Draconis Combine

Draconis Combine
Capital	Luthien
Military Force	Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery Draconis Combine Admiralty

The Draconis Combine is one of the five successor states of the Inner Sphere who are led by The Rightful Rulers of the Galaxy House Kurita. They are modeled to a large degree after Japan, with bits taken from the Sengoku Jidai, the Tokugawa Shogunate and Imperial Japan 1930-1945.

Origins

The Combine was formed from the work of the legendary Shiro Kurita, a nobleman who was raised in an exceptionally traditional household, which held to even 17th century Japanese thinking and manners. Shiro, as well as his brother Urizen, were power hungry and destined to hold control; with Shiro using all the political games in the book to gain power on the planet of New Samarkand, and his brother quickly becoming his top military advisor. Eventually, he was able to create an alliance with a neighboring planet in Galedon V to help strong-arm a Mercantile alliance into helping them build a merchant fleet. By 2319, they'd built a burgeoning empire that had swiftly proven itself against most of it's neighboring foes, and Shiro crowned the alliance by it's new name, the Draconis Combine, after a region of space it once bordered and then completely subsumed, which it has been ever since.

Society

The Combine is separated largely into what is called the "Five Pillars" of Draconis society, each with it's own symbolic meaning, which largely helps people within those pillars define themselves and define their worldview. They are:

1. The Pillar of Gold: The head of government, known as the Coordinator, and all their myriad ministries and bureaus that help govern the Combine and keep it both loyal and under the Coordinator's thumb.
2. The Pillar of Steel: All Combine military, sometimes referred to as the "Arm of the Dragon". While nominally led by the Coordinator, most Coordinators have their Tai-Shu, or Warlords, deal with the day-to-day running of the various military ops of the Combine, specifically to allow the Coordinator to cover their ass in case their orders turn out to not work. Most of the Combine's military adhere to some form of the Bushido code, and all are expected to follow a superior's orders to the death. Given that they place an emphasis on hard and fast Battlemech assaults, as well as the open threat of death looming, it's not especially hard to get with the program. If you survive however, you'll be a capable warrior and well-respected within Draconis society, as regardless of position, military members are treated well.
3. The Pillar of Teak: The non-military sector of Draconis life, combined with cultural indoctrination. Basically a caste system of nobles, craftspeople, and then the destitute and criminal element. If you know anything about Imperial Japan or the Sengoku period, just assume much of Draconis society follows that because everyone who lives within their borders is the biggest fucking weeb to ever exist, to the point of openly demanding any government official or noble learn the Japanese language just to make sure they keep up to date on it.
4. The Pillar of Ivory: Religious and Spiritual leaders and advisory. Unsurprisingly, Shinto, Buddhism, and any collectivist philosophy does especially well within Combine space as Shiro intended it to be, and every non-eastern philosophy, and especially any individualist philosophy gets pretty tightly controlled.
5. The Pillar of Jade: The manufacturers and merchants. The Combine has historically never been especially big on resources, and the succession wars didn't do that any favors, so most of the economy is run by the state. There are independant companies, but they pale in comparison to the vast number of powerful state-backed companies that have been cut into two categories; Military and Civilian, ensuring maximum exploitation of what little the Combine has.

Mechs

While this likely would've been the easiest place for the creators of Battletech to just let Gundams exist, the Draconis are more well known for creating Mechs that resemble real life samurai armor than anything else. They are also well-known for only using Light and Heavy-class Mechs in their warfare; seeing Medium-class Mechs as a poor compromise for what they want to do; which is to attack as fast and as hard as possible, their mechs bristling with armaments and clad in bright red and gold paint. It got to the point that it took almost 500 years for things like tanks to become widespread in their military due to years of Coordinators playing favorites with the Mechwarriors.

Notable Mechs

• Hatamoto-Chi: the signature Assault Mech of the Combine, which looks like a mech designed in the image of Super Shredder. Essentially two different mech designs merged into one, it's a formidable, tough-as-nails close-range Assault mech with the one minor flaw of generally being rather difficult to keep heat control on.
• Dragon: While the Hatamoto-Chi might be the most recognizeable, the Dragon and it's upgrade, the Great Dragon, were unquestionably some of the DCMS' favorite mechs. It's a fast, flexible, hard to knock over or even, capable of carrying huge guns, and generally ubiquitous part in any Combine regiment, and well-loved by it's pilots. In the 31st century, the Great Dragon began to replace regular Dragons due to a generally improved design.
• Jenner: Their signature light Mech. A chicken-walker design that was successful usually by ganging up on larger mechs and then peppering them with some form of laser or heat-producing round, then letting their Panther partners swoop in to land the finishing blow.
• Panther: Their other signature light Mech. Only 35 tons, this thing can actually keep pace pretty well with others in it's class and is a massive pain in the rear with it's Lord's Light Particle Cannon being a shockingly powerful piece of tech. It runs hot very quickly, on the other hand.