Editing Succession Wars (section)

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

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

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

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

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