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Wars of Reaving

2022-01-21T18:51:39Z

2607:FB90:6F61:5358:FDD8:9894:38A1:AE05: /* The Abjurring of the Spheroids */

The '''Wars of Reaving''' were an exceptionally violent series of conflicts in BattleTech that happened out in Clan space. These wars were so destructive and so deleterious to the Clan cause that it crippled any possibility of future Clans returning as a major force in the Inner Sphere for good, and utterly broke their society.

== Prelude to War ==
The [[Clan Invasion]] had happened, and while it started strong and several clans had made meaningful gains, it ultimately had failed miserably, and the subsequent War of Refusal, which ended even more poorly for the Clans, had their entire societal mindset fractured. They had long believed they would return to the Inner Sphere as conquering heroes or enlightened warrior-kings, and had that particular belief both shattered and warped by interaction with the Spheroids, who only ever saw them as one thing: Invaders. Their previous '''Crusader'''/'''Warden''' political factions had mutated into Crusaders and Wardens, but also Invader and Home Clans; Clans separated by whether or not they had a foothold in the Inner Sphere or not, and whether or not they wanted to continue that.

And then Smoke Jaguar wasn't just defeated in the Wars of Refusal, but outright annihilated. And Clans Ghost Bear and Nova Cat said "lmao bye nerds" and went to go to their ultimate fates in the Inner Sphere. This meant that massive swathes of the otherwise tightly compacted Clan Homeworlds were officially up for grabs, and the subsequent Wars of Possession created more rifts among the Clans than there had ever been before. In all this chaos, Clan Steel Viper returned from the Inner Sphere, broken and furious that they'd been so utterly outclassed by fucking Spheroids, and set about to building up their resources among the Homeworlds to work off some steam and build for the future, while allying themselves with Clan Cloud Cobra and Star Adder, creating a Snake Alliance. The consequences of this action would have disastrous effects on the Clan homeworlds, though nobody knew it at the time.

== The Rise of the Bloody IlKhan ==
In 3067, the Clans began what they thought was going to be a normal IlKhan selection process, and placed Fire Mandrill's Khan, Garrett Sainze in charge. The reasoning was that while Sainze was honestly kind of an over-aggressive idiot, [[Clan Diamond Shark]] saw the writing on the wall as many of the major powers were suddenly being superceded on the Grand Council by the Snake Alliance's growing influence, and wanted to personally check them. Sainze was unfortunately just as much of a hothead in charge of the entire Clan society as he was when running Fire Mandrill, and touched the raw nerve that the Great Refusal had become; sparking a massive fight in the grand chambers, and ultimately his death by Trial of Refusal thanks to Clan Golaith Scorpion's Khan.

Because Sainze was dead, the election had to take place again...and this time Steel Viper's Khan; Brett Andrews, would succeed him. The Council believed that he was going to just re-start things and move on as intended, but Andrews didn't have ''any'' plans for that.

Andrews, a veteran of the Invasion and also the subsequent Wars of Refusal, believed that a contamination, a "taint" had befallen the Clans from contact with the Inner Sphere; as they had picked up such dishonorable tactics as bombardment and artillery strikes, and had brought them back to ''their'' homeworlds. To him, the Spheroids had begun to rot the clanner way of doing things from the inside out, and if they were ever going to invade the Inner Sphere again, they needed to purge these elements from their ranks entirely, and that meant the current Spheroid Clans, as well as any who dared question these orders; as the Diamond Shark Khan found out all too quickly in the middle of that room. He even made his point clear by completely disabling the comms grids that connected Clanspace and the Inner Sphere.

From there, the Wars of Reaving truly began.

== The Abjurring of the Spheroids ==
Understandably, this didn't sit well with a number of Clans due to their overall philosophies already not entirely being laser-focused on winning the Clan Invasion years after it had ended, and in 3069, Clan Diamond Shark thought now was a good time to fuck off entirely to the Inner Sphere and did so; making whatever deals they needed to in order to get out before the fighting got bad. Clan Snow Raven, in similar straits and ''definitely'' not interested in dealing with whatever the hell Steel Viper thought of their already Spheroid-like nobility structure, and fucked off to join the [[Outworlds Alliance]]; ensuring that even if they were tasked with rebuilding a Periphery state, they still had the cash and resources to survive any oncoming problems, which ultimately never came. The fact they were forced to kill civilians and warriors infected accidentally by a Kuritan virus weapon was the excuse the Steel Vipers needs to target them. The Hell's Horses and Ice Hellion also fucked off trying to build their own fortunes in the Inner Sphere, and the rest waited with guns at the ready for what came next.

The first shot across the bow came in April, as Andrews officially abjured Clan Wolf from the Clan Homeworlds. The Wolf Khan audibly laughed him off, stating he could go fuck himself in front of the entire Clan Council. Andrews demanded Annihilation, but the Council, both egged on by the few Invaders left and Clan Coyote, simply got it down to Abjuration. Andrews still insisted on fighting the Wolf, and began blowing up their Blood Chapels. Clan Wolf wouldn't take it lying down, and then took Kerensky Blood Chapel and challenged the entire Home Clan infrastructure; if they wanted to be Kerensky's children, they'd have to fight for it. Of course, Clan Wolf had squirrelled away the genetic material for the Kerensky bloodname off-planet, and by the time the battle ended, Clan Wolf emphasized their Khan's "Go fuck yourself" by blowing up the chapel anyway, stating that Kerensky's legacy didn't deserve such ungrateful brats attempting to lead it.

Next, Andrews demanded the abjuration of a bloodname from Jade Falcon, who of course did not take kindly to that particular request and killed a high ranking warrior of Steel Viper. Incensed, he blasted their blood chapels into dust and abjured Jade Falcon.

== Clan Coyote realizes they live in A Society ==
Clan Coyote, pissed about all this, had suddenly been contacted by a secretive group of Scientist Caste members known as The Society; a secret organization that plotted the overthrow of the Warrior Caste in order to allow the Scientists to rule supreme. Coyote, already a science-focused Clan that'd had a hand in tons of Clanner technology achievements that they'd received ultimately little recognition for, decided that they would throw their lot in with them and helped the Scientists begin their revolt. It was a spirited fight, but ultimately ended in a complete failure and a panic purging of almost every clan's Scientist pool with some exceptions. But the blame for this event, rather than on an ultimately unsustainable social structure; fell on Clan Coyote since their gear still had all their logos on it. Andrews demanded annihilation once again, but Coyote's warriors protested that many of them hadn't been involved in this at all. To prove it, he declared a Trial of Cleansing; they would personally slaughter their entire Scientist Caste, and any warrior who sided with the Society was to be purged. Though Clan Coyote survived, they had lost their entire research and development capabilities, and half their forces, as well as being otherwise shunned by the other Clans thanks to their actions; only Clan Cloud Cobra would seek them out later in order to further their strength.

== Beheading the Snake ==
After all of this death, bloodshed, and kicking out of any undesireables, Steel Viper was feeling good about themselves...right up until the next grand council. The orders of business were as per usual; certain bloodnames were to get reaved, Clan Goliath Scorpion got the boot, and everything was going fine...until Star Adder's Khan took the stage, and announced the next clan to be reaved was in fact Steel Viper itself. For all of Steel Viper's claims of purity, they themselves had ultimately undergone many political games in just such the way that the Spheroids would in order for Brett Andrews to keep power, and had crippled the Clans in many of the ways that mattered. Andrews in a fit of rage chose to invoke the trial of refusal, and then just shot the Star Adder Khan, in clear violation of the rules of the Grand Council, sealing their fate. As he was placed in custody, he demanded another trial, and Star Adder's SaKhan, who was buddies with the man who was just shot in cold blood, promptly beat Andrews to death with the enameled ceremonial mask of Star Adder. Steel Viper itself would quickly find it's actual grip on the situation was tenuous at best, as every clan left in Clan Space kind of hated having to check themselves for "purity" or whatever the fuck Andrews meant by that, and pretty quickly tore through them like paper. Star Adder would take in any of the survivors, and the Wars of Reaving were at last over.

== Aftermatch ==
The Wars of Reaving completely fucked up the Clanner way of life.

