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Solaris VII

2022-01-21T00:18:56Z

2607:FB90:6F49:D395:6C11:A9A4:1C0C:4355: /* Solaris Culture */

[[File:SolarisSeven.png|250px|right|thumb|The Inner Sphere's playground]]
'''Solaris VII''', often known as '''"The Game World"''', is a planet in the [[BattleTech]] universe, and home to the Solaris Games, the place where all sorts of insane mech-bloodsport and wild mad max shenangans are played out for a ravenous, captive audience.

It is in many ways, the most fun you can have in the Inner Sphere and BattleTech in general.

== The Planet itself ==

Solaris VII hangs in the Solaris system, which happens to sit on the border of the [[Free Worlds League]] and the [[Lyran Commonwealth]]. It is a rainy, water-rich world with only two continents; Greyland and Equatus. Greyland is the larger continent, with the planetary capital, Solaris City, stamped right in the middle. It is the constantly rain-slicked beating heart of the entire world's operations and events, with most of it's prospective Champions and event coordinating happening right here. It also features a litany of tourist attractions based around the BattleMech and the many, many, many ways you can get in on the fun of the planet's feature attraction. Equatus in contrast, is a mountainous, arid place where people are content to live their lives as simple farm folk, but are often a place where you can enjoy far more personal, grittier competition.

Solaris sits in frontier space for both of the empires it borders, which has placed it in an unusual situation; both will jockey for ownership of it, but they'll never actually put too much restriction or control over the planet. This is a good thing for it's ruling powers, because that might mean it would interrupt Solaris' biggest attraction; the Games.

== The Solaris Games ==
The Games are the reason Solaris VII even finds itself on the map. It is the entertainment capital of the Inner Sphere by way of Mech Battles, having evolved from simple test-fights brought together by defense companies into what it is today over centuries of iteration as an intergalactic bloodsport, gambling, and broadcasting epicenter; with the amount of C-Bills coming in from betting alone probably being enough for Solaris VII to buy it's own freedom if it ever had the time to count the money out for itself or care to do so. The Games attract fans, gamblers, and mechwarriors alike to come experience the fun for glory and for profit for themselves from across the entire Inner Sphere, creating a melting pot built on the pure and simple goal of watching giant robots beat each other to death.

The Games are usually organized by the '''Solaris Circuit''', which organize the hundreds of arenas built specifically to house these robot deathmatches in a fair and honest manner. The Competitors of these games are usually organized into groups of like-minded folk known as '''Stables''', which vary wildly in size, success, stature, and practices. Most of these Stables are usually either long-standing allies with certain Successor States or the pet project of some rich noble who wants to say he owns a sports team, and are usually between ten to forty Mechwarriors deep, with some capable of getting each warrior kitted out individually, or some having to share Mechs between each other.

=== Match Play ===
The Solaris Circuit itself is broken up into six classes, separated by weight:
# '''Class I: Exoskeleton''' - Power Armor fights! Heavier on tactical thinking rather than bulldozing your way through fights. Almost assuredly the class that turbonerds watch religiously and insist is the "true" class of fighting.
# '''Class II: Light Mech''' - Mech Lucha Libre. Taking advantage of the speed and agility afforded by Light Mechs, Class 2's fights are often quick and brutal affairs that benefit agility and quick-thinking.
# '''Class III: Medium Mech''' - The delicious creamy middle between survivability and a furious slugfest.
# '''Class IV: Heavy Mech''' - The slower, more ponderous fighting style of the Heavy Mech is showcased, where firepower often wins the day.
# '''Class V: Assault Mech''' - The Mech equivalent of a boxing match destined to go the distance. Class 5 matches pit the largest mech types in the universe against each other in an all-out, grinding slugfest where gritty endurance becomes just as much a part of the fight as the ludicrous amount of firepower.
# '''Class VI: Open Match''' - The Free-for-all. All the previous five classes can come together to have an insane brawl to see who's the best. Only the five arenas in Solaris City are eligible for Open Match games.

The rules of the circuit are universal and simple; all battles are one-on-one, all mechs must pass a safety inspection, all warriors must be 18 years or older to compete, and it is a duel until one teams mechs are either completely destroyed or unable to compete. There are special rules that can be tacked on at organizer or even Mechwarrior discretion, such as the "Weapons Dead" rules, which disable all ranged weapons on the Mech and just has a good ol' fashioned beatdown. There are rules for surrender, as some Stables are broke as hell and might want to keep their machines in one piece, but it is a very risky venture; many Stables have "Surrender Bonds" of a certain hundred thousand dollar amount of C-Bills, expecting the Mechwarrior to fight until his dying breath unless he plans on being in debt to his Stable for the rest of his life.

=== The Grand Tournament ===
While singles match combat is the bread and butter of the Games, there's one event that towers above them all; The Grand Tournament. It is a massive 128-mech single elimination tournament that pits the very best of the very best Mechwarriors from across the planet (and sometimes even off-world), to determine who is the best of the best, until there is a single Grand Champion left standing. And you wanna be Grand Champion; you get half a million C-Bills, almost assured merchandising and special broadcast rights, probably a cool title belt or trophy, and will be, in many ways, the regent of Solaris. You will be challenged however, and often, leading to a Grand Champion usually having a busy schedule, but these prize fights are often more lucrative than any other match on-planet. On the off-chance that the Grand Champ gets beaten during one of those challenges, the title is suspended until a rematch is held or the next Grand Tournament is held. If the Champion loses twice, the challenger becomes the new Grand Champion.

=== Other Games ===
While Mech Combat is of course the main attraction, there are all sorts of wild combat sports that are played on Solaris VII's soil:
* '''Blood Pits''': The far grittier form of combat popular in the mountainous continent of Equatus. Two AgriMechs walk in, one leaves. Because of the lack of weapons (and hardpoints to place such things), the Mechs would just smash into each other until one stopped working.
* '''Capture the Flag''': As you'd expect it to be, just with Mechs.
* '''Tank Derbies''': A cult sport. Basically tank on tank warfare just with a higher-than-normal chance of survival.
* '''Dogfight Duels''': A popular but quite impractical to watch sport as the speeds the AeroSpace Fighters go require hundreds of cameras and holo projections just to get an idea of where both are and what they're doing. the "safest" sport on Solaris, as both are encouraged to concede rather than go to a needless death (usually because the flaming wreckage would almost certainly come straight down on a settlement).
* '''Hoverblitz Racing''': Death Race meets hovercraft.

== Solaris Culture ==
Just as the Games define the system, the Games define the culture of Solaris as well. Every aspect of living in Solaris City or one of it's many auxiliary towns is geared towards the games; nearly every settlement on the planet has an Arena; with the smaller towns able to keep a Class I or Class II arena steady, while most metropolitan areas can support Class III-V arenas, depending on their size and personal biases from past tournaments or influential stables. Most arenas don't have live crowds due to the seriously dangerous conditions of a BattleMech fight, so often people congregate at holovid terminals to watch the fights. Those arenas that ''can'' support a live crowd are almost always using some LosTech to keep the dangerous stuff out of the crowd, and are some of the most profitable places on the planet to be.

The streets of any given Solaris settlement are a never-ending flow of activity: From legions of Mech Techs running around trying to get their stables' ''Charger'' up and running for the next match, to gamblers arguing about which mechwarrior will come out on top, to MechBunnies and other fans following star Mechwarriors from place to place, to the criminal element trying to fix matches and collect debts, it's all geared towards making the next game just that much more interesting. Rarely there is a place in Solaris where people aren't bustling about, and it creates a vibrant, chaotic atmosphere that only enhances the feeling of being in Mech-Vegas. Even in Equatus, there's plenty of places called ''Blood Pits'', where no less than what would be qualified as Class I-II matches are held in extremely brutal, "two men enter one man leaves" style rulesets.

Of course, that doesn't mean the Successor States are just sitting back and watching this shit happen from the comfort of their own homes; Solaris City's six neighborhoods have been carved up as enclaves for each Great House (with a single independant neighborhood for independent/recruitment purposes), and each take a special interest in pushing Mechwarriors who just so happen to align with their interests and cultural aims as Champions not only as a propaganda win, but as potential assets as battle-hardened allies should the need arise. This rarely works exactly as the Spheroids intend however, because fighting in an arena is never the same thing as fighting in a real war, where a Mechwarrior is supposed to be a cog (an important cog, but a cog nonetheless) in a larger machine as opposed to the people's champ. Some take to the real life fights well, others make themselves massive headaches for their employers, and are prone to streaks of independence or overdoing it simply because that's what they know how to do.

Solari VII is also a popular hiring hall for clients seeking to employ [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|hired guns]], mainly due to churning out MechWarriors who are skilled from fighting in the arena. However, compared to Outreach or Galatea, Solarian mercenaries have a reputation for being solo mavericks with independent streaks instead of whole combat units willing to take orders.

== Solarian Mechs ==
In the past, Solaris was merely a testing ground for defense companies to make sure their product worked as intended in live fire settings. That has long since changed, and while conventional designs do exist in the Games; the theatrical, gladiatorial nature of these contests meant that there was a market for specific designs to be produced only on Solaris for the express purpose of fighting in the Games, and that niche was filled quickly by enterprising companies. Most of them only ever work in tandem with the Games themselves, usually producing their wares in extremely small batches or commissioned directly by the Stables or their benefactors with a particularly interesting idea and the capital to fund it. As such, Solarian Mechs are varied and wild, more like finely tuned works of art rather than a weapon of war.

Solarian Mechs run the gamut of all weight classes, but their commonality is that they embrace the Games bias for up-close and personal action, with most native designs being brawlers almost exclusively, or easily fittable with melee weapons. These mechs are often extremely unique designs only ever seen during the games, with some ideas and weapons occasionally leaking out once they've proven their worth in enough matches.

==== Notable Mechs ====
* '''''Daedalus''''' - based off the original Phoenix Hawk, it had an upgraded large laser and missile racks while using speed to avoid being scrapped. Unfortunately, it quickly got obsolete after a while and only upgraded versions are still mainstream while the originals are found in more obscure arenas with smaller budgets.
* '''''Ronin''''' - based off the Centurion, the engineers figured it'd be quicker to just reuse schematics and know-how from a previous BattleMech design than reinvent the wheel. Seeing how Solaris VII started off as a BattleMech testing world, it was a good idea as it shorted the development time to a fraction of the typical period.
* '''''Koto''''' - based off the Locust (which is just as prolific, light, and fast as it's name sake), it was born based off the numerous amount of scrapped Locust parts found all over Solaris VII and the Inner Sphere. While featuring upgraded armor, reallocated internals, and more free space for bigger guns, it still retains [[FAIL|old patchwork]] electronics from its parent and can be prone to random breakdowns due to it's origin as a salvage rework based on recovered parts.
* '''''Prowler''''' - Created for the Clan embassy's Zellbrigan Stables (which served as an outlet for bored Clan Warriors stationed at the facility while managed by Sea Fox merchants), it was ironically based off the Wolverine BattleMech with a lightened internals for upgraded armor and ClanTech weapons. Seeing how the IIC version of the Wolverine Mech was called the "Conjurer" to avoid connotations with the taboo Not-Named Clan, the developers wisely renamed the Mech to be Prowler instead.

{{Battletech Factions}}

[[category:BattleTech]]

Mercenaries (Battletech)

2022-01-21T00:18:03Z

2607:FB90:6F49:D395:6C11:A9A4:1C0C:4355:

Not so much a unified nation in [[Battletech]] and more of a conglomerate of various mercenary bands, Mercenaries are an unaffiliated faction that exists in all parts of the Battletech universe.

== Overview ==
In human history, there have been two jobs that have survived from caveman times up until the time of the BattleMech; [[Magistracy of Canopus|prostitution]], and mercenaries. Mercenaries have always been a need for militaries. And changing the playing field from county to county, country to country, continent to continent, and finally planet to planet hasn't caused any meaningful change to that arrangement for any reason. Their specific use had been declining for centuries however, and it wasn't until things got going in the 23rd century and the Great Houses began their ascent to power that they became a ubiquitous part of the Inner Sphere's way of doing things. By then they were merely fill-ins from people lucky enough to own 'Mechs or ad-hoc groups put together. Very little prestige was involved but it paid their share for doing the wetwork for whoever had no experienced troops but enough cash to spare.

All that changed after the [[Star League]]'s collapse and the Amaris Civil war, however.

