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Ordo Chronos

2022-12-09T19:45:53Z

2607:FB90:6D26:AF9:E06C:BD57:2EBA:3320:

{{wh40k-stub}}
[[Image:Van_damme.jpg|thumb|right|A picture of Inquisitor Van Damme.]]
The '''Ordo Chronus''', referred to as the "Guardians of History" and possibly the '''Timehunters''' (or, thanks to their responsibilities, the "Clockblockers"), are a minor Order of the Inquisition. They specialise in studying the flow of time within the Warp, and studying and preventing time travel. This must be a difficult chore, since the Warp, by its very nature, is uncontrollable and immeasurable. It's hard to prevent time travel when the very act of entering the Warp could have the unintended effect of launching you back in time to the War in Heaven.

They are perhaps best known for vanishing en masse into the warp whilst trying to study it. Theories as to what happened to them vary: it's the deepest levels of the Warp so what did you expect besides cyclical tentacle rape by illogical time paradoxes, or that they're chilling with the lost [[Primarch|Primarchs]] and the [[Emperor]] in a hidden bunker, or that they ironically ended up travelling far into the future and haven't turned up yet [[Fail|(or somehow erased themselves from the timeline)]], or that they [[Doctor Who|met a foul xeno in a police box who cannot be killed so instead they went on all kinds of wacky adventures battling evil time-travelling xeno saltshakers capable of exterminating fucking everything and were so omnicidal that they would make Necrons blush in comparison.]] As everyone knows, they traveled into the past on a steam-powered flying train and have not been seen since.

A small conclave of Inquisitors that stretched across the whole of the ''Architect of Fate'' anthology had a massive hateboner for [[Kairos Fateweaver]], and were implied to be part of the Ordo Chronos due to the massive levels of timefuckery that occurred there. Unfortunately for them, they failed at killing Fateweaver and only succeeded in getting themselves murdered by other parties.

Since then, the only thing they've accomplished is getting themselves stuck in a small war regarding the Imperial dating system, which is partly why the year 999.M41 has lasted so long- [[Fail|nobody actually knows what year it is any more]].

Having returned in the 42nd Millennium, they started the Chronostrife, a big argument/civil war between themselves, [[Roboute Guilliman]], and themselves again. Guilliman realized that even the Imperial Calendar has got messed up, and the Great Rift was only making it worse because now time no longer flowed at the same rate on different planets. Guilliman started measuring time on [[Codex Astartes|his brand new and proprietary]] Vigilus Time System, plonking down new followers wherever he landed, along with Primaris Marines to helpfully educate all the plebians on how it works. Basically he set the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum as the new year 0 and lets each planet measure time themselves [[Codex Astartes|using Guilliman's new convoluted rules and terminology]], because fuck knows how fast their years are actually progressing anymore.

The Ordo Chronos are, of course, pissed. They're too busy fighting amongst themselves to bother opposing Guilliman though, because by looking at the five main versions of the Imperial Calendar ([[What|the others somehow being heretical]] ''before'' they even look at Guilliman's) they've "determined" the actual date could be early 41st Millennium or even sometime in the 43rd Millennium for all anybody actually remembers anymore.

It says a lot when the Primarch specifically created for administrative genius went "fuck it, we'll just start over", though this could also be a history reference since one of the things Julius Caesar did when he won the roman civil war was remake the roman calendar.

The Ordo Chronos also managed to detain a Legion of the Damned Marine locked up in a Blackstone sarcophagus psychically dampened by clocks and sacrificed psykers, before a poxwalker invasion leads to it escaping and blowing up the ship in the “Perdition’s Flame” audio drama.

In addition the Ordo Chronos also knows about the Fallen and are actively hunting them. In addition they are also fighting with Alpha Legion elements. What we understand is that these guys are fucking mental and just doing random shit now. Seriously They have some crazy plans and honestly should just be seen as a bunch of true lunatics.
{{Imperium}}