Initially, it looked like Clan Goliath Scorpion had ended up becoming the real winner of the conflict thanks to having not been involved in the invasion and having been large enough on it's own, but was quickly booted out of the Homeworlds thanks to genetic tampering with [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|Spheroid mercenary DNA]] being discovered, and it ultimately left Clan Star Adder as the top dog in Clan Space for the time being; having abjurred, annihilated, or absorbed most of it's competition, and having allied with Cloud Cobra and the newly created Stone Lion. It did however ultimately ensure that the Clan Homeworlds were completely and utterly cut off from anything going on in the Inner Sphere or even Periphery out of a fear of "Spheroid" influence, and that they would alone Shepard humanity through the Kerensky Cluster, and the Kerensky Cluster alone.

In the deepest irony, the Spheroid Clans somehow came out the victors in all of this, since they actually got what they wanted; less homeworld interference in their quests to conquer Terra. Clan Wolf, even though it'd down the middle thanks to it's place as both Abjured Home Clan and Invader Clan, eventually ended up being the IlClan out of all of this.

==== The Clans who didn't make it ====
* '''Ice Hellions''' - a bunch of blitzkreig obsessed dimwits who fucked off from Hell's Horses when they said they'd come together to face their foes and carve out their own space, they basically got caught in the same web of bullshit the Steel Vipers had in civilian revolts, and attempted to fight the now very real and very dangerous Rasalhague Dominion. They got absorbed by Clan Scorpion after they contacted them and just told them "hey, it's easier if you just come in and enjoy some peyote with us rather than get blasted", and they did.
* '''Hell's Horses''' - Only on this list on a technicality. Hell's Horses split in half thanks to yet more Reaving, and the half that stayed in the Clan Homeworlds became Clan Stone Lion after the Star Adders absorb them and reformed them as a new Clan to avoid giving the Steel Vipers too much power.
* '''Fire Mandrill''' - Already a fractious Clan within a Clan with a lot of internal strife, Fire Mandrill's Khan getting murk'd and then being used as an example of Clan "taint" caused the already weakened Clan further issues. Their Kindraa tried to band together to stay alive, but were ultimately demolished. Any survivors were absorbed by the Scorpions and Home-world Clans.
* '''Burrock''' - Had already been absorbed at an earlier period of time, was briefly revived with help from the Society thanks to Clan Star Adder being stupid enough to give enough of their warriors over, and promptly had to put their creation down.
* '''Steel Viper''' - Started all this shit, and then promptly got shredded for it.
* '''Blood Spirit''' - An agitator in favor of the decision-making that Steel Viper had been rolling with, eventually got pounded into dust after Steel Viper's annihilation when the Star Adders realized the Blood Spirits would never accept an honorable absorption.

[[category:BattleTech]]

Wars of Reaving

2022-01-21T18:49:50Z

2607:FB90:6F61:5358:FDD8:9894:38A1:AE05: /* The Clans who didn't make it */

The '''Wars of Reaving''' were an exceptionally violent series of conflicts in BattleTech that happened out in Clan space. These wars were so destructive and so deleterious to the Clan cause that it crippled any possibility of future Clans returning as a major force in the Inner Sphere for good, and utterly broke their society.

== Prelude to War ==
The [[Clan Invasion]] had happened, and while it started strong and several clans had made meaningful gains, it ultimately had failed miserably, and the subsequent War of Refusal, which ended even more poorly for the Clans, had their entire societal mindset fractured. They had long believed they would return to the Inner Sphere as conquering heroes or enlightened warrior-kings, and had that particular belief both shattered and warped by interaction with the Spheroids, who only ever saw them as one thing: Invaders. Their previous '''Crusader'''/'''Warden''' political factions had mutated into Crusaders and Wardens, but also Invader and Home Clans; Clans separated by whether or not they had a foothold in the Inner Sphere or not, and whether or not they wanted to continue that.

And then Smoke Jaguar wasn't just defeated in the Wars of Refusal, but outright annihilated. And Clans Ghost Bear and Nova Cat said "lmao bye nerds" and went to go to their ultimate fates in the Inner Sphere. This meant that massive swathes of the otherwise tightly compacted Clan Homeworlds were officially up for grabs, and the subsequent Wars of Possession created more rifts among the Clans than there had ever been before. In all this chaos, Clan Steel Viper returned from the Inner Sphere, broken and furious that they'd been so utterly outclassed by fucking Spheroids, and set about to building up their resources among the Homeworlds to work off some steam and build for the future, while allying themselves with Clan Cloud Cobra and Star Adder, creating a Snake Alliance. The consequences of this action would have disastrous effects on the Clan homeworlds, though nobody knew it at the time.

== The Rise of the Bloody IlKhan ==
In 3067, the Clans began what they thought was going to be a normal IlKhan selection process, and placed Fire Mandrill's Khan, Garrett Sainze in charge. The reasoning was that while Sainze was honestly kind of an over-aggressive idiot, [[Clan Diamond Shark]] saw the writing on the wall as many of the major powers were suddenly being superceded on the Grand Council by the Snake Alliance's growing influence, and wanted to personally check them. Sainze was unfortunately just as much of a hothead in charge of the entire Clan society as he was when running Fire Mandrill, and touched the raw nerve that the Great Refusal had become; sparking a massive fight in the grand chambers, and ultimately his death by Trial of Refusal thanks to Clan Golaith Scorpion's Khan.

Because Sainze was dead, the election had to take place again...and this time Steel Viper's Khan; Brett Andrews, would succeed him. The Council believed that he was going to just re-start things and move on as intended, but Andrews didn't have ''any'' plans for that.

Andrews, a veteran of the Invasion and also the subsequent Wars of Refusal, believed that a contamination, a "taint" had befallen the Clans from contact with the Inner Sphere; as they had picked up such dishonorable tactics as bombardment and artillery strikes, and had brought them back to ''their'' homeworlds. To him, the Spheroids had begun to rot the clanner way of doing things from the inside out, and if they were ever going to invade the Inner Sphere again, they needed to purge these elements from their ranks entirely, and that meant the current Spheroid Clans, as well as any who dared question these orders; as the Diamond Shark Khan found out all too quickly in the middle of that room. He even made his point clear by completely disabling the comms grids that connected Clanspace and the Inner Sphere.

From there, the Wars of Reaving truly began.

== The Abjurring of the Spheroids ==
Understandably, this didn't sit well with a number of Clans due to their overall philosophies already not entirely being laser-focused on winning the Clan Invasion years after it had ended, and in 3069, Clan Diamond Shark thought now was a good time to fuck off entirely to the Inner Sphere and did so; making whatever deals they needed to in order to get out before the fighting got bad. Clan Snow Raven, in similar straits and ''definitely'' not interested in dealing with whatever the hell Steel Viper thought of their already Spheroid-like nobility structure, and fucked off to join the [[Outworlds Alliance]]; ensuring that even if they were tasked with rebuilding a Periphery state, they still had the cash and resources to survive any oncoming problems, which ultimately never came. Hell's Horses and Ice Hellion also fucked off trying to build their own fortunes in the Inner Sphere, and the rest waited with guns at the ready for what came next.

The first shot across the bow came in April, as Andrews officially abjured Clan Wolf from the Clan Homeworlds. The Wolf Khan audibly laughed him off, stating he could go fuck himself in front of the entire Clan Council. Andrews demanded Annihilation, but the Council, both egged on by the few Invaders left and Clan Coyote, simply got it down to Abjuration. Andrews still insisted on fighting the Wolf, and began blowing up their Blood Chapels. Clan Wolf wouldn't take it lying down, and then took Kerensky Blood Chapel and challenged the entire Home Clan infrastructure; if they wanted to be Kerensky's children, they'd have to fight for it. Of course, Clan Wolf had squirrelled away the genetic material for the Kerensky bloodname off-planet, and by the time the battle ended, Clan Wolf emphasized their Khan's "Go fuck yourself" by blowing up the chapel anyway, stating that Kerensky's legacy didn't deserve such ungrateful brats attempting to lead it.

Next, Andrews demanded the abjuration of a bloodname from Jade Falcon, who of course did not take kindly to that particular request and killed a high ranking warrior of Steel Viper. Incensed, he blasted their blood chapels into dust and abjured Jade Falcon.