With 80% of the largest and most well-equipped army in human history fucking off to god knows where in bumfuck space, it fell to the remaining 20% to find a way to make some money now that the Star League wasn't fitting the bill. And wouldn't you know it, the Great Houses were perfectly willing to shill out a little cash to whomever could help fill space in their armies as they began the Succession Wars. While the bulk of the SLDF remnants in Spheroid space would join ComStar as the Com Guard, a decent remainder decided to strike out in the name of the highest bidder. As a way to better facilitate this, [[ComStar]] created the '''Mercenary Review Board''' (later succeeded by the independent '''Mercenary Review Board & Bonding Commission''') to better allow Mercs and interested parties to do business with each other transparently without the risk of parties backstabbing each other blatantly. To keep things civil, the MRB/MRBC encouraged mercenaries and clients to negotiate in public hiring halls on mercenary worlds like Outreach, Galatea, and [[Solaris VII]] (though the latter had a reputation for solo prima donna’s with an independent streak instead of large battalions able to take orders).

At the beginning of the Succession Wars, they actually had to reign their employers in because they had begun to ask them to commit war crimes. This might seem counter-intuitive for mercenaries to insist on fair war conduct until you realize that: (1) scorched earth warfare would leave no [[LosTech|salvage]] for mercenaries to loot for money, (2) blatantly killing everyone instead of holding officers/VIP's for ransom and treating civilians fairly would lead to a "kill-on-sight" target painted on their backs for generations (as seen with the Free Rasalhague Republic’s grudges), (3) any employer seeking to antagonize all mercenaries, like with Takeshi Kurita's "Death to Mercenaries" edict, would find every mercenary running for the hills instead of risking their skins under such clients. Nevertheless, they still have a reputation as being the guys you call in when you don't want to sully your hands with particularly grim work or risk civilian outcry from massive casualties in your military roster.

Mercenaries have had a major impact on the life of the Inner Sphere; able to enforce what became known as the Conventions creating the standard limited warfare of the Inner Sphere, and for reviving the LosTech that'd been all but forgotten in the ravages of the Succession Wars.

== Life as a Merc ==
Understandably, it's not an easy life being a soldier of fortune. For one thing, you will more often than not be in the thick of some of the worst fighting the Inner Sphere can put you through. And many times over you might find yourself working for one side and then the other; ensuring absolutely nobody you interact with is going to respect or trust you. Finally you have to provide pretty much everything for yourself; no supply depots, no dedicated mechanics, it's all on you. But hey, at least the C-Bills are good.

Merc Companies vary wildly in size and in influence, some being only a single MechWarrior, or big enough to say they rival the power of Periphery States or even simply prop some up entirely. Moral Codes are also understandably pretty varied, as it can run the gamut from being quasi-pirates and bandits set to live fast and die young, to honor-bound paramilitary units that’ve lasted centuries. It’s a common stereotype that many mercenaries are military units from Great House militaries that went independent or defected. Conversely, many Successor State militaries seek to pay mercenaries for their dirty work or outright coopt them into being drawn into permanent service as a standard military unit, though this is an arrangement that can often backfire on a particularly poorly run military with revolts or defections being a risk. Understandably, relationships between clients and merc's vary with some relationships being closer to a sponsor leaving the heavy lifting to a long-trusted confidant on a prickly war front. On the other end of the spectrum, you have arrogant patrons using merc's as plausibly deniable assets or cannon fodder to avoid wasting their own people in the meatgrinder. Meanwhile other merc's can betray their patrons' trust by looting and cutting loose while leaving their former employers to clean up the mess. Hence why the MRB/MRBC tries to keep track of each mercenary company and client's reliability records to ensure honesty.

And while the allure of fighting for fortune on your own terms is appealing, especially in a setting where independence as a concept is at a specific premium; the majority of mercenaries have to run a gauntlet of obstacles to keep their heads above water. Such as getting certified (and then closely monitored) by the universal Mercenary Review Board (else they'd be rogue with no way to find work outside of risky black market deals with organized crime), have enough cash to avoid bankruptcy which often means taking very dangerous contracts, securing a base on an inhabited planet to rebuild or recruit after leaving a meat-grinder, and ensuring your supplies as well as transportation or contracts aren’t held on a tight leash by your employers. Oh, and when the MRB/MRBC collapsed during the Blakist Jihad or Grey Monday, the ones put up after them sucked ''ass'' for the Mercs, so you might have to take more missions for more employers just to pay the bills.

== Well known Units ==
* ''' Wolf's Dragoons''' - The Protagonist/Mary Sue Merc faction of the BattleTech universe. Formerly a compromise by the Clans to try and figure out Inner Sphere tactics, the Dragoons would break from Clanner ways entirely and eventually make themselves distinguished as the single biggest and best armed Merc company in Sphere space, serving each Successor State once, getting their dicks punched in by the Combine in the Battle of Misery, and then got the planet of Outreach from the FedSuns. They spent a lot of time trying to find Star League caches; including only taking Outreach once it was confirmed that it did indeed have one. Eventually joined back up with Clan Wolf when they made their bid for IlKhan. Once the Wolf Khan used them as meatshields while denying them their custom of being the tip of the spear in the attack and were ground down to 1/3rd of their size, they swore a grudge against the IlClan.
* '''Eridani Light Horse''' - One of the biggest and oldest living Merc companies in the Inner Sphere. Distinguished for being one of the last remaining non-Comstar aligned SLDF regiments left in the Inner Sphere and made themselves as a major force in the Amaris Civil War, but eventually ended up pressganged by the Draconis Combine for most of the first two succession wars until Jinjiro Kurita got involved, wherein they fucked off for greener pastures in the Periphery. They joined up with the Second Star League as a taunt and sign of disapproval at how the Clans had devolved from the SLDF in service of the people to ritualistic warlords. They would remain affiliated with the Second Star League before it disbanded. Finally got gunned down in the Dark Age by Clan Jade Falcon but survivors remain; notably among the Clan Goliath Scorpion who had absorbed a portion during the Wars of Reaving.
* '''Northwind Highlanders''' - A band of Scottish mercenaries hailing from the planet Northwind. Once upon a time they were a formal Royal Guard unit for House Cameron in the SLDF but they went free agent when the Star League fell apart, after which they mostly worked for House Liao. They got a surprise happy blakesday party that destroyed their HPG and wiped out their aerofighters but otherwise they survived and joined the Republic in 3081. With the Fall of the Republic, they were forced to surrender with their leader loaned as a liaison from the IlClan to the Jade Falcons; which is notable due to both factions historically and currently originating from, the Black Watch, elite SLDF units working as bodyguards for the First Lord of the Star League and nearly prevented the [[Amaris Civil War]].
* '''Snord's Irregulars''' - take Wolf's dragoons above, cut them down to a small unit, and give them the secret task of preserving historical artefacts. Originally recruited by a member of the Wolf’s Dragoons who “officially” fell out, they were actually a deep cover unit who were sent out to investigate rumors of hidden SLDF fortresses, automated factories, and weapon depots for the Dragoons to quietly acquire. Their kleptomaniac persona remained even after the Clan Invasion, all while listening to the author's favourite rock music.
* '''Kell Hounds''' - Stackpole's darlings. A usually two regiment outfit with close ties to the Lyran ruling family, the Kell hounds hit a low spot when their commander Morgan Kell faced THE samurai's samurai - Yorinaga Kurita. Unable to kill each other (due to Kell's... special abilities) both leaders quit warfare and joined monasteries. The mercenaries took this as a hard betrayal by their commander, slumping into their worst period. Years later, Yorinaga is recalled to service and winds up killing Patrick Kell, Morgan's brother, while trying to intercept the Lyran princess travelling to Federated suns to prepare for marriage to Hanse Davion. Yorinaga also trains up an elite Kurita equivalent to the Kell hounds - the Genyosha. This is enough to get Morgan to leave the monastery and gather the Hounds together. During the little drunken brawl following a certain wedding, the two units eventually faced each other again, with another drawn duel - Morgan tricks Yorinaga into shutdown from overheating. Yorinaga commits seppuku to preserve his honour, while the Kell hounds become one of the most renowned elite mercenary units of the IS. Years later, Morgan's son Phelan gets caught by mysterious enemies while hunting periphery pirates, and is our first close look at the alien Clans as he progresses from a captive to a warrior of the clans. Managing to climb right to the top when the Falcons and the Wolves go to war against each other over the whole Tukayyid affair, Phelan lead the Warden faction of Clan Wolf into the Inner sphere where they join up with the Kell Hounds and formed a major part of the defences against the Clan aggression as the Arc Royal Defence Cordon. Both later got decimated by an omnicidal Jade Falcon Khan during the Dark Age. Once the Jade Falcons scrambled the bulk of their military forces to Terra, the Kell Hounds were able to retake their homeworld when the Jade Falcon occupation zone and Lyran northernmost territories balkanized from the power vacuum. On the other hand, their commander has a big grudge against the Steiners for leaving them out to dry. While somehow, the Warden-Crusader division between the Wolf Exiles and the Wolf Empire got [[what|swept under the carpet]] despite separating the two for over a century.
* '''Gray Death Legion''' - the original mercenaries from the very first novels. Notably got embroiled in a ComStar plot to secretly dig up an old Star League facility, which the GDL managed to foil AND walked away from with a whole Star League memory core full of technical data. Uncharacteristically, for mercenaries, they didn't sell the core to the highest bidder but instead made sure the knowledge was spread around the Inner Sphere, starting a whole technological renaissance. Instead, they resumed mercenary activities and made a nice side business of manufacturing the first IS powered armor suits. While they are supposed to have been destroyed down the line by the Word of Blake, no one really buys the theory and recent lore suggests they've been reformed during the Lyran Commonwealth's civil strife during the Dark Age.

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

The Clans

2022-01-20T20:57:17Z

2607:FB90:6F49:D395:6C11:A9A4:1C0C:4355: /* Society */

{{Infobox 40k Nations
|name=
|image= [[Image:Clan Logo.png|250px|center]]
}}
{{Topquote|We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must re-mold them, and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

{{Topquote|Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the Capellan, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No! says the ComGuard, 'it belongs to humanity.' 'No!' says the Kuritan Coordinator, 'it belongs to me!' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... the Clan. A culture where the warrior would not suffer the bureaucrat. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the able would not be ruled by the incompetent. And by the sweat of your brow, the Clan can become your Clan as well.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

'''The Clans''' are a civilization in the [[Battletech]] Universe. Descended from a remnant of the [[Star League]] Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before [[Clan Invasion|returning back in 3049]] from the [[Deep Periphery]].

From an IRL perspective in a very human focused setting without intelligent extraterrestrials, the Clans were designed to be very alien without actually being Aliens. They're not based on any one historic civilization and have a more Science-Fictiony way of operating.
== History ==
In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting rebellions in the periphery, killing the young First Lord (along with the rest of the Cameron bloodline) and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war called the [[Amaris Civil War]] in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive the fall of House Cameron and fell apart shortly afterwards. In spite of internecine infighting within the Great Houses, all agreed to strip Aleksandr Kerensky of his authority while secretly seeking to subvert the SLDF's individual regiments as recruits for their planned wars to claim the Star League's throne. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2785 a fleet loaded with some six million SLDF troops, their families (including Aleksandr's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) and some folks with valuable skills left the inner sphere for greener pastures.

After a long voyage through the unknown they found some uninhabited worlds beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding to try to build a bastion of the Star League in Exile. For about 15 years, it seemed to work. Unfortunately some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms and soon enough there was a big and brutal shit fight in 2800. The closest equivalent to the [[Succession Wars]] in Clan space before the Wars of Reaving, they’d became known as the Pentagon Civil Wars. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died heartbroken, leaving everything in utter dissaray. In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty ("Land of the Dream" in Russian) along with a number of refugees brought in later. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans. In 2820 the Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing Clan culture onto the populations of these planets.

After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century, their population rapidly expanding and new worlds being colonized. Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatened by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League). Honestly, if they allowed caste mobility and injected some capitalism and used government-enforced stamps for extra luxury items as the carrot, a Clan conquest likely would have gone over pretty well all around. Unfortunately they're master race asshats who effectively enslave everyone who isn't a warrior ''(as opposed to the Inner Sphere, where you're a slave because you aren't rich or have the wrong last name)''.

== Society ==
{{topquote|Return to the Inner Sphere is impossible for us. Our heritage and our convictions are different from those we left behind. The greed of the five Great Houses and the Council Lords is a disease that can only be burned away by the passing of decades, even centuries. And though the fighting may seem to slow, or even cease, it will erupt again as long as there are powerful men to covet one another's wealth. We shall live apart, conserving all the good of the Star League and ridding ourselves of the bad, so that when we return — and return we shall — our shining moral character will be as much our shield as our BattleMechs and fighters.|Aleksandr Kerensky, General Order 137, December 5th, 2785. These words would be the Nucleus of the Hidden Hope Doctrine}}

An Important fact about the Clans is that they were born from repeat societal trauma. The Amaris Coup and Civil War, the Death of Star League and the Exodus, the Exodus Civil War and the Second Exodus; these were harrowing events to live through, but also were seen as total failure of the old order of things even if it had aspired to noble ideals and achieved greatness. As such, Nicholas Kerensky and his followers were convinced that for humanity to survive society needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nicky did work from his specific interpretation of his father's words and borrowed elements from a lot of different historic cultures, but the aim was to start clean.

