combine and keep it both loyal and under the Coordinator's thumb.
2. The Pillar of Steel: All Combine military, sometimes referred to as the "Arm of the Dragon". While nominally led by the Coordinator, most Coordinators have their Tai-Shu, or Warlords, deal with the day-to-day running of the various military ops of the Combine, specifically to allow the Coordinator to cover their ass in case their orders turn out to not work. Most of the Combine's military adhere to some form of the Bushido code, and all are expected to follow a superior's orders to the death. Given that they place an emphasis on hard and fast BattleMech assaults, as well as the open threat of death looming, it's not especially hard to get with the program. If you survive however, you'll be a capable warrior and well-respected within Draconis society, as regardless of position, military members are treated well.
3. The Pillar of Teak: The non-military sector of Draconis life, combined with cultural indoctrination. Basically a caste system consisting of nobles, warriors, craftspeople, common laborers, and then the vestiges of society consisting of outcasts and criminal elements. If you know anything about Imperial Japan or the Sengoku period, just assume much of Draconis society follows that because everyone who lives within their borders is the biggest fucking weeb to ever exist, to the point of openly demanding any government official or noble learn the Japanese language just to make sure they keep up to date on it.
4. The Pillar of Ivory: Religious and Spiritual leaders and advisory. Unsurprisingly, Shinto, Buddhism, and any collectivist philosophy does especially well within Combine space as Shiro intended it to be, and every non-eastern philosophy, and especially any individualist or egalitarian philosophy gets pretty tightly controlled.
5. The Pillar of Jade: The manufacturers and merchants. The Combine has historically never been especially big on resources, and the succession wars didn't do that any favors, so most of the economy is run by the state. There are independent companies, but they pale in comparison to the vast number of powerful state-backed companies that have been cut into two categories; Military and Civilian, ensuring maximum exploitation of what little the Combine has.

In general terms, the Draconis Combine could be best be described as a Feudal Fascist Empire (not unlike the Japanese Empire with a twist of state-sponsored mega corps) being authoritarian, reactionary, militaristic, nationalistic, chauvinistic (including being rather sexist) with tight cooperation between the state and corporate power blocks and a mentality that it is the highest honor to die for Coordinator and Combine. While it may be limited in scope, marginalized by the nobility, corrupt, ineffective or simply a sham, the other four successor states make at least some pretext to democratic government. Even The Clans have representative elements. The Draconis Combine does not. The Coordinator Reigns, the Nobles and Warlords rule and command on his behalf, the people obey.

This is not to say that more liberal minded individuals don't exist in Combine Space, see Theodore Kurita. But even when a reformer reaches the height of power in the Combine they would face significant resistance and push-back from entrenched conservative blocks up to and including Civil War.

Foreign Relations

• Capellan Confederation: Alliance of Convenience out of mutual hatred for the Federated Suns.
• The Clans: Wary Neutrality to Bad. Due to past experience from the Clan Invasion, they don’t go out of their way to prod their nest. Though they will fight tooth and nail when provoked as seen with the Nova Cat annihilation in the Kuritan civil war.
• Federated Suns: Very Bad. The Combine's been the Federated Sun's biggest foe for three centuries and has done some pretty nasty things in that time.
• Free Worlds League: Neutral to Good. Due to mutual hatred against the Lyrans historically.
• Lyran Commonwealth: Also Bad. Only reason they’re not actively killing each other is the Clan Occupation Zones forming a buffer.
• The Periphery: Ambivalently Neutral. Used to bully the Outworlds Alliance before it took in the Snow Ravens.