== Clan Coyote realizes they live in A Society ==
Clan Coyote, pissed about all this, had suddenly been contacted by a secretive group of Scientist Caste members known as The Society; a secret organization that plotted the overthrow of the Warrior Caste in order to allow the Scientists to rule supreme. Coyote, already a science-focused Clan that'd had a hand in tons of Clanner technology achievements that they'd received ultimately little recognition for, decided that they would throw their lot in with them and helped the Scientists begin their revolt. It was a spirited fight, but ultimately ended in a complete failure and a panic purging of almost every clan's Scientist pool with some exceptions. But the blame for this event, rather than on an ultimately unsustainable social structure; fell on Clan Coyote since their gear still had all their logos on it. Andrews demanded annihilation once again, but Coyote's warriors protested that many of them hadn't been involved in this at all. To prove it, he declared a Trial of Cleansing; they would personally slaughter their entire Scientist Caste, and any warrior who sided with the Society was to be purged. Though Clan Coyote survived, they had lost their entire research and development capabilities, and half their forces, as well as being otherwise shunned by the other Clans thanks to their actions; only Clan Cloud Cobra would seek them out later in order to further their strength.

== Beheading the Snake ==
After all of this death, bloodshed, and kicking out of any undesireables, Steel Viper was feeling good about themselves...right up until the next grand council. The orders of business were as per usual; certain bloodnames were to get reaved, Clan Goliath Scorpion got the boot, and everything was going fine...until Star Adder's Khan took the stage, and announced the next clan to be reaved was in fact Steel Viper itself. For all of Steel Viper's claims of purity, they themselves had ultimately undergone many political games in just such the way that the Spheroids would in order for Brett Andrews to keep power, and had crippled the Clans in many of the ways that mattered. Andrews in a fit of rage chose to invoke the trial of refusal, and then just shot the Star Adder Khan, in clear violation of the rules of the Grand Council, sealing their fate. As he was placed in custody, he demanded another trial, and Star Adder's SaKhan, who was buddies with the man who was just shot in cold blood, promptly beat Andrews to death with the enameled ceremonial mask of Star Adder. Steel Viper itself would quickly find it's actual grip on the situation was tenuous at best, as every clan left in Clan Space kind of hated having to check themselves for "purity" or whatever the fuck Andrews meant by that, and pretty quickly tore through them like paper. Star Adder would take in any of the survivors, and the Wars of Reaving were at last over.

== Aftermatch ==
The Wars of Reaving completely fucked up the Clanner way of life.

Initially, it looked like Clan Goliath Scorpion had ended up becoming the real winner of the conflict thanks to having not been involved in the invasion and having been large enough on it's own, but was quickly booted out of the Homeworlds thanks to genetic tampering with [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|Spheroid mercenary DNA]] being discovered, and it ultimately left Clan Star Adder as the top dog in Clan Space for the time being; having abjurred, annihilated, or absorbed most of it's competition, and having allied with Cloud Cobra and the newly created Stone Lion. It did however ultimately ensure that the Clan Homeworlds were completely and utterly cut off from anything going on in the Inner Sphere or even Periphery out of a fear of "Spheroid" influence, and that they would alone Shepard humanity through the Kerensky Cluster, and the Kerensky Cluster alone.

In the deepest irony, the Spheroid Clans somehow came out the victors in all of this, since they actually got what they wanted; less homeworld interference in their quests to conquer Terra. Clan Wolf, even though it'd down the middle thanks to it's place as both Abjured Home Clan and Invader Clan, eventually ended up being the IlClan out of all of this.

==== The Clans who didn't make it ====
* '''Ice Hellions''' - a bunch of blitzkreig obsessed dimwits who fucked off from Hell's Horses when they said they'd come together to face their foes and carve out their own space, they basically got caught in the same web of bullshit the Steel Vipers had in civilian revolts, and attempted to fight the now very real and very dangerous Rasalhague Dominion. They got absorbed by Clan Scorpion after they contacted them and just told them "hey, it's easier if you just come in and enjoy some peyote with us rather than get blasted", and they did.
* '''Hell's Horses''' - Only on this list on a technicality. Hell's Horses split in half thanks to yet more Reaving, and the half that stayed in the Clan Homeworlds became Clan Stone Lion after the Star Adders absorb them and reformed them as a new Clan to avoid giving the Steel Vipers too much power.
* '''Fire Mandrill''' - Already a fractious Clan within a Clan with a lot of internal strife, Fire Mandrill's Khan getting murk'd and then being used as an example of Clan "taint" caused the already weakened Clan further issues. Their Kindraa tried to band together to stay alive, but were ultimately demolished. Any survivors were absorbed by the Scorpions and Home-world Clans.
* '''Burrock''' - Had already been absorbed at an earlier period of time, was briefly revived with help from the Society thanks to Clan Star Adder being stupid enough to give enough of their warriors over, and promptly had to put their creation down.
* '''Steel Viper''' - Started all this shit, and then promptly got shredded for it.
* '''Blood Spirit''' - An agitator in favor of the decision-making that Steel Viper had been rolling with, eventually got pounded into dust after Steel Viper's annihilation when the Star Adders realized the Blood Spirits would never accept an honorable absorption.

[[category:BattleTech]]

Wars of Reaving

2022-01-21T18:47:11Z

2607:FB90:6F61:5358:FDD8:9894:38A1:AE05: /* Aftermatch */

The '''Wars of Reaving''' were an exceptionally violent series of conflicts in BattleTech that happened out in Clan space. These wars were so destructive and so deleterious to the Clan cause that it crippled any possibility of future Clans returning as a major force in the Inner Sphere for good, and utterly broke their society.

== Prelude to War ==
The [[Clan Invasion]] had happened, and while it started strong and several clans had made meaningful gains, it ultimately had failed miserably, and the subsequent War of Refusal, which ended even more poorly for the Clans, had their entire societal mindset fractured. They had long believed they would return to the Inner Sphere as conquering heroes or enlightened warrior-kings, and had that particular belief both shattered and warped by interaction with the Spheroids, who only ever saw them as one thing: Invaders. Their previous '''Crusader'''/'''Warden''' political factions had mutated into Crusaders and Wardens, but also Invader and Home Clans; Clans separated by whether or not they had a foothold in the Inner Sphere or not, and whether or not they wanted to continue that.

And then Smoke Jaguar wasn't just defeated in the Wars of Refusal, but outright annihilated. And Clans Ghost Bear and Nova Cat said "lmao bye nerds" and went to go to their ultimate fates in the Inner Sphere. This meant that massive swathes of the otherwise tightly compacted Clan Homeworlds were officially up for grabs, and the subsequent Wars of Possession created more rifts among the Clans than there had ever been before. In all this chaos, Clan Steel Viper returned from the Inner Sphere, broken and furious that they'd been so utterly outclassed by fucking Spheroids, and set about to building up their resources among the Homeworlds to work off some steam and build for the future, while allying themselves with Clan Cloud Cobra and Star Adder, creating a Snake Alliance. The consequences of this action would have disastrous effects on the Clan homeworlds, though nobody knew it at the time.

== The Rise of the Bloody IlKhan ==
In 3067, the Clans began what they thought was going to be a normal IlKhan selection process, and placed Fire Mandrill's Khan, Garrett Sainze in charge. The reasoning was that while Sainze was honestly kind of an over-aggressive idiot, [[Clan Diamond Shark]] saw the writing on the wall as many of the major powers were suddenly being superceded on the Grand Council by the Snake Alliance's growing influence, and wanted to personally check them. Sainze was unfortunately just as much of a hothead in charge of the entire Clan society as he was when running Fire Mandrill, and touched the raw nerve that the Great Refusal had become; sparking a massive fight in the grand chambers, and ultimately his death by Trial of Refusal thanks to Clan Golaith Scorpion's Khan.

Because Sainze was dead, the election had to take place again...and this time Steel Viper's Khan; Brett Andrews, would succeed him. The Council believed that he was going to just re-start things and move on as intended, but Andrews didn't have ''any'' plans for that.

Andrews, a veteran of the Invasion and also the subsequent Wars of Refusal, believed that a contamination, a "taint" had befallen the Clans from contact with the Inner Sphere; as they had picked up such dishonorable tactics as bombardment and artillery strikes, and had brought them back to ''their'' homeworlds. To him, the Spheroids had begun to rot the clanner way of doing things from the inside out, and if they were ever going to invade the Inner Sphere again, they needed to purge these elements from their ranks entirely, and that meant the current Spheroid Clans, as well as any who dared question these orders; as the Diamond Shark Khan found out all too quickly in the middle of that room. He even made his point clear by completely disabling the comms grids that connected Clanspace and the Inner Sphere.