[[File:Clan Spaniel.jpg|thumb|left|The Clans have produced fearsome genetically enhanced warriors, revolutionary BattleMechs and some darn fine cartoons (yes this is totally canon)]]
Even though there is a Grand Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society, but war is seldom total. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other. Yet, what made the Clan Homeworlds spared the Succession Wars level of violence that sent the Inner Sphere back to the stone age was the application of Zellbrigan and the Honor Road, which emphasized individual unit and warrior prowess while minimizing collateral damage. This includes codes for honorable surrender. On the downside, while material and technological matters were better preserved (if not improved upon with OmniMechs and Battle Armor), individual human lives weren’t seen as inherently valuable so concepts such as safety gear and personal healthcare were seen as things only worth providing to those who had more worthwhile skills. So while your typical Scientist, Merchant, and Technician castes has average lifespans, most Laborers and Warriors wound up dead in their 40-50’s due to combat or physical burn-out leaving them as “dead weight” if they can’t do anything useful. It’s bad enough that most elderly Warriors would rather die as disposable infantry sent in the first wave of an assault instead of starving in bed while infirm.

Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. The Economies of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors and more clanners to make and support more of those. Humans are mass produced as much as Mechs are in Clan Society. Motivated by the Clan Home-worlds being harsher and less abundant in resources, wastefulness is discouraged while recycling is the norm to the point of harvesting organs from the deceased is expected before the cremated ashes are used for crop nutrition. Meanwhile nonproductive activities such as entertainment or leisure were normally seen as incentives to get people working or in extreme cases outright banned. Hence, while stuff like competitive combat sports and athletics are encouraged, things like literature and theatre are treated as frivolous trivialities at best. Most observers note that outside of agriculture, healthcare (for combat injuries), STEM topics, heavy manufacturing, and military-industrial complexes, most non-military related tech and practices were literally frozen in the Star League era. Overall, "Everything for the Clan", "The Clan Provides" and "The Clan Knows Best" are the overarching attitudes.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

The Castes are as such...

* Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies (sibkos), but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. By far the smallest caste. They're three main flavors of Clan Warriors...
**[[Clan Elemental|Elementals]]: Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor.
**Pilots: Small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs like the T'au's Air Caste.
**Mech Warriors: The most regular warriors, but optimized with improved reflexes and increased neuro-helmet compatibility.
* Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. As the Clans have advanced technologically where the inner sphere has regressed, they've been largely successful. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters such as eugenics or technology.
* Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers, and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along. They work with the Warrior Caste directly more than most.
* Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark, since Diamond Shark Warriors can honorably retire to this caste with reservist status if the Clan requires more manpower.
* Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth. The largest caste, no less due to Battletech's universe using neo-feudalism.
* Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society in hiding. Makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors. They either survive as pirates, smugglers, or organized criminal syndicates that try to disguise themselves as guilds (which isn't hard as the Free Guilds do exist independently of each clan but are publicly regulated).

In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy where merit and competition determines your pecking order. For example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. And while each caste committee is technically subordinate to the Warrior exclusive Clan Council, the council mostly let the civilian castes do what they deem best unless it deals with the Clan’s existential matters or martial affairs. In terms of warriors, the inter-Clan’s competition is not only reflected in rising up the ranks from sib-cadet to Khan but a Desire to win a Bloodname through gaining honorable victory for their clan. Having a BloodName means they get a surname and their genes will be be guaranteed for use to produce the next batch of Warriors while they can participate in Clan Council. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.

Two other known divides between members within Clan society depends on their type of birth and their national origin. With the Clan scientist caste’s access to Iron Wombs and eugenic genecraft, Clansmen are classified as either Trueborn or Freeborn. The former are literal designer babies who are grown in an artificial amniotic womb while the latter are naturally born. Due to the Clans’ focus on breeding the best of their warriors for beneficial traits as quickly as possible, Trueborn are generally deemed superior. On the other hand, whether it's due to their superior training regimes or genes is up for debate. Likewise, there's a distinction between those born within a Clan and those who were absorbed as bondsmen captured from other Clans or factions. Their outcome depends on each Clan's attitude and the captured person's origins. Ideally, transplanted outsiders are either treated the same as native clansmen and promoted based on their merit, loyalty, and adaptability to Clan culture. Conversely, captured outsiders could also be subjugated to de-facto second class citizenship (whether as civilians or as warriors).

A big part of Clan Society, especially in the Warrior Caste, is tradition and ritual. On the whole they have a rather "meh" view of religion (partly due to their utilitarian mindset and a big portion of their population being designer babies), but it's role is largely filled by the Hidden Hope Doctrine and a cult of personality mixed with hero worship of the Clan’s original leaders. Aleksandr and Nicholas Kerensky are all but worshiped as "the Founders". Warriors must past through a variety of trials to achieve position and within the Clan's hierarchy. The Clans preserve and teach their history through the Remembrance, a long epic poem that summarizes each Clan’s glory. This too is another motivation for warriors to do their best in combat or competing to rise up the ranks and earn a Bloodname; the more they stand out positively, the more likely their genes will be added into the gene pool for scientists to add to the exo-wombs to spawn more sibkos and the more likely their name will be recorded in the Clan Remembrance with honor. Conversely, any disgrace a warrior commits risks anything from demotion at best to outright eliminating their entire Bloodname’s BloodHouse from the Clan’s records and genetic repository. In general they try to cultivate an air of mystery and impart subtle meanings into the various rituals. All of which are conceived to reinforce the ideals of The Clans and Clan identity into future generations on an emotional level. On the same note, Clanners tend to be very conformist with little tolerance for un-Clanlike Behavior at the best of times.

In particular in their mythologized view of history Star League was a bountiful paradise despoiled by the greed and spite by wicked petty power hungry leaders, especially the five Great House (in of itself this is not a bad interpretation of events). As such they view the people of the Inner Sphere having fallen into Barbarism. This is notable because it gives them a standard to define themselves against as well as prejudices their outlooks against others.

== Individual Clans ==
There are originally twenty clans formed by Nicholas Kerensky but over the course of the centuries, many were destroyed or absorbed into other factions. Besides the others mentioned on the Battletech page, the most relevant ones are the ones below.
[[Category: BattleTech]]
* '''[[Clan Wolf]]''': The first "Mary Sue" Clan, having the ilKhan along their ranks kinda marks you for that. Also known for fielding the Timber Wolf which plenty call a poster boy for the series. They actually won their objectives in the battle of Tukayyid. As of a recent novel, they're now ilClan with Jade Falcon as their bodyguard and Smoke Jaguar reconstituted as their special forces.
* '''[[Clan Jade Falcon]]''': The other "Mary Sue" Clan. Also the Purist Clan, since they are staunch traditionalists which stick with Nicky's vision as tightly as they can. When you think of honor-crazed warrior cultures that went full murder-hobo, you're thinking Jade Falcon. Were the asshats that invaded '''MY HOME PLANET''' in the animated series. They earned themselves a draw on Tukayyid at about the last minute.
* '''[[Clan Smoke Jaguar]]''': The Asshole Clan. Aggressive militarists who value only strength and treat their civilian castes like crap. They make Jade Falcon look nice as the green birb gets that rewarding loyal productivity gets you more of it. They earned getting smoked on Tukayyid, bidding away a vast majority of their forces to get the first deployment and only to have them repeatedly baited into ambush after ambush on Tukayyid by being the most aggressive Clan during the invasion, and ultimately demolished in the Second Star League's counterattack during the Trial of Refusal.
* '''[[Clan Diamond Shark|Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox]]''': The Money Clan. Once Clan Sea Fox until they saw a Diamond Shark devour a Sea Fox whole. Fitting that their fighting strength was almost wiped out in Tukayyid due to their inexperience in fighting a actual war as opposed to the dance and diddy that the Clans call a war. Currently going by Clan Sea Fox again, mostly run by merchants after their warrior caste was basically butchered to the last.
* '''Clan Ghost Bear''': The Practical Clan. Moderate fence sitters that actually attempt to do their homework on their foe? My God, it is like they have a brain... At any rate, Ghost Bear are unusual for the Clans in that they actually practice something akin to normal family structures, and were slow to adapt new tactics but moved in a steady pace for effect. The other Clan that got a draw on Tukayyid. They eventually shacked up with the [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhagues]] to make their own hybrid state.
* '''Clan Nova Cat''': The Mystic Clan. Brought in to help Clan Smoke Jaguar, they ended up joining the Inner Sphere instead. However, they got the shit beaten out of them first by the Ghost Bears and then by their Inner Sphere hosts, killing them off.
*'''Clan Steel Viper''': The smug clan. This clan had a rough start since their first Khan was a yandere (for real). They mostly isolated themselves and focused on making super-elite soldiers while dreaming about how they'd rule the Inner Sphere. This got them a spot as back-up for the Jade Falcons, but having super-elite infantry is not a replacement for actually good mechs, and they got kicked out of the Inner Sphere by the Falcons.
* '''Clan Coyote''': The Survivor Clan. Initially did fantastically for themselves as a noble practitioner group of Zellbringen as well as best buddies with Clan Wolf, as well as being the clan directly responsible for the development of OmniMech technology and their Khan was briefly IlKhan for a bit before a Snow Raven plot killed her. Since that point, they've largely been sent away from Clan Space after the Wars of Reaving, but still survive to this day, though far more ruthless in their aims.
* '''Clan Snow Raven''': The Sneaky Clan. Due to a series of major military disasters early on in their history, this clan has spent most of it's time playing realpolitik against itself and the rest of the Clans, preferring to stay out of open confrontation due to their lackluster forces. Have a lot of naval prowess due to their occasional need to hit the stellar bricks. Eventually shacked up with the Outworlds Alliance government to become the Raven Alliance.
* '''Clan Goliath Scorpion:''' The Stoner Clan with a twist of Indiana Jones treasure hunting. Have a deep preference for extremely precise strikes as opposed to brute forcing their way through things, while also requiring getting absolutely blasted on refined scorpion venom. Deep Warden feelings and an obsession with the past meant they basically kept themselves out of most clanner bullshit unless pressed. They also had a habit of trying to secure bloodlines or artifacts linked the the Star League and actually think they can find them with visions induced by said cocktail of narcotic scorpion venom. Eventually got into trouble for illegally adding bloodlines to their eugenics program from the [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|SLDF descended Eridani Light Horse]] and just fucked off to the [[Deep Periphery]] to go fight the conquer the Castilian Cluster and the Hanseatic League to start their own empire.
* '''Clan Hell's Horses:''' The Biker Clan, for as much as one can be a Biker in Battletech. Known primarily for their use of combat vehicles <s>rather than</s> alongside Mechs. Hells Horses has the distinction of being an extremely stable Clan, if not the most powerful, due to their personal belief that all within it, including the Freeborn, serve the [[greater good]] of the Clan. Eventually fucked off to the Inner Sphere, with a hardliner contingent remaining behind and becoming a different clan altogether.
* '''Clan Fire Mandrill''': The Horde Clan. Set up almost the exact opposite way as Hell's Horses, as it is organized in to dozens of mini-Clans called ''Kindraa'', who often fought amongst themselves just as much as they fought other Clans. Unsurprisingly, they got completely wrecked by the Wars of Reaving.
* '''[[Clan Wolverine]]''': The Not-Named Clan whom all the other Clans hate with a burning passion. Betrayed by the original founders of the Clans for being better at the Clan thing than Kerensky was. Survivors wondering who-knows-where, but the main Clan went out as balls-to-the-wall badasses.

== Clan Military ==
Each Clan has it's own military collectively called a Touman. They share some common practices and conventions laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, but within said boundaries each Clan is free to set up their forces more or less as they see fit, and usually each does according to their Clan's ouvre. Of course, what makes the Clans so dangerous regardless of their individual affiliation is their [[OmniMech]]s, which were often lightyears ahead in terms of modular design and technological strength of the Inner Sphere's BattleMechs. On top of that, their tendency of using jump-jet equipped power armored infantry piggybacking off of their OmniMechs enabled them to have swarms of MEQ’s either ripping vehicles or bunkers when BattletMech use would be deemed overkill.