Draconis Combine

2022-12-09T18:02:15Z

2607:FB90:6D26:AF9:E06C:BD57:2EBA:3320: /* Notable Kurita Coordinators */

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|bgcolor= DarkRed
|fgcolor= white
|Capital= Luthien
|Official Languages= Japanese, Swedish
|Power=
|Size= Around 350 controlled worlds
|Head of State= Coordinator
|Head of Government=
|Governmental Structure=
|State Religion/Ideology=
|Demographics=
|Military Force=*Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery
*Draconis Combine Admiralty
}}
{{Topquote|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 <s>The Rightful Rulers of the Galaxy</s> 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.
* '''Martin McAllister''' - A Rasalhague noble previously distant relative of the Kuritas who married into the Sorenson family. Previously distinguished as a DCMS strategist and warrior, he inevitably was the man responsible for the deposement 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… [[That Guy|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 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 [[Clan Wolverine#Minnesota Tribe|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.
* '''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:

# '''The Pillar of Gold''': The head of government, known as the Coordinator, and all their myriad ministries and bureaus that help govern the Combine and keep it both loyal and under the Coordinator's thumb.
# '''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.
# '''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.
# '''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.
# '''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.

== Military ==
[[Image:DC soldiers.jpg|thumb|left|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 [[Speed Freek|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 Mechs=====
* '''''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.
* '''''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.
* '''''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.
* '''''[[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/2, 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. [[FAIL|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''.

{{Battletech Factions}}
[[Category: BattleTech]]

Succession Wars

2022-12-09T18:01:09Z

2607:FB90:6D26:AF9:E06C:BD57:2EBA:3320: /* Second Succession War */

The '''Succession Wars''' were a series of conflicts between the powers of the Inner Sphere from the late 28th to early 31st centuries in the [[Battletech]] Universe, and one of the most defining periods of the universe's state of being; a game of BattleTech most of the time lore-wise probably happened during one of these four wars.

== History ==

=== Preamble To War ===
With the eradication of House Cameron by Stefan Amaris during the [[Amaris Civil War]] and the Rim Worlds Republic' [[Just as Planned|secret long-term]] infiltration into the Star League's trust as a poster child Periphery State, there was no one left to take over as First Lord of the Star League. Additionally, the Terran Hegemony's bureaucracy was gutted by the Amaris and SLDF purges of collaborative officials with only Jerome Blake from the Ministry of Communication (later called ComStar) surviving. To make matters worse, each of the Great Houses distrusted Alexander Kerensky. Outside of appointing Jerome Blake as head of Comstar to keep the HPG network running, their last action as a unified body was to strip Kerensky of his title as head of the SLDF. While the SLDF was still the biggest military in human history, they were decimated from their [[Iron Warriors|grinding attritional war]] while fighting back from the Periphery to Terra with over a staggering 75% of their regiments and warships destroyed. That, alongside Kerensky's antipathy to politics, made him convinced the best way to save the Star League was to take it's entire fighting force into exile in hopes the threat of retaliation would make the Great Houses compromise. To say it didn't work is a ''massive'' understatement.

=== First Succession War ===
Almost from the minute Kerensky and the SLDF fucked off into the Deep Periphery, all the Successor States braced for what they knew was inevitable conflict. Knowing that becoming First Lord would inevitably mean they could run their opponents off the map forever, all five Successor States waited with baited breath at the opportunity to actively begin the violence, and wouldn't you know it, the [[Draconis Combine]] started the whole damn thing as Minoru Kurita decided to kick things off. Openly declaring the Draconis Coordinator to have claim to the seat of the First Lord, he also asserted that any refusal to recognize the claim would be met with total war.

What happened next is that the Inner Sphere basically warcrime'd itself for 34 uninterrupted years. Biological, Nuclear, and Chemical warfare were rampant, and billions of lives were lost in senseless battles to claim long disputed systems and further territory over what was ultimately petty grudges; to the point that worlds that could produce clean drinking water were as valuable as they were when they were first discovered. It got so bad at one point that the [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|Mercs]], who were already a huge part of everybody's battleplans, basically had to start reigning in the violence themselves by forcefully refusing any contract that involved a breaking of "[[Ares Convention|The Conventions]]" that was offered to them, usually by doing just as much damage for the other side the old fashioned way as they might've for the offer. By the end of the war, grand full-scale invasions and geneva convention-violating battlefields gave way to simple skirmishes and raids to stop each other from producing more Mechs and other vital military equipment.