From there, the Wars of Reaving truly began.

== The Abjurring of the Spheroids ==
Understandably, this didn't sit well with a number of Clans due to their overall philosophies already not entirely being laser-focused on winning the Clan Invasion years after it had ended, and in 3069, Clan Diamond Shark thought now was a good time to fuck off entirely to the Inner Sphere and did so; making whatever deals they needed to in order to get out before the fighting got bad. Clan Snow Raven, in similar straits and ''definitely'' not interested in dealing with whatever the hell Steel Viper thought of their already Spheroid-like nobility structure, and fucked off to join the [[Outworlds Alliance]]; ensuring that even if they were tasked with rebuilding a Periphery state, they still had the cash and resources to survive any oncoming problems, which ultimately never came. Hell's Horses and Ice Hellion also fucked off trying to build their own fortunes in the Inner Sphere, and the rest waited with guns at the ready for what came next.

The first shot across the bow came in April, as Andrews officially abjured Clan Wolf from the Clan Homeworlds. The Wolf Khan audibly laughed him off, stating he could go fuck himself in front of the entire Clan Council. Andrews demanded Annihilation, but the Council, both egged on by the few Invaders left and Clan Coyote, simply got it down to Abjuration. Andrews still insisted on fighting the Wolf, and began blowing up their Blood Chapels. Clan Wolf wouldn't take it lying down, and then took Kerensky Blood Chapel and challenged the entire Home Clan infrastructure; if they wanted to be Kerensky's children, they'd have to fight for it. Of course, Clan Wolf had squirrelled away the genetic material for the Kerensky bloodname off-planet, and by the time the battle ended, Clan Wolf emphasized their Khan's "Go fuck yourself" by blowing up the chapel anyway, stating that Kerensky's legacy didn't deserve such ungrateful brats attempting to lead it.

Next, Andrews demanded the abjuration of a bloodname from Jade Falcon, who of course did not take kindly to that particular request and killed a high ranking warrior of Steel Viper. Incensed, he blasted their blood chapels into dust and abjured Jade Falcon.

== Clan Coyote realizes they live in A Society ==
Clan Coyote, pissed about all this, had suddenly been contacted by a secretive group of Scientist Caste members known as The Society; a secret organization that plotted the overthrow of the Warrior Caste in order to allow the Scientists to rule supreme. Coyote, already a science-focused Clan that'd had a hand in tons of Clanner technology achievements that they'd received ultimately little recognition for, decided that they would throw their lot in with them and helped the Scientists begin their revolt. It was a spirited fight, but ultimately ended in a complete failure and a panic purging of almost every clan's Scientist pool with some exceptions. But the blame for this event, rather than on an ultimately unsustainable social structure; fell on Clan Coyote since their gear still had all their logos on it. Andrews demanded annihilation once again, but Coyote's warriors protested that many of them hadn't been involved in this at all. To prove it, he declared a Trial of Cleansing; they would personally slaughter their entire Scientist Caste, and any warrior who sided with the Society was to be purged. Though Clan Coyote survived, they had lost their entire research and development capabilities, and half their forces, as well as being otherwise shunned by the other Clans thanks to their actions; only Clan Cloud Cobra would seek them out later in order to further their strength.

== Beheading the Snake ==
After all of this death, bloodshed, and kicking out of any undesireables, Steel Viper was feeling good about themselves...right up until the next grand council. The orders of business were as per usual; certain bloodnames were to get reaved, Clan Goliath Scorpion got the boot, and everything was going fine...until Star Adder's Khan took the stage, and announced the next clan to be reaved was in fact Steel Viper itself. For all of Steel Viper's claims of purity, they themselves had ultimately undergone many political games in just such the way that the Spheroids would in order for Brett Andrews to keep power, and had crippled the Clans in many of the ways that mattered. Andrews in a fit of rage chose to invoke the trial of refusal, and then just shot the Star Adder Khan, in clear violation of the rules of the Grand Council, sealing their fate. As he was placed in custody, he demanded another trial, and Star Adder's SaKhan, who was buddies with the man who was just shot in cold blood, promptly beat Andrews to death with the enameled ceremonial mask of Star Adder. Steel Viper itself would quickly find it's actual grip on the situation was tenuous at best, as every clan left in Clan Space kind of hated having to check themselves for "purity" or whatever the fuck Andrews meant by that, and pretty quickly tore through them like paper. Star Adder would take in any of the survivors, and the Wars of Reaving were at last over.

== Aftermatch ==
The Wars of Reaving completely fucked up the Clanner way of life.

Initially, it looked like Clan Goliath Scorpion had ended up becoming the real winner of the conflict thanks to having not been involved in the invasion and having been large enough on it's own, but was quickly booted out of the Homeworlds thanks to genetic tampering with [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|Spheroid mercenary DNA]] being discovered, and it ultimately left Clan Star Adder as the top dog in Clan Space for the time being; having abjurred, annihilated, or absorbed most of it's competition, and having allied with Cloud Cobra and the newly created Stone Lion. It did however ultimately ensure that the Clan Homeworlds were completely and utterly cut off from anything going on in the Inner Sphere or even Periphery out of a fear of "Spheroid" influence, and that they would alone Shepard humanity through the Kerensky Cluster, and the Kerensky Cluster alone.

In the deepest irony, the Spheroid Clans somehow came out the victors in all of this, since they actually got what they wanted; less homeworld interference in their quests to conquer Terra. Clan Wolf, even though it'd down the middle thanks to it's place as both Abjured Home Clan and Invader Clan, eventually ended up being the IlClan out of all of this.

==== The Clans who didn't make it ====
* '''Ice Hellions''' - a bunch of blitzkreig obsessed dimwits who fucked off from Hell's Horses when they said they'd come together to face their foes and carve out their own space, they basically got caught in the same web of bullshit the Steel Vipers had in civilian revolts, and attempted to fight the now very real and very dangerous Rasalhague Dominion. They got absorbed by Clan Scorpion after they contacted them and just told them "hey, it's easier if you just come in and enjoy some peyote with us rather than get blasted", and they did.
* '''Hell's Horses''' - Only on this list on a technicality. Hell's Horses split in half thanks to yet more Reaving, and the half that stayed in the Clan Homeworlds became Clan Stone Lion.
* '''Fire Mandrill''' - Already a fractious Clan within a Clan with a lot of internal strife, Fire Mandrill's Khan getting murk'd and then being used as an example of Clan "taint" caused the already weakened Clan further issues. Their Kindraa tried to band together to stay alive, but were ultimately demolished.
* '''Burrock''' - Had already been absorbed at an earlier period of time, was briefly revived thanks to Clan Star Adder being stupid enough to give enough of their warriors over, and promptly had to put their creation down.
* '''Steel Viper''' - Started all this shit, and then promptly got shredded for it.
* '''Blood Spirit''' - An agitator in favor of the decision-making that Steel Viper had been rolling with, eventually got pounded into dust after Steel Viper's annihilation.

[[category:BattleTech]]

Wars of Reaving

2022-01-21T18:46:57Z

2607:FB90:6F61:5358:FDD8:9894:38A1:AE05: /* Aftermatch */

The '''Wars of Reaving''' were an exceptionally violent series of conflicts in BattleTech that happened out in Clan space. These wars were so destructive and so deleterious to the Clan cause that it crippled any possibility of future Clans returning as a major force in the Inner Sphere for good, and utterly broke their society.

== Prelude to War ==
The [[Clan Invasion]] had happened, and while it started strong and several clans had made meaningful gains, it ultimately had failed miserably, and the subsequent War of Refusal, which ended even more poorly for the Clans, had their entire societal mindset fractured. They had long believed they would return to the Inner Sphere as conquering heroes or enlightened warrior-kings, and had that particular belief both shattered and warped by interaction with the Spheroids, who only ever saw them as one thing: Invaders. Their previous '''Crusader'''/'''Warden''' political factions had mutated into Crusaders and Wardens, but also Invader and Home Clans; Clans separated by whether or not they had a foothold in the Inner Sphere or not, and whether or not they wanted to continue that.