But while they hold a technological edge, where the Clans falter greatly is in tactical strength. Most Clan warfare prior to the invasion was limited to the honor-bound, extremely skirmish-heavy battles fought between each other where both sides showed up, told each other what they'd be fighting with, and often fighting only in significant duels. All this was supplemented with a heavy emphasis on Mech warfare (or whatever hat the individual Clan wears), a massive culture-wide bias against intelligence gathering due to it being "dishonorable", and what the Zellbringen code allows; which meant they often plopped only the bare minimum of assets down to complete their missions as a personal dare to win with as little as possible. While in theory this is done to both minimize casualties and keep valuable resources alive and working for the Clan to use, the simple fact of the matter is Clanner warfare is continually hamstrung by itself; The Inner Sphere Successor States are under absolutely no delusions about war being an honorable thing, and were able to effectively fracture their entire society by daring to be cute with their own ideas of warfare, coming to one of the harshest wake-up calls they ever got in the Battle of Tukayyid, and any gains they took from the Inner Sphere from the initial invasion almost immediately began to crumble as their attitudes towards their new subjects ultimately plopped them into a series of guerilla wars, something utterly alien to them. Some Clans wised up and decided to try and learn something from this, others have yet to understand why things happened the way they did and returned to the Periphery.

The Clans tend to organize themselves depending on their culture, but generally speaking have their own military structure. Unlike the Inner Sphere which uses the traditional "chain of command", "grunt to general" approach, the Clans do not necessarily have an officer system by the traditional method. Every Warrior is considered roughly the same until you get to the Point Commander rank, at which point traditional methods kick back in, but even so the relationship is much less formal. Every part of the Clan Touman is organized into a "Base Five" system, which organizes everything into even groups of five.

The Clan Toumans are (typically) organized into:
* Point: 1 Mech, 2 Tanks, 5 Elementals or 25 Regular Infantry
* Star: 5 Points. Considered the "base" unit of Clan warfare. Most Stars are all of one combat role, as mixed Stars tend to do poorly.
* Binary: 2 Stars. The point at which Combined Arms becomes feasible.
* Trinary: 3 Stars
* Cluster: 3-5 Binaries
* Galaxy: 3-5 Clusters, plus an extra Trinary for Command. Generally a logistical designation because the process of Clan warfare bidding down typically ensures that Galaxies will only ever be deployed rarely.

===== Mechs =====

Due to the fact that they showed up out of nowhere unannounced besides a few Batchalls, Clan Battlemechs have both official names and Inner Sphere code names. The following "original sixteen" are the most common frontline OmniMechs used in the invasion, and found in most Clans' toumans:

* [[Timber Wolf|Timberwolf/Mad Cat]]: The Clanner's most famous mech. Actually quite a preposterously expensive thing, but the fact it can blast it's way through Assault Mechs makes it a favorite. It's Inner Sphere name comes from their targeting computers being incapable of deciding whether or not it's a ''Marauder'' or a ''Catapult'', and so flashed MAD CAT over and over whenever it showed up. Developed(and produced exclusively) by Clan Wolf, though most other Clans acquired them by trade or salvage during the century leading up to the invasion.
* Mad Dog/Vulture: The Clan's OTHER most famous mech. Basically the Timberwolf's leaner, scrappy little brother, resembling the Inner Sphere's Archer. Follows the same basic concept of shoulder mounted missiles and arm mounted energy guns, but has a little more pod space in exchange for a lighter chassis and armor. Can hot-swap the LRMs for an absurd number of SRMs, [[What|or its entire loadout for a pair of Gauss Rifles]]. First built by Clan Smoke Jaguar but most popular with the Ghost Bears.
* Summoner/Thor: The Summoner fills the unusual role of being a heavy mech that sacrifices weaponry for mobility, generally giving up redundancy in its weapons in order to carry jump jets and maintain a flexible loadout with less capacity. The result is a mech that's pretty good at moving in fast and bullying things smaller than itself, but doesn't want to tangle with assault class stuff unless it has weight of numbers; not because it doesn't have the armor (see the Hellbringer and Executioner) but because it doesn't bring [[dakka|enough guns]]. Resembles the Inner Sphere's Thunderbolt. The favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
* Hellbringer/Loki: A glass cannon, carrying a versatile array of weaponry at the cost of having laughably weak armor for a heavy mech. Its primary configuration resembles the Inner Sphere's Warhammer, with twin ER PPCs in the arms mated to a targeting computer, backup lasers and anti-infantry weapons. The other favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.

* Dire Wolf/Daishi: The last word in mech-to-mech encounters. Where the Summoner is happy being a schoolyard bully and the Hellbringer is minmaxxed for DPS, the Dire Wolf is just one huge chungus that simply does not care what the enemy brought. 100 tons, unapologetically slow, with an absurd amount of firepower and armor, this is the ultimate assault mech. Barring a lucky headshot this mech will outlast and crush anything you throw its way; underestimate it at your own peril. This is the mech every Mechwarrior dreams of piloting, and many important figures(Natasha Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita) design their own(even stronger) custom variants. This design was fought over between Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar and also produced secretly on Outreach by Wolf's Dragoons.
* Executioner/Gladiator: A strange take on the concept of an Assault Mech. At 95 tons it can mount a lot of equipment, but focuses on mobility through jump jets and MASC. As the downside to this, it has anemic side torso armor, meaning it gets cut in half whenever faced with any real attrition. But as an upside, its speed and good leg armor make it a great Elemental transport, and carrying Elementals can help guard its side torsos... sadly most of its configurations have long range weapons while Elementals need to be brought in close. The stereotypical Ghost Bear omnimech.
* Warhawk/Masakari: Pure evil, bringing this to a friendly game will turn some heads. Heavily armored, average speed, the classic Warhawk carries [[Rape|FOUR CLAN ER PPCS]] in its arms, mercilessly vaporizing limbs and heads of anyone unfortunate to be caught in its sights. If that isn't enough, every variant carries a massive Targeting Computer, essentially giving the pilot an aimbot. A common variant swaps two ER PPCs for Large Pulse Lasers, allowing it to better manage its heat while firing with even greater accuracy. One of Clan Smoke Jaguar's signature designs.
* Gargoyle/Man o'War: The infamous SpurdoMech is somewhat of an unusual design, an assault mech that moves above its weight class but has (relatively) weak leg armor. Its Prime also has the misfortune of having ballistic weapons yet too many heat sinks, its twin LB5X autocannons forcing it squarely into an anti-vehicle role. Its lack of torso weapons and its speed make it a good Elemental transport and Clan Wolf builds them in large numbers: however overall it is weaker than the lighter Timber Wolf(unless mech quirks are in play). Also somewhat popular with Clan Ghost Bear.(apparently the weird configuration works well under specialized Clan duel rules)

* Stormcrow/Ryoken: The close combat star of the clan mediums, usually packing fists and lasers although sometimes fitted for long range. At 97 km/h it's faster than everything it can't take down. Doesn't get much time in the spotlight compared to its slower, heavier cousin the Mad Dog, but it comes from the same family of flexible second-gen omnimechs. A workhorse design for many Clans but most popular with the Smoke Jaguars.
* Nova/Black Hawk: One of the oldest OmniMech designs still in use, the Nova is uncommon yet universal among the Clans as a medium mech that can (briefly) throw dakka like mechs 20 tons heavier than itself. Infamous for running HOT with TWELVE ER Medium Lasers, the king of alpha strikes. Also has a PPC sniper variant which is quite good, and a couple configurations that try to pack ballistic weapons and missiles despite the fixed heat sinks.
* Ice Ferret/Fenris: A swift yet well armored scout that can do some sniping to boot. Originally built as a harasser to counter the Timber Wolf, Clan Wolf liked it enough to capture a factory and started producing it themselves. Now is a ubiquitous sight in their touman.
* Viper/Dragonfly: A fast jumper, often described(incorrectly) as lacking punch. [[Cheese|Known for being one of the first mechs to combine jumping 8 hexes(extremely hard to be hit) with pulse lasers(extremely easy to hit the enemy).]] A great Elemental transport and infantry killer popular with the Ghost Bears and Wolves.

* Adder/Puma: The largest of the Clans' ubiquitous light omnimechs is a bit of an oddity. While not particularly fast for a light mech, it carries a pair of ER PPCs with a targeting computer, making it a true sniper. As an omnimech, it can switch to being a gnarly missile boat in an hour or two. Most often found among Clan Wolf(though the Fenris fits the scout role of a light mech better).
* Kit Fox/Uller: Similar to the Adder in most respects, though lighter armored, the Kit Fox tends to carry a more balanced assortment of weapons in its variants, rather than boating one thing in particular. Except for the EW/anti-infantry variant, which happens to have a whopping three anti-missile systems. Recently canonized as having a dedicated Arrow IV variant(read: a guided, auto-loading cruise missile launcher), meaning it can be equipped with [[Exterminatus|nuclear weapons]]. Unsurprising, given that it is produced by Clan Jade Falcon.
* Mist Lynx/Koshi: A 25 ton dedicated scout omnimech packing more weapons than its Inner Sphere equivalents, but nothing special as far as Clan mechs go. [[Derp|Infamous for having one less jump jet than needed to be truly evasive, putting nearly half its torso armor on its rear facing, while fully armoring the head]]. Used by Clan Smoke Jaguar in the rare OOC instance that they attempt reconnaissance.
* Fire Moth/Dasher: [[Meme|GOTTA GO FAST]]. A derpy little machine with arms that stretch high above its head, and speed that far exceeds anything the Inner Sphere thought a battlemech could be capable of. It still manages to have more guns than Inner Sphere mechs twice its size, too- Clan tech is just that powerful. Surprisingly the light mech of choice for Clan Ghost Bear, which actually makes a lot of sense: the Clan that prefers Elementals and plays American Football loves a mech that runs up and flings the battle armor overhand at the enemy.

== External Links ==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDR_Zpb05uk Part One of Tex's series on Clan History]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B165wbTnHs Part Two of Tex's series on Clan History]

{{Battletech Factions}}

The Clans

2022-01-20T20:54:40Z

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{{Infobox 40k Nations
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|image= [[Image:Clan Logo.png|250px|center]]
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{{Topquote|We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must re-mold them, and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

{{Topquote|Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the Capellan, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No! says the ComGuard, 'it belongs to humanity.' 'No!' says the Kuritan Coordinator, 'it belongs to me!' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... the Clan. A culture where the warrior would not suffer the bureaucrat. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the able would not be ruled by the incompetent. And by the sweat of your brow, the Clan can become your Clan as well.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

'''The Clans''' are a civilization in the [[Battletech]] Universe. Descended from a remnant of the [[Star League]] Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before [[Clan Invasion|returning back in 3049]] from the [[Deep Periphery]].

From an IRL perspective in a very human focused setting without intelligent extraterrestrials, the Clans were designed to be very alien without actually being Aliens. They're not based on any one historic civilization and have a more Science-Fictiony way of operating.
== History ==
In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting rebellions in the periphery, killing the young First Lord (along with the rest of the Cameron bloodline) and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war called the [[Amaris Civil War]] in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive the fall of House Cameron and fell apart shortly afterwards. In spite of internecine infighting within the Great Houses, all agreed to strip Aleksandr Kerensky of his authority while secretly seeking to subvert the SLDF's individual regiments as recruits for their planned wars to claim the Star League's throne. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2785 a fleet loaded with some six million SLDF troops, their families (including Aleksandr's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) and some folks with valuable skills left the inner sphere for greener pastures.

After a long voyage through the unknown they found some uninhabited worlds beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding to try to build a bastion of the Star League in Exile. For about 15 years, it seemed to work. Unfortunately some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms and soon enough there was a big and brutal shit fight in 2800. The closest equivalent to the [[Succession Wars]] in Clan space before the Wars of Reaving, they’d became known as the Pentagon Civil Wars. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died heartbroken, leaving everything in utter dissaray. In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty ("Land of the Dream" in Russian) along with a number of refugees brought in later. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans. In 2820 the Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing Clan culture onto the populations of these planets.

After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century, their population rapidly expanding and new worlds being colonized. Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatened by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League). Honestly, if they allowed caste mobility and injected some capitalism and used government-enforced stamps for extra luxury items as the carrot, a Clan conquest likely would have gone over pretty well all around. Unfortunately they're master race asshats who effectively enslave everyone who isn't a warrior ''(as opposed to the Inner Sphere, where you're a slave because you aren't rich or have the wrong last name)''.

== Society ==
{{topquote|Return to the Inner Sphere is impossible for us. Our heritage and our convictions are different from those we left behind. The greed of the five Great Houses and the Council Lords is a disease that can only be burned away by the passing of decades, even centuries. And though the fighting may seem to slow, or even cease, it will erupt again as long as there are powerful men to covet one another's wealth. We shall live apart, conserving all the good of the Star League and ridding ourselves of the bad, so that when we return — and return we shall — our shining moral character will be as much our shield as our BattleMechs and fighters.|Aleksandr Kerensky, General Order 137, December 5th, 2785. These words would be the Nucleus of the Hidden Hope Doctrine}}

An Important fact about the Clans is that they were born from repeat societal trauma. The Amaris Coup and Civil War, the Death of Star League and the Exodus, the Exodus Civil War and the Second Exodus; these were harrowing events to live through, but also were seen as total failure of the old order of things even if it had aspired to noble ideals and achieved greatness. As such, Nicholas Kerensky and his followers were convinced that for humanity to survive society needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nicky did work from his specific interpretation of his father's words and borrowed elements from a lot of different historic cultures, but the aim was to start clean.