This is also where the Kentares Massacre happened; wherein Minoru Kurita got his brain ventilated by a sniper, and his deeply unstable child Jinjiro basically decided that everyone on that planet had to die as quickly and painfully as possible as penance for this action. To make matters worse, any Draconis Combine soldier who protested was killed alongside the civilians themselves; often with a katana as Jinjiro figured it would waste less ammo. The local ComStar representatives, deeply concerned by Jinjiro's openly genocidal nature, broadcast the whole thing to the entire Inner Sphere. They got killed by Jinjiro too, but made sure that even if everybody was picking a fight with everyone else, they definitely had an undisputed "bad guy" now. After a series of FedSun counterattacks to liberate worlds picked up early on by the Combine, pretty much everybody was exhausted and now very resource-poor, and eventually most fronts just ceased being fronts at all, with everybody deciding to call it quits and come back when they were ready for next time.

=== Second Succession War ===
The Second Succession War occurred shortly after the first when the [[Clan Wolverine#Minnesota Tribe|Minnesota Tribe]] showed up in Draconis Combine space to raid for supplies and fresh civilians from prison camps before disappearing into the Periphery forever. Fearing the SLDF would show up at any minute with his back against the wall and egged on by ComStar planting information for his enemies to exploit (though not the Minnesota Tribe stuff. The last thing they wanted was Kerensky showing back up), Jinjiro Kurita kicked off the Second Succession War to distract his country’s civilians from agitating in favor of the SLDF’s apparent inevitable return.

The Second Succession War's major fronts largely involved the Lyran Commonwealth, Draconis Combine, and Free Worlds League, all three getting into full-scale espionage wars thanks to ComStar's egging on, with largely the FWL managing to come out the victor...which inevitably dragged ComStar into the conflict when the League found out that ComStar was playing several different noble houses against each other in order to cripple the FWL. The League, not taking this lying down, decided to try and fight ComStar head on, which was just about the dumbest thing they could've done, as blackout after blackout of the HPG ended up doing the trick for ComStar.

But that didn't mean ComStar was still a passive participant. The Primus at the time, Raymond Karpov, was extremely distressed at how slowly technological progress had begun to spiral out of control, and begun Operation Holy Shroud; a covert massacre of scientists, engineers, and technicians across the entire Inner Sphere disguised as other Great Houses, which ended in a complete success; the other Great Houses were all too willing to go to the mat with each other for their "dishonorable" tactics, and subsequently smashed up factories, installations, and supply depots across the Inner Sphere just to teach each other a lesson. Less stellar territory was fought over, rather the means to wage war itself became the most precious prize of all.

By the end of the war, the Inner Sphere was in terrible shape: The capacity and the understanding required to build life-changing technologies had been completely lost to the Great Houses. HPGs and JumpDrives may as well have been magic, and Mechs had become so valuable that old and broken ones became valuable recyclables. Exhaustion and an increasing lack of resources had ultimately ended the war in a way that no winner could possibly be crowned.

Also by the end of the war the Capellan Confederation was double fucked by both the FedSuns and the Free Worlds League. Business as usual.

=== Third Succession War ===

In contrast to the first two wars, the Third Succession War was extremely low intensity due to the relative depletion of technology, and most sides were honestly trying to stay out of it; with the FWL and the Lyran Commonwealth trying their best to rebuild after getting some of the worst of the fighting over the course of the previous war. However, the crown of First Lord was still too good to pass up, and once again ComStar egged the Draconis Combine with planted information into open war yet again. You'd think their intelligence service would be able to notice that this was becoming a recurring theme, but nope, off to fight again.

The battles of the third succession war ultimately became much more individualized affairs, particularly between their Mechwarriors, who at this point were like landed knights due to knowing how to use these titans of metal and steel. Further, the slide into a neo-feudalist society for each Great House had ultimately ensured that a new kind of warfare, known as "The Honours of War", which developed from the old Ares Conventions. War now was over production facilities and fought in large individual stages with plenty of time to drag people back from the battlefield and start over. While it still meant loss of life was prevalent, it ultimately kept battles into the mere thousands instead of millions dead over time.

The war ended in another call for peace, but this time in a much more drastic way than had been done previously. Lyran Archon Katrina Steiner proposed to the entire Inner Sphere peace accords to be signed and sealed in 3020, with only Hanse Davion of the Federated Suns willing to come to the table. Everyone else thought it was just talk like all the other times it'd happened beforehand, but were horrified to learn that not only had both sides come to the table in earnest, but had actively found themselves seeing more eye to eye than previously thought, drafting the Federated Commonwealth Alliance Document, which went into effect in 3022. Every other power was horrified by this, as it meant that two of the largest powers in the Inner Sphere were now well on their way to being one enormous superpower in the way that none of the others could possibly handle, and the other three powers hastily signed a mutual defense pact with each other, quickly ending the war in a stalemate as the rest of the Inner Sphere now watched hesitantly and waited against the FedComm's aims.