And then Smoke Jaguar wasn't just defeated in the Wars of Refusal, but outright annihilated. And Clans Ghost Bear and Nova Cat said "lmao bye nerds" and went to go to their ultimate fates in the Inner Sphere. This meant that massive swathes of the otherwise tightly compacted Clan Homeworlds were officially up for grabs, and the subsequent Wars of Possession created more rifts among the Clans than there had ever been before. In all this chaos, Clan Steel Viper returned from the Inner Sphere, broken and furious that they'd been so utterly outclassed by fucking Spheroids, and set about to building up their resources among the Homeworlds to work off some steam and build for the future, while allying themselves with Clan Cloud Cobra and Star Adder, creating a Snake Alliance. The consequences of this action would have disastrous effects on the Clan homeworlds, though nobody knew it at the time.

== The Rise of the Bloody IlKhan ==
In 3067, the Clans began what they thought was going to be a normal IlKhan selection process, and placed Fire Mandrill's Khan, Garrett Sainze in charge. The reasoning was that while Sainze was honestly kind of an over-aggressive idiot, [[Clan Diamond Shark]] saw the writing on the wall as many of the major powers were suddenly being superceded on the Grand Council by the Snake Alliance's growing influence, and wanted to personally check them. Sainze was unfortunately just as much of a hothead in charge of the entire Clan society as he was when running Fire Mandrill, and touched the raw nerve that the Great Refusal had become; sparking a massive fight in the grand chambers, and ultimately his death by Trial of Refusal thanks to Clan Golaith Scorpion's Khan.

Because Sainze was dead, the election had to take place again...and this time Steel Viper's Khan; Brett Andrews, would succeed him. The Council believed that he was going to just re-start things and move on as intended, but Andrews didn't have ''any'' plans for that.

Andrews, a veteran of the Invasion and also the subsequent Wars of Refusal, believed that a contamination, a "taint" had befallen the Clans from contact with the Inner Sphere; as they had picked up such dishonorable tactics as bombardment and artillery strikes, and had brought them back to ''their'' homeworlds. To him, the Spheroids had begun to rot the clanner way of doing things from the inside out, and if they were ever going to invade the Inner Sphere again, they needed to purge these elements from their ranks entirely, and that meant the current Spheroid Clans, as well as any who dared question these orders; as the Diamond Shark Khan found out all too quickly in the middle of that room. He even made his point clear by completely disabling the comms grids that connected Clanspace and the Inner Sphere.

From there, the Wars of Reaving truly began.

== The Abjurring of the Spheroids ==
Understandably, this didn't sit well with a number of Clans due to their overall philosophies already not entirely being laser-focused on winning the Clan Invasion years after it had ended, and in 3069, Clan Diamond Shark thought now was a good time to fuck off entirely to the Inner Sphere and did so; making whatever deals they needed to in order to get out before the fighting got bad. Clan Snow Raven, in similar straits and ''definitely'' not interested in dealing with whatever the hell Steel Viper thought of their already Spheroid-like nobility structure, and fucked off to join the [[Outworlds Alliance]]; ensuring that even if they were tasked with rebuilding a Periphery state, they still had the cash and resources to survive any oncoming problems, which ultimately never came. Hell's Horses and Ice Hellion also fucked off trying to build their own fortunes in the Inner Sphere, and the rest waited with guns at the ready for what came next.

The first shot across the bow came in April, as Andrews officially abjured Clan Wolf from the Clan Homeworlds. The Wolf Khan audibly laughed him off, stating he could go fuck himself in front of the entire Clan Council. Andrews demanded Annihilation, but the Council, both egged on by the few Invaders left and Clan Coyote, simply got it down to Abjuration. Andrews still insisted on fighting the Wolf, and began blowing up their Blood Chapels. Clan Wolf wouldn't take it lying down, and then took Kerensky Blood Chapel and challenged the entire Home Clan infrastructure; if they wanted to be Kerensky's children, they'd have to fight for it. Of course, Clan Wolf had squirrelled away the genetic material for the Kerensky bloodname off-planet, and by the time the battle ended, Clan Wolf emphasized their Khan's "Go fuck yourself" by blowing up the chapel anyway, stating that Kerensky's legacy didn't deserve such ungrateful brats attempting to lead it.

Next, Andrews demanded the abjuration of a bloodname from Jade Falcon, who of course did not take kindly to that particular request and killed a high ranking warrior of Steel Viper. Incensed, he blasted their blood chapels into dust and abjured Jade Falcon.

== Clan Coyote realizes they live in A Society ==
Clan Coyote, pissed about all this, had suddenly been contacted by a secretive group of Scientist Caste members known as The Society; a secret organization that plotted the overthrow of the Warrior Caste in order to allow the Scientists to rule supreme. Coyote, already a science-focused Clan that'd had a hand in tons of Clanner technology achievements that they'd received ultimately little recognition for, decided that they would throw their lot in with them and helped the Scientists begin their revolt. It was a spirited fight, but ultimately ended in a complete failure and a panic purging of almost every clan's Scientist pool with some exceptions. But the blame for this event, rather than on an ultimately unsustainable social structure; fell on Clan Coyote since their gear still had all their logos on it. Andrews demanded annihilation once again, but Coyote's warriors protested that many of them hadn't been involved in this at all. To prove it, he declared a Trial of Cleansing; they would personally slaughter their entire Scientist Caste, and any warrior who sided with the Society was to be purged. Though Clan Coyote survived, they had lost their entire research and development capabilities, and half their forces, as well as being otherwise shunned by the other Clans thanks to their actions; only Clan Cloud Cobra would seek them out later in order to further their strength.

== Beheading the Snake ==
After all of this death, bloodshed, and kicking out of any undesireables, Steel Viper was feeling good about themselves...right up until the next grand council. The orders of business were as per usual; certain bloodnames were to get reaved, Clan Goliath Scorpion got the boot, and everything was going fine...until Star Adder's Khan took the stage, and announced the next clan to be reaved was in fact Steel Viper itself. For all of Steel Viper's claims of purity, they themselves had ultimately undergone many political games in just such the way that the Spheroids would in order for Brett Andrews to keep power, and had crippled the Clans in many of the ways that mattered. Andrews in a fit of rage chose to invoke the trial of refusal, and then just shot the Star Adder Khan, in clear violation of the rules of the Grand Council, sealing their fate. As he was placed in custody, he demanded another trial, and Star Adder's SaKhan, who was buddies with the man who was just shot in cold blood, promptly beat Andrews to death with the enameled ceremonial mask of Star Adder. Steel Viper itself would quickly find it's actual grip on the situation was tenuous at best, as every clan left in Clan Space kind of hated having to check themselves for "purity" or whatever the fuck Andrews meant by that, and pretty quickly tore through them like paper. Star Adder would take in any of the survivors, and the Wars of Reaving were at last over.

== Aftermatch ==
The Wars of Reaving completely fucked up the Clanner way of life.

Initially, it looked like Clan Goliath Scorpion had ended up becoming the real winner of the conflict thanks to having not been involved in the invasion and having been large enough on it's own, but was quickly booted out of the Homeworlds thanks to genetic tampering with [[Mercenaries (Battletech)|Spheroid mercenary DNA]]being discovered, and it ultimately left Clan Star Adder as the top dog in Clan Space for the time being; having abjurred, annihilated, or absorbed most of it's competition, and having allied with Cloud Cobra and the newly created Stone Lion. It did however ultimately ensure that the Clan Homeworlds were completely and utterly cut off from anything going on in the Inner Sphere or even Periphery out of a fear of "Spheroid" influence, and that they would alone Shepard humanity through the Kerensky Cluster, and the Kerensky Cluster alone.

In the deepest irony, the Spheroid Clans somehow came out the victors in all of this, since they actually got what they wanted; less homeworld interference in their quests to conquer Terra. Clan Wolf, even though it'd down the middle thanks to it's place as both Abjured Home Clan and Invader Clan, eventually ended up being the IlClan out of all of this.