Military

Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery Infantry: you see these guys walking down the street you best start learning japanese and to love Udon noodles

The Combine lives by the old Bushido code for all things, but most specially in warfare, which has been part of their success as much as it has been their downfall. They are among the most dangerous and vicious of the entire Inner Sphere's militaries, but their warfare has a fucking enormous cost to it; they prefer absolute loyalty to their superior officers, and a rigid adherence to the concepts of frontal assault warfare, often fighting to the last man and refusing to retreat even in the face of overwhelming odds. This means in the face of battle, they've often been completely outclassed by commanders who were able to adjust to what the Combine was giving them and fight back. Further, their officer corps are often subject to the same politiking as their nobility, and are often trying to cover their ass. It should say something that one guy almost 500 years into their existence would become their best general simply because he'd dare to adjust tactics against an enemy.

While this likely would've been the easiest place for the creators of BattleTech to just let Gundams exist, the Draconis are more well known for creating Particle blasting speed demons and walking samurai armor 'Mechs. They are also well-known for only using Light and Heavy-class 'Mechs in their warfare; seeing medium-class 'Mechs as a poor compromise for what they want to do; which is to attack as fast and as hard as possible, their 'Mechs bristling with armaments and clad in bright red and gold paint, and they love their BattleMechs. To the exclusion of almost everything else. Seriously, it got to the point that it took almost 500 years for things like tanks to become widespread in their military due to years of Coordinators playing favorites with the MechWarriors.

Notable BattleMechs

• Charger: An assault 'Mech with the firepower of a light 'Mech, the original CGR-1A1 model of the Charger is a commonly-cited contender for worst 'Mech in the whole setting. For some reason originally conceived as a heavily-armored scout, the Charger is an 80-ton 'Mech sporting the heaviest possible engine and by extension the highest top speed of any introtech 'Mech in its weight class. However, the sheer amount of tonnage dedicated to the engine leaves it with an utterly impotent weapons package consisting of five small lasers, meaning that it is outgunned by most medium 'Mechs and even some light 'Mechs. The Draconis Combine ended up stuck with the overwhelming majority of Chargers at the outset of the Succession Wars, and assignment to one was commonly used as a form of punishment within the Combine military. The 'Mech would be improved by the Capellan Confederation at the end of the Third Succession War by downgrading the engine and freeing up space for more firepower, and the Charger's frame would be repurposed for the development of the iconic Hatamoto-Chi during the War of 3039, but the Charger itself would not be redeemed in Combine service until the Clan Invasion, where the rediscovery of extralight engines would allow for upgraded firepower without sacrificing the Charger's top speed.

• Catapult K - While the Catapult itself is ubiquitous throughout the Sphere, the K-series has never caught on outside the Combine. This "novel" design ditches the Catapult's characteristic LRMs for a pair of PPCs, turning an aged but capable indirect fire support platform into an outdated direct fire glass cannon.

• Daboku - A prototype 'Mech used as a testbed of Helm Memory Core techs. Due to the Kuritans using a Google Translate equivalent to understand its contents, the Daboku was horribly flawed in every way and a deathtrap for any MechWarrior assigned to one. Most infamously due to its flawed CASE, taking a hit in the lower torso would eject the Daboku's pilot, either leaving him at the enemy's (lack of) mercy or exposing them to lethal planetary conditions. It was only used in the War of 3039 and was retired afterwards. The Steiner-Davions designated it as Mauler, a name the Kuritas embraced for the Daboku's successor.

• Dragon - While the Hatamoto-Chi might be the most recognizable, the Dragon and its upgrade, the Grand Dragon, were unquestionably some of the DCMS' favorite mechs. It's a fast, flexible, hard to knock over, capable of carrying huge guns, and generally ubiquitous part in any Combine regiment, and well-loved by its pilots. However, for a heavy 'Mech it's considered slightly undergunned due to the Combine's insistence on "light or heavy 'Mechs only" creating what many consider an oversized medium 'Mech for the same roles as a Medium would have, but few things in the early eras of BattleTech are as fast as the Dragon while also being as heavily armored and also still maintaining a reasonable weapons package. In the 31st century, the Grand Dragon began to replace regular Dragons due to a generally improved design as well as stronger weapons and cooling.