=== Fourth Succession War ===

The Fourth Succession War was one of the largest and most desperate conflicts of the entire saga; as both Commonwealth and Federated Sun borders did not actively touch, and they knew that in order to fully consummate this relationship, they would have to bridge the gap between the two states, which bordered the other three empires. Done on the wedding day of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner, both sides had found critical weaknesses in their foes and had begun piledriving their way into connecting both states on the galactic map. As the reception began to wrap up, Hanse Davion said one of the most quoted lines in the Inner sphere: "to you my bride, I give you...the Capellan Confederation."

Naturally, all not-FedComm sides began to panic big time, and each had their own front to deal with; the Capellans were ruled by yet another nutcase of a Liao, and Hanse Davion anticipated a major structural weakness in their defense strategy in that it was ready for third succession war style conflict, and not massive invasions, something he used to great effect to ultimately cripple Capellan industry for decades. The Combine was getting hit on both sides, both by Lyran Assault Mechs and also by their hated rivals, Wolf's Dragoons, who only needed a modest excuse of cash to go fight Kurita forces. With specific regards to the Wolf’s Dragoons, their commander held a grudge for the DCMS attempting to forcibly conscript and integrate the Dragoons into their military. To add more salt to the wound, he was forced to kill his Kuritan friend who was their liaison and commander of a Combine unit they were training. The grudge was bad enough that Commander Wolf publicly berated Coordinator Takeshi Kurita for squandering such honorable soldiers and enraged him in the war to the point the coordinator enacted his infamous “Death to all [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|Merc’s]]” edict to [[Rip and Tear|slaughter]] [[grimdark|all]] hired guns in sight. The Dragoons served as a provocative lighting rod on the Davion-Kuritan border and were bloodied but enabled FedCom units to avoid the worst of the meat-grinder there. The Free Worlds League was simply in the way, and currently dealing with the after effects of facing ComStar, and found themselves having to deal with a massive rebellion in the form of the Tikhonov Free Republic. Finally, there was ComStar.

ComStar was happy that little banana republics were popping up all over the Inner Sphere at the time, but were not happy that now there was a serious chance that there could be a Star League replacement all through the Inner Sphere's idea of politics, and quickly set about attempting to face the Davions and Steiners in the use of Communications inderdiction, but quickly found themselves in a much more dangerous game than they'd previously faced; Hanse Davion wasn't some prissy noble. He was smart, and more over he was more than aware that ComStar was behind what was quickly becoming a somewhat poorly organized military. His solution to the major "blackouts" that were happening across the HPG network were something he called "Black Boxes", which were like fax machines but could do HPG level communications, just extremely slowly. Finally, they found that the best idea to try and halt the FedSun advance was to try and dress up as the Capellan Death Commandos and try to raid the New Avalon Institute of Science, which ended quite harshly at the hands of Hanse himself, taking the field in his personal ''BattleMaster''. Further, use of his spy network in MIIO had revealed that the Death Commandos were nowhere near his own space at the time, revealing ComStar's deception. While they were able to negotiate the HPG network back online, ComStar was now very wary of the FedComm, and ultimately found itself in a years long shadow war against them.

The War ended in a resounding Federated Commonwealth (as the now super-state called itself) victory. The Combine had lost world after world, the Capellans had their military might spanked into uselessness, the Combine had been severely weakened by their own warfare being used against them, and several of the little republics popping up over the Inner Sphere either absorbed themselves into the FedComm, or allied themselves with them. Hanse had gotten pretty much everything he'd ever wanted.

==== Gray Death Legion saves the entire Inner Sphere ====
All while this was going on, the technological levels of the Inner Sphere were still dropping preciptiously, and probably would've done so into perpetuity if the Free Worlds League hadn't offered a contract to a specific Mercenary company: The Gray Death Legion.