==== The Clans who didn't make it ====
* '''Ice Hellions''' - a bunch of blitzkreig obsessed dimwits who fucked off from Hell's Horses when they said they'd come together to face their foes and carve out their own space, they basically got caught in the same web of bullshit the Steel Vipers had in civilian revolts, and attempted to fight the now very real and very dangerous Rasalhague Dominion. They got absorbed by Clan Scorpion after they contacted them and just told them "hey, it's easier if you just come in and enjoy some peyote with us rather than get blasted", and they did.
* '''Hell's Horses''' - Only on this list on a technicality. Hell's Horses split in half thanks to yet more Reaving, and the half that stayed in the Clan Homeworlds became Clan Stone Lion.
* '''Fire Mandrill''' - Already a fractious Clan within a Clan with a lot of internal strife, Fire Mandrill's Khan getting murk'd and then being used as an example of Clan "taint" caused the already weakened Clan further issues. Their Kindraa tried to band together to stay alive, but were ultimately demolished.
* '''Burrock''' - Had already been absorbed at an earlier period of time, was briefly revived thanks to Clan Star Adder being stupid enough to give enough of their warriors over, and promptly had to put their creation down.
* '''Steel Viper''' - Started all this shit, and then promptly got shredded for it.
* '''Blood Spirit''' - An agitator in favor of the decision-making that Steel Viper had been rolling with, eventually got pounded into dust after Steel Viper's annihilation.

[[category:BattleTech]]

Clan Invasion

2022-01-21T18:45:30Z

2607:FB90:6F61:5358:FDD8:9894:38A1:AE05: /* Aftermath */

The '''Clan Invasion''' (officially called '''Operation REVIVAL''' by the Clans themselves) was a massive incursion into the Inner Sphere by the forces of [[The Clans]] between 3049 and 3052.

It is one of the most significant events of BattleTech history, as well as one of the most explored parts of the setting.
== Prelude ==
In Clan space in the early 31st century, after two centuries of growth, there was a fracture in the culture of the [[The Clans|Clans]]. While they'd always had their own little traditions that they'd been adhering to, two philosophies on the Clans' ultimate stated goal of returning to the Inner Sphere had emerged; the Wardens, and the Crusaders. The Wardens took a moderate approach, seeing themselves as the silent watchful guardians of the Inner Sphere, and didn't feel the need to charge ahead to go in and fix everything. The Crusaders on the other hand, saw it as the supreme duty of the Clans to return to the Inner Sphere, conquer Terra, and subjugate the backwards Spheroids. And over time, increasing pressure by the Crusader Faction to return to the Inner Sphere and restore the [[Star League]] as promised by the Kerensky's centuries ago had begun to mount. The Warden faction had managed to stall efforts through various means, from sending the Wolf's Dragoons to spy on the Inner Sphere to simple trials of refusal or emphasizing Clanner politics or simple matters of logistics. Given that even the [[Capellan Confederation]] still outnumbered the totality of the Clans by a significant margin, these were reasonable arguments to make for the Wardens, and if they were going to attack the Inner Sphere, they needed to be in top of the line shape and had the ratio narrowed. Nevertheless, both sides of the Clanner aisle kept badgering each other about the issue before things came to a head in 3048.

One of [[ComStar]]'s many side projects was the Explorer Corps, a fleet which probed beyond the [[The_Periphery|Periphery]] in part to see what happened to the Exodus Fleet. The Explorer Corps ship ''Outbound Light'' eventually found the answer to that question in the worst way, having stumbled not only into Clanspace, but also onto the capital system of [[Clan Smoke Jaguar]], who were both staunch Crusaders and even stauncher assholes. They captured the exploration ship and then interrogated her crew. Using the information and selectively choosing key pieces of info from ComStar's database, they told the council that the Inner Sphere had found them, were on the verge of creating their own faux Star League under the Federated Commonwealth, and would inevitably launch an invasion of Clan space. Clearly, it was the time to act.

Of course, that meant that there needed to be an all-out tournament arc among the seventeen Clans as to who actually got to go invading the Inner Sphere; as was/is Clan tradition for the Clans to do politics and also basic military strategy through ritual combat. The only guaranteed spot being that of [[Clan Wolf|Clan Wolf's]], who it was decided had to be among them, which surprisingly made almost everyone happy; for the sentimental among the Clans, it meant that Kerensky's Bloodname would finally return to the Inner Sphere as the rightful ilKhan and rebuild the Star League. For the Crusaders, most of whom didn't care for Clan Wolf's moderating (read: overwhelming and often brutal) Warden presence, it felt like appropriate retribution after forcing them to wait so goddamn long.

After two days of bidding, a number of combat trials began among six Clan finalists, which were then whittled down into Smoke Jaguar, [[Clan Ghost Bear|Ghost Bear]], and [[Clan Jade Falcon|Jade Falcons]], all of whom would follow Clan Wolf into the Inner Sphere along three separate corridors in order to conquer enough worlds to destabilize the Inner Sphere, and inevitably conquer Terra. The Clans would be coming in waves behind them, but often found they were sending more vanguard than even the first wave was expecting to bring as their warriors became too overexcited.

== Invasion ==
The invasion began in the "northern" Periphery if looking at the map of the universe from top down, though most of the gains there were minimal at best, and most of the key powers they could've interacted with (and almost certainly wipe out in a matter of months) were lightyears away, and any resistance they actually ended up meeting was token at best, sometimes only a few MechWarriors or aerospace fighters using horrifyingly outdated materials. As they cleaned up and resupplied for the journey into the Inner Sphere proper, they ended up in contact with [[ComStar]]. Since they were both megalomaniacal and planning on taking complete control of man's destiny through the forceful re-implementation of the Star League, they actually ended up getting along famously, and through careful negotiation, a devious plan was hatched: ComStar would jam communications coming and going from Clan-targeted worlds, and the Clans would give up some of the worlds conquered by them and stay out of their way. While not everybody was on board, it seemed to fill both side's agendas perfectly fine.

=== Wave One: The Clans draw first blood ===
[[File:Refuse my Batchall.jpg|300px|left|thumb|A common refrain of Clan Commanders shortly after reaching the Inner Sphere]]
Clans Wolf, Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear, and Smoke Jaguar entered the Inner Sphere for the first time in March of 3050, using ComStar's blackout as their cover. Each of which had it's own invasion corridor moving in from the "north" down "south". At one end Jade Falcon's Corridor pushed into [[Lyran_Commonwealth|Lyran]] space at the "east", as did the Wolf's. The Ghost Bears pushed into the [[Free Rasalhague Republic]] with the Smoke Jaguars on the west pushing into the [[Draconis Combine]].

With their attention focused against each other ever since the [[Succession Wars]] started 300 years ago, the sudden arrival of a massive force on a backwater frontier with token defenses was a nasty surprise for the invaded nations. The fact that these invaders had with them had with them [[Clan Elemental|power armored shock troops]], BattleMechs with [[LosTech]] and piloted by genetically enhanced warriors trained from childhood that could take on multiple 'Mechs and win, and fleets of warships on top of that was such a shock that many thought they were fighting aliens. Dozens of worlds fell rapidly as the invaders pushed from system to system.

Which was not to say that everything was entirely smooth sailing for the Clans. They soon found out that the Inner Sphere did not play by their rules and did not fight fair. They still had an overwhelming advantage at this point, but sometimes they faced nasty surprises.

Among the most notable developments was that on the planet Turtle Bay in the Draconis Combine, Clan Smoke Jaguar managed to capture Hohiro Kurita, the heir of House Kurita though they did not know this at the time. By the time they found out, he'd managed to sneak out with assistance of the locals. In retaliation the jerks blew up the city of Edo, killing a million people. Even the Clanners considered this a dick move. As mentioned before, the Smoke Jaguars were assholes.

=== Wave Two: The Inner Sphere catches on ===
As the second wave began in earnest, the Inner Sphere at long last recognized that this particular problem was not going away, and was in fact getting much, much worse with each passing month, and while the Clans initially didn't see any major changes in their battle plans yet, they found that the Draconis Combine and the [[Federated Suns]] had struck an unprecedented truce to directly ignore each other and focus down on the Clanners, starting with all of it's very most elite units suddenly showing up on the Clanner side of their borders.

Further, the Clans were running into a big problem, Ghost Bear and Smoke Jaguar especially; it was becoming a logistical nightmare to drag all the supplies they needed into the Inner Sphere for what was increasingly becoming a longer term invasion. While the Rasalhagues were tied up in indecision that ultimately led to their downfall, the rest of the Spheroid planets, especially the ones conquered by the Clans, began all-out guerilla wars to try and return to their old masters, something that blindsided the over-honorable Clanners, forcing them to drag valuable Stars back into territory they already had control over and try to keep order. But still the Clans marched forward, hampered slightly, and starting to lose momentum, but still gaining world after world.