[[File:Clan Spaniel.jpg|thumb|left|The Clans have produced fearsome genetically enhanced warriors, revolutionary BattleMechs and some darn fine cartoons (yes this is totally canon)]]
Even though there is a Grand Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society, but war is seldom total. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other. Yet, what made the Clan Homeworlds spared the Succession Wars level of violence that sent the Inner Sphere back to the stone age was the application of Zellbrigan and the Honor Road, which emphasized individual unit and warrior prowess while minimizing collateral damage. This includes codes for honorable surrender. On the downside, while material and technological matters were better preserved (if not improved upon with OmniMechs and Battle Armor), individual human lives weren’t seen as inherently valuable so concepts such as safety gear and personal healthcare were seen as things only worth providing to those who had more worthwhile skills. So while your typical Scientist, Merchant, and Technician castes has average lifespans, most Laborers and Warriors wound up dead in their 40-50’s due to combat or physical burn-out leaving them as “dead weight” if they can’t do anything useful. It’s bad enough that most elderly Warriors would rather die as disposable infantry sent in the first wave of an assault instead of starving in bed while infirm.

Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. The Economies of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors and more clanners to make and support more of those. Humans are mass produced as much as Mechs are in Clan Society. Motivated by the Clan Home-worlds being harsher and less abundant in resources, wastefulness is discouraged while recycling is the norm to the point of harvesting organs from the deceased is expected before the cremated ashes are used for crop nutrition. Meanwhile nonproductive activities such as entertainment or leisure were normally seen as incentives to get people working or in extreme cases outright banned. Hence, while stuff like competitive combat sports and athletics are encouraged, things like literature and theatre are treated as frivolous trivialities at best. Most observers note that outside of agriculture, healthcare (for combat injuries), STEM topics, heavy manufacturing, and military-industrial complexes, most non-military related tech and practices were literally frozen in the Star League era. Overall, "Everything for the Clan", "The Clan Provides" and "The Clan Knows Best" are the overarching attitudes.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

The Castes are as such...

* Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies (sibkos), but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. By far the smallest caste. They're three main flavors of Clan Warriors...
**[[Clan Elemental|Elementals]]: Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor.
**Pilots: Small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs like the T'au's Air Caste.
**Mech Warriors: The most regular warriors, but optimized with improved reflexes and increased neuro-helmet compatibility.
* Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. As the Clans have advanced technologically where the inner sphere has regressed, they've been largely successful. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters such as eugenics or technology.
* Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers, and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along. They work with the Warrior Caste directly more than most.
* Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark, since Diamond Shark Warriors can honorably retire to this caste with reservist status if the Clan requires more manpower.
* Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth. The largest caste, no less due to Battletech's universe using neo-feudalism.
* Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society in hiding. Makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors. They either survive as pirates, smugglers, or organized criminal syndicates that try to disguise themselves as guilds (which isn't hard as the Free Guilds do exist independently of each clan but are publicly regulated).

In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy where merit and competition determines your pecking order. For example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. And while each caste committee is technically subordinate to the Warrior exclusive Clan Council, the council mostly let the civilian castes do what they deem best unless it deals with the Clan’s existential matters or martial affairs. In terms of warriors, the inter-Clan’s competition is not only reflected in rising up the ranks from sib-cadet to Khan but a Desire to win a Bloodname through gaining honorable victory for their clan. Having a bloodname means they get a surname and their genes will be be guaranteed to be used to produce the next batch of Warriors while they can participate in Clan Council. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.

Two other known divides between members within Clan society depends on their type of birth and their national origin. With the Clan scientist caste’s access to Iron Wombs and eugenic genetic engineering, Clansmen are classified as either Trueborn or Freeborn. The former are literal designer babies who are grown in an artificial amniotic womb while the latter are naturally born. Due to the Clans’ focus on breeding the best of their warriors for beneficial traits as quickly as possible, Trueborn are generally deemed superior. On the other hand, whether it's due to their superior training regimes or genes is up for debate. Likewise, there's a distinction between those born within a Clan and those who were absorbed as bondsmen captured from other Clans or factions. Their outcome depends on each Clan's attitude and the captured person's origins Ideally, transplanted outsiders are either treated the same as native clansmen and promoted based on their merit, loyalty, and adaptability to Clan culture. Conversely, captured outsider are subjugated to de-facto second class citizenship (whether as civilians or as warriors).

A big part of Clan Society, especially in the Warrior Caste, is tradition and ritual. On the whole they have a rather "meh" view of religion (partly due to their utilitarian mindset and a big portion of their population being designer babies), but it's role is largely filled by the Hidden Hope Doctrine and a cult of personality mixed with hero worship of the Clan’s original leaders. Aleksandr and Nicholas Kerensky are all but worshiped as "the Founders". Warriors must past through a variety of trials to achieve position and within the Clan's hierarchy. The Clans preserve and teach their history through the Remembrance, a long epic poem that summarizes each Clan’s glory. This too is another motivation for warriors to do their best in combat or competing to rise up the ranks and earn a Bloodname; the more they stand out positively, the more likely their genes will be added into the gene pool for scientists to add to the exo-wombs to spawn more sibkos and the more likely their name will be recorded in the Clan Remembrance with honor. Conversely, any disgrace a warrior commits risks anything from demotion at best to outright eliminating their entire Bloodname’s BloodHouse from the Clan’s records and genetic repository. In general they try to cultivate an air of mystery and impart subtle meanings into the various rituals. All of which are conceived to reinforce the ideals of The Clans and Clan identity into future generations on an emotional level. On the same note, Clanners tend to be very conformist with little tolerance for un-Clanlike Behavior at the best of times.

In particular in their mythologized view of history Star League was a bountiful paradise despoiled by the greed and spite by wicked petty power hungry leaders, especially the five Great House (in of itself this is not a bad interpretation of events). As such they view the people of the Inner Sphere having fallen into Barbarism. This is notable because it gives them a standard to define themselves against as well as prejudices their outlooks against others.

== Individual Clans ==
There are originally twenty clans formed by Nicholas Kerensky but over the course of the centuries, many were destroyed or absorbed into other factions. Besides the others mentioned on the Battletech page, the most relevant ones are the ones below.
[[Category: BattleTech]]
* '''[[Clan Wolf]]''': The first "Mary Sue" Clan, having the ilKhan along their ranks kinda marks you for that. Also known for fielding the Timber Wolf which plenty call a poster boy for the series. They actually won their objectives in the battle of Tukayyid. As of a recent novel, they're now ilClan with Jade Falcon as their bodyguard and Smoke Jaguar reconstituted as their special forces.
* '''[[Clan Jade Falcon]]''': The other "Mary Sue" Clan. Also the Purist Clan, since they are staunch traditionalists which stick with Nicky's vision as tightly as they can. When you think of honor-crazed warrior cultures that went full murder-hobo, you're thinking Jade Falcon. Were the asshats that invaded '''MY HOME PLANET''' in the animated series. They earned themselves a draw on Tukayyid at about the last minute.
* '''[[Clan Smoke Jaguar]]''': The Asshole Clan. Aggressive militarists who value only strength and treat their civilian castes like crap. They make Jade Falcon look nice as the green birb gets that rewarding loyal productivity gets you more of it. They earned getting smoked on Tukayyid, bidding away a vast majority of their forces to get the first deployment and only to have them repeatedly baited into ambush after ambush on Tukayyid by being the most aggressive Clan during the invasion, and ultimately demolished in the Second Star League's counterattack during the Trial of Refusal.
* '''[[Clan Diamond Shark|Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox]]''': The Money Clan. Once Clan Sea Fox until they saw a Diamond Shark devour a Sea Fox whole. Fitting that their fighting strength was almost wiped out in Tukayyid due to their inexperience in fighting a actual war as opposed to the dance and diddy that the Clans call a war. Currently going by Clan Sea Fox again, mostly run by merchants after their warrior caste was basically butchered to the last.
* '''Clan Ghost Bear''': The Practical Clan. Moderate fence sitters that actually attempt to do their homework on their foe? My God, it is like they have a brain... At any rate, Ghost Bear are unusual for the Clans in that they actually practice something akin to normal family structures, and were slow to adapt new tactics but moved in a steady pace for effect. The other Clan that got a draw on Tukayyid. They eventually shacked up with the [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhagues]] to make their own hybrid state.
* '''Clan Nova Cat''': The Mystic Clan. Brought in to help Clan Smoke Jaguar, they ended up joining the Inner Sphere instead. However, they got the shit beaten out of them first by the Ghost Bears and then by their Inner Sphere hosts, killing them off.
*'''Clan Steel Viper''': The smug clan. This clan had a rough start since their first Khan was a yandere (for real). They mostly isolated themselves and focused on making super-elite soldiers while dreaming about how they'd rule the Inner Sphere. This got them a spot as back-up for the Jade Falcons, but having super-elite infantry is not a replacement for actually good mechs, and they got kicked out of the Inner Sphere by the Falcons.
* '''Clan Coyote''': The Survivor Clan. Initially did fantastically for themselves as a noble practitioner group of Zellbringen as well as best buddies with Clan Wolf, as well as being the clan directly responsible for the development of OmniMech technology and their Khan was briefly IlKhan for a bit before a Snow Raven plot killed her. Since that point, they've largely been sent away from Clan Space after the Wars of Reaving, but still survive to this day, though far more ruthless in their aims.
* '''Clan Snow Raven''': The Sneaky Clan. Due to a series of major military disasters early on in their history, this clan has spent most of it's time playing realpolitik against itself and the rest of the Clans, preferring to stay out of open confrontation due to their lackluster forces. Have a lot of naval prowess due to their occasional need to hit the stellar bricks. Eventually shacked up with the Outworlds Alliance government to become the Raven Alliance.
* '''Clan Goliath Scorpion:''' The Stoner Clan with a twist of Indiana Jones treasure hunting. Have a deep preference for extremely precise strikes as opposed to brute forcing their way through things, while also requiring getting absolutely blasted on refined scorpion venom. Deep Warden feelings and an obsession with the past meant they basically kept themselves out of most clanner bullshit unless pressed. They also had a habit of trying to secure bloodlines or artifacts linked the the Star League and actually think they can find them with visions induced by said cocktail of narcotic scorpion venom. Eventually got into trouble for illegally adding bloodlines to their eugenics program from the [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|SLDF descended Eridani Light Horse]] and just fucked off to the [[Deep Periphery]] to go fight the conquer the Castilian Cluster and the Hanseatic League to start their own empire.
* '''Clan Hell's Horses:''' The Biker Clan, for as much as one can be a Biker in Battletech. Known primarily for their use of combat vehicles <s>rather than</s> alongside Mechs. Hells Horses has the distinction of being an extremely stable Clan, if not the most powerful, due to their personal belief that all within it, including the Freeborn, serve the [[greater good]] of the Clan. Eventually fucked off to the Inner Sphere, with a hardliner contingent remaining behind and becoming a different clan altogether.
* '''Clan Fire Mandrill''': The Horde Clan. Set up almost the exact opposite way as Hell's Horses, as it is organized in to dozens of mini-Clans called ''Kindraa'', who often fought amongst themselves just as much as they fought other Clans. Unsurprisingly, they got completely wrecked by the Wars of Reaving.
* '''[[Clan Wolverine]]''': The Not-Named Clan whom all the other Clans hate with a burning passion. Betrayed by the original founders of the Clans for being better at the Clan thing than Kerensky was. Survivors wondering who-knows-where, but the main Clan went out as balls-to-the-wall badasses.

== Clan Military ==
Each Clan has it's own military collectively called a Touman. They share some common practices and conventions laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, but within said boundaries each Clan is free to set up their forces more or less as they see fit, and usually each does according to their Clan's ouvre. Of course, what makes the Clans so dangerous regardless of their individual affiliation is their [[OmniMech]]s, which were often lightyears ahead in terms of modular design and technological strength of the Inner Sphere's BattleMechs. On top of that, their tendency of using jump-jet equipped power armored infantry piggybacking off of their OmniMechs enabled them to have swarms of MEQ’s either ripping vehicles or bunkers when BattletMech use would be deemed overkill.