The GDL had been started by some Owen Wilson-looking ass merc named Grayson Death Carlyle; a military genius who had built his company through revolutionary use of Light Mech tactics and strong strategy. They were given a tough mission by the FWL to just consistently harass House Liao, and they did so admirably, culminating in the spirited capture of the planet Sirius V. This capture got them rewarded with the planet Helm, an otherwise unnotable temperate planet that'd been kinda going downhill since the Star League's collapse. What they didn't know was that Helm was a one in a million planet; a place where the Star League had stored a priceless information cache; a memory core, deep within the planet. Thousands of things that'd become [[LosTech]] sat in a single vault somewhere in the extensive cave systems underneath the planet. A precentor of ComStar had found this out, and began blaming the Death Legion for atrocities of the highest order, convincing the Free Worlds League to attack Helm at full-bore. While defending their holdings, they and a Combine noble by the name of Hassid Nicol came to the conclusion of the Memory Core's existence, and struck an easy alliance to quickly find the Core. It was a fierce fight, but ultimately Nicol and the Grey Death Legion were able to get a copy of the Memory Core and some of the goodies left therein before House Marik and ComStar blew the place sky high, killing the mad Precentor in the process. After they were cleared of all charges laid against them, the Legion spread the information in the core like wildfire, knowing now that ComStar would do anything to keep it from being spread further.

In essence, Gray Death Legion saved the Inner Sphere from not only ComStar, but itself.

== Consequences ==
As a consequence of the Succession Wars, all of the Great Houses expended the bulk of the Inner Sphere's riches and advanced technology while making life go back centuries in terms of living quality for civilians. While the discovery of the Helm Memory Core by the Grey Death Legion would partially bring back the Inner Sphere's technological development and the newly formed Federated Commonwealth seemed the most likely hegemon to come, all that came crashing down once the [[Clan Invasion]] began with the [[The_Clans|descendants]] of Kerensky's followers would return after 300 years of isolation due to [[ComStar|probing expeditions from the Inner Sphere]].

[[Category: BattleTech]]

Clan Wolverine

2022-12-09T18:00:49Z

2607:FB90:6D26:AF9:E06C:BD57:2EBA:3320: /* Minnesota Tribe */

{{Infobox 40k Nations
|name= Clan Wolverine
|image= [[Image:Clan Wolverine.png|250px|center]]
}}
'''Clan Wolverine''' (also known as '''The Not Named Clan''' by Clanners and people among Clanners who don't want an [[Clan Elemental|Elemental]] knuckle sandwich) is one of the big mysteries of the [[BattleTech]] universe. This [[The Clans|Clan]] is notable for being officially disgraced and destroyed early in the history of the Clans for apparently letting arrogance drive them into committing war crimes. In reality, while they were aggressive nonconformists, they were framed as a scapegoat and the truth is much more complex.
== Origins in Clan Space ==
[[File:Sarah-mcevedy.png|thumb|300px|left|McEvedy, McEvedy. There's no one like McEvedy...]]

Like the other Clans, Clan Wolverine was put together in 2807 from those SLDF forces which went with Nicholas Kerensky to Strana Mechty in the Second Exodus instead of engaging in the Pentagon Civil War. In this case, Sarah McEvedy, a reformist, was installed as Khan and who'd develop issues with the way Nicky did things. During Operation KLONDIKE the Wolverines invaded the planet Circe, where she pushed against the limited rules of engagement by taking a flexible and liberal interpretation of Clan combat rules such as artillery barrages and mass targeting to overcome overwhelming enemy numbers over one-on-on dueling. Tensions would continue to grow from there. After the Pentagon Worlds were taken by the Clans, she allowed a greater degree of mobility between the Castes increasing food production in the territory that was portioned out to the Wolverines, which was seen as as a threat to Nicholas' new vision. Additionally, the clan began creating new BattleMech designs that were more competitive than the SLDF vintage that most Clans had; making many of them feel threatened.

It should be noted that McEvedy and the Wolverines were not the only people among the Clans which harbored doubts about the rather extreme course things had taken though she was the most brazen about it. While some Clans, such as the Sea Foxes, did have less rigid hierarchies and enabled modest caste transfers, Warriors still remained firmly in control. The biggest issue as far as Kerensky was concerned would be the Wolverines rallying the dissenters and threatening the society which he was forming. As such, he had the Wolverines singled out for daring to openly challenge his new vision on society and permitted the other Clan Khans to spy on them. This only made matters worse with mutual animosity rising and taking place of the listlessness that most Clansmen faced with no external enemies left in Clan space.