And there was one Clan who was going for the gold.

=== Wave Three: Clan Wolf's Vengeance ===
Clan Wolf had no intention whatsoever to actually get involved in the invasion as previously mentioned. But now that they were there, they decided that they were going to play to win; and that was a huge problem for the rest of the Inner Sphere. Unlike Smoke Jaguar and Jade Falcon, Clan Wolf had plenty of steam left to go finish off the Free Rasalhague Republic entirely, and they were planning on making good on that right away; doubling up on the worlds conquered by them. This was blown off by the other Clans, naturally, who thought that Clan Wolf was overextending itself and would eventually run into the same problems they were dealing with, but soon they had a much bigger problem to face; the FRR capital world of Rasalhague. While obviously the FRR as they were planned on fighting to the last, but Clan Wolf had the problem of Clan Ghost Bear's invasion route happening to dive right through it, and as such there needed to be a throwdown for it.

Clans Wolf and Ghost Bear spent months bidding for the right to invade Rasalhague, and eventually Clan Wolf managed to win the bid after a fierce process, finally ending with Clan Wolf only having three Clusters to use to beat the KungsArmé (FRR's military force). Nobody thought that they'd be able to actually cap off their aggressive tactics with a big win here of all places, but a big win they got; forcing the Elected Prince into exile, taking Rasalhague, and finishing the third wave with eleven more planets than they'd started; a massive lead in attempting to take earth.

The other Clans, naturally, were pissed about this.

=== Wave Four: Wraths of Khan ===
This was in many ways the turning point of the entire invasion, even if the real pivotal moment had yet to be drawn up.

The ilKhan and the Clan Council had sent Clan Wolf to the Inner Sphere hopefully to get slaughtered, and were now suddenly deeply concerned that the Clan that'd spent the most time against this course of action was now so aggressively and successfully taking world after world; in a clear lead that Smoke Jaguar, Ghost Bear, and Jade Falcon simply weren't reaching. Ghost Bear did fine, capturing eight worlds at a snails pace and otherwise calling it a successful wave, but Smoke Jaguar and Jade Falcon were getting hammered by all sides, and were the first Clans to actually give up ground to the Spheroids. The first was Jade Falcon, who's elite Falcon Guard caught the full brunt of a FedCom assault to take back the planet of Twycross and fell against all odds, and Smoke Jaguar got suckered into bad play after bad play by Theodore Kurita, ultimately defending the planet Wolcott, and getting the Combine valuable looks at Clanner technology they could begin to repurpose. While the Clan Council tried to stymy Wolf's advance, they could ultimately do little but bitch and moan as the Clan actually getting shit done led the way.

Smoke Jaguar's Khan who was also ilKhan, was naturally quite unhappy with the way this whole thing was going after such a good start, declared a big meeting to be situated on the mothership of Clan Wolf; the ''Dire Wolf'', over the freshly conquered planet of Radstadt. Ulrich Kerensky agreed, but only if the rest of the Clans brought ships smaller than the ''Dire Wolf'', which was agreed upon. Everything was good for about four hours, right up until the Rasalhague Elected Prince, as well as a big fleet of Rasalhague ships, showed up to crash the party. It was complete chaos over Radstadt as Clan Wolf's precautions had ultimately allowed the Rasalhaguers a fighting chance to get a modicum of revenge after getting their entire section of space eaten for breakfast. The Elected Prince for his time fought his way off of Radstadt and out into orbit, where he managed to escape the Clanners and vow to fight another day, but not before his Drakons fighter unit pulled off one of the ballsiest suicide missions of the war; ramming an aerospace fighter directly into the bridge of the ''Dire Wolf'', which resulted in the death of the ilKhan, but not Clan Wolf's Khan, crippling the advance considerably.

As the Clans tried to assess the damage, they realized this whole thing was only ever going to work if there was an ilKhan, which required all Bloodnamed warriors to be present during the election, something quite hard to do when most of the Bloodnamed were fighting Davion and Kurita forces. The Council winced at the idea, but ultimately chose stability over further battle, dragging every last Bloodname warrior back to Clan space in the [[Deep Periphery]], delaying the fifth wave considerably, while giving the Inner Sphere about a year's time to lick it's wounds.

=== Wave Five: ComStar's wakeup call ===
After what became known as the "Year of Peace" with a new ilKhan and a drive to finish the job, the Clans showed up bright and early in October of 3052 ahead of schedule. Clan Wolf was on a mission to finish this before anyone else got the chance to tell them off, Ghost Bear moved at a ponderous pace but still picked up some valuable worlds out of the deal, and Jade Falcon got into a spat with [[Clan Steel Viper]] over their shared invasion pathway, and ultimately neither side benefited from this game of grab-ass to the point that both did terribly in this particular wave. Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat meanwhile, had decided that after getting humiliated as badly as both had been, they were going to put any of their bullshit aside and just try and catch up with Clan Wolf, starting by pounding the Combine as hard as they could until they opened a path to the Draconis capital world of Lucien. The Combine didn't take that lying down, and threw everything including the kitchen sink at Smoke Jaguar and Nova Cat until both Clans were finally beaten away, leaving both furious and desperate for better results. But these were small victories, and by this point the Inner Sphere didn't need small victories, they needed territory back.

See, for all the back and forth battles they were now having (as opposed to the earlier waves where they mostly got curbstomped), they were still not gaining any ground and ultimately losing more of it than they were defending, and the prospect of gaining ground back was a pipe dream. Nobody had an easy answer, but an incredible stroke of luck happened to fall in their favor as ComStar's Primus, Anastasius Focht, had decided to go see what Ulrich Kerensky's ultimate goal was now that they had all this territory, and he was given the very rudest wakeup call imaginable; the Clans were in a race to go after Terra, the cradle of human civilization and also current home of ComStar. ComStar was naturally horrified by this realization, and Focht immediately went to the First Circuit, who told him he would have to figure this out quickly or risk putting ComStar in jeopardy.

Focht, now having to deal with the consequences of his actions and more than likely realizing that if this kept up, their involvement in the Invasion would cause the Inner Sphere to tear them limb from limb, decided that he would try a daring plan; he would use the Clan's own societal norms against them.

He would begin a Trial of Possession with the Clans on the planet of Tukayyid.

== The Battle of Tukayyid ==
The Battle of Tukayyid was a massive Trial of Possession with not just Terra, but the fate of ComStar and the Inner Sphere as a whole up for grabs. ComStar designated fourteen objectives that they would defend on the planet of Tukayyid, of which the Clans would be attacking. If the Clans took the majority of them; they'd be given free reign to finish the race to Terra, and ComStar would willingly merge with the Clan who reached it first, forfeit the Inner Sphere's rights to any HPG Network usage, and become administrative staff. But if ComStar managed to hold the line, then the Clans would have to agree to a fifteen year truce and conquer no worlds closer to Terra than Tukayyid. Given that ComStar themselves had offered the fight, pretty much every Clan was more than willing to jump onboard to fight under these rules, barring the ilKhan himself, who repeatedly cautioned that the Inner Sphere hadn't done this before and was suspicious as to why they'd suddenly be so willing to do it now. The other Clans, sick of Ulrich's bullshit, basically told him to mind his own business. Naturally, the bidding process got ferocious among the Clans, who saw ComStar's religious trappings as like taking candy from a baby, and eventually created an order of operations for the battle: Smoke Jaguar got to land first and attack the two largest cities on the planet, then [[Clan Nova Cat|Nova Cats]], then Ghost Bear, then Steel Vipers, then [[Clan Diamond Shark|Diamond Sharks]], then Jade Falcons, and finally Clan Wolf; who would be given the "least glorious" task of beating whoever was left at two of the smaller settlements on the planet, five days after Smoke Jaguar showed up.

That was the plan anyway, but ComStar was under no compulsion to actually follow such a thing through to the end.

