Editing The Periphery (section)

== Life in the Periphery ==
Depending on who you ask, life in the Periphery is either absolute freedom and fun; unrestrained by the Inner Sphere's bullshit and backwards way of life, or a backwater filled with bumpkins and pirates who didn't appreciate how good they had it under the Inner Sphere's control. As with most things in the BattleTech universe, both of these things can be true and untrue at any given time.

For one thing; the security of living in a massive stellar empire with reams upon reams of well-organized units of lances is never a real option, since the number of raw resources and support from your neighbor is extremely diminished. Further, the technology level varies wildly from planet to planet, with only major players in the Periphery being able to say they can go toe-to-toe with the Inner Sphere. Some planets aren't even at the level of 20th century man given how badly a hand they were dealt. Some might even be back even further. As a result of the lax security, all manner of pirates and criminal elements hide out in the Periphery where they're too far for the big states to reach them and too slippery for the local neighbors to catch. Smugglers do their best work out here, as the ever present danger of piracy means even local planets have to ask for help to keep resources flowing.

But if you can get in good with people in one of the major powers, or even a few of the middle powers out in the periphery, you will find that the Periphery is often a better deal than that of the Inner Sphere; most major powers guarantee rights to their citizens or to people within their borders, and often have a lot more fun and interesting career opportunities than the Spheroid way of doing things; where people's name means more than their ability to get shit done. It's this disparity that ultimately keeps both the Inner Sphere and the Periphery in the current uneasy situation they find themselves in; the Periphery is both not worth the effort and also not worth the potential counterattacks to try and conquer again.

Further, unlike the Inner Sphere, the Clans really didn't give a shit what they were doing, so they got off relatively easy on that front.