The final straw which broke the camel's back was that a cache of SLDF equipment including Nuclear Weapons was found in Wolverine Territory. McEvedy wanted to keep these for herself while the other Clanners wanted in on them. There was a Trial of Refusal, the Wolverines lost. Never the less, McEvedy refused to give up the nukes and fought to keep them. Knowing that a Trial of Absorption was all but guaranteed with every Clan out to attack them until they were worn ragged, McEvedy began planning contingencies. On October 11th, 2823 she denounced Nicky in the Grand Council, declared independence and stormed off.

=== Annihilation ===
A civil war broke and Clan Snow Raven's capital city was destroyed with a nuclear warhead; damaging their genetic repository. Officially, Clan Wolverine detonated nuclear weapons on pro-Kerensky civilians out of spite in their own capital just as the IlKhan was within range as an observer for the Trial of Absorbtion. They then apparently launched nukes at Clan Snow Raven due to being their closest neighboring Clan. Unofficially, the Clan Widowmaker Khan (who held a personal grudge against the Wolverines since their early days over some personal slight) framed them by detonating a hidden nuke. The Snow Raven disaster was sadly an accident from a warhead-laden aerospace fighter being hit while targeting the Wolverines amidst the chaos in retaliation for the apparent nuking of civilians; resulting in the nuke veering off-target.

Seeing how the apparent nuclear attacks violated the Clan taboo of avoiding collateral damage to useful civilians, an assassination attempt at IlKhan Nicholas himself, and poisoning a Clan’s genes with WMD’s (i.e. a genocide), Clan Wolverine was marked as irredeemable and Nicky was provoked into escalating the Absorption into a Trial of Annihilation against them. Fighting was brutal with both sides engaged in a genocidal total war. No quarter was offered for warriors while Wolverine civilians would be sterilized at best to avoid “tainting the gene-pool.”

They put up a good fight but the Wolverines were outnumbered 19-1 and the rest of the Clans were not holding back. Despite this, the Wolverine's plans were not to stand and fight but rather to flee. Fearing that it would come to this, McEvedy had prepared a fleet for evacuation beforehand and managed to get much of her people, gear, and population off world after a scorched earth campaign in what was called Operation SWITCHBACK. Much of that was destroyed at a world named Babardos. At the end of the battle, the Widowmaker Khan later got secretly executed by the Wolverines SaKhan, Franklin Hallis, with tacit approval from Kerensky (who merely wanted to absorb rather than annihilate the Wolverines as a lesson) in a secluded encirclement by the other Clans' Khans before being executed himself. After the Widowmaker duplicity was exposed to the Clan's top leaders, Kerensky erased the Widowmaker Khan’s genes from their eugenics program and enacted a coverup to avoid something on par with the Wars of Reaving tearing Clan Space apart. But Wolverine survivors managed to regroup and flee towards the Inner Sphere as planned.

=== Aftermath ===
To the Clans, the Wolverines became a cultural anathema. Most records were destroyed and what remained was a mostly mythologized account of the Wolverines’ betrayal of the Clans and everything they stood for; seeking to fall back into the ways which laid waste to both the Inner Sphere and Star-League-In-Exile while willing to burn anyone in their way like the original SLDF’s meltdown in the Pentagon Civil Wars. Calling a Clanner a Wolverine is like calling the great grandchild of a Holocaust Survivor a Nazi, now imagine that said person was also raised to be a warrior in a highly militarized honor culture in which the approved way of solving disputes is trial by combat. When the Clans began building IIC variants of the Wolverine model of BattleMech (a time tested medium design that been in production for more than two centuries prior to the Exodus), they renamed it the Conjurer. Much of what remained of Clan Wolverine was gobbled up by Clan Wolf. Ironically, the less rigid interpretation of caste mobility (with transfers of those tested and deemed competent), some of their economic reforms, and the Wolverine BattleMech designs would also be adopted with some duplicity. In the case of the third point, some of the first OmniMechs, such as the Coyotl and Kingfisher, would be based off of the Clan Wolverine’s Mercury II and Pulverizer. In addition, Clan Wolf and the Clan Council would punish the Widowmakers years later for massacring their protesting merchant caste over a trade dispute (and possibly in revenge for escalating things with the Wolverines) with a Trial of Absorption (that ironically killed Nicholas & drove the Wolves into a frenzy that left barely any Widowmaker warriors alive).

