Editing BattleTech (section)

====[[Free Worlds League]]====
Taking elements from America, Yugoslavia, and Austria-Hungary (distinctions which grow less relevant with each passing day), the Free Worlds League is a federal democratic republic. No, really! They have a parliament and everything. Of course, the commander-in-chief of the Free Worlds League Military is always a member of House Marik because parliament doesn’t think anyone else can do the job, and the entire country has been operating under martial law “for the duration of the emergency” since the Star League broke up. But in principle, both democracy and federalism are alive and well in Marik space, making it impossible to get anything done. Think of the Free Worlds League as Space Holy Roman Empire due to regionalist nationalism. 

Everyone in the Free Worlds League hates everyone else in the Free Worlds League; the only thing keeping them together is mutual animosity to the Lyrans, Capellans, and Periphery bandits raiding their borders. After finding out that Captain-General Thomas Marik had been in hiding running the Word of Blake for decades and the guy they’d been taking their orders from all that time was actually just some hobo picked up off the street, they gave up on trying to make the thing work at all and collapsed. Which is a shame because fake Marik was actually one of the best Captain-Generals they ever had. After the Dark Age, said hobo’s daughter managed to put it back together again, which kind of makes you start to wonder about that whole “only the Mariks can handle the Captaincy-General” thing. Doesn't help that she had to make a deal with the Spirit Cat and Sea Fox clanners to cement the whole thing together as well as marrying the official Marik family's head.

The Free Worlds League Military is built around combined arms warfare, treating infantry, vehicles, and aerospace fighters as if they were just as useful as mechs. They also used to have the most LAMs back before [[squat|LAMs ceased to be a thing]]. They don’t get a lot of attention, since they’re far away from the FedSuns and the Clans and therefore don’t get involved in stories about factions the writers actually care about.  The constant in-fighting probably doesn't help.  That said, they most likely do enough to keep their jobs, which is probably good enough to satisfy the average Joe, who couldn't care less about political squabbles. Recent lore hints they’re probably at the forefront of the ilClan’s attention now due to Leaguers eager to reconquer their lost territory. Whether they get out of the border war in one piece is up for debate.