The Clans

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 returning back in 3049.

History

In 2766 a guy named Stefan Amaris (ruler of the Rim World's Republic) launched a coup d'tat while the majority of the SLDF was out fighting in the periphery, killing the young First Lord and ceasing control of the Terran Hegemony. This started a 14 year long civil war in which the SLDF under the command of Alexander 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 and fell apart shortly afterwards. War was on the horizon between the Great Houses but Kerensky was unwilling to cease 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 2885 a fleet loaded with millions of SLDF troops and their families (including Alex's wife Katyusha and two sons Andrey and Nicholas) 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. 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 shit fight in 2800. Alexander (already more than 100 years old) died. 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 along with a number of refugees brought in latter. Convinced that the current order of things and ways of thinking of the Star League 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. They came back in 2820 to the Pentagon Worlds in Operation KLONDIKE, reconquering them and imposing this society onto the populations.

Society

Even though there is a Clan Council for settling disputes and acting as a whole each Clan operates mostly independently of it's fellows. "Peace" is not really a thing in Clan Society. When the Clans are not out conquering others, they're fighting low key highly ritualized wars with each other.

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 Economy of each of the Clans is largely centrally planned and mostly concerned with producing more mechs, ships, weapons and warriors.

One of the quirks of Clan Society is that most people only have a given name. More on that in a bit.

• Warrior Caste: The Rulers of Clans Society trained the Spartan Way. Most of them are grown in bulk in industrial exowomb factories and raised in companies. 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. They're three main flavors of Clan Warrior: 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) and Mech Warriors. All of which compete to earn Bloodname, which means they get a Surname and their genes can be used to produce the next batch of Warriors.
• Scientist Caste: Scientists, inventors, professors and similar which expand on the Clan's knowledge base and run the Eugenics programs. The Second most powerful caste in Clan society who can actually override the warriors on certain matters. Really accomplished scientists can be awarded a Labname like "Einstein" or "Darwin", but non-Scientists rarely use them.
• Technician Caste: Mechanics, engineers and spacecraft crews who keep the machinery of Clan Society humming along.
• 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.
• 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.
• Dark Caste: Not an official caste but a bunch of outcasts which live on the edges of Clan Society which makes for convenient target practice for clan warriors.

Individual Clans

• Clan Wolf
• Clan Jade Falcon
• Clan Diamond Shark
• Clan Ghost Bear

External Links

Part One of Tex's series on Clan History Part Two of Tex's on Clan History