But while they hold a technological edge, where the Clans falter greatly is in tactical strength. Most Clan warfare prior to the invasion was limited to the honor-bound, extremely skirmish-heavy battles fought between each other where both sides showed up, told each other what they'd be fighting with, and often fighting only in significant duels. All this was supplemented with a heavy emphasis on Mech warfare (or whatever hat the individual Clan wears), a massive culture-wide bias against intelligence gathering due to it being "dishonorable", and what the Zellbringen code allows; which meant they often plopped only the bare minimum of assets down to complete their missions as a personal dare to win with as little as possible. While in theory this is done to both minimize casualties and keep valuable resources alive and working for the Clan to use, the simple fact of the matter is Clanner warfare is continually hamstrung by itself; The Inner Sphere Successor States are under absolutely no delusions about war being an honorable thing, and were able to effectively fracture their entire society by daring to be cute with their own ideas of warfare, coming to one of the harshest wake-up calls they ever got in the Battle of Tukayyid, and any gains they took from the Inner Sphere from the initial invasion almost immediately began to crumble as their attitudes towards their new subjects ultimately plopped them into a series of guerilla wars, something utterly alien to them. Some Clans wised up and decided to try and learn something from this, others have yet to understand why things happened the way they did and returned to the Periphery.

The Clans tend to organize themselves depending on their culture, but generally speaking have their own military structure. Unlike the Inner Sphere which uses the traditional "chain of command", "grunt to general" approach, the Clans do not necessarily have an officer system by the traditional method. Every Warrior is considered roughly the same until you get to the Point Commander rank, at which point traditional methods kick back in, but even so the relationship is much less formal. Every part of the Clan Touman is organized into a "Base Five" system, which organizes everything into even groups of five.

The Clan Toumans are (typically) organized into:
* Point: 1 Mech, 2 Tanks, 5 Elementals or 25 Regular Infantry
* Star: 5 Points. Considered the "base" unit of Clan warfare. Most Stars are all of one combat role, as mixed Stars tend to do poorly.
* Binary: 2 Stars. The point at which Combined Arms becomes feasible.
* Trinary: 3 Stars
* Cluster: 3-5 Binaries
* Galaxy: 3-5 Clusters, plus an extra Trinary for Command. Generally a logistical designation because the process of Clan warfare bidding down typically ensures that Galaxies will only ever be deployed rarely.

===== Mechs =====

Due to the fact that they showed up out of nowhere unannounced besides a few Batchalls, Clan Battlemechs have both official names and Inner Sphere code names. The following "original sixteen" are the most common frontline OmniMechs used in the invasion, and found in most Clans' toumans:

* [[Timber Wolf|Timberwolf/Mad Cat]]: The Clanner's most famous mech. Actually quite a preposterously expensive thing, but the fact it can blast it's way through Assault Mechs makes it a favorite. It's Inner Sphere name comes from their targeting computers being incapable of deciding whether or not it's a ''Marauder'' or a ''Catapult'', and so flashed MAD CAT over and over whenever it showed up. Developed(and produced exclusively) by Clan Wolf, though most other Clans acquired them by trade or salvage during the century leading up to the invasion.
* Mad Dog/Vulture: The Clan's OTHER most famous mech. Basically the Timberwolf's leaner, scrappy little brother, resembling the Inner Sphere's Archer. Follows the same basic concept of shoulder mounted missiles and arm mounted energy guns, but has a little more pod space in exchange for a lighter chassis and armor. Can hot-swap the LRMs for an absurd number of SRMs, [[What|or its entire loadout for a pair of Gauss Rifles]]. First built by Clan Smoke Jaguar but most popular with the Ghost Bears.
* Summoner/Thor: The Summoner fills the unusual role of being a heavy mech that sacrifices weaponry for mobility, generally giving up redundancy in its weapons in order to carry jump jets and maintain a flexible loadout with less capacity. The result is a mech that's pretty good at moving in fast and bullying things smaller than itself, but doesn't want to tangle with assault class stuff unless it has weight of numbers; not because it doesn't have the armor (see the Hellbringer and Executioner) but because it doesn't bring [[dakka|enough guns]]. Resembles the Inner Sphere's Thunderbolt. The favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
* Hellbringer/Loki: A glass cannon, carrying a versatile array of weaponry at the cost of having laughably weak armor for a heavy mech. Its primary configuration resembles the Inner Sphere's Warhammer, with twin ER PPCs in the arms mated to a targeting computer, backup lasers and anti-infantry weapons. The other favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.

* Dire Wolf/Daishi: The last word in mech-to-mech encounters. Where the Summoner is happy being a schoolyard bully and the Hellbringer is minmaxxed for DPS, the Dire Wolf is just one huge chungus that simply does not care what the enemy brought. 100 tons, unapologetically slow, with an absurd amount of firepower and armor, this is the ultimate assault mech. Barring a lucky headshot this mech will outlast and crush anything you throw its way; underestimate it at your own peril. This is the mech every Mechwarrior dreams of piloting, and many important figures(Natasha Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita) design their own(even stronger) custom variants. This design was fought over between Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar and also produced secretly on Outreach by Wolf's Dragoons.
* Executioner/Gladiator: A strange take on the concept of an Assault Mech. At 95 tons it can mount a lot of equipment, but focuses on mobility through jump jets and MASC. As the downside to this, it has anemic side torso armor, meaning it gets cut in half whenever faced with any real attrition. But as an upside, its speed and good leg armor make it a great Elemental transport, and carrying Elementals can help guard its side torsos... sadly most of its configurations have long range weapons while Elementals need to be brought in close. The stereotypical Ghost Bear omnimech.
* Warhawk/Masakari: Pure evil, bringing this to a friendly game will turn some heads. Heavily armored, average speed, the classic Warhawk carries [[Rape|FOUR CLAN ER PPCS]] in its arms, mercilessly vaporizing limbs and heads of anyone unfortunate to be caught in its sights. If that isn't enough, every variant carries a massive Targeting Computer, essentially giving the pilot an aimbot. A common variant swaps two ER PPCs for Large Pulse Lasers, allowing it to better manage its heat while firing with even greater accuracy. One of Clan Smoke Jaguar's signature designs.
* Gargoyle/Man o'War: The infamous SpurdoMech is somewhat of an unusual design, an assault mech that moves above its weight class but has (relatively) weak leg armor. Its Prime also has the misfortune of having ballistic weapons yet too many heat sinks, its twin LB5X autocannons forcing it squarely into an anti-vehicle role. Its lack of torso weapons and its speed make it a good Elemental transport and Clan Wolf builds them in large numbers: however overall it is weaker than the lighter Timber Wolf(unless mech quirks are in play). Also somewhat popular with Clan Ghost Bear.(apparently the weird configuration works well under specialized Clan duel rules)

* Stormcrow/Ryoken: The close combat star of the clan mediums, usually packing fists and lasers although sometimes fitted for long range. At 97 km/h it's faster than everything it can't take down. Doesn't get much time in the spotlight compared to its slower, heavier cousin the Mad Dog, but it comes from the same family of flexible second-gen omnimechs. A workhorse design for many Clans but most popular with the Smoke Jaguars.
* Nova/Black Hawk: One of the oldest OmniMech designs still in use, the Nova is uncommon yet universal among the Clans as a medium mech that can (briefly) throw dakka like mechs 20 tons heavier than itself. Infamous for running HOT with TWELVE ER Medium Lasers, the king of alpha strikes. Also has a PPC sniper variant which is quite good, and a couple configurations that try to pack ballistic weapons and missiles despite the fixed heat sinks.
* Ice Ferret/Fenris: A swift yet well armored scout that can do some sniping to boot. Originally built as a harasser to counter the Timber Wolf, Clan Wolf liked it enough to capture a factory and started producing it themselves. Now is a ubiquitous sight in their touman.
* Viper/Dragonfly: A fast jumper, often described(incorrectly) as lacking punch. [[Cheese|Known for being one of the first mechs to combine jumping 8 hexes(extremely hard to be hit) with pulse lasers(extremely easy to hit the enemy).]] A great Elemental transport and infantry killer popular with the Ghost Bears and Wolves.

* Adder/Puma: The largest of the Clans' ubiquitous light omnimechs is a bit of an oddity. While not particularly fast for a light mech, it carries a pair of ER PPCs with a targeting computer, making it a true sniper. As an omnimech, it can switch to being a gnarly missile boat in an hour or two. Most often found among Clan Wolf(though the Fenris fits the scout role of a light mech better).
* Kit Fox/Uller: Similar to the Adder in most respects, though lighter armored, the Kit Fox tends to carry a more balanced assortment of weapons in its variants, rather than boating one thing in particular. Except for the EW/anti-infantry variant, which happens to have a whopping three anti-missile systems. Recently canonized as having a dedicated Arrow IV variant(read: a guided, auto-loading cruise missile launcher), meaning it can be equipped with [[Exterminatus|nuclear weapons]]. Unsurprising, given that it is produced by Clan Jade Falcon.
* Mist Lynx/Koshi: A 25 ton dedicated scout omnimech packing more weapons than its Inner Sphere equivalents, but nothing special as far as Clan mechs go. [[Derp|Infamous for having one less jump jet than needed to be truly evasive, putting nearly half its torso armor on its rear facing, while fully armoring the head]]. Used by Clan Smoke Jaguar in the rare OOC instance that they attempt reconnaissance.
* Fire Moth/Dasher: [[Meme|GOTTA GO FAST]]. A derpy little machine with arms that stretch high above its head, and speed that far exceeds anything the Inner Sphere thought a battlemech could be capable of. It still manages to have more guns than Inner Sphere mechs twice its size, too- Clan tech is just that powerful. Surprisingly the light mech of choice for Clan Ghost Bear, which actually makes a lot of sense: the Clan that prefers Elementals and plays American Football loves a mech that runs up and flings the battle armor overhand at the enemy.

== External Links ==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDR_Zpb05uk Part One of Tex's series on Clan History]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B165wbTnHs Part Two of Tex's series on Clan History]

{{Battletech Factions}}

The Clans

2022-01-20T20:51:12Z

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{{Infobox 40k Nations
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{{Topquote|We will purge our old ideals and ethics; those belong to the corrupt stars of the Inner Sphere, and will not serve as we begin anew. Now, while our minds are open and yearning for new insight, we must re-mold them, and fill them with the truth of our destiny. For we are destined not only to be different from those we left behind, but also better. My father knew this, and saved us from the holocaust of the Inner Sphere. I accept it as truth, and have returned to lead you, the survivors of this most bitter trial.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

{{Topquote|Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the Capellan, 'it belongs to the poor.' 'No! says the ComGuard, 'it belongs to humanity.' 'No!' says the Kuritan Coordinator, 'it belongs to me!' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... the Clan. A culture where the warrior would not suffer the bureaucrat. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the able would not be ruled by the incompetent. And by the sweat of your brow, the Clan can become your Clan as well.|Nicholas Kerensky}}

'''The Clans''' are a civilization in the [[Battletech]] Universe. Descended from a remnant of the [[Star League]] Defense Force which fled from the Inner Sphere when the shit hit the fan and spend the next two and a half centuries developing on their own course before [[Clan Invasion|returning back in 3049]] from the [[Deep Periphery]].

From an IRL perspective in a very human focused setting without intelligent extraterrestrials, the Clans were designed to be very alien without actually being Aliens. They're not based on any one historic civilization and have a more Science-Fictiony way of operating.
== History ==
In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'état while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting rebellions in the periphery, killing the young First Lord (along with the rest of the Cameron bloodline) and seizing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a fourteen year long civil war called the [[Amaris Civil War]] in which the SLDF under the command of Aleksandr Kerensky dismantled his support base and moved to liberate the Terran Hegemony in spite of being cut off from resupply and limited support by the Five Great Houses. But while he did succeed in toppling Amaris' Asshole Regime, the Star League did not survive the fall of House Cameron and fell apart shortly afterwards. In spite of internecine infighting within the Great Houses, all agreed to strip Aleksandr Kerensky of his authority while secretly seeking to subvert the SLDF's individual regiments as recruits for their planned wars to claim the Star League's throne. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to seize power for himself or see his remaining army and fleet used in the looming conflict. As such he got the SLDF leadership together in secret and proposed something to save the Inner Sphere and themselves: leave the Inner Sphere and start up somewhere new. Most agreed and in 2785 a fleet loaded with some six million SLDF troops, their families (including Aleksandr's wife Katyusha and two sons Andery and Nicholas) and some folks with valuable skills left the inner sphere for greener pastures.

After a long voyage through the unknown they found some uninhabited worlds beyond the Periphery known as the Pentagon Worlds. They set up shop, discharged most of their soldiers and began rebuilding to try to build a bastion of the Star League in Exile. For about 15 years, it seemed to work. Unfortunately some of the demobilized guys decided that they'd be better off forming their own petty kingdoms and soon enough there was a big and brutal shit fight in 2800. The closest equivalent to the [[Succession Wars]] in Clan space before the Wars of Reaving, they’d became known as the Pentagon Civil Wars. Aleksandr (already more than 100 years old) died heartbroken, leaving everything in utter dissaray. In this chaos, his son Nicholas managed to get the support of some loyal troops and most of the SLDF Fleet and made his way to another world nearby called Strana Mechty ("Land of the Dream" in Russian) along with a number of refugees brought in later. Convinced that the current order of things and the Star League ways of thinking were fundamentally broken he decided to not only establish a new colony, but also build a new society from the ground up, dividing his warriors into twenty Clans. In 2820 the Clans returned to the Pentagon Worlds during Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing Clan culture onto the populations of these planets.