• Gladiator - The first Combine-designed BattleMech. Built under the Von Rohrs' rule, this line is most famous for their role in the first BattleMech VS BattleMech combat in history, the Battle of Nox of 2475. Although both sides were equally matched in numbers and the Gladiators were better-armed than the Fedrats' Commandos, they lost badly to the latter due to their faster speed and maneuverability allowing them to quickly melt their torsos from behind, despite more than doubling them in weight and weaponry. The defeat at Nox was so humiliating and dishonorable the Gladiator's reputation was permanently tainted in the space Fish-heads' eyes, which led to them ceasing production in 2488 and the 'Mech line nearly going extinct, with Alex Keller's highly custom version being the only known survivor by the 31st century. Curiously, the Jihad led to the Gladiator's revival as part of an initiative to choke the Blakist forces on entire batallions of Age of War-era designs.

• Hatamoto-Chi - The signature assault 'Mech of the Combine, which looks like a 'Mech designed in the image of Super Shredder. Essentially two different 'Mech designs merged into one (namely the venerable Thug and the much-maligned Charger), it's a formidable, tough-as-nails all-range assault 'Mech with the one minor flaw of generally being rather difficult to keep heat control on.

• Jenner - Their signature light 'Mech. A fast and light jump-capable design with respectable firepower, the Jenner is often considered one of the best Inner Sphere light 'Mechs in the early eras of the game, often seeing success by ganging up on larger 'Mechs and peppering them with some form of laser or heat-producing round, then letting their Panther partners swoop in to land the finishing blow.

• Mauler: The finished monster that came out of the failed Daboku 'Mech prototype, the Mauler is a 90-ton extremely long-range fighter whose LRM-15s, AC/2s, and ER Large Lasers make it at the very least an exceptionally obnoxious armor chipper, or at worst a 'Mech sniper from hundreds of yards away. Thanks to its history as the reimagined Daboku, it has an extremely inconsistent history, but that doesn't comfort anybody getting pelted with missiles and laserfire from four counties away. Anything that can get up close to it however has free game to add a Mauler to their kill total, as its payload suffers at close range.

• Panther - Their other signature light 'Mech. Only 35 tons, this thing can actually keep pace pretty well with others in it's class and is a massive pain in the rear with its Lord's Light Particle Projector Cannon being a shockingly powerful piece of tech. It runs hot very quickly, on the other hand, and the Clan Invasion-era "upgrade" of the Panther takes this to next level, switching out the PPC for a LosTech extended range model that outputs significantly more heat--without upgrading the 'Mech's cooling. This means that the Clan Invasion-era PNT-10K cannot fire its main weapon without going at least 2 points over its heat-sinking threshold.

• Thug - An assault 'Mech built to be successor of the Warhammer (the BattleMech). Initially fielded by the Star League, but the Succession Wars put its production to a halt. ComStar however were able to keep many of them in storage. When the technology became available the Combine resume production of the 'Mech. Its weaponry is a pair of PPCs, and a pair of SRM-6s, making it good at either long-range or short-range combat. The Combine would eventually fuse the Thug's weapons package with the Charger's frame (and a bunch of samurai cosplay) to produce the iconic Hatamoto-Chi.

• Von Rohrs/Hebi - A short-lived 'Mech named after the usurper House Von Rohrs, originally built under the rule of Yama, the third Coordinator of that house. It was intended to replace the Gladiator after the 'Mech line became dishonored after the battle of Nox. After the Von Rohrs were killed off and the Kuritas returned to the throne, the 'Mech was renamed "Hebi" ("Snake". Snakes are often seen as a symbol of evil and cunning by Abrahmic--y'know, the Jews, the Christians and the Kebabs--religions) and McAllister forbade salvaging them, which led to the line going extinct in 2518, only 8 years after their namesake house. Worse, the 'Mechs they were intended to replace, the Gladiators, ended up outliving them by over half a millennium.