ComStar hadn't chosen Tukayyid for no reason; it was an agricultural planet with lots of wide open, flat space that ultimately meant there were few places to hide, and fewer places to bunker down to repair and resupply; something that the Clan [[OmniMech|OmniMechs]] desperately needed. After months of analyzing the Clan's strategies and their attack patterns, it was discovered that Clanner warfare had a major weakness; one that only Clan Wolf had tried to learn from. Clanners attacked fast to try and win fast thanks to the concept of Zellbringen; to the point that none of the Clans had ever really fought wars of attrition, and that inexperience was exactly what ComStar was banking on to win the day. Further, with the Clans deciding to each attack their own objectives without networking, ComStar was at a significant advantage where Focht could basically lead the entirety of ComGuard from a single Bunker and coordinate his forces, making sure everybody knew their part in the battle before the bickering and posturing Clannerscum ever hit the ground. Just to make sure, most of the area around the objectives became a maze of deathtraps and pincer points, designed to drag out the fighting as long and as hard as possible before aerospace fighters and artillery could soften up the Clans just enough to receive the killing blow. Finally, Focht ensured that there were more than enough supplies out of Clan reach to keep the ComGuard going for over a month of sustained fighting.

How did it go? The easiest way to put it is that Focht played most of the Clanners like a goddamn fiddle.

* '''Smoke Jaguar''' had gotten reamed as you no doubt learned, and were more than eager to try to regain their lost glory, but in the process of bidding to be first on the ground had undercut their entire forces by a third. Further, they thought the two Galaxies of troops/'Mechs were more than enough to attack the very largest city on the planet, and by the time they had found that the initial attack was a cover for two whole divisions to crowd the valley that the city was in, it was already too late. They spent their time getting suckered into bad loss after bad loss until the ilKhan called them off. One Galaxy saw the writing was on the wall and left without incident, but the other was incensed by what they thought was Clan Wolf cowardice that they vowed to fight to the death, after which they were pretty easily routed. While they only lost 30% of their forces, Smoke Jaguar lost over 80% of the materials they had brought to the planet in order to win what they thought was going to be a pretty easy fight.
* '''Clan Nova Cat''''s strategy of dive-bomb into position with DropShips, dump all the troops from atmosphere without the use of a drop pod was countered hard by Focht basically ensuring that the DropShips couldn't get near the planet surface, and their Alpha Galaxy was almost completely taken out by a pilot going on a suicide run to blow up their principal DropShip, forcing most of Nova Cat's landing into a quagmire of minefields and surprise attacks. Nova Cat would finally begin to push against ComStar's stoic defense, getting tantalizingly close to the targeted cities and managing to get some much needed supplies...only to find themselves attacked by the entire garrison in one of the cities in a brave gambit, forcing them and all the other Nova Cat forces off the planet by hammering them as hard and as fast as possible; taking the win for ComStar.
* '''Ghost Bear''' was the first Clan to actually gain some real ground against ComStar, as they'd been fighting in [[Free Rasalhague Republic|Rasalhague]] space for awhile, and were more than aware that the Inner Sphere probably didn't give a shit about the Zellbringen code, telling their troops to advance slowly and just attack both cities they were expected to face at once. While the fighting was fierce, they were able to take one, but then ComStar closed ranks and turned the other city into an impregnable fortress. Both sides sieged the other, battering and bruising each other until the Preceptor in-charge offered the chance to call it a partial victory, since the defeat of other Clans on the surface meant that any of her not-broken down lances and divisions could be moved elsewhere. Ghost Bear, a conservative Clan that was more than willing to stop fighting if it meant they didn't have to expend any further resources, took the agreement happily and left the planet; satisfied with their small victory.
* '''Steel Viper''', a hard and fast Clan, got to fight in a not-so-open space; getting stuck in the worst toxic mudpit in the entire planet. While they naturally tried their damnedest to not go through the pit, ComGuard artillery eventually forced them into the mire, and when they began to slow down, ComGuard's trap was sprung; forcing them into the mudpit had ultimately negated all of their advantages in technology and speed, and ComGuard's positioning was like that of a beartrap. And just before they considered retreat, the Preceptor in charge got on Xbox Live to tell the Viper's Khan that her mother was fat and they should fight about it. Not taking that lying down, they tried to divebomb into ComGuard territory with further resolve, but had their supply lines cut off, and had to expend almost all of their reserve Galaxies' work to fight their way across the mire... right into the arms of two untouched divisions, who had been waiting for them to show up. Both of their Khans were wounded in the attack, but the Vipers took plenty of ComGuard down on their way to their defeat.
* '''Diamond Shark''' had shown up late to the invasion, and were desperate to show that they meant business. However, they had also chosen two of the cities that were closest from each other, meaning that their defense might as well have been one gigantic megacity with a road in between both sides. While Diamond Shark took their time setting up, ROM spent their time making sure they knew exactly what was coming, and it had disastrous consequences for the Clan; while they put up a grand old fight, their leadership made the critical mistake of focusing down on One division that had particularly insulted them, leading to them being completely overwhelmed when the forces that had finished up fighting Ghost Bear and Steel Viper showed up as support. The resulting melee was so devastating and so destructive to Diamond Shark that much of their Warrior Caste was decimated in the fighting, leading to their leadership transitioning to the Merchant Caste, and inevitably back into becoming '''Clan Sea Fox'''.
* '''Jade Falcon''' managed to get a higher kill-death-ratio than the ComGuard and briefly managed to take one of the two cities they were supposed to capture before overwhelming reinforcements pushed them back. With the ComGuard focused on taking on Clan Wolf, the Precentor Martial was more than willing to declare the match a draw. Ironically, while the Jade Falcons had won, it was due to a disgraced unit led by a maverick warrior who managed to think outside the box. Unfortunately, he wound up dead covering the Jade Falcon's fighting retreat but not before killing many of ComGuard warriors in the process.
* '''Clan Wolf''', <s>[[Mary Sue|Mary Sues of Mary Sues]] that they were</s>, were fed up with their brother Clans basically telling them to kick rocks even though they were the only Clan doing any actual winning by this point, and decided that they would bid to be last in line to see what ComStar did. It worked out fantastically for them, as they basically beat Focht at every possible turn, easily grabbing the two cities and by extension, their objectives. In a twist, this would make them into victims of their own success, as the Clan Wolf now had an excess of young warriors; mostly of Crusader leanings, being effectively barred out of advancing in ranks with the current old leadership surviving and managing to hold onto their positions, and would become one of driving reasons of the Refusal War and the splitting of the Clan.

== Aftermath ==
ComStar's victory was more or less absolute, and as a result the Truce of Tukayyid was signed. It devastated both sides of the conflict, unsurprisingly. The Clans had lost tens of thousands of good soldiers at minimum, and some Clans had to replace their Khans. Further, it more or less broke their entire society, and both of the ideologies that were prevalent, simply by seeing just how willing the Inner Sphere was to protect themselves from their influence, and now that they were stuck, they had to deal with what would become years of guerilla warfare from the conquered populace, and the wrath of the Inner Sphere, who had then been "gifted" [[OmniMech]] technology and Clanner strategy by ComStar. By this win, the Inner Sphere was allowed to fortify to the point that any Clan that had a hope of trying to invade again would be stymied almost immediately. Further, with their defeat, the Second Star League was founded under the Machiavellian eye of Sun-Tzu Liao, and they began a massive counteroffensive to punish the Clans, but Smoke Jaguar specifically for their treachery and brutality, ultimately wiping them out completely, snuffing out any hopes that a Clan Invasion could feasibly restart, all ending in the Great "Trial of Refusal", which ended the invasion for good. Such abrupt denial of the Clans’ Manifest Destiny to reclaim Terra for a nee Star League (and petty jealousies and suspicion at some adopting questionable Spheroid tactics) led to the [[Wars of Reaving]].

However, it was not without pain for the Inner Sphere. For one thing, the Clans were never told to piss off from the territory they had gained, ensuring that the Clans would always have a presence in the Inner Sphere from now on. The Free Rasalhague Republic, once a necessary border-state, was now a mere eight worlds large, the Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth had lost dozens of worlds to Clanner hands, and as the dust settled, it was clear that the rebirth of the Star League was an alliance of convenience rather than that of a genuine want to reform. Further, ComStar was terrified of their secret of having helped the Clans at all to have come out, and thus attempted to secularize and purge elements that might've attempted to enforce the issue.

[[Word of Blake|The consequences of this were not fun for anybody.]]

[[Category: BattleTech]]

The Clans

2022-01-21T18:43:04Z

2607:FB90:6F61:5358:FDD8:9894:38A1:AE05: /* History */

{{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}}