After Nicolas's death, the system chugged along quite well with the occasional hiccup in what was known as the Golden Century, their population rapidly expanding and new worlds being colonized. Eventually in the 2900s there was a split between two factions of The Clans: the Wardens (who felt the Clans should keep to themselves and only get involved in the Inner Sphere if it was threatened by someone else) and the Crusaders (who saw it as their duty to conquer the Inner Sphere and restore a new Clan based Star League). Honestly, if they allowed caste mobility and injected some capitalism and used government-enforced stamps for extra luxury items as the carrot, a Clan conquest likely would have gone over pretty well all around. Unfortunately they're master race asshats who effectively enslave everyone who isn't a warrior ''(as opposed to the Inner Sphere, where you're a slave because you aren't rich or have the wrong last name)''.

== Society ==
{{topquote|Return to the Inner Sphere is impossible for us. Our heritage and our convictions are different from those we left behind. The greed of the five Great Houses and the Council Lords is a disease that can only be burned away by the passing of decades, even centuries. And though the fighting may seem to slow, or even cease, it will erupt again as long as there are powerful men to covet one another's wealth. We shall live apart, conserving all the good of the Star League and ridding ourselves of the bad, so that when we return — and return we shall — our shining moral character will be as much our shield as our BattleMechs and fighters.|Aleksandr Kerensky, General Order 137, December 5th, 2785. These words would be the Nucleus of the Hidden Hope Doctrine}}

An Important fact about the Clans is that they were born from repeat societal trauma. The Amaris Coup and Civil War, the Death of Star League and the Exodus, the Exodus Civil War and the Second Exodus; these were harrowing events to live through, but also were seen as total failure of the old order of things even if it had aspired to noble ideals and achieved greatness. As such, Nicholas Kerensky and his followers were convinced that for humanity to survive society needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Nicky did work from his specific interpretation of his father's words and borrowed elements from a lot of different historic cultures, but the aim was to start clean.

[[File:Clan Spaniel.jpg|thumb|left|The Clans have produced fearsome genetically enhanced warriors, revolutionary BattleMechs and some darn fine cartoons (yes this is totally canon)]]
Even though there is a Grand Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole, each Clan operates mostly independently of its fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society, but war is seldom total. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low intensity highly ritualized wars with each other. Yet, what made the Clan Homeworlds spared the Succession Wars level of violence that sent the Inner Sphere back to the stone age was the application of Zellbrigan and the Honor Road, which emphasized individual unit and warrior prowess while minimizing collateral damage. This includes codes for honorable surrender. On the downside, while material and technological matters were better preserved (if not improved upon with OmniMechs and Battle Armor), individual human lives weren’t seen as inherently valuable so concepts such as safety gear and personal healthcare were seen as things only worth providing to those who had more worthwhile skills. So while your typical Scientist, Merchant, and Technician castes has average lifespans, most Laborers and Warriors wound up dead in their 40-50’s due to combat or physical burn-out leaving them as “dead weight” if they can’t do anything useful. It’s bad enough that most elderly Warriors would rather die as disposable infantry sent in the first wave of an assault instead of starving in bed while infirm.

Clan Society is militaristic, authoritarian, honor bound and strictly hierarchical. It's mostly built around a rigid caste system in which one's role in society is typically assigned in childhood and social mobility is a rarity. The Economies of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors and more clanners to make and support more of those. Humans are mass produced as much as Mechs are in Clan Society. Motivated by the Clan Home-worlds being harsher and less abundant in resources, wastefulness is discouraged while nonproductive activities such as entertainment or leisure were normally seen as incentives to get people working or in extreme cases outright banned. Hence, while stuff like competitive combat sports and athletics are encouraged, things like literature and theatre are treated as frivolous trivialities at best. Most observers note that outside of agriculture, healthcare (for combat injuries), STEM topics, heavy manufacturing, and military-industrial complexes, most non-military related tech and practices were literally frozen in the Star League era. Overall, "Everything for the Clan", "The Clan Provides" and "The Clan Knows Best" are the overarching attitudes.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

The Castes are as such...

* Warrior Caste: The rulers of Clan society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in sibling companies (sibkos), but a few applicants from the general populace are let in. Many flunk out one way or another and become part of the civilian castes while many others end up dying in brutal training regimens and trials for combat. Those that become Warriors are typically hard as nails and brutal fighters. By far the smallest caste. They're three main flavors of Clan Warriors...
**[[Clan Elemental|Elementals]]: Battletech's answer to Space Marines, huge guys and gals who wear power armor.
**Pilots: Small fellows with big eyes and heads who can take a lot of Gs like the T'au's Air Caste.
**Mech Warriors: The most regular warriors, but optimized with improved reflexes and increased neuro-helmet compatibility.
* Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, researchers and the like who expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the eugenics programs. As the Clans have advanced technologically where the inner sphere has regressed, they've been largely successful. The second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually overrule the warriors on certain matters such as eugenics or technology.
* Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers, and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along. They work with the Warrior Caste directly more than most.
* Merchant Caste: Traders as well as managers, artists and a wide variety of other functions required to run the economy of Clan Society. They have a higher status in Clan Diamond Shark, since Diamond Shark Warriors can honorably retire to this caste with reservist status if the Clan requires more manpower.
* Laborer Caste: The proles who do all the grunt work to keep everyone else fed, housed, equipped, armed, pooping in unclogged toilets and so forth. The largest caste, no less due to Battletech's universe using neo-feudalism.
* Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan society in hiding. Makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors. They either survive as pirates, smugglers, or organized criminal syndicates that try to disguise themselves as guilds (which isn't hard as the Free Guilds do exist independently of each clan but are publicly regulated).

In addition each caste has it's own internal hierarchy where merit and competition determines your pecking order. For example the Merchant Caste has retail clerks at the bottom and top negotiators for big inter-clan deals at the top. And while each caste committee is technically subordinate to the Warrior exclusive Clan Council, the council mostly let the civilian castes do what they deem best unless it deals with the Clan’s existential matters or martial affairs. In terms of warriors, the inter-Clan’s competition is not only reflected in rising up the ranks from sib-cadet to Khan but a Desire to win a Bloodname through gaining honorable victory for their clan. Having a bloodname means they get a surname and their genes will be be guaranteed to be used to produce the next batch of Warriors while they can participate in Clan Council. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.

Two other known divides between members within Clan society depends on their type of birth and their national origin. With the Clan scientist caste’s access to Iron Wombs and eugenic genetic engineering, Clansmen are classified as either Trueborn or Freeborn. The former are literal designer babies who are grown in an artificial amniotic womb while the latter are naturally born. Due to the Clans’ focus on breeding the best of their warriors for beneficial traits as quickly as possible, Trueborn are generally deemed superior. On the other hand, whether it's due to their superior training regimes or genes is up for debate. Likewise, there's a distinction between those born within a Clan and those who were absorbed as bondsmen captured from other Clans or factions. Their outcome depends on each Clan's attitude and the captured person's origins Ideally, transplanted outsiders are either treated the same as native clansmen and promoted based on their merit, loyalty, and adaptability to Clan culture. Conversely, captured outsider are subjugated to de-facto second class citizenship (whether as civilians or as warriors).

A big part of Clan Society, especially in the Warrior Caste, is tradition and ritual. On the whole they have a rather "meh" view of religion (partly due to their utilitarian mindset and a big portion of their population being designer babies), but it's role is largely filled by the Hidden Hope Doctrine and a cult of personality mixed with hero worship of the Clan’s original leaders. Aleksandr and Nicholas Kerensky are all but worshiped as "the Founders". Warriors must past through a variety of trials to achieve position and within the Clan's hierarchy. The Clans preserve and teach their history through the Remembrance, a long epic poem that summarizes each Clan’s glory. This too is another motivation for warriors to do their best in combat or competing to rise up the ranks and earn a Bloodname; the more they stand out positively, the more likely their genes will be added into the gene pool for scientists to add to the exo-wombs to spawn more sibkos and the more likely their name will be recorded in the Clan Remembrance with honor. Conversely, any disgrace a warrior commits risks anything from demotion at best to outright eliminating their entire Bloodname’s BloodHouse from the Clan’s records and genetic repository. In general they try to cultivate an air of mystery and impart subtle meanings into the various rituals. All of which are conceived to reinforce the ideals of The Clans and Clan identity into future generations on an emotional level. On the same note, Clanners tend to be very conformist with little tolerance for un-Clanlike Behavior at the best of times.

In particular in their mythologized view of history Star League was a bountiful paradise despoiled by the greed and spite by wicked petty power hungry leaders, especially the five Great House (in of itself this is not a bad interpretation of events). As such they view the people of the Inner Sphere having fallen into Barbarism. This is notable because it gives them a standard to define themselves against as well as prejudices their outlooks against others.

== Individual Clans ==
There are originally twenty clans formed by Nicholas Kerensky but over the course of the centuries, many were destroyed or absorbed into other factions. Besides the others mentioned on the Battletech page, the most relevant ones are the ones below.
[[Category: BattleTech]]
* '''[[Clan Wolf]]''': The first "Mary Sue" Clan, having the ilKhan along their ranks kinda marks you for that. Also known for fielding the Timber Wolf which plenty call a poster boy for the series. They actually won their objectives in the battle of Tukayyid. As of a recent novel, they're now ilClan with Jade Falcon as their bodyguard and Smoke Jaguar reconstituted as their special forces.
* '''[[Clan Jade Falcon]]''': The other "Mary Sue" Clan. Also the Purist Clan, since they are staunch traditionalists which stick with Nicky's vision as tightly as they can. When you think of honor-crazed warrior cultures that went full murder-hobo, you're thinking Jade Falcon. Were the asshats that invaded '''MY HOME PLANET''' in the animated series. They earned themselves a draw on Tukayyid at about the last minute.
* '''[[Clan Smoke Jaguar]]''': The Asshole Clan. Aggressive militarists who value only strength and treat their civilian castes like crap. They make Jade Falcon look nice as the green birb gets that rewarding loyal productivity gets you more of it. They earned getting smoked on Tukayyid, bidding away a vast majority of their forces to get the first deployment and only to have them repeatedly baited into ambush after ambush on Tukayyid by being the most aggressive Clan during the invasion, and ultimately demolished in the Second Star League's counterattack during the Trial of Refusal.
* '''[[Clan Diamond Shark|Clan Diamond Shark/Sea Fox]]''': The Money Clan. Once Clan Sea Fox until they saw a Diamond Shark devour a Sea Fox whole. Fitting that their fighting strength was almost wiped out in Tukayyid due to their inexperience in fighting a actual war as opposed to the dance and diddy that the Clans call a war. Currently going by Clan Sea Fox again, mostly run by merchants after their warrior caste was basically butchered to the last.
* '''Clan Ghost Bear''': The Practical Clan. Moderate fence sitters that actually attempt to do their homework on their foe? My God, it is like they have a brain... At any rate, Ghost Bear are unusual for the Clans in that they actually practice something akin to normal family structures, and were slow to adapt new tactics but moved in a steady pace for effect. The other Clan that got a draw on Tukayyid. They eventually shacked up with the [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhagues]] to make their own hybrid state.
* '''Clan Nova Cat''': The Mystic Clan. Brought in to help Clan Smoke Jaguar, they ended up joining the Inner Sphere instead. However, they got the shit beaten out of them first by the Ghost Bears and then by their Inner Sphere hosts, killing them off.
*'''Clan Steel Viper''': The smug clan. This clan had a rough start since their first Khan was a yandere (for real). They mostly isolated themselves and focused on making super-elite soldiers while dreaming about how they'd rule the Inner Sphere. This got them a spot as back-up for the Jade Falcons, but having super-elite infantry is not a replacement for actually good mechs, and they got kicked out of the Inner Sphere by the Falcons.
* '''Clan Coyote''': The Survivor Clan. Initially did fantastically for themselves as a noble practitioner group of Zellbringen as well as best buddies with Clan Wolf, as well as being the clan directly responsible for the development of OmniMech technology and their Khan was briefly IlKhan for a bit before a Snow Raven plot killed her. Since that point, they've largely been sent away from Clan Space after the Wars of Reaving, but still survive to this day, though far more ruthless in their aims.
* '''Clan Snow Raven''': The Sneaky Clan. Due to a series of major military disasters early on in their history, this clan has spent most of it's time playing realpolitik against itself and the rest of the Clans, preferring to stay out of open confrontation due to their lackluster forces. Have a lot of naval prowess due to their occasional need to hit the stellar bricks. Eventually shacked up with the Outworlds Alliance government to become the Raven Alliance.
* '''Clan Goliath Scorpion:''' The Stoner Clan with a twist of Indiana Jones treasure hunting. Have a deep preference for extremely precise strikes as opposed to brute forcing their way through things, while also requiring getting absolutely blasted on refined scorpion venom. Deep Warden feelings and an obsession with the past meant they basically kept themselves out of most clanner bullshit unless pressed. They also had a habit of trying to secure bloodlines or artifacts linked the the Star League and actually think they can find them with visions induced by said cocktail of narcotic scorpion venom. Eventually got into trouble for illegally adding bloodlines to their eugenics program from the [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|SLDF descended Eridani Light Horse]] and just fucked off to the [[Deep Periphery]] to go fight the conquer the Castilian Cluster and the Hanseatic League to start their own empire.
* '''Clan Hell's Horses:''' The Biker Clan, for as much as one can be a Biker in Battletech. Known primarily for their use of combat vehicles <s>rather than</s> alongside Mechs. Hells Horses has the distinction of being an extremely stable Clan, if not the most powerful, due to their personal belief that all within it, including the Freeborn, serve the [[greater good]] of the Clan. Eventually fucked off to the Inner Sphere, with a hardliner contingent remaining behind and becoming a different clan altogether.
* '''Clan Fire Mandrill''': The Horde Clan. Set up almost the exact opposite way as Hell's Horses, as it is organized in to dozens of mini-Clans called ''Kindraa'', who often fought amongst themselves just as much as they fought other Clans. Unsurprisingly, they got completely wrecked by the Wars of Reaving.
* '''[[Clan Wolverine]]''': The Not-Named Clan whom all the other Clans hate with a burning passion. Betrayed by the original founders of the Clans for being better at the Clan thing than Kerensky was. Survivors wondering who-knows-where, but the main Clan went out as balls-to-the-wall badasses.