While a costly affair in terms of human lives and materiel, the destruction and subsequent anathemization of the Wolverines would be an important step in the consolidation of the Clans. First and most directly it effectively silenced overt opposition to Nicky's new societal model in the remaining 19 Clans. There were still former Star League Clanners at this stage who disagreed with Nicky, including those in positions of power, but after the most brazen display of defiance was stomped out they soon learned to hold their tongues and worked within the system. Additionally the open secret that survivors escaped served as a cultural boogie-man to keep the average Clanner straightened out and in line. For generations which would be born or decanted in Clan Space, the villainy of the Not-Named-Clan would reinforce the social-structure. The Clans are a culture which is based on Traditionalism and a Mythic Narrative; so having a villain who was of the Clans but broke with their traditions was a prime pillar reinforcing that story. In particular driving home the need to both keep with tradition and clamp down against Unclanike heterodoxy. This focus on conformity to Clan Culture served to be a double edged sword that kept the Clan Homeworlds stable while in isolation up until forced adaptation, petty jealousy, and perceived ideological compromises from exposure to Spheroid tactics during the [[Clan Invasion]] tore the Clans apart during the [[Wars of Reaving]].

== Not Quite Dead ==
Of course, the story of the Wolverines did not end here. While their territory was conquered and most of their top troops were killed, much of their second line troops and a decent number of civies got away from the reach of their former fellows on what was basically a Third Exodus. But here things get hazy.
=== Minnesota Tribe ===
In 2825, some strange guys showed up and began raiding the worlds of the [[Draconis Combine]] with advanced WarShips, Aerospace Fighters and BattleMechs. They did not announce who they were, but they did have the insignia of the SLDF's 331st Royal BattleMech Division (Sarah McEvedy's dad's unit) depicting a map of Minnesota which got them the Inner Sphere designation of "Minnesota Tribe". These mysterious attacks drove Coordinator Jinjiro Kurita up the wall before disappearing but not before making him kick off the [[Succession Wars#Second Succession War|Second Succession War]]. These were remnants of Clan Wolverine1, though their exact aim is unknown. They came in, took resources and political prisoners and then left for parts unknown with unknown aims. Though this series of smash and grabs by strange outsiders one of the mysteries which got [[ComStar]]'s Explorer Corps was made to solve, ultimately leading to the [[Clan Invasion]]. Ironically enough, shortly before the Clan Invasion, the Explorer Corps discovered a BattleMech wreckage-enclosed shrine surrounding the graves of the last Wolverine Khans on Barbados (which has secretly been erased from Clan navigation charts by Nicholas as part of his coverup) that was being occasionally visited by Clan Wolverines’ descendants. While no descendants were encountered, the shrine did give hints to ComStar of the Clans' martial society, their ruthlessness in battle, and the Minnesota Tribe’s origins.

1 ''This has been confirmed by the creators''

=== Where are they now? ===
Exactly what happened to the survivors of Clan Wolverine after the Minnesota incident is unknown, both in universe and real life. Here are some speculations (both Watsonian and Doylist in perspective) on that front...
* They joined up with [[ComStar]] and became the core of the religious elements that would be the [[Word of Blake]] (basically a conspiracy theory with little merit, but this was the excuse used by the Great Houses to get the Clans to fight the Jihad).
* They became a 32nd Century warrior group called the Fidelis. (Wrong, they are the remnants of the Smoke Jaguars).
* They became the Umayyads in the Castillian cluster (this was a red herring from the Homworld Clan’s rumors that made the Goliath Scorpions get into a tizzy when they conquered the Castilian Cluster. This was later disproven when genetic tests and historical documents showed them to be pre-Clan SLDF holdouts who fled the Pentagon Worlds. Specifically from POW camps nowhere near Wolverine space after being imprisoned during Operation KLONDIKE for refusing to assimilate with Clan culture).
* They died out (technically possible but ''deeply'' unsatisfying from a narrative perspective and not likely given their access to Star League terraforming machinery and biotechnology alongside Clan exo-wombs).
* They survived, but fell apart into numerous small groups scattered about the periphery with little remaining of the old identity (possible to some degree, but not likely on a grand scale as the risk of someone spilling the beans on their ancestry grows with the number of bean spillers).
* They settled somewhere in the Deep Periphery after the Minnesota Tribe stint and are laying low, either just trying to live quietly while being left alone or building up and plotting payback (most likely some flavor of this based on novels and short stories).
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