== Clan Military ==
Each Clan has it's own military collectively called a Touman. They share some common practices and conventions laid out by Nicholas Kerensky, but within said boundaries each Clan is free to set up their forces more or less as they see fit, and usually each does according to their Clan's ouvre. Of course, what makes the Clans so dangerous regardless of their individual affiliation is their [[OmniMech]]s, which were often lightyears ahead in terms of modular design and technological strength of the Inner Sphere's BattleMechs. On top of that, their tendency of using jump-jet equipped power armored infantry piggybacking off of their OmniMechs enabled them to have swarms of MEQ’s either ripping vehicles or bunkers when BattletMech use would be deemed overkill.

But while they hold a technological edge, where the Clans falter greatly is in tactical strength. Most Clan warfare prior to the invasion was limited to the honor-bound, extremely skirmish-heavy battles fought between each other where both sides showed up, told each other what they'd be fighting with, and often fighting only in significant duels. All this was supplemented with a heavy emphasis on Mech warfare (or whatever hat the individual Clan wears), a massive culture-wide bias against intelligence gathering due to it being "dishonorable", and what the Zellbringen code allows; which meant they often plopped only the bare minimum of assets down to complete their missions as a personal dare to win with as little as possible. While in theory this is done to both minimize casualties and keep valuable resources alive and working for the Clan to use, the simple fact of the matter is Clanner warfare is continually hamstrung by itself; The Inner Sphere Successor States are under absolutely no delusions about war being an honorable thing, and were able to effectively fracture their entire society by daring to be cute with their own ideas of warfare, coming to one of the harshest wake-up calls they ever got in the Battle of Tukayyid, and any gains they took from the Inner Sphere from the initial invasion almost immediately began to crumble as their attitudes towards their new subjects ultimately plopped them into a series of guerilla wars, something utterly alien to them. Some Clans wised up and decided to try and learn something from this, others have yet to understand why things happened the way they did and returned to the Periphery.

The Clans tend to organize themselves depending on their culture, but generally speaking have their own military structure. Unlike the Inner Sphere which uses the traditional "chain of command", "grunt to general" approach, the Clans do not necessarily have an officer system by the traditional method. Every Warrior is considered roughly the same until you get to the Point Commander rank, at which point traditional methods kick back in, but even so the relationship is much less formal. Every part of the Clan Touman is organized into a "Base Five" system, which organizes everything into even groups of five.

The Clan Toumans are (typically) organized into:
* Point: 1 Mech, 2 Tanks, 5 Elementals or 25 Regular Infantry
* Star: 5 Points. Considered the "base" unit of Clan warfare. Most Stars are all of one combat role, as mixed Stars tend to do poorly.
* Binary: 2 Stars. The point at which Combined Arms becomes feasible.
* Trinary: 3 Stars
* Cluster: 3-5 Binaries
* Galaxy: 3-5 Clusters, plus an extra Trinary for Command. Generally a logistical designation because the process of Clan warfare bidding down typically ensures that Galaxies will only ever be deployed rarely.

===== Mechs =====

Due to the fact that they showed up out of nowhere unannounced besides a few Batchalls, Clan Battlemechs have both official names and Inner Sphere code names. The following "original sixteen" are the most common frontline OmniMechs used in the invasion, and found in most Clans' toumans:

* [[Timber Wolf|Timberwolf/Mad Cat]]: The Clanner's most famous mech. Actually quite a preposterously expensive thing, but the fact it can blast it's way through Assault Mechs makes it a favorite. It's Inner Sphere name comes from their targeting computers being incapable of deciding whether or not it's a ''Marauder'' or a ''Catapult'', and so flashed MAD CAT over and over whenever it showed up. Developed(and produced exclusively) by Clan Wolf, though most other Clans acquired them by trade or salvage during the century leading up to the invasion.
* Mad Dog/Vulture: The Clan's OTHER most famous mech. Basically the Timberwolf's leaner, scrappy little brother, resembling the Inner Sphere's Archer. Follows the same basic concept of shoulder mounted missiles and arm mounted energy guns, but has a little more pod space in exchange for a lighter chassis and armor. Can hot-swap the LRMs for an absurd number of SRMs, [[What|or its entire loadout for a pair of Gauss Rifles]]. First built by Clan Smoke Jaguar but most popular with the Ghost Bears.
* Summoner/Thor: The Summoner fills the unusual role of being a heavy mech that sacrifices weaponry for mobility, generally giving up redundancy in its weapons in order to carry jump jets and maintain a flexible loadout with less capacity. The result is a mech that's pretty good at moving in fast and bullying things smaller than itself, but doesn't want to tangle with assault class stuff unless it has weight of numbers; not because it doesn't have the armor (see the Hellbringer and Executioner) but because it doesn't bring [[dakka|enough guns]]. Resembles the Inner Sphere's Thunderbolt. The favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.
* Hellbringer/Loki: A glass cannon, carrying a versatile array of weaponry at the cost of having laughably weak armor for a heavy mech. Its primary configuration resembles the Inner Sphere's Warhammer, with twin ER PPCs in the arms mated to a targeting computer, backup lasers and anti-infantry weapons. The other favorite mech of Clan Jade Falcon.

* Dire Wolf/Daishi: The last word in mech-to-mech encounters. Where the Summoner is happy being a schoolyard bully and the Hellbringer is minmaxxed for DPS, the Dire Wolf is just one huge chungus that simply does not care what the enemy brought. 100 tons, unapologetically slow, with an absurd amount of firepower and armor, this is the ultimate assault mech. Barring a lucky headshot this mech will outlast and crush anything you throw its way; underestimate it at your own peril. This is the mech every Mechwarrior dreams of piloting, and many important figures(Natasha Kerensky, Victor Steiner-Davion, Hohiro Kurita) design their own(even stronger) custom variants. This design was fought over between Clan Wolf and Clan Smoke Jaguar and also produced secretly on Outreach by Wolf's Dragoons.
* Executioner/Gladiator: A strange take on the concept of an Assault Mech. At 95 tons it can mount a lot of equipment, but focuses on mobility through jump jets and MASC. As the downside to this, it has anemic side torso armor, meaning it gets cut in half whenever faced with any real attrition. But as an upside, its speed and good leg armor make it a great Elemental transport, and carrying Elementals can help guard its side torsos... sadly most of its configurations have long range weapons while Elementals need to be brought in close. The stereotypical Ghost Bear omnimech.
* Warhawk/Masakari: Pure evil, bringing this to a friendly game will turn some heads. Heavily armored, average speed, the classic Warhawk carries [[Rape|FOUR CLAN ER PPCS]] in its arms, mercilessly vaporizing limbs and heads of anyone unfortunate to be caught in its sights. If that isn't enough, every variant carries a massive Targeting Computer, essentially giving the pilot an aimbot. A common variant swaps two ER PPCs for Large Pulse Lasers, allowing it to better manage its heat while firing with even greater accuracy. One of Clan Smoke Jaguar's signature designs.
* Gargoyle/Man o'War: The infamous SpurdoMech is somewhat of an unusual design, an assault mech that moves above its weight class but has (relatively) weak leg armor. Its Prime also has the misfortune of having ballistic weapons yet too many heat sinks, its twin LB5X autocannons forcing it squarely into an anti-vehicle role. Its lack of torso weapons and its speed make it a good Elemental transport and Clan Wolf builds them in large numbers: however overall it is weaker than the lighter Timber Wolf(unless mech quirks are in play). Also somewhat popular with Clan Ghost Bear.(apparently the weird configuration works well under specialized Clan duel rules)

* Stormcrow/Ryoken: The close combat star of the clan mediums, usually packing fists and lasers although sometimes fitted for long range. At 97 km/h it's faster than everything it can't take down. Doesn't get much time in the spotlight compared to its slower, heavier cousin the Mad Dog, but it comes from the same family of flexible second-gen omnimechs. A workhorse design for many Clans but most popular with the Smoke Jaguars.
* Nova/Black Hawk: One of the oldest OmniMech designs still in use, the Nova is uncommon yet universal among the Clans as a medium mech that can (briefly) throw dakka like mechs 20 tons heavier than itself. Infamous for running HOT with TWELVE ER Medium Lasers, the king of alpha strikes. Also has a PPC sniper variant which is quite good, and a couple configurations that try to pack ballistic weapons and missiles despite the fixed heat sinks.
* Ice Ferret/Fenris: A swift yet well armored scout that can do some sniping to boot. Originally built as a harasser to counter the Timber Wolf, Clan Wolf liked it enough to capture a factory and started producing it themselves. Now is a ubiquitous sight in their touman.
* Viper/Dragonfly: A fast jumper, often described(incorrectly) as lacking punch. [[Cheese|Known for being one of the first mechs to combine jumping 8 hexes(extremely hard to be hit) with pulse lasers(extremely easy to hit the enemy).]] A great Elemental transport and infantry killer popular with the Ghost Bears and Wolves.

* Adder/Puma: The largest of the Clans' ubiquitous light omnimechs is a bit of an oddity. While not particularly fast for a light mech, it carries a pair of ER PPCs with a targeting computer, making it a true sniper. As an omnimech, it can switch to being a gnarly missile boat in an hour or two. Most often found among Clan Wolf(though the Fenris fits the scout role of a light mech better).
* Kit Fox/Uller: Similar to the Adder in most respects, though lighter armored, the Kit Fox tends to carry a more balanced assortment of weapons in its variants, rather than boating one thing in particular. Except for the EW/anti-infantry variant, which happens to have a whopping three anti-missile systems. Recently canonized as having a dedicated Arrow IV variant(read: a guided, auto-loading cruise missile launcher), meaning it can be equipped with [[Exterminatus|nuclear weapons]]. Unsurprising, given that it is produced by Clan Jade Falcon.
* Mist Lynx/Koshi: A 25 ton dedicated scout omnimech packing more weapons than its Inner Sphere equivalents, but nothing special as far as Clan mechs go. [[Derp|Infamous for having one less jump jet than needed to be truly evasive, putting nearly half its torso armor on its rear facing, while fully armoring the head]]. Used by Clan Smoke Jaguar in the rare OOC instance that they attempt reconnaissance.
* Fire Moth/Dasher: [[Meme|GOTTA GO FAST]]. A derpy little machine with arms that stretch high above its head, and speed that far exceeds anything the Inner Sphere thought a battlemech could be capable of. It still manages to have more guns than Inner Sphere mechs twice its size, too- Clan tech is just that powerful. Surprisingly the light mech of choice for Clan Ghost Bear, which actually makes a lot of sense: the Clan that prefers Elementals and plays American Football loves a mech that runs up and flings the battle armor overhand at the enemy.

== External Links ==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDR_Zpb05uk Part One of Tex's series on Clan History]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B165wbTnHs Part Two of Tex's series on Clan History]

{{Battletech